The new south african variant is out there. Omicron is there.
It looks like there's another panic coming. I never had the chance so far to use a lot of my margin. But that may be the case soon, if that variant spreads.
I'm so excited about the possibility of using a lot of debt to invest.
If someone hurts your kid, you're tempted to hurt and maybe kill that person. Every parent feels like that.
When it's god that hurts your kid, you're tempted to kill god. However, god doesn't exist, so who can you kill? Life? Earth? Nature?
Yesterday, I learned that my 5 years old daughter has some serious issues with both her optical nerves. An operation on these nerves is impossible from what I've seen on the Internet. Which means that my daughter may lose her sight.
I've spent a good part of the last night being in a deep state of despair and anger. I don't have any control on that situation. I can't do anything about it. It's not a fucking exam for which study will allow me to get through. And that situation is hurting a poor little kid that already has other problems.
If something so serious happens to my daughter, I think that I will change forever. I'll turn bad. I'll go crazy. I'll eat junk food and get drunk. I don't know, what will happen, but I'm sure that it will have a very bad impact on me.
I hate life. How can I avenge my daughter?
When I started this blog (june 2014), I was funnier, more naive and I had much less money.
Now, I have enough money to retire and live a relatively comfortable life. I'd be able to pay the rent, the grocery and for some travels and hobbies.But I won't because I haven't reach the level where I would be SUPER comfortable.
What changes with money? Nothing. Same problems. More health problems actually because, usually, when you have more money, you're older. And when you're older, you start to have some health issues. I have some. Nothing super serious, but enough problems to realize that the road ahead will be bumpier than the road behind. However, like everybody says, money brings a lot of freedom. I don't have to go to Old Orchard for my holidays because of a limited budget. I could go anywhere around the world without any impact on my financial future. I could buy a Tesla, but I won't because I've never bought that kind of luxury and I probably never will.
I have no big restriction. Let's put it this way: I could live any reasonable life I would like to live. The fact that I don't have a big house nor a big car helps a lot.
I think that I will have enough money the day where a cruise to Antarctica from Ushuai (15 000 to 20 000$) will be something that I could buy anytime without any impact on my life. I could buy that today, but I'd have to make choices. When that cruise will have no effect on any other of my choices of expenses, that will be the day where I have plenty of money. And that will also be the day where retirement will be a short-term option.
It's really hard to tell when a stock is too expensive because some stocks are expensive at a PE of 15, some others at a PE of 25 and some others at a PE of 40.
I'm willing to pay a high price for a stock that is way above competition and that grows a lot. However, there is a limit to my will to pay a lot.
I think that my limit is something like a PE of 50 and above.
There are some great companies that have done very well and will probably continue to do well for a long time, but their valuation is in another dimension. Just like they don't obey to the same laws of physics as other stocks.
Among them, there is Tesla, Square, The Trade Desk, IDEXX laboratories. There are also the "Pat Dorsey stocks" which are some negative earnings stocks where revenues grow a lot and should reach a breaking point soon (that way, the company will become profitable). Among these stocks, you'll find Upwork, Smartsheet and Wix, for instance.
If you take a look at all the stocks I've written above, you'll see that they've all done pretty well over the past. But Constellation Software has done very well too at a much lower PE than many of these stocks.
Every investor with a few years of experience develops his own zone of comfort or niche like we say, us, specialists in the field. Je réclame le droit de m'auto-proclamer sommité, stie.
Some people stick to the idea that the normal PE is 15 and they shouldn't buy anything that's more expensive than that. Some people don't even know what PE is and buy anything their guts tell them to buy.
Me, I like expensive stocks, but not too expensive. I'll use once again my analogy about cars and say that I like to buy Mercedes. Mercedes cars are expensive, but they're high quality cars and everybody knows that. I don't buy Ferraris because they're cars of exception. I can't tell if a Ferrari should be sold for 500 000$ or 1 million$. Tesla is good example of Ferrari. You get it?
My niche is mostly stocks with a PE between 30 and 40. That's expensive, but I buy stocks that are at least five times better than the average stock. Which maybe means that the price I pay is cheap for such quality. Can a specialist about logics can confirm my theory?
A good example is EPAM systems. I bought 30 shares in march 2020 (168 USD each), just as the market was going down like crazy because of COVID.
Today, these shares hit 700 USD. Just a little more than 18 months later, my shares more than quadrupled.
Everything was obvious in march 2020 with that stock: good ROE, good margins, great growth, no debt, great track record. The only burden was the price to pay. It was expensive. But guess what? It's still expensive.
That's why I like these 30-40 PE stocks with high growth. Usually, they deliver. Sometimes, they don't meet expectations and they go down like crazy. But among a portfolio of 20 stocks, when you own 10 of these expensive stocks, most of them do good. The condition is for you to analyze these stocks versus hundred of other stocks to be sure that they're really special and unique.
