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You're going to die tomorrow (sorry!) and your spouse knows nothing about investing.

It has been predetermined (for whatever reason) that (a) the spouse's retirement will be funded entirely through periodic small portfolio liquidations (plus whatever dividends they throw off), (b) no index trackers are allowed, just a tiny number of individual equities, and (c) at least one pick has to be ex-US. Punch ticket perpetuals.

In this context, current valuation levels aren't very important.

Other than Berkshire, what would you have in the portfolio?

Jim

PS
no, I'm not sick : )
It's an interesting approach to security selection, and an instructive one. Sometimes, as in the case for Berkshire's portfolio, almost nothing matters more than the number of years that the stock will be generating value, a non-falling amount after inflation, which I learned from pondering the BNSF acquisition. It's the ultimate way to plan for Rule #1.

Other than Berkshire, what would you have in the portfolio?

Well known, well regarded consumers brands, or industrial brands with moat. A short list, along with elevator speech:

Exxon (et al): People gonna be using energy forever, and more of it we have the more of it we use. The more solar and wind and nuke the more oil we use, without fail.

McDonald’s: As terrible as their food is, people seem to buy it. Unequaled footprint, not vulnerable to AI disruption.

CVS: Vertical stack in healthcare with retail, pharmacy benefit manager, insurance, adding captive sub for olders (Oak Street Health). Mail order notwithstanding, most people want a pharmacy around the corner, the front of the store is a general merchandise retail outlet.

Siemens: Generators. More power & powerline infrastructure

Apple: I’ad add this, but I have enough of it through a funny holding company called Berkshire.

Costco: To have some retail in there with growth potential. WalMart would be a fit, also. I’d put Amazon in here too, just to have some tech exposure (although it’s not really a tech play anymore) along with Apple and META. Oh yes, META, I might consider given moat, but I’d have to see signs of Zuck maturing and not pissing away gargantuan sums on “the next big thing” that isn’t.

These are the easy ones, obviously I have a lot of others in my portfolio, but those require monitoring and decision making, and the ones above don’t, mostly. They are companies that I expect to hold up over a 10-20 year time period, and ones that some advisor with dollar signs in his eyes will find difficult to argue against when trying to snatch my poor widow’s financial assets.

I used to have a couple utilities, but given the unknown risks that have showed up in California with wildfires, and regulatory risk on the horizon thanks to data center demand and consumer backlash, I’m not sure I’d have this. Have to think about it some more, I guess.

I’d like to buy Aldi or Chick Fil-a, but can’t, but if those ever came up I’d be in.

I have a portfolio of what most older investors would say is forever, maybe even almost an ideal one for such terminology. But I'm far-far-FAR less inclined to believe things like Costco, Apple, or even Walmart as priced today are going to be a high percentage fulfill-er of superior returns for those who might inherit or get what I hand down. I write that because literally years out something is likely to happen that limits earnings growth such that way back (that's today) it was simply not the thing or future beater we would think or would have thought it to be.

Do I think my ideal portfolio today will do ok? Yes I do. But while things like the hard asset types like the aggregates, the builders supply (duopoly), the waste handlers, the big retailers, and whatnot are in process of getting very popular...outrageously popular...others such as the exchanges, insurance brokers, softwares are beginning to waffle around with AI concerns. There will be concerns one day for the others too even the hard asset onesd, concerns that we'd have never thought of somewhat like the fires to the utilities, maybe environmental to the waste handlers for instance. But the real things to worry over are always not yet known. That's why valuation in the longer run is so important.

Change can be very surprising. I've been literally amazed that the insurance brokers and payments bunch (especially credit card related) have been able to hold up as they have - I don't think either business model is going to be anywhere as good going forward as in the past. And I consider the current crypto obsession Bitcoin to be so damn technologically antiquated that it deserves a "fossil" designation, maybe one for the museum or something.

Change is coming hard and it is going to be fast. The popular worry today is software/AI stuff but that just screams to me that we aren't looking with much clarity. Generally when the market is obsessed with one place or one thing the real worries are 100% elsewhere.

What's my biggest concern? Valuation! And that's across the board for the most part. How much in the end will society put up with corporations, and an inevitably endless smaller segment of the population, having all the $?

Besides Berkshire, mostly a few oligopolistic contenders:

Visa and Mastercard
Moody's and S&P Global
Canadian Pacific Kansas City
Copart

I should have thrown in Canadian National Railway.

(b) no index trackers are allowed

With all due respect, it seems like an index is the perfect solution to your problem (as Buffett himself chosen for his wife Astrid) so I don't understand why you are ignoring it especially since you said not to consider current valuation in choosing the appropriate investments.

I would recommend 50% BRK and 50% index with periodic rebalancing (once every 5 years) assuming there are no taxes to be paid in Monaco.

Why not an index?

Well, I was hoping the "for whatever reason" comment would sidestep that digression : )

You're certainly right, in that an index usually can't go bust. ("usually" because most stock exchanges, historically speaking, fold down with a total loss for investors. The great results of US shareholder capitalism are, to some unknowable extent, a product of survivorship bias) But an index fits the bill perfectly for the problem as stated.

