When browsing the website of a local library in the San Francisco Bay Area, I noticed that they had a list of books on their website called "Investing Books You Should Know". Considering South San Francisco is more the biotech capital of the West Coast and doesn't really stand out for finance, I was a little surprised they put together this list. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this group of 25 books was actually a staff-curated list by the Greenwich Library and I was thrilled to see that my book "The Event-Driven Edge in Investing" was included on the list along with investing classics like "The Intelligent Investor" and "A Random Walk Down Wall Street". Recent books by my publisher Harriman House like @Downtown's "You Weren't Supposed to See That" and @morganhousel's "The Psychology of Money" are also on the list. Early next month, right after the Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha, I plan to be at a breakfast event that @vitaliyk is organizing. He was kind enough to include me in the book signing event that will be part of his breakfast. Authors like Adam J. Mead, Brett Gardner, Lawrence Cunningham, Luca Dellanna and Steve Jordon will also be at the book signing event. If you plan to be in Omaha next month, stop by, say hello and check out one of the books by these outstanding authors.

When it comes to finding signals in insider transactions @jessefelder is a kindred spirit. He has been looking at insider buying for ideas for the better part of three decades and it was this common interest that helped us connect more than a decade ago. His time at a multi-billion dollar hedge fund in Southern California during the late 1990s helped hone his ability to identify the signal from the noise of insider transactions. Tamanna Suria and I had the distinct pleasure of having Jesse join us as our guest on the podcast this week. The full episode will be out on Monday but I'm sharing a small clip where he discusses why he was interested in Ball Corporation during the dot com bubble and how he avoids the "true believers".

A whole new way to "mine" for gold!! Although I prefer the way Newmont $NEM does it. At its current cost of production, the company is essentially printing cash.

"We believe mgmt. wants to make sure it gets credit for that ramp, which could happen by letting the next 1-4 quarters play out." Management at $LION has been deeply entrenched and the company has become an "activist black hole". Carl Icahn's protege Mark Rachesky disappeared into it and it also swallowed our former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. At least after Mnuchin got involved, we managed to get rid of the dual class structure and Starz $STRZ was spun out. Like @valuedontlie I should have doubled down on Starz instead of $LION. Still long Lionsgate Studios and still willing to be patient but it feels like Feltheimer has perfected the art of moving the goal post.

This level of liquidity and innovation is the reason people the world over have been pouring into U.S. markets. I wonder if Japanese markets in the late 1980s felt this way or if that was mostly a domestic stock market and real estate bubble.

On the public company side, I have been looking into the boring company Mueller Water Products $MWA that makes things like fire hydrants. Yes, there is a data center angle but that part of their business is currently small. It showed up on my radar because of insider buying by an independent board member though a 10b5-1 plan. This director previously spent nearly 24 years at Morgan Stanley rising up to the position of Managing Director and Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions (Americas). Has an MBA from @UChicago and currently teaches at University of Virginia.

Mary Barra continues to show that she is the GOAT of the automotive industry. Despite the big pullback in $GM stock today, over the last year: Ford is essentially flat Rivian $RIVN is down 5% Tesla $TSLA is down 16% Stellantis is down a whopping 60% GM is up more than 30% Pulling back the curtain 10 years, Ford generated no returns (not taking dividends into account) and Stellantis lost a third of its value. GM is up 139% over the last 10 years. Barra took on the role of CEO in January 2014 after being with the company since 1980. Obviously the ten year return pales in comparison to the returns of Tesla or the NASDAQ over that time but she has continued to do a great job in a challenging industry that has undergone tremendous change since Tesla transformed the landscape.

Is it only for jet fighter pilots or will us mere mortals get training on how to land it coming off ramps like this? $TSLA

When looking at one of the Tyco companies recently (probably $ADT because of their large buyback announcement earlier this year and insider buying), I recounted this $6,000 shower curtain purchase to my team. Many such stories will likely emerge in the coming years when the bubble finally bursts.

Production ready code with zero QA I worry about this when an avalanche of vibe coded stuff eventually hits critical systems in production "Excluded as fabrication" was the best part of this resume.

Now that the Bumble $BMBL deal is confirmed, the key question is: when will this deal close? Usually we get an indication of that in the press release announcing the deal but that was not the case here. There is also something called the "outside date" that is specified in the merger agreement filed with the SEC and this is the drop dead date by which both parties expect to close the deal. Like most things in life, there are exceptions and outside dates often have extensions. In the case of Bumble, the outside date is July 12, 2027. Ithaca has also indicated that they don't plan to close before November 26, 2026. So we land somewhere between November 26, 2026 and July 12, 2027. The average time it takes deals to close based on about 15 years of our internal data tracking M&A is 120 days. Biotech deals generally tend to close much faster and the average there is closer to 90 days. Considering there doesn't appear to be shareholder, financing or antitrust risk here, I would not be surprised if this one closed in less than 90 days. Personally I would prefer that it close in 2027, so I don't have to think about short-term gains this year. Another situation I was involved in last year (the narcolepsy drug company Avadel), ended up closing just days before it would have turned into a long-term position for me and we ended up paying short-term capital gains on it. This is one of the issues with all cash deals that force a tax event for long-term shareholders.

Without looking closely, I would have thought this was from a Bond movie in the 1970s.

Looks like Nike $NKE isn't able to just do it anymore. It will need a significant amount of energy and work to regain its place in stores. I remember reading in Phil Knight's Shoe Dog book that his coach Bill Bowerman felt that runners only had a limited number of all-out races in their legs. I think they were referring to the legendary runner Prefontaine who unfortunately died in a car crash late one night in Eugene, Oregon. Incidentally I was in Eugene last year with some friends for a Ducks game and we crossed Pre's rock a few times as we drove up to our Airbnb in the hills above the University of Oregon. I hope Nike has a few more all-out races left in it. Overall I don't feel like the brand is impaired in the eyes of consumers despite their recent preference for On $ONON and Hoka $DECK. Disclosure: I am long $ONON but have been watching $NKE closely.

51% jump after hours in Liquidia $LQDA on this news.