Salvor's Moats, Punts and Trusts strategy

[SalvorHardin]

I retired in 2003, live off my portfolio and the only pension I can look forward to is a very much reduced state pension. No need to chase income thanks to the combination of a decent sized portfolio and low living costs. My main concern is preserving the real value of both capital and income.

I diversify heavily across the world, mostly into America (31.5%), Canada (14%) and Emerging Markets (9%). I currently have 36 shareholdings (23 operating companies and 13 investment trusts). Diversifying includes using several brokerage accounts and keeping about 30% in certificated form to reduce broker default risk.

The portfolio is split into four parts (all percentages below are % of portfolio):

1) 30% in Investment trusts. These provide a stable base which I don’t need to think much about
2) 48% Companies with what I believe to be strong examples of what Warren Buffett calls a “moat” aka “economic moat”.
3) 20% “Punts” – speculative investments where I can afford to lose the lot
4) 2% Cash

My “British” portfolio is dominated by large multinationals such as Diageo (3.8%). Some “British” companies are only British because they are listed in London. One such is Ocean Wilsons Holdings (2.8%), a Bermudan investment company whose main asset is a majority stake in a Brazilian shipping and port logistics company with the remainder being a diversified international portfolio.

Burberry (2.7%) is Britain’s top luxury goods company. Strong brands, but it has had a rough time recently thanks to the Chinese crackdown on conspicuous consumption adding to the coronavirus. One day I expect Burberry to be taken over by someone like LVMH.

Investment Trusts. My biggest holdings are Foreign & Colonial (4%), Finsbury Growth & Income (4%) and Henderson Smaller Companies (4%). The other names would be familiar, such as Caledonia Investments (2.1%), Law Debenture (2.2%) Templeton Emerging Markets (3.9%) and TR Property (2.6%).

“Punts” used to be a very small part of the portfolio. In recent years punts have grown substantially due to the performance of several companies, notably the mRNA biotechnology company Moderna (5.1% after selling a lot), the film and TV studio Lions Gate (4.1%) and the media conglomerate ViacomCBS (4.5%).

Moderna is a bet on mRA technology developing a new field of medicine, though it is well supported by its coronavirus vaccine. IMHO it’s my most speculative holding by some way. Lions Gate and ViacomCBS are bets on consolidation in streaming. ViacomCBS is particularly cheap IMHO on a PE of around 10, though the spectacular run up from $30 to $100 driven by the Archegos Capital family office, before collapsing to $40, has somewhat dented investor confidence (I bought at an average of $23 selling at an average of $88, going back in at $39).

Another punt is Seraphim Space (2.1%), a new investment trust which is a venture capital fund. “Space” (near Earth orbit) is a sector which is going to grow rapidly in the next couple of decades, particularly satellites and monitoring debris (i.e. avoiding incidents such as that seen in the 2013 film “Gravity”). There is a lot of private sector interest in space, reflected in the large number of planned small satellite launches. One such is Elon Musk’s Space X, which has roughly 1,800 satellites in orbit and hopes to increase this to 12,000 by 2026.

Strong Moats. Like the moats surrounding medieval castles deterred attackers, economic moats provide some protection. These moats aim to fend off competitors who are looking to enter your markets thus reducing your pricing power and market share. Moats are things like strong brands, network effects, customer loyalty, product quality, patents and geography. Too often a company starts off brightly, then finds out that competitors eat into its markets and its shares end up on a low P/E ratio.

North America’s freight railroads have an excellent moat. No-one is going to build a new railroad and trucks can’t compete over longer distances because the laws of physics make it much more energy efficient to use rail. Also rail is much greener than the road, which gives it a political moat in these times. The geography of North America makes freight vastly more profitable than in Europe where the distances between major settlements are much shorter. About the only downside is that they are cyclical businesses, being so heavily integrated into the American and Canadian economies. My largest railroad holdings are Union Pacific (5.5%) and Canadian Pacific (4.8%).

Global Private Equity. These companies manage clients’ money as well as their own in a very wide variety of investments. Their “moat” is a combination of economies of scale, expertise and their track record. Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management (5%) is heavily into commercial property, infrastructure and renewable energy, whilst Carlyle Group (2.9%) and KKR (2.1%) are traditional private equity companies that are popularly called “asset strippers” but really own and operate a lot of long-term investments.