But I find them immoral. If there is any company you would not invest in because you find either management or the business line odious, any at all, you can't be an index investor. Indeed, it is your responsibility not to be. Plus, it may not be critical in this context, but it just plain annoys me that by construction they have two huge flaws that mean you'll forever underperform a dartboard.

Besides that, I was thinking that pure concentration is an interesting thought experiment. Again, inspired by BNSF. Upon what company would you wager the fortunes of your entire family and its descendants that it will still be generating value (say) 35 years from now? The fact that it's an impossible task is what makes it so interesting. Punch card investing.

My two thoughts so far are Berkshire, and Investor AB. The latter, if you don't know them, is rather like a 100+ year old Swedish family office portfolio that happens to be publicly listed. The controlling family once owned a bank with a stock portfolio, and that became forbidden by bank regulators, so the portfolio was spun off. They wholly own a bunch of companies, almost all in northern Europe, and a stock portfolio, somewhat more global. Big position in Nasdaq, for example. They use the cash flow to buy more companies (sound familiar?) and also to pay a dividend (less familiar!). If I am not greatly mistaken, the economic characteristics of their investees (ROA, ROE etc) are generally considerably better than Berkshire's.

Third place for me so far is Alphabet. I have a difficult time seeing someone breach their moats within 30-50 years, even if they are broken up like Standard Oil. And they aren't TOO odious.

The only fund I've considered for the list is WIP, a broad basket of non-US inflation protected government bonds. It is by a considerable margin the safest "single ticker" I know of , and it even has positive real returns. But it is structured and listed in the US, so there is jurisdiction risk (and fees and another 30% withholding tax) purely because of the fund wrapper. Sadly it's a spectacular pain to mimic yourself unless you have your own family office.

Jim

Besides Berkshire, mostly a few oligopolistic contenders:

Visa and Mastercard
Moody's and S&P Global
Canadian Pacific Kansas City
Copart

Nice thoughtful list, thanks. I like the Visa idea. Moody's, railway, I see the unkillability case. (I used to work for CN, so CP is not entirely unknown)

But I know precisely nothing about Copart. What's the elevator pitch in this context?

Jim

BRK

UBER (currently minting $...will soon have free cash flow of $10+ billion per year. Rather than pose a threat a fragmented AV market will result in much higher profit margins...no payment to a driver and the AV company that owns the vehicle will be responsible for the insurance. Well known money managers that own UBER are Josh Brown, Vitaly Katsenelson, and Bill Ackman. Personally I think that at some point within the next 10 years it could have a $1+ trillion market cap.)

KMI (has been discussed here.)

NNI (has been discussed here. Excellent management team. Market cap is 4.7 billion)

PB (super conservative Texas based bank that I think will eventually be acquired by a bigger player...market cap is 7.5 billion)

KMI, NNI, and PB all pay dividends.

I own all of the above with BRK being by far the largest position. I also own C but would be hesitant to commit to owning a large center money bank "forever."

Here's my list along with the elevator pitch. I'll try to exclude any stocks that have already been mentioned:

LVMH - Ex-US. Its durable luxury brands are its moat and the business model probably can't be replicated or even competed with on any reasonable scale.

Nestle' - also Ex-US. We've talked a lot about this one before, but it seems to be a mostly forever kind of stock. Too big and too diversified to ever go away.

Home Depot - Not always a great company, but a good company with good margins and good penetration into the contractor market. Able to expand by both growth and acquisition. Their sheer size (twice as big as Lowe's) keeps them relevant mostly forever, I think.

Eli Lilly - The pharmaceutical sector is an economic power player. So I'll pick one company. Several good ones to choose from.

J.P. Morgan Chase -- Well run bank (as far as I can tell) AND it's too big to fail.

Coca-Cola - This is a dark horse pick. Their growth is probably capped to the upside. But they have one of the greatest business models ever invented: They sell flavored syrup to their bottlers at absurd margins, who then have to put up all the capital and do all the work. I don't see how Coke will ever go away. They'll just keep chunking out dividends forever.

Microsoft - We don't talk about them a lot and they are kind of remembered for some notable whiffs: They lost their dominating lead in the Internet browser, search never got off the ground, and they completely screwed the pooch on mobile. But they quietly moved into enterprise software, made some good acquisitions (LinkedIn), avoided some bad acquisitions (Yahoo!), and positioned themselves well in cloud and AI. At the end of the day, the company basically prints money.

Chevron - Only because Exxon already got picked. People will need oil and gas forever. Maybe not as much as today, but they'll still need it.

Many great companies listed by others on this thread. My only suggestion is a drug distributor. They often get overlooked. The three major ones are an oligopoly in US. Much less risk than pharmaceuticals, medical devices, health insurers. May appear at first glance to be an easily disruptable business, but the cold temperature handling requirements for vaccines and some other drugs is fairly complex and even the likes of Amazon and Sysco haven’t tried to take them on.

Of the three, Mckesson is probably the best, the other two are Cardinal Health and Amerisource Bergen. And they are all reasonably valued at present.

I never understood why Buffett didn’t acquire one of them or bought a significant position.

Mostly forever.

Kodak, people will always be taking pictures of babies

AT&T, people will always need phones and businesses are getting more and more phones.

Perhaps Pan Am or Montgomery Ward.

Oh sorry wrong decade for forecasting!

