Shawn Burns is Solve the Riddle

  LESSONS FROM 40 YEARS OF WEALTH ACCUMULATION Introduction I bought my first shares in November 1985, the 40th anniversary is here!!—here's what I learnt since, sometimes the hard way! Through the various cycles, events and characters, the journey and outcomes have been an intriguing, rewarding and interesting way to spend time. Below, I have attempted to avoid, firstly, pointing out stocks you should have bought, as there are no time machines. Unless there is a lesson to take forward, there is little point in hindsight stock wins. Secondly, I have tried to avoid motherhood statements and the stuff everyone has heard a thousand times before. Broad Lessons 1.       Stay in the game, protect your capital and never risk too much. To this point, I have never squeezed the lemon dry; of course, I may have increased my returns by doing so, but that would have increased the chance of oblivion. We can choose where we sit when considering the chances of ob...

  ARISTOCRAT FY25 RESULT A mixed bag for ALL, remembering the group is going through a transition, but not a significant one. Going into this result, we had the sale of Plarium and the acquisition of the Interactive business (Neogames) to mess up the numbers a bit. ALL restated the comparable, fair enough, but it makes it messy. Given this, revenues were in line with my expectations, and NPATA was 5% ahead of my numbers, but this figure adds back a few significant items, as shown below. Overall, the underlying NPATA was up modestly, overall flat due to the divestments. ALL can be considered a mid to high single-digit profit grower, with upside to low double-digit profit growth if the new businesses are successful. Note: Big Fish was divested post-balance date. Guidance was for NPATA growth in 2026 on a CC basis. ALL is in a transition year with the exit from the social casual segment and the acquisition of the NeoGames businesses. On my segments, Gaming did slightly bet...

  UNSCRIPTED BUFFETT & MUNGER AGM COMMENTARIES (Italics where I think it is particularly interesting) VALUE INVESTING And if you know the difference between the businesses that you can value and the ones you can't, you're going to make money . We basically look for companies where we think we could understand what the future will look like in 5, 10 or 15 years. That doesn’t mean we calculate it to four decimal places—but we need to have a feel for it, and we know our limitations. If you are looking for the ability to correctly value all investments at all times, we can't help you. Over time, I've learned more about various businesses, but you would be amazed at how many businesses I don’t feel that I understand well. You don’t have to be an expert on 90% of businesses, or 80%, 70% or even 50%. But you do have to know something about the ones that you actually put your money into—and if that’s a very small part of the universe, that is still not a kille...