My other main “moat” companies are Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (4.6%) which amongst other things owns the BNSF railroad, Disney (2.7%) is the world’s biggest entertainment conglomerate and multinational consumer goods company Unilever (2.1%). Also Bank of Montreal (3.7%) because it’s a Canadian Bank (regulators in Canada have created a moat for the big banks by being much stricter than Britain whose banks are very good at recklessly losing money).

As a rule, I avoid technology shares. This preference dates back to the dotcom boom of the late 1990s when several colleagues, having piled into all sorts of .com stuff, saw their dreams vaporise whilst I was generating annual returns for a few years well in excess of 50% mostly thanks to oil explorers like Soco International.

I see a lot of parallels between now and the latter months of the dotcom boom. IMHO some “technology” companies are little more than the equivalents of companies taking orders by telephone in the 1890s. Innovative at the time, sure. Ground-breaking and justifying enormous valuations relative to earnings? Not.

[Spet0789]

Interesting post - many thanks for it.

Don't you think that companies like Alphabet and Facebook have great moats?

Also, it would be good to understand your process for choosing ITs. At first sight, it would seem that you're relatively undiversified by asset class - it looks like directly or indirectly you're pretty much fully invested in equities. Curious as to whether you've considered other ITs to tilt away from equities at all.

Finally, I would assume you hold as much as possible in tax efficient frameworks such as ISAs / SIPPSs?

Thanks!

[richfool]

Yes, I would include some exposure to technology, if only through IT's like SMT or Monks, or even JGGI.

[SalvorHardin]

Interesting post - many thanks for it.

Don't you think that companies like Alphabet and Facebook have great moats?

Also, it would be good to understand your process for choosing ITs. At first sight, it would seem that you're relatively undiversified by asset class - it looks like directly or indirectly you're pretty much fully invested in equities. Curious as to whether you've considered other ITs to tilt away from equities at all.

Finally, I would assume you hold as much as possible in tax efficient frameworks such as ISAs / SIPPSs?

Thanks!

Yes, I am about 98% invested in equities. I can happily live on a 1% yield. My dislike of fixed interest is due to the combination of having grown up during the 1970s when inflation was rampant and that I consider fixed interest to be currently seriously overpriced. I've been investing for so long that a 20% fall in the portfolio doesn't bother me at all.

Alphabet and Facebook have great moats. I would never invest in Facebook as I consider it to be one of the most unethical and socially damaging companies on the planet. I indirectly hold quite a bit of Alphabet through my investment trusts, but more Apple through Berkshire Hathaway as it's now Berkshire's largest shareholding by some way. It's surprising how much you can have indirectly invested in technology companies through some of the international investment trusts.

I should add that I consider Moderna to be a technology company (okay, Biotechnology). And that Seraphim Space is a somewhat speculative technology venture capital fund.

Choosing investment trusts. Very haphazard. I've held most of them for at least ten years. Again portfolio size allows for quite a few eccentricities. Other ITs include the international trusts Bankers (1.9%), Brunner (1.9%) and JP Morgan Japan Small Cap (2.3%).

Yes to ISAs. No to SIPPs. Most of my portfolio is outside ISAs . I had the very nice problem of a huge rise in my income in the late 1990s which made it impossible to save everything in ISAs. I avoided SIPPs because I planned to (and did) retire long before my 50th birthday and didn't want to tie up my money in something that not only couldn't I access until many years later, but which was also at the mercy of future governments changing the rules.

[Dod101]

[
Yes to ISAs. No to SIPPs. Most of my portfolio is outside ISAs . I had the very nice problem of a huge rise in my income in the late 1990s which made it impossible to save everything in ISAs. I avoided SIPPs because I planned to (and did) retire long before my 50th birthday and didn't want to tie up my money in something that not only couldn't I access until many years later, but which was also at the mercy of future governments changing the rules.

I agree with you re SIPPs although I have a small one and will probably leave it alone since I do not need to draw income from it and it will be IHT free when the time comes. I also hold some certificated shares for exactly the same reason as you do. They must be the most secure way of holding shares even although of course any dividends are taxed in my hands. I try to ensure that they are modest yielders.

I have about 90% of my portfolio in protected tax shelters but I suspect also that I have a much smaller overall portfolio than you hold.

Dod

[absolutezero]

I retired in 2003, live off my portfolio and the only pension I can look forward to is a very much reduced state pension. No need to chase income thanks to the combination of a decent sized portfolio and low living costs. My main concern is preserving the real value of both capital and income.

....


I see a lot of parallels between now and the latter months of the dotcom boom. IMHO some “technology” companies are little more than the equivalents of companies taking orders by telephone in the 1890s. Innovative at the time, sure. Ground-breaking and justifying enormous valuations relative to earnings? Not.