Railroads get about 10% of revenue from hauling coal. With robots that can be located anywhere and training is completed by a software download, I think manufacturing will become distributed rather than centralised. Both effects will have an impact on rails. Food distribution will continue but could be accomplished by trucking.

Energy, by 2055 in my opinion is unlikely to be provided by oil and gas except in niche situations. Flight? Still required for chemicals, but overall, a rapidly declining sector.

I don't think forecasting for 30 years is any better and probably worse than a dartboard.

Aussi

Alcohol beverage companies have been hit hard lately, on declining consumption trends among young people plus tariffs. But few doubt that humans will be consuming alcohol a millennia from now, let alone 35 years. Even BRK has invested recently in Constellation Brands.

My pick would be Diageo, which has a diversified portfolio of beer and alcohol, with both premium and affordable brands. New UK trade deal with India should boost sales of scotch - Diageo’s brands are well known and popular duty free purchases by Indian travelers. Lower import duties should boost consumption.

Mostly stuff I already have? Apple, Procter and Gamble, Caterpillar, Disney, and if we can add a foreign stock I can't touch today, Hyundai (great executing, droolingly cheap with a PE that was like 5 when I checked, but it is borderline impossible to access Korean stocks). If I have to convert my index holdings completely, I might add in a few more widow and orphan things...AT&T, Chubb, Coke, maybe an office REIT.

"Third place for me so far is Alphabet. I have a difficult time seeing someone breach their moats within 30-50 years"


Great minds think alike..... tho 2nd place for me

“But I find them immoral. If there is any company you would not invest in because you find either management or the business line odious, any at all, you can't be an index investor. Indeed, it is your responsibility not to be.”

That’s interesting. Berkshire has a business line I find odious. It’s a tiny, tiny part of Berkshire’s revenue. It’s there though.

My two thoughts so far are Berkshire, and Investor AB.

I'm very familiar with the Wallenberg Family and didn't know one could invest with them. Or can one? I can't get Fido to acknowledge the existence of the stock. Any suggestion as how an USian might purchase the stock?

Rgds,
HH/Sean

“I don't think forecasting for 30 years is any better and probably worse than a dartboard.”

Agree. I see a couple of options: find someone or a firm you trust to actively manage it, and your heirs will pay that fee that you would never do; or find a fund/funds/index that will automatically take care of ditching the losers and keeping the winners.

I have a difficult time seeing someone breach their moats within 30-50 years

I think it was Bill Gates who said that people tend to over-estimate what can happen in five years, and underestimate what can happen in twenty years. Probably in one of those Epstein emails ...

Baltassar

You're going to die tomorrow (sorry!) and your spouse knows nothing about investing.

It has been predetermined (for whatever reason) that (b) no index trackers are allowed
....
But an index fits the bill perfectly for the problem as stated.

But I find them immoral. If there is any company you would not invest in because you find either management or the business line odious, any at all, you can't be an index investor. Indeed, it is your responsibility not to be. Plus, it may not be critical in this context, but it just plain annoys me that by construction they have two huge flaws that mean you'll forever underperform a dartboard.

Below are my general thoughts on this subject, triggered by the post but not directed at the poster.

Dictating from the grave that your spouse should not invest in an index is more immoral. You have no right to make your spouse's financial life more difficult than it needs to be. If you want to fight immorality, do it when you are alive and in a way that is effective and actually makes a difference. Don't impose a symbolic gesture on your spouse with zero real world impact.

So what if an index underperforms a dartboard? The objective is for the spouse to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. Everyone one this board is wealthy enough to achieve this for their spouse using index based investing. This is not a game that the spouse needs to win.

Last but not least, any non-index based plan is destined to fail anyway, because sooner or later someone will come along and convince your spouse to tinker with the portfolio. Unless it's based on personal knowledge and long experience, it's easy to get shaken out of individual equities when prices fall. This will eventually happen and your spouse will end up underperforming the index.

“Other than Berkshire, what would you have in the portfolio?”

GOOG, AAPL, AXP, JPM, AMZN

On a side note, my brother and I redirected the “helper” to my elderly mother’s Rollover IRA acct 4 years ago. We agreed to let her continue to directly manage half the assets. We then directed the advisor to distribute the other half into 50% BRKB, 25% QQQE & 25% RSP & been pretty pleased leaving this portion on “cruise control.”

McDonald’s: As terrible as their food is, people seem to buy it. Unequaled footprint, not vulnerable to AI disruption.

It's a good list! But I wonder if this one might be somewhat susceptible to AI/related technologies. For example, what if someone came up with vehicles that drives around and make burgers and assembles them nicely and also makes fries. The customers place their orders and some sort of AI optimizes the vehicle routes to deliver a "fresh" (made within 3-5 minutes let's say) to your location. If the density of burger orders is high enough, the vehicles could do this very efficiently when intelligently routed. The people seem to really like food delivery!

I checked Fido, too and couldn't find a way to invest in Investor AB. But at Wells Fargo, it's investable as a pink sheet offering under IVSBF.

Foreign stocks on Fido also often come with a $50 foreign asset fee, so beware of that, too. I can't remember now what ticker I was looking into, but sometimes I buy 1 share of a stock so I keep my eye on it and then sink real money in when it drops to the level I want. Some would say it's an expensive way to monitor a holding but I find watchlists tend to get lost somehow. Even buying one share of a stock helps me focus. Besides, if I was wrong about the valuation, now I'm up on my huge 1 share investment.

