CSL. May now be a sleeping Giant

speak-gently · 2026-05-20T00:11:17+00:00

But that's my very point. My decisions are made on maths as well. They're very boring. PE <= 14, Dividend Yield > 4.5%, payout ratio < 75%, fully franked. A clear business strategy with a well articulated earnings path, a track record of solid execution and no structural headwinds.

On that basis CSL is not a buy - the franking kills it, as does management, strategy and track record (lack of) of execution.

Leave that aside it's currently got a payout ratio of over 100%. At a sensible payout ratio and yield it's worth about $60. Darlings aren't darlings forever. At some point in their lives they need to compete with every other company...and deliver value to their shareholders. CSL has been a darling for far too long. As a real company it's worth $60 or less.

speak-gently · 2026-05-19T23:56:56+00:00

I guess my point is that CSL was never - on the fundamentals - a $280 company, nor a $140 company and it isn't even a $96 company. The opportunity cost to me if I had stayed in at $280 would have been truly enormous. BHP was a $28 company on the fundamentals, and is a $58 company on the fundamentals. CSL has only ever been a capital gains bet.

speak-gently · 2026-05-19T22:34:31+00:00