Thank you.
Always good to look at how successful investors have done it/do it but with a difference from the usual portfolios shared on here.
The book 'Free Capital' by Guy Thomas gives a good insight into how some people have done it. A fascinating read.

How do you select your shares/ITs?
Are you a numbers man or is it just defensive moats?
Terry Smith/Fundsmith did some research on PE ratios and found that you could pay high prices (PE=70+!) for companies with a high ROCE and still make a lot of money from them.

Lessons from history

Fundsmith conducted an exercise looking at 25 quality stocks, and what an investor could have paid for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7% between 1973 and 2019. Over this same period, the MSCI World Index produced an annualised return of 6.2%.

For a 7% CAGR from L’Oreal, an investor could have paid 281 times earnings. For Colgate, it would have been 156, and for Brown-Forman, the company that owns Jack Daniels, it would have been 147.

'Lessons from history' in this link: https://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/terry-smith-quality-will-out-and-it-s-worth-paying-up-for/a1398276

[SalvorHardin]

Thank you.
Always good to look at how successful investors have done it/do it but with a difference from the usual portfolios shared on here.
The book 'Free Capital' by Guy Thomas gives a good insight into how some people have done it. A fascinating read.

How do you select your shares/ITs?
Are you a numbers man or is it just defensive moats?

A major part of my success (the early retirement bit) came from the boom in small cap. oil companies in the early to mid 2000s. These were a mixture of numbers and gut feeling. TMF had a well populated oil and gas board, and as a group we discovered quite a few small oil companies whose actual oil reserves and exploration prospects were much better than the market was valuing them at. We could see this in trade sales, where companies would be bought for several times their stock market valuation (known as "drilling on Wall Street").

Soco International was the biggie on TMF with the market taking several months to realise how important its Vietnam discovery was. Dragon Oil had a huge amount of proven oil and gas reserves in the Turkmenistan sector of the Caspian Sea; the market took ages to realise that the new team was going increasing production at a colossal rate. EnCore Oil turned out to be a multi-bagger in plain sight. A spectacularly inefficient market back then.

Share selection. It's a mixture of gut feeling (70%) and numbers (30%). If I like the look of the company, in particular what it does and the strength of its moats and what I think the company will be doing in ten years (the 10 years is Warren Buffett thing), then I have a look at the numbers in a bit more detail. I'm pretty good with moats for "old tech" but not so good with most modern technology which is a major reason why I avoid tech stocks (or buy them indirectly through investment trusts). You won't catch me doing detailed cashflow calculations

I don't use any form of mechanical screening by numbers, except for looking at the Stockpedia stock rank numbers (if they are high then I become interested). I always look at the primary source (company accounts) rather than summarised and extracted data (which often contains errors, especially in treating exceptional items as operating items).

Investment Trusts. More a case of do I like where they are investing long-term, have they a reasonable track record and can I buy them at a reasonable discount.

[Lootman]

I would never invest in Facebook as I consider it to be one of the most unethical and socially damaging companies on the planet.

Personally I never let ethical considerations get in the way of investment decisions. Mentally I can set the two issues aside. If something is going to make me money then I will own it and, if I feel that guilty then I will donate a percentage of the profits to an appropriate charity.

I have owned tobacco companies in the past, although no longer not least because they have been poor investments in recent years. Just one drinks company, Diageo, although I might buy a small craft brewery for fun as they keep getting snapped up by the big brewers.

I am big on arms companies, owning General Dynamics, Lockheed, Northrup Grumman and Raytheon (which recently merged with part of United Technologies). Arms never go out of fashion and you get a nice boost every time there is global friction (ditto gun companies when a mass murderer or serial killer is on the loose in the US).

No gaming shares but have been looking at Wynn recently. No airlines which I guess some people think are unethical.

Like you I do not claim to understand Tech or Biotech but recognise that I should be in that space. I use ETFs for that mostly, reflecting my agnosticism. I do own Moderna for a punt, and also Jazz Pharmaceuticals courtesy of its takeover of UK cannabis company GW Pharma.

My strategy could be called anti-HYP. For the last 20 years I have been disinvesting in the UK and in higher yielding shares, placing emphasis in the US and in lower yielding shares. Have a leaning towards midcaps although a midcap in the US would be a largecap here. High level asset allocation decisions like that can impact returns more than low-level share-picking decisions, unless one is really, really good at the latter.