To the poster who suggest Kodak and others, don't sleep on Atari! All the kids have the 2600 and will forever!

SD

Alphabet, Berkshire Hathaway, and DMG MORI. The last is richly valued but I don’t see it going away.

Last but not least, any non-index based plan is destined to fail anyway, because sooner or later someone will come along and convince your spouse to tinker with the portfolio.

The best comment I´ve read here since a looong time.

"You're going to die tomorrow (sorry!) and your spouse knows nothing about investing."

It's a great question because I worry about it all the time. Of course, I hope it's not anytime soon :-). I know you said Berkshire can't be a part of it but I have to state it would! So let's change it to what other equities would I include...

Google- to me it's that moatiest of all mag 7/ large cap/mega tech companies. Between search, AI and big media (you tube) it will be the most difficult company to compete with. Those three already make up a large part of it's profits and it should be added they are pretty good with their moon shots too. I would also add it's not insanely valued although the recent runup took away some of that attractiveness.

Philip Morris International- pure dividend play here in an industry I think where they have a great moat. They are currently dominating the smokeless space and while there's always regulatory risk it's highly likely the world is going to kick nicotine in our lifetime. Yeah I know, this goes in contradiction to my view Berkshire probably shouldn't have a dividend but that doesn't mean I don't want safe paying dividend elsewhere. As for my wife, I would like the fact she would just get the dividend and would not have to worry about selling shares.

Chevron- Oil is finite. They are my favourite in this category. Again, she could collect dividends without having to think about much and hopefully ride out the down cycles.

"Eli Lilly - The pharmaceutical sector is an economic power player. So I'll pick one company. Several good ones to choose from."

I agree. I chose Pfizer based strictly on a valuation basis. It's cheap right now and they've been trimming fat. Some of the oncology stuff is starting to show promise and they will at least get their portion of the obesity market.

Dictating from the grave that your spouse should not invest in an index is more immoral. You have no right to make your spouse's financial life more difficult than it needs to be. If you want to fight immorality, do it when you are alive and in a way that is effective and actually makes a difference. Don't impose a symbolic gesture on your spouse with zero real world impact.

I am guessing the “rule” was added to encourage Socratic debate, not as a “control from the grave” mechanism, It would be all too easy to get 47 answers of “index fund” but then that wouldn’t really be interesting to other readers of the board - who are generally aligned with Charlie’s model of investing: “solid companies at a good price” rather than Graham’s model of “cheap but maybe have some remnant value”. We have a list here of “solid companies” likely to last, which was the point of the exercise.

I have found the list(s) interesting, particularly for the appearance of Google in so many of them. I have owned it and sold it at an excellent profit (still a mistake), but given the turmoil in the digital business(es) I am skeptical of anything in that sector lasting 30 years, tremendous moat or not.

For instance, their business just changed dramatically with the introduction of the AI summaries. Or rather, not their business, but their “linkages” business, many of whose websites traffic have dropped by half or more, as people no longer need to click to find information but get what they need with the little summary at the top of the page. (I realize this argues 180° from my objection. Oh well.) Such a small change can make a huge difference, and it could (again). I remember the charge was “survive 30 years” which could happen in an unforseen way to Google itself. I’m being extra-cautious here, i am skeptical of longevity in any digital-forward business, but then I included Facebook too, so call me a hypocrite, it’s OK.

I also knock out any pharma relying on brand names or pipeline, as that is a crapshoot, and the blockbusters are replaced ever more quickly with copycats jumping all over them faster and faster. Likewise “fashion” and “restaurants”, although I note I made an exception for McDonald’s, which has an unrivaled footprint around the world.

For example, what if someone came up with vehicles that drives around and make burgers and assembles them nicely and also makes fries. The customers place their orders and some sort of AI optimizes the vehicle routes to deliver a "fresh" (made within 3-5 minutes let's say) to your location. If the density of burger orders is high enough, the vehicles could do this very efficiently when intelligently routed. The people seem to really like food delivery!

Funny! And that they do. I was amazed to find out a few years ago that almost 50% of restaurant meals are now consumed - not in the restaurant. Well, the latest statistic is that number is up to 75%. Yes, a mere 25% of restaurant revenue comes from people sitting down and eating in a restaurant. This include Starbucks and McDonald’s of course, but even finer restaurants now seem to have a parking slot or two dedicated to “food pickup” services.

That’s why the 30-year challenge is so interesting. Making predictions is hard, a wise yogi said.

I checked Fido, too and couldn't find a way to invest in Investor AB. But at Wells Fargo, it's investable as a pink sheet offering under IVSBF.


First of all I don't own it so do your own research but you want to be looking for IVSXF at Fidelity and Schwab.

HOpefully someone will correct me if I am wrong.

"(b) no index trackers are allowed"

With all due respect, it seems like an index is the perfect solution to your problem


Yeah, I saw that too. An index is the perfect investment for someone who is not interested in investing.

"William Bernstein: If money management is not enjoyable, then a lousy job inevitably results, and, unfortunately, most people enjoy finance about as much as they do root canal work."

Upon further reflection, he is using that rule to force replies to be on individual stocks rather than "low effort investing".

