Flying home from Turkey today… after a much needed vacation
(Although I have kept up my streak of the market going down every time I leave the UK - so I’m sorry about that)
And there’s one thing Ivy will miss more than any other…
Not the swimming pools or massive kids play area… no no no
It's a little electric bus that shuttles you around the resort…
Every morning I asked Ivy what she wanted to do that day. Every morning I got the same answer.
"I see bus"
So we saw the bus… and rode on the bus… and waved to the bus… many, many times.
Somebody at this resort put serious money and thought into the swimming pools and the beach. The bus did not make the brochure…
But Ivy didn't care about the brochure… she cared about what actually delighted her.
The stock market works the same way.
Last October, I showed Capital Gains Multiplier students a company nobody puts in a brochure either…
FirstCash.
It runs pawn shops, more than 3,300 of them across the US, Latin America and the UK.
It's about as unfashionable as a business gets. Nobody brags about it at dinner parties.
Since CGM students first saw it, the stock is up 35%.
The business behind that move is even more impressive.
In July, FirstCash reported a record second quarter…
Revenue was up 29% on the year before... with EPS up 58%.
Plus management did something I always like to see…
They finished a $150 million share buyback, and the board immediately approved another $150 million.
And when a company buys back its own shares… every share you still hold owns a slightly bigger piece of the business… meaning you get richer without lifting a finger.
(More on this topic tomorrow)
So while everyone stares at the pools, the real returns are often riding around on the bus.
Oliver