So obviously, owning an "elite" business for years is a great idea for any investor at basically any level. And of course, you would like to invest when that business was fairly valued, if not undervalued. But for our discussion here, let’s exclude the value at which a business is priced. 1. What do you look for in an "elite" business? 2. What do you look for that indicates a business is becoming “elite”? 3. What are the indicators that a business is no longer “elite”?

I've attached the print and Kindle versions of the second edition of my book, "Dividend Growth Machine." It's still in draft format, so if you have any feedback, please let me know!

I have for some time followed the British super investor Terry Smith. A funny thing about his presentations is, that he presents key metrics for his entire portfolio (averages). All though my main focus is on selecting and holding individual stocks, I thought it could be fun to take a portfolio view. Here is a snapshot of my current US-stocks portfolio (avg of 24 holdings with weigths between 7,32 % to 2,58 %): Its quite expensive: P/E: 28,5 , EV/EBITDA: 20,9 , P/FCF: 24,8 But highly profitable: Profit margin: 62,4% , FCF Margin: 15,4% , ROCE: 18,3% And with a solid (but not impressive) outlook: Revenue FWD: 7,35% , EBITDA FWD: 9,99% , EPS FWD: 10,56% I was a bit surprised, especially by the relatively modest growth outlook - not sure I would invest in a company or ETF with these numbers;-). Made me reflect that I may be biased towards mature companies and that I should look to add a little more growth with my next investment. Do you use these kind of Portfolio averages? Which metrics do you follow and do you use it in your process?

If you didn't already know this--and, trust me, this took a loonnnnnggg time for me to learn--CEOs make a huge difference to the performance of a company and, by extension, its stock price. Starbucks got a new CEO today (the ex-CEO of Chipotle) and the stock rallied 23% in one day... all because of one person. If he can turn around Starbucks like he turned around Chipotle in March 2018, investors are looking at a fantastic investment. There are lots of issues, though... What do you think? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/starbucks-ceo-shakeup-sends-investors-buzzing-but-its-new-leader-faces-an-uphill-climb-195000389.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKan2Fg_VBQIJ8SlSxlVrptAkRWIAD6STUlPK_FKyF-mD90Ex0MJfe7mCIffg1sOaaPime85R2s3q4q5e5Q6dJiaSuD84WQMaxtyG8Vt5xGP0AcelZ-it3I-DAUxx_i6J0fbmxOsfQjHooMXCfZAFa0Ss0NGWHeiJfJWHvXEV5xL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FXuMs6YRCY