That really is the key, and the only reason I have been able to hold Berkshire for so long. I usually have a vague idea of what it's worth, which keeps me from panic selling when the quote is way under that. I just figured that as long as the company did not become permanently impaired in some way, that the stock price would eventually reflect the value if I waited long enough.

With an index, I don't think I would've been as patient.

"Investor AB."

I'm very familiar with the Wallenberg Family and didn't know one could invest with them. Or can one? I can't get Fido to acknowledge the existence of the stock. Any suggestion as how an USian might purchase the stock?

IVSBF Bit of a spread, though. 40.45 & 40.81

There were a few articles complaining about valuation, etc. but all the ones I found were behind a paywall.

"Last but not least, any non-index based plan is destined to fail anyway, because sooner or later someone will come along and convince your spouse to tinker with the portfolio."

The best comment I´ve read here since a looong time.


Even worse than tinkering is convincing them to buy an Indexed Annuity, with guaranteed payout and 100% protected from market crashes.

My Mom got suckered into buying one of these after my Dad died.

When she talked to me about it many years later, she said that that was the worst financial decision she ever made.

I own Investor AB through Fidelity with no problems.

Up 36% since June.

I forgot - I wouldn't do Alphabet. I don't like their passing acquaintance with privacy, and basically all they do is sell ads when it comes to actual revenue that keeps them actually afloat. Same with Facebook (Meta is a silly name and a distraction) - maybe more so on revenue from ads. Lots of companies sell ads. It isn't a big moat industry. In a parallel earth, Myspace is #1...in another parallel earth, Yahoo is #1. I'm not interested in picking the winner in this space some years from now.

The privacy bit is big. I don't use Google, except on rare occasions. Functional, privacy-aware alternatives like duckduckgo, and proton mail, are gaining traction. You'll find many privacy and cybersecurity types use these also.

My wife can handle investing just fine. She made a huge gain, I think a 15 bagger, in Eli Lilly, and has been the source of many of our great decisions, and was investing when stocks were trading in fractions also. I'm glad we met (and glad it was a little later; she wouldn't have dug me in my 20s!).

If my wife was not investing inclined, I would be looking at some sort of structured trust and indices, and not be doing this experiment.

NVDA, GOOGL, AMZN, MSFT
and for the non-US
TSM


If I really was making a port to drop down and leave forever, I'd probably want maybe 1/2 SP500 and 1/2 the stocks above, so essentially an SP500 port but with even more weighting in AI than SP500 already has.

I do think AI is on pace to be as big as Fire in terms of its techcnical impact on humanity. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a tracking stock that purported to capture the value of fire? I don't know what stocks would be in it but its ticker symbol would be FIRE.

Its important to realize that AI is more than just Chat and Chat that can build Software. AI has been being built up for probably pushing the last 20 years, Google Search has been pretty AI'ish for a long time. The big LLM things in the last 3-5 years were a gigantic step forward, I'd say on a par in terms of human growth with your child learning how to talk. The telling way to think of AI's ability to program computers is that, essentially, English, Mandarin, French, German, Cantonese, Hindu, etc. have become the de facto new "programming languages", no longer does a human need to learn how to program in order to program. If you can work with another human then you can "program" a computer to do productive things.

Is this just a port made to make a point? Maybe, but it is approximately how I am invested. In my case I am more greedy than fearful and am pleased to see others promoting fear among AI investors because some guy once told me to be greedy when others are fearful. I'm 68 and have enough money to retire and "probably" be OK spending what I have been spending before I retired. I just sorta believe that I can probably do better than risk free rates of return, finally, and for some reason am willing to try to goose the total before quitting working.

R:

dealreaker:
How much in the end will society put up with corporations, and an inevitably endless smaller segment of the population, having all the $?

A fascinating question, and timely. Wealth has been concentrating more over time for presumably built-in technical reasons. And we are facing a disruption in human employment that will almost certainly lead to at least short term unemployment rises with AI mixing things up, and quite possibly, for the first time in history, long term unemployability of a majority of the human population!

I don't imagine we will very easily cross the divide from our current "that's YOUR problem" approach to making a living to "no problemo there's enough for everybody" approach. If we just go in the direction we've been going, only more so, I'd imagine we'd wind up with a system even more of what you need to live is free, but we still have an economy beyond that.

My own desires to own a piece by owning stocks, especially in AI (and eventually robotic) companies is: maybe society will start giving it away, but in the meantime it won't be giving it away and the returns that had been going to labor because people did the jobs will now be going to the owners of the AI and the robots.

So in the long run, perhaps it doesn't matter, everybody will do all right whether they have an income or not.

But on the way to getting there, better to own a big chunk of the machine.

R:

I own Investor AB through Fidelity with no problems.

Up 36% since June.

I believe it's pretty easy for Americans at Interactive Brokers, too. Just request trading access to the Stockholm exchange. And convert some cash to SEK.

Jim

Yes that's true. There is a big fee to own foreign stocks through a normal broker, but IB is the exception. Almost no fee.

Yes, it's IVSXF for Fido and Schwab. Thank you for pointing that out.

Sure enough at Fido, you get hit with a $50 foreign holding fee, so unless you are ready to buy a significant slug...

I don't think I do enough trading to make IB the right choice for me.