And yes, mostly gut and intuition. I do not have any interest in looking at company accounts and balance sheets. Not saying that is wrong or pointless, only that it is not where I think my skills or edge lies. And frankly it is boring.

[absolutezero]

Thank you.
Always good to look at how successful investors have done it/do it but with a difference from the usual portfolios shared on here.
The book 'Free Capital' by Guy Thomas gives a good insight into how some people have done it. A fascinating read.

How do you select your shares/ITs?
Are you a numbers man or is it just defensive moats?

A major part of my success (the early retirement bit) came from the boom in small cap. oil companies in the early to mid 2000s. These were a mixture of numbers and gut feeling. TMF had a well populated oil and gas board, and as a group we discovered quite a few small oil companies whose actual oil reserves and exploration prospects were much better than the market was valuing them at. We could see this in trade sales, where companies would be bought for several times their stock market valuation (known as "drilling on Wall Street").

Soco International was the biggie on TMF with the market taking several months to realise how important its Vietnam discovery was. Dragon Oil had a huge amount of proven oil and gas reserves in the Turkmenistan sector of the Caspian Sea; the market took ages to realise that the new team was going increasing production at a colossal rate. EnCore Oil turned out to be a multi-bagger in plain sight. A spectacularly inefficient market back then.

Share selection. It's a mixture of gut feeling (70%) and numbers (30%). If I like the look of the company, in particular what it does and the strength of its moats and what I think the company will be doing in ten years (the 10 years is Warren Buffett thing), then I have a look at the numbers in a bit more detail. I'm pretty good with moats for "old tech" but not so good with most modern technology which is a major reason why I avoid tech stocks (or buy them indirectly through investment trusts). You won't catch me doing detailed cashflow calculations

I don't use any form of mechanical screening by numbers, except for looking at the Stockpedia stock rank numbers (if they are high then I become interested). I always look at the primary source (company accounts) rather than summarised and extracted data (which often contains errors, especially in treating exceptional items as operating items).

Investment Trusts. More a case of do I like where they are investing long-term, have they a reasonable track record and can I buy them at a reasonable discount.

I too have used the StockRanks feature in Stockopedia and found it to be fairly lucrative. Not to the degree you were with oil companies in the early 2000s though!
My gut is telling me biotech will be big- accelerated by the whole Covid thing.
My gut also told me to get into Bitcoin in about 2014-15 but the problems with the exchanges put me off. And we now know how that could have gone!
mRNA tech and other 'new' ideas I think will revolutionise healthcare. Though my stockpicking skills aren't great on stuff like that so outsourcing it to an IT suits me fine.

[absolutezero]

My strategy could be called anti-HYP. For the last 20 years I have been disinvesting in the UK and in higher yielding shares, placing emphasis in the US and in lower yielding shares. Have a leaning towards midcaps although a midcap in the US would be a largecap here. High level asset allocation decisions like that can impact returns more than low-level share-picking decisions, unless one is really, really good at the latter.

It's only in the last 12 months that I have realised what a lousy market the FTSE is compared with the US.
I now wish I had got international exposure a lot earlier. Even if only via a tracker.
The benefit of hindsight.

[Lootman]

My strategy could be called anti-HYP. For the last 20 years I have been disinvesting in the UK and in higher yielding shares, placing emphasis in the US and in lower yielding shares. Have a leaning towards midcaps although a midcap in the US would be a largecap here. High level asset allocation decisions like that can impact returns more than low-level share-picking decisions, unless one is really, really good at the latter.

It's only in the last 12 months that I have realised what a lousy market the FTSE is compared with the US.
I now wish I had got international exposure a lot earlier. Even if only via a tracker.
The benefit of hindsight.

It can be hard to completely change strategy with a large portfolio, especially if it is taxable. Rather like an oil tanker doing a 180, you have to make slow wide turns or else you get killed with CGT. After 20 years I am still not done - I am about 40% in the US and my aim is 50%.

And of course there is always the danger that, by the time you have completed the transformation, the market then turns against you. Although in this case that would require the UK to become the world's most dynamic stock market and I just cannot see that.

[absolutezero]

. Although in this case that would require the UK to become the world's most dynamic stock market and I just cannot see that.

Me neither.
Someone once said "Nobody has ever got rich betting against the United States."
I'm inclined to go along with that.

[Dod101]

A major part of my success (the early retirement bit) came from the boom in small cap. oil companies in the early to mid 2000s. These were a mixture of numbers and gut feeling. TMF had a well populated oil and gas board, and as a group we discovered quite a few small oil companies whose actual oil reserves and exploration prospects were much better than the market was valuing them at. We could see this in trade sales, where companies would be bought for several times their stock market valuation (known as "drilling on Wall Street").

