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The New 2019–2020 Uber Cannibals

3/29/2019

10 Comments

 
In late December 2016, I co-wrote an article on Forbes.com that introduced the "Uber Cannibals," a 5-stock investing strategy that invests in businesses aggressively buying back their own stock. This is a "set it and forget it for one year" strategy that rebalances every April when 5 companies are selected for the portfolio for the upcoming year. 

We are now ready for the April 2019 picks.

Recap of 2018 Uber Cannibals:


As a recap, in my 3/31/17 blog post, we met Ms. Sonia Patel, who had embarked on her Uber Cannibals investing journey with $100,000 from her IRA account at Interactive Brokers. Sonia invested in the first 5 Uber Cannibals on 1/3/17, and then rebalanced her portfolio annually in April. The 2018 - 2019 Uber Cannibals were:
  1. Sleep Number Corp. (SNBR)
  2. Corning Inc. (GLW)
  3. PulteGroup (PHM)
  4. Discover Financial Services (DFS)
  5. Lear Corp. (LEA)
 
As of 3/29/19, Sonia's $100k was worth $136,656 (after trading costs), up 36.7%. If Sonia had instead invested in the S&P 500 over that period, she would be up 32.4% and her portfolio would be worth approx. $4k less, or $132,389.

Please note, Uber Cannibals performance includes trading costs and also assumes that stocks are bought at the high price of the day and sold at low price of the day, whereas S&P 500 and Small Dogs of the Dow performance does not include trading costs and assumes that stocks are bought at last close.

Last 12 Months

Since 1/3/17

 Value of $100K invested on 1/3/17

Uber Cannibals

4.1%

36.7%

$136,656

S&P 500

9.5%

32.4%

$132,389

Small Dogs of the Dow

19.4%

28.3%

$128,288

 

Corning, PulteGroup, Discover and Lear paid dividends totaling $1,950. Per our rules, Sonia reinvested those dividends back into the same businesses.
 
Below is the 1 year return of the 2018-2019 Uber Cannibals:

Company

1 year return

Sleep Number Corp.

33.7%

Corning Inc.

21.6%

PulteGroup

-3.8%

Discover Financial Services

1.0%

Lear Corp.

-25.8%

 

The Uber Cannibals strategy makes sense if you intend to follow it for at least a decade or two (or longer). So we shouldn't fixate too much on short term performance. But the Ubers are doing quite well! I am happy to see that Sonia is doing quite well so far.
 
The New Uber Cannibals:
 
For 2019 - 2020, our algorithms selected the following five Uber Cannibals:
​
  1. Sleep Number Corp. (SNBR)
  2. Corning Inc. (GLW)
  3. Asbury Automotive Group Inc. (ABG)
  4. Quanta Services Inc. (PWR)
  5. Allison Transmission Holdings Inc. (ALSN)

Sleep Number Corp. (for the second time in a row) and Corning Inc. will continue to be in the portfolio for yet another year. But we have three new kids on the block.
 
If you invested in the Uber Cannibals in April 2018, then leave Sleep Number Corp and Corning untouched, and sell PulteGroup, Discover and Lear Corp. Then invest the proceeds equally among the three new kids: Asbury Automotive, Quanta Services, and Allison Transmission Holdings. 

If you invested in the Uber Cannibals in April 2018 in a taxable account, try to sell the winner (currently Discover Financial Services) after holding it for at least 366 days and the losers (PulteGroup and Lear Corp) after no more than 364 days.
 
If you are a new investor to the Uber Cannibals, you can just equal weight the five stocks (i.e., invest the same amount of money in each of these five) and keep that portfolio until April 2020, when I'll provide the 2020 - 2021 portfolio on www.ChaiWithPabrai.com. Happy Cannibal Investing!

The five-stock Uber Cannibals strategy can be combined with the five-stock Shameless Cloning and Spinoffs strategies into the 15-stock Free Lunch Portfolio. While the Uber Cannibals rebalance in April, the Shameless Cloning and Spinoffs rebalance in December. You can find the 2019 picks for Shameless Cloning and Spinoffs in my post from December 2018.  

Note, anyone who invests in any strategy needs to do their own research/due diligence and are themselves fully responsible for the outcome. 
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10 Comments
Lewis Chen
3/30/2019 11:44:06 am

I'm a great fan of you and Guy. I wonder I've missed somwsomet in the above writing on Ms. Sonia Patel's return 2018. Given the 5 stocks were equally weighted, her return should be 5.34%. A $100,000 investment should render $105,340.

Would appreciate receiving your comments on this. Thanks.

Reply
Yy
3/30/2019 05:54:57 pm

She invested since 2017. Returns are annualised since inception.

Reply
Mukul
4/3/2019 09:53:58 pm

Thanks a lot Mohnish, Happy to be learning about investing.

Reply
Mukul
4/4/2019 04:12:55 pm

I am happy to be able to communicate with you, Who are you cloning MU? Seth Klarman is not into it anymore.

Reply
Mukul
4/23/2019 09:16:18 pm

Got it is from david tepper.
thanks

Reply
Best website developer Company in Kanpur link
4/18/2019 05:38:11 am

It’s always so sweet and also full of a lot of fun for me personally and my office colleagues to search your blog a minimum of thrice in a week to see the new guidance you have got.

Reply
Mukul
4/27/2019 02:44:24 pm

Thanks a lot Mohnish,
Have been trying to follow you, Now happy to follow your blog.
its a bit surprising that you have picked up Citibank over bac or banks which have been picked by Buffet.

Reply
Ravajappa Gouda
5/12/2019 09:09:29 am

Can I get some color on combining "Uber Cannibals" investing with "shameless cloning" and "spinoffs" as suggested back in the December article? In the sense, how do you I do the capital allocation between 3 groups of stocks.
I am starting to experiment with 10K and plan on adding 10K additional capital every year by their weighted averages after the rebalance. A discipline I am committed to following for the next 10 years.

Reply
Manoj
5/16/2019 01:20:58 pm

This is very interesting question I was thinking about this.Lets see Mr Pabrai's input on this.

Reply
Aakash link
6/18/2019 11:28:37 pm

Very nice blog content
Thanx for sharing with us

Reply



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    Mohnish Pabrai

    Mohnish Pabrai is the founder and Managing Partner of the
    Pabrai Investments Funds, the founder and CEO of
    Dhandho Funds, and the author of The Dhandho Investor and Mosaic. 

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