Sure enough at Fido, you get hit with a $50 foreign holding fee,

IVSBF is the B shares, with smaller spread.

$6.95 commission at Etrade.

I didn't bother to look at Merrill. They get snotty on non-mainstream stocks.

"I forgot - I wouldn't do Alphabet. I don't like their passing acquaintance with privacy, and basically all they do is sell ads when it comes to actual revenue that keeps them actually afloat."

Ok I suppose that's a fair take but I think you're underestimating how deeply Google has it's hooks into advertising. For starters search ain't going away and Google has closed the distance with the AI chat bots. The average consumer still thinks "google it". When it comes to ecommerce any company that sells on the web is almost completely reliant on Google. Their ability to ensure that a retailer can find an end consumer is second to none. Amazon finally realised this about 5-7 years ago and started to copy that model within their own site and it's been a boon for them but they are still reliant on Google to bring every customer outside of their domain to their site.

Advertising brings in about $265B so you're right that that's probably what is keeping them afloat but You Tube has also become a behemoth that's probably got a bigger moat and more opportunity for growth. You Tube brings in $60M in revenue, compare that with Netflix which brings in $45B! Name another business that can charge it's consumers money NOT to have adverisements?

Regarding the privacy issues I completely agree with you but this is a much larger issue than just Google. It's all big tech.

"Google- to me it's that moatiest of all mag 7/ large cap/mega tech companies."

I seem to recall not long ago how GOOGL's search "moat" was certain to be killed by ChatGPT and other LLM's.😀

Narratives can change quickly. Can real threats to Alphabet emerge in the nest 20-30 years? Hmmmmmm.....?

"Only the paranoid survive."

(GOOGL 10% position in our portfolio)

I agree with many of the recommendations listed earlier such as XOM, GOOGL, WMT, COST, etc.

I would add one that I own and would hold forever (or grudgingly accept BRK acquisition).

HEICO (HEI) - a family owned FAA-regulated airplane parts and electronics business. The elder Mendelson recently passed away and his two sons have taken over as co-CEOs. They previously have worked for the company 30+ years. It's a great business and the Mendelson's run it in such a way as to make their customers and vendors pleased for having worked with them (perhaps unlike a quasi competitor in the industry TDG).

ITW - Illinois Tool Works

BDX - Becton Dickinson

I don't own either but they have been on my list and perpetually "too expensive".

My thesis: we humans will always be manufacturing things and need our bodies maintained. Owning two that have been supporting those needs for well over 100 years each seems reasonable.

Jeff

For those interested, there is some discussion of Investor AB on the non-U.S. board
https://www.shrewdm.com/MB?pid=30255870

<<What's my biggest concern? Valuation! And that's across the board for the most part. How much in the end will society put up with corporations, and an inevitably endless smaller segment of the population, having all the $?>>

My long term concern is that US dollar may not be reserve currency of the world. Gold price more than doubled in the past two years is an indication the world is looking for alternative.

Central bank gold demand especially after the last few years may have more to do with US policies toward Russian reserve assets than the USD's status as a global reserve currency. There are obviously some cases like the Polish central bank where they explicitly increased the % of reserves held in gold as a diversification play from USD or Euro assets. The increase in central bank demand has come off the boil over the last few years.

https://www.ft.com/content/d68e758f-ad2a-4040-93fa...

Gold price surge in the last 12-16 months may be more a symptom of ETF and retail investor fed momentum trading.

Certainly when you look at foreign holding of USD long term assets that amount is going up quite fast as well, despite the sudden hiccup in April 2025 Liberation Day events.

IOW gold going up is not an indication of any move away from the USD as a reserve currency, it's more inline with the idea that as with many assets, US equity, US fixed income, BTC, private credit, or silver that there is a lot of money flow into just about every asset out there.

My long term concern is that US dollar may not be reserve currency of the world. Gold price more than doubled in the past two years is an indication the world is looking for alternative.

There are lots very good reasons why lots of people are motivated to use something other than the dollar. Despite the risks, I don't think the dollar is going away any time soon, and I don't think it will matter a whole lot to most Americans if it does.

A huge fraction of international trade is denominated and settled in dollars. Some of that is tradition, but a lot of it is convenience. Let's say you have two countries that don't trade a lot with each other, like say South Korea and Brazil. It is a whole lot easier if the transaction is conducted in a more liquid, third currency like the USD. But to support international trade, that third currency needs to be really, really liquid. The US is really the only player with capital markets big enough to do the job. The EU is a distant second. China has tight restrictions on its capital markets, so the yuan isn't really a player although China is trying to nibble around the edges. Lots of countries have been yammering about moving away from the dollar for decades, but in a practical sense it is hard to do more than yammer.

Because everyone is using dollars, central banks try to at least weakly peg their currency to the dollar, even if they say they don't. So they kind of need to hold dollars. China doesn't have much of choice. We're their largest trading partner and everything we buy is denominated in dollars. So they have giant stacks of dollars whether they want them or not.

But let's look at a country that doesn't control the world's reserve currency, like say Australia. They do fine. Their borrowing costs are about the same as ours. Their economy does fine. It is nice to have the reserve currency, but it isn't mission critical.

