My portfolio 2019

Here is my portfolio again at the end of this year. My main account is up 29.6%, right in line with the S&P 500 which is up 29.3%. Not a lot of action this year. Up 30% feels about the same as up 3% last year. I feel like the valuations for some things I own are getting fairly high but are not crazy.

I think there will probably be more action in 2020. Right now I feel like I want to increase concentration out-of-favor areas like energy and commodities. I am still over 15% cash and treasuries which is a little higher than I want to be.

Name	Percent
Berkshire Hathaway	11.26%
Short-term Treasuries	10.59%
Apple	9.02%
Gazprom	8.20%
Norfolk Southern	7.90%
WR Berkeley	7.68%
National Western Life	7.24%
NVR	7.13%
Wells Fargo	6.71%
Lukoil	5.98%
Cash	5.51%
GM	4.10%
Melcor Developments	3.97%
ADF Group	1.89%
JM Smart	1.49%
Nicholas Financial	1.33%

Amdocs

I feel like the annual report is a window into a company's soul, and this company's soul is filled with buzzwords.

Neurocrine Biosciences

A biotech company that recently commercialized its first drug for a a relatively rare muscle disorder. This was the first year of positive net income and cash flow.

Erie Indemnity

I don't really get this one. I think the business is basically an insurance agency? I don't understand the advantages of arranging the structure of their business in the way that they have, nor do I understand their competitive advantage.

AGNC Investment Corp

This is one of those RMBS REITs with 9:1 leverage. These things don't seem like a good idea. I get why you might do this stuff opportunistically as a bank - but as a stand alone vehicle seems like you are likely to get screwed or get wiped out if a capital injection is needed.

I presume the managers determine the appropriate amount of leverage for this by solving for the yield required to get crazy investors to buy it. Even in a crisis where RMBS spreads widen way out and this trades way below book I think I would have a hard time investing in this.

Huntington Ingalls

This company seems okay. Clearly they have their niche as a naval contractor and have been reasonably successful. The annual letter is short and doesn't give much insight into their thinking. I don't think I would invest in this unless the price was really low. I have a hard time believing that spending on naval ships grows faster than GDP over the long run, and also seems unlikely they could expand margins too much. Plus you have the risk of cost overruns on contracts and the employee benefit liabilities.

Next up is AGNC Investment Corp, a REIT I have never heard of before.

2020 Goal

Okay, I had a break again but this time only a few months as opposed to a few years!

I would like to restart by setting a big goal for myself for 2020: to read the annual report of each company in the S&P 500 and post my brief thoughts on each. I think this will be a great way to help broaden my understanding of big business.

I plan to go in reverse order (smallest to largest). I don't plan to actually use the S&P 500 constituents, rather the 500 largest U.S. companies by market cap according to Capital IQ. I need to average about one report every day to finish by the end of next year.

First on my list is Huntington Ingalls. I don't know much about them.

Book Notes: Lloyd's of London by Godfrey Hodgson

I read this book because I am interested in learning more about insurance, even more so after learning about Carroll Shanks as described in my last post.

This book discusses the history of Lloyd's up through the early 1980s. It was not especially interesting, but had some good stories about major insurance debacles and gives a nice flavor of how surplus lines and reinsurance worked in the 1960s and 1970s. I think it gave me a renewed appreciation for what a generally terrible business reinsurance and how impossible it is to analyze from the outside. Also, I'm not sure if the book just glossed over it, but it seemed amazing how little analysis went into underwriting and risk control at Lloyds.

While I was reading this I coincidentally attended a presentation on reps & warranty insurance where the buyers said basically: it is amazing how little diligence these people do and how cheap this stuff is. I don't know who is right - only time will tell I suppose.

Book Notes: From Three Cents a Week: The Story of the Prudential Insurance Company of America

I read this book after my parents discovered that the president of Prudential in the 1940s, Carroll Shanks, grew up just down the street from where they live in rural Minnesota. I have worked for Pru for many years but didn't know much about the Company's history prior to the 1980s.

This book is not especially interesting and focuses way too much on the lives of various boring executives and corporate reorganizations and too little on the economics of what Pru was doing. I did really enjoy reading about Shanks, who the book calls an "astonishing business genius." He was a lawyer who was hired by Pru in the 1930s to do workouts for railroad bonds. As president, he made the dramatic move to regionalize Pru by establishing a series of regional home offices, a model that in spirit still persists within many parts of the organization today.

Book Notes: The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek

This book was a Christmas present from my Aunt. It is an interesting account of the two Kellogg brothers, John Harvey and Will Keith. Full of surprising facts, here are a few I found interesting:

1. According to this book, "It is impossible for someone born after World War I to appreciate the stunning sensation ready-to-eat breakfast cereals created at the beginning of the 20th century."

2. Starting as a child, John Harvey Kellogg was groomed by the founders of the Seventh Day Adventists to take a leading role in the church, but was later excommunicated.

3. J.H. Kellogg believed so firmly in the benefits of sexual purity that he never consummated his marriage, but he and his wife raised 42 adopted children.

4. The word "granola" originates from a lawsuit against the Kelloggs for stealing the idea of "granula" - basically baked oat crumbs, from another doctor, so the Kelloggs changed the name of their product.

5. The reason corn flakes turn to mush so easily is that J.H. Kellogg thought that the more "predigested" a food was when you swallowed it, the better. He actually wanted to grind up the flakes into crumbs, but Will convinced him not to.

6. In addition to corn flakes, J.H. Kellogg was the original American inventor/popularizer of peanut butter, soy milk, an early form of Metamucil, and bran flakes. 

7. Post Cereals was started by an early Kellogg employee who stole their recipes.

8. Quaker Oats (not a Kellogg product) was the first cereal to come in individual packages (instead of being sold wholesale in barrels) and is basically the same product today, packaging included, as it was in 1887.

9. Shredded wheat (also not originally a Kellogg product) was invented by the general counsel of the Union Pacific Railroad, who experimented with cereal making in his spare time.

10. Most of the original modern medical knowledge regarding the workings of the human stomach was discovered and collected by a Michigan doctor (not J.H. Kellogg) in 1822 after he cared for a man who had been shot in the stomach. The wound never fully healed, leaving a fistula, or a hole directly directly into the stomach. Over the next 10 years the doctor poured various foods into the hole and observed their digestion.