Tremendous piece from Travis on ‘What Makes a Great Business’.
This is a MUST read for any investor.
A great business is like a great money manager. They take money in, invest it, and turn it into more money. In the case of a company, it can invest its money into manufacturing plants, marketing, hiring employees, or a variety of other things. If those investments return more money than they cost, the company’s value increases. If investments return less money than they cost, the value of the company decreases. Thus, building a successful business can be boiled down to investing money at high rates of return.
But there are only so many high return investments that a business can make. Just as finding undervalued investments became more difficult for Warren Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway grew, traditional businesses can only invest their capital at high rates for so long.
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The Market Plunger 