< But to support international trade, that third currency needs to be really, really liquid. The US is really the only player with capital markets big enough to do the job. The EU is a distant second. China has tight restrictions on its capital markets, so the yuan isn't really a player although China is trying to nibble around the edges.>

I agree China is not ready. But how long would it take before they are ready and lift those restrictions? 10,20 years? When it looks like it’s going in that direction, it maybe too late.

Not just international trade payments.

Short term borrowing, commercial paper, Euro-dollar credit, derivative contracts, Forex contracts, all done in USD.

China yuan/RMB is not being used as reserve unless it floats and the Chinese govt is not in any time span while I am alive likely to allow the yuan to float.

"ITW - Illinois Tool Works

BDX - Becton Dickinson

I don't own either but they have been on my list and perpetually "too expensive"."

I have been looking at ITW for years. Like you said it always seems perpetually too expensive. Plus, it was hard to get a grasp on their expected future earnings because they were constantly buying and selling various lines of business. Combine those two factors and I ended up putting them into the too hard pile.

I owned 100 shares at one point (the old, buy a small amount so I force myself to pay closer attention to them), but I think I sold that when I cleaned out my IRA a few years ago and eliminated all of the little positions like that.

I haven't looked at them in a while (probably pre-COVID), maybe they are big enough now that the constant buying and selling of business lines isn't material enough to greatly affect future earnings estimates. Your post has inspired me to look at them again because I do love the business.

“Certainly when you look at foreign holding of USD long term assets that amount is going up quite fast as well…”

Agree. Gemini backs what I’ve heard:

“T-bills (Treasury bills) are currently experiencing exceptionally high popularity and robust demand in recent auctions, characterized by record-setting, oversubscribed, and large-scale sales.”

Buffett himself in recent years thought there was no real concern wrt dollar being the reserve currency for the foreseeable future.

“Warren Buffett maintains that the U.S. dollar will remain the world's primary reserve currency for the foreseeable future, seeing no viable alternatives. While recognizing risks from excessive money printing and potential "de-dollarization" trends, he believes the dollar's dominance is secure due to a lack of better options.”

China yuan/RMB is not being used as reserve unless it floats and the Chinese govt is not in any time span while I am alive likely to allow the yuan to float.


Even if “freed”, most countries are not likely to use a fiat that’s under the control of an authoritarian regime which could, at any moment, change the rules of the game. (Notwithstanding the face that Nixon did exactly that in 1971, but the US was so huge there was simply no other option.)

Right now it looks like this:

of currencies as reserve currency:

US Dollar: 59%
Euro: 20%
Yen: 6%
Pound: 5%
All other currencies (this includes the reminbi, as well as the kroner, the swiss franc, the canadian dollar, the australian dollar, the korean won, and others): 10%

Things would have to change - and by a LOT - before the Yuan (or anything else, frankly) becomes the “world currency”. They may rail against the dollar and/or the USA but the reality is the big dog rules right up until the big dog doesn’t. In the past it has taken world-wide macroeconomic events to change; The Pound (sterling) was it until World War II all but bankrupted Great Britain.

Before the pound it was Spain with the world beating economy and a surplus of silver from its Western Hemisphere colonies that was only displaced when those colonies declared independence and Britain’s economy roared forward with the industrial revolution in the 1800’s.

I would give China a pretty good chance of being the industrial superpower of this century - but that “dictatorship by fiat” I would think will hold some back from using it as the defacto world currency (although that may be a difference without a distinction if they get big enough all over the planet.) Anyway, that’s not my biggest worry in the macroeconomic world.

“Certainly when you look at foreign holding of USD long term assets that amount is going up quite fast as well…”

as long as the US has annual $1 trillion trade deficit , foreign holding of USD assets, whether it's cash, bond, or other long term assets will keep growing. That makes the situation more dangerous, not a good sign, because when the dollar starts losing the position as global reserve currency , all those foreign hold assets will come home to roost.

the U.S. dollar will remain the world's primary reserve currency for the foreseeable future, seeing no viable alternatives

My guess is that a viable alternative will only emerge in the context of a crisis to which the US cannot or will not respond; with due acknowledgement that "emergence" can be a painful and desperate business.

Baltassar

Last but not least, any non-index based plan is destined to fail anyway, because sooner or later someone will come along and convince your spouse to tinker with the portfolio.

Or worse. In the 1970s, I had a distant relative that had money (he was the only relative that had money). He died sometime in the late 1970s and his wife inherited his money. A few months later someone convinced her to switch from the broker that her husband used for decades to a new younger "more dynamic" broker (I dimly recall that he was recommended by a nephew of hers). Anyway, within the first year, that new broker sold ALL her individual stocks, that were all very long-term holdings with a tiny basis, and put the money into an assortment of "safe" mutual funds. And every single mutual fund that he put the money into had a load, mostly 4.75%, but some a little higher. The story he told her was "diversification". And of course, the next time we saw her about a year later, she bitterly complained about her massive tax bill that year (all long-term capital gains). Even as a young adult at the time, I instinctively knew that it was a mistake to do so, to realize so much capital gain for someone in their late 80s. Sure enough she died that year (1979 or 1980). It didn't matter to us because we were nowhere in the list of heirs, but the estate went through probate (he had various trusts set up to mostly avoid probate, but apparently she did not). My dad and I calculated that because of the rash actions of that broker, probably $1.5M to $1.7M was unnecessarily lost to taxes, and another $250k to $300k was lost on unnecessary loads for those mutual funds. And to add insult to injury, there were also estate taxes to be filed and paid above and beyond the previous planning mistakes.

My long term concern is that US dollar may not be reserve currency of the world. Gold price more than doubled in the past two years is an indication the world is looking for alternative.

I wouldn't lose all that much sleep over it. What matters is the purchasing power of the currency, not how many things it's used for. In the general case the USD might hold its value but fade as a reserve/trade currency, or vice versa. More specifically, what matters is the purchasing power of your portfolio, which also might not be tied to your home currency's trajectory even if everything is listed there.

Jim

< What matters is the purchasing power of the currency, not how many things it's used for. >

My fear is that those two things are closely related. I’m not sure how would it play out. But inflation and asset price are two things that could be affected. Without global currency position, import price would increase dramatically, and asset price would drop without recycled foreign held dollars buying the assets.

Besides Berkshire, mostly a few oligopolistic contenders:

Visa and Mastercard
Moody's and S&P Global
Canadian Pacific Kansas City
Copart

***

Nice thoughtful list, thanks. I like the Visa idea. Moody's, railway, I see the unkillability case. (I used to work for CN, so CP is not entirely unknown)

But I know precisely nothing about Copart. What's the elevator pitch in this context?


Sorry about the delay, Jim. I recently finished a long, time-consuming project. Plus, I started thinking about an elevator pitch and realized it was going to take a bunch of reading, thought, and writing before I could drum one up. All of that took a few days!

The elevator pitch is that Copart is a high-quality duopoly business with a moat, barriers to entry, industry tailwinds, high return on capital, balance sheet strength, economic stability, and good capital allocation. I had to write an investment thesis to come up with the elevator pitch. I posted the thesis on the Copart board (the board’s initial post):

https://www.shrewdm.com/MB?pid=81057458

I’m hoping some folks here will head over to that board to read it and post their comments there, especially pointing out any errors (likely!) and missing pieces (assured!). Until last year when I was gainfully employed, I mostly bought stocks in group purchases in fairly mechanical fashion. But now that I’m retired, I hope to do more in-depth research on individual names, putting my theses to paper/cyberspace. This was my first attempt, but my research continues on this company.


P.S. If you like unkillability, you probably can’t do much better than Sir Christopher Hohn’s portfolio holdings at TCI Fund Management Ltd (The Children’s Investment Fund). He loves “opolies” of all sorts (mon, du, and olig). SEC’s EDGAR site shows only nine TCI holdings on Form 13F. But Tikr.com shows four additional holdings, sourced via company shareholder reports. I found one other possible current or recent holding in a couple of articles at reputable sites. Let’s call it fourteen holdings in total (Bonus: Eight of the fourteen are outside the United States):

GE Aerospace (US) and Safran SA (France): Part of an oligopoly that manufactures large aircraft engines for commercial and defense use. Other members include Pratt & Whitney (US, part of RTX Corp.) and Rolls-Royce (UK).

Airbus SE (Netherlands): Part of a duopoly that manufactures large commercial jet airliners. The other member is Boeing (US).

Aena S.M.E., S.A. (Spain): A monopoly that consolidates and controls almost all public airport assets in Spain.

Ferrovial SE (Netherlands) and Vinci (France): Part of an oligopoly that constructs and operates global infrastructure (toll roads, airports, energy infrastructure, etc.) In some contexts, these two operate as local monopolies in various aspects of their businesses. The oligopoly includes several other members around the globe.

Canadian National Railway (Canada) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (Canada): Both members of a duopoly that shares the Canadian freight railway market. Both are also part of an oligopoly that shares the North American freight railway market. Other oligopoly members include BNSF (US, part of Berkshire Hathaway), CSX (US), Norfolk Southern (US), and Union Pacific (US).

Cellnex Telecom, S.A. (Spain): Part of an oligopoly that operates European wireless telecommunications infrastructure (cell towers). Other members include American Tower (US), GD Towers (Germany, owned by Deutsche Telekom), Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane S.p.A., also known as INWIT (Italy), TOTEM (France, owned by Orange S.A.), and Vantage Towers (Germany).

Visa (US): Part of a duopoly that controls the global payment card network market. The other member is MasterCard (US).

Moody’s (US) and S&P Global (US): Part of an oligopoly that provides global credit ratings on large corporate bond issuances. The other member is Fitch Ratings (US, privately owned by Hearst Communications).

Alphabet (US): A monopoly that offers online search and online search advertising; and part of an oligopoly that offers cloud computing, AI, and digital ad spending (among other offerings). Other oligopoly members include Amazon (US), Apple (US), Microsoft (US), and Meta (US).

Microsoft (US): A monopoly that offers desktop operating systems (Windows) and enterprise productivity software (Office); and part of an oligopoly that offers cloud services, AI, and gaming (among other offerings). Other oligopoly members include Alphabet (US), Amazon (US), and Apple (US).

(mon, du, and olig)

Good names if you have triplets.

My favourite has always been duopolies. They don't attract government heat the way monopolies do, but there is usually a stronger one that takes the lion's share of the excess returns. There's a reason Microsoft supported Apple in its rough patch.

Jim

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