Soco International was the biggie on TMF with the market taking several months to realise how important its Vietnam discovery was. Dragon Oil had a huge amount of proven oil and gas reserves in the Turkmenistan sector of the Caspian Sea; the market took ages to realise that the new team was going increasing production at a colossal rate. EnCore Oil turned out to be a multi-bagger in plain sight. A spectacularly inefficient market back then.

Share selection. It's a mixture of gut feeling (70%) and numbers (30%). If I like the look of the company, in particular what it does and the strength of its moats and what I think the company will be doing in ten years (the 10 years is Warren Buffett thing), then I have a look at the numbers in a bit more detail. I'm pretty good with moats for "old tech" but not so good with most modern technology which is a major reason why I avoid tech stocks (or buy them indirectly through investment trusts). You won't catch me doing detailed cashflow calculations

I don't use any form of mechanical screening by numbers, except for looking at the Stockpedia stock rank numbers (if they are high then I become interested). I always look at the primary source (company accounts) rather than summarised and extracted data (which often contains errors, especially in treating exceptional items as operating items).

Investment Trusts. More a case of do I like where they are investing long-term, have they a reasonable track record and can I buy them at a reasonable discount.

I look at IT's Annual Reports because they are easy to understand but I am very much with you in using gut feeling rather than trying to analyse numbers for most of my investments. Like others I should have been in basically the North American continent much earlier than I was and I always appreciate your clear thinking in your posts, thank you.

I wonder why it is that the US market seems to do so well? Is it the refugee mentality, is it more freewheeling or what?

Dod

[Lootman]

I wonder why it is that the US market seems to do so well? Is it the refugee mentality, is it more freewheeling or what?

1) It is the third most populous nation on the planet and so has a critical mass

2) It is the most secure capitalist nation on the planet. In Europe every election carries the risk of a quasi-socialist government that would kill investment returns. No worries about that in the US where the Dems can easily be seen as being more conservative than the Tories.

3) A favourable tax code. Corporations have many options to minimise taxes, at least whilst growing strongly. Likewise regulations are light by European standards.

4) A culture where success is feted. Get rich in England and people will resent it and you. In Europe we are cynical of success. Americans respect success. Business leaders there are revered; here they are scorned.

5) Immigrants, People from all over the world want to live in America because they want to be rich. They work until they drop. They worship success.

I could go on but you get the idea. America is the capitalist and military powerhouse of the planet, and nobody can mess with them.

[Dod101]

I wonder why it is that the US market seems to do so well? Is it the refugee mentality, is it more freewheeling or what?

1) It is the third most populous nation on the planet and so has a critical mass

2) It is the most secure capitalist nation on the planet. In Europe every election carries the risk of a quasi-socialist government that would kill investment returns. No worries about that in the US where the Dems can easily be seen as being more conservative than the Tories.

3) A favourable tax code. Corporations have many options to minimise taxes, at least whilst growing strongly. Likewise regulations are light by European standards.

4) A culture where success is feted. Get rich in England and people will resent it and you. In Europe we are cynical of success. Americans respect success. Business leaders there are revered; here they are scorned.

5) Immigrants, People from all over the world want to live in America because they want to be rich. They work until they drop. They worship success.

I could go on but you get the idea. America is the capitalist and military powerhouse of the planet, and nobody can mess with them.

Thanks Lootman. I was aware of your points 4) and 5); Not so much of the others. Certainly when I lived in Hong Kong, long before its present troubles, the Chinese who wanted to emigrate (most of them!) wanted to go to the US, Canada, and Australia (in that order of preference) Sadly for them, ease of entry was exactly the opposite. Canada was seldom mentioned but became a very popular fourth country in the run up to 1997. But it is the same immigrant drive that has benefited the US as it did Hong Kong in most of the post second World War years, especially after say the 1950s, although they were called refugees in HK.

Very interesting, thank you.

Dod

[Lootman]

I wonder why it is that the US market seems to do so well? Is it the refugee mentality, is it more freewheeling or what?

1) It is the third most populous nation on the planet and so has a critical mass

2) It is the most secure capitalist nation on the planet. In Europe every election carries the risk of a quasi-socialist government that would kill investment returns. No worries about that in the US where the Dems can easily be seen as being more conservative than the Tories.

3) A favourable tax code. Corporations have many options to minimise taxes, at least whilst growing strongly. Likewise regulations are light by European standards.

4) A culture where success is feted. Get rich in England and people will resent it and you. In Europe we are cynical of success. Americans respect success. Business leaders there are revered; here they are scorned.

5) Immigrants, People from all over the world want to live in America because they want to be rich. They work until they drop. They worship success.

I could go on but you get the idea. America is the capitalist and military powerhouse of the planet, and nobody can mess with them.

Thanks Lootman. I was aware of your points 4) and 5); Not so much of the others. Certainly when I lived in Hong Kong, long before its present troubles, the Chinese who wanted to emigrate (most of them!) wanted to go to the US, Canada, and Australia (in that order of preference) Sadly for them, ease of entry was exactly the opposite. Canada was seldom mentioned but became a very popular fourth country in the run up to 1997. But it is the same immigrant drive that has benefited the US as it did Hong Kong in most of the post second World War years, especially after say the 1950s, although they were called refugees in HK.

Very interesting, thank you.

The other issue I might mention is that failure is not an option in the US because it has no welfare net as we know it. "Free" healthcare is restricted to voluntary clinics and overworked city general hospitals. There is no "pension credit" for the old who have not paid their stamps. There is no government paid residential care for seniors. Nobody in America can choose an easy life of welfare. You work or you, quite literally, die.

Which tends to focus the mind on what is important . .

[SalvorHardin]

Personally I never let ethical considerations get in the way of investment decisions. Mentally I can set the two issues aside. If something is going to make me money then I will own it and, if I feel that guilty then I will donate a percentage of the profits to an appropriate charity....

...My strategy could be called anti-HYP. For the last 20 years I have been disinvesting in the UK and in higher yielding shares, placing emphasis in the US and in lower yielding shares. Have a leaning towards midcaps although a midcap in the US would be a largecap here. High level asset allocation decisions like that can impact returns more than low-level share-picking decisions, unless one is really, really good at the latter.

Generally I have no problems with "unethical" companies. About 8 years ago on TMF I got into a bit of an argument because I owned some Smith & Wesson shares. When Gulf War 2 kicked off I bought some Raytheon.

Facebook on the other hand is corroding society and the company too often turns a blind eye to its by criminal organisations and vile regimes as long as they can use these pages to sell adverts.

Yes, I too have an anti-HYP. Foreign shares plus global, Far Eastern, Emerging Markets, American and UK Smaller Companies investment trusts. If it meets the classic HYP criteria I won't buy it. Only one of my 10 largest holdings is a "British" operating company (Diageo).

Having recently sold my National Grid, I no longer hold anything that "qualifies" for the traditional HYP except for some Lloyds Bank shares which I recently inherited (and for personal reasons won't ever be sold).

The lead article in this week's The Economist talks about what James Anderson of Scottish Mortgage called Britain's 19th century stockmarket

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/10/02/how-to-revive-britains-stockmarket

[SalvorHardin]

One company I hold which is increasingly becoming a technology company is Disney.

Bear in mind that the "N" in FAANG is Netflix, a film and TV streaming company. With Disney+ streaming becoming a key part of the company, and Disney is increasingly looking like Netflix with the addition of theme parks, TV networks, cinema releases and much better franchises.

Netflix has nothing that comes close to Marvel and Star Wars. The latter has been spectacularly mismanaged, to a degree which would have ruined many other media franchises, but it is recovering from the final trilogy thanks to The Mandalorian and the forthcoming series.

[Lootman]

One company I hold which is increasingly becoming a technology company is Disney.

Bear in mind that the "N" in FAANG is Netflix, a film and TV streaming company. With Disney+ streaming becoming a key part of the company, and Disney is increasingly looking like Netflix with the addition of theme parks, TV networks, cinema releases and much better franchises.

Netflix has nothing that comes close to Marvel and Star Wars. The latter has been spectacularly mismanaged, to a degree which would have ruined many other media franchises, but it is recovering from the final trilogy thanks to The Mandalorian and the forthcoming series.

Amongst the TV networks is a 80% stake in cable sports broadcaster ESPN, which is the leading broadcaster of sports in the US, especially pro and college team sports, reaching over 90% of US households. ESPN had a bad 18 months because of Covid but sports is fully back now in the US, as in the UK, so that part should bounce back nicely. Ditto the theme parks of course.

I have held DIS since around $100 and will probably hold it forever as it is a unique asset.

[flyer61]

Curious Salvor as to why you ditched National Grid..

Wish Disney would reinstate a dividend.