That depends on what you consider 'work'.

If it's something you choose yourself and really enjoy, it often doesn't seem like you're even working. If on the other hand you work in a coal mine or something I'd reckon that imagining the day you no longer have to do it is probably something you do more or less constantly.

What negative factor do you think investors overreact the most to improperly? When I ask this I mean the stock tanks over the next few months as the holders rotate out but new base end up reaping the gains from the old base's frustration.

Something I've been finding myself more in these days due to market valuations are names in where there is already assumption of capital mis-allocation / there has been from either a questionable or vertical merger. In most cases, I find the stocks to have lost more market value in the following months than how much they could have possibly overpaid. Do you usually find these situations as dumb due to them likely doing it again or reasonable given you'd rather buy this than a secular decliner for the same price (I'm seeing these at anywhere between 9x - 13x cash earnings but obviously leveraged, usually 4-5x post for a reasonably strong base business targeting ~3-3.5x in 2 yrs post completion).

This is a very good question and I want to give it more thought. Typically, I think the market tends to overreact to near-term earnings. I know it sounds obvious and silly, but people don't have a lot of imagination and just think the current environment will exist into perpetuity. I think I may have mentioned earlier that I like this shipping company (ticker ASC). They will be a big beneficiary of IMO 2020, a rule that will not go not effect until 2020. It's priced at a huge discount to NAV currently, however, since current earnings are anemic.

I'm not a huge fan of touching companies that make dumb, large acquisitions that lever them up. I recently came across a similar pitch for CCK...the pitch being that the share price collapse more-than-offset the dilution and that now management just has to execute and eventually the multiple re-rates (double-digit FCF yield today). I skimmed through it and immediately passed. Now, I could look like a huge idiot in 5 years and be wrong. But my simpleton view is that we're closer to the top than the bottom of the cycle. A lot of these investment opportunities paid-off over the past decade, but that's simply because we were in an improving business environment with unsustainably low interest rates. This is now reversing and I feel like a lot of these companies will potentially cause significant value destruction.

I'm actually in the initial due diligence phase on CCK with a similar thesis to the one above. Coincidentally some guy posted it on VIC recently as well so I'm not sure if that's the pitch you read. I haven't come to a conclusion on it yet but how many businesses (albeit overlevered in this case) are trading at double digit free cash flow yields, are basically an oligopoly, and have a mostly stable business that isn't being completely disrupted. There really aren't any. I think the biggest issue which is probably why you passed is if the debt becomes an issue faster than they can deleverage b/c of where we are in the economic cycle and instead of "only" being 4-5x going down it will be 5-6x with estimates coming down.

My PM and I have been in a similar view to you on where we are in the markets... unfortunately for much longer than just a year now but you got to find ways to make money somewhere right. I guess the only difference is that we haven't found a way to make 10% while having lower/similar net (although I assume much lower gross) so congrats to you on that since it's certainly very hard to do unless u were super long FAANG (i'm assuming you weren't).

What I've found is that with the markets where they are/have been my PM has had to do things outside his area of comfort to try to generate returns. While I'm not saying there's style drift here, it's certainly different from his bread & butter of buying cheap stocks and distressed debt. In fact, the only distressed debt we've really bought since starting has been energy companies and a sliver of retail stuff. It's rough since everything we do feels pretty marginal and tbh if it were up to him we'd be 100% t-bills right now. That's not a joke.

I'll probably take a look at ASC at some point. I first saw IMO 2020 recently and will probably take a closer look at some point. At first glance I'm pretty hesitant because it looks like just another crap & cyclical business that's levered trading below a theoretical NAV. I've seen this stuff when we started buying debt of offshore energy related companies cheap and frankly when cash burn became an issue no one cared about supposed NAVs and rebuild cost. What's different here is the catalyst whereas the aforementioned ones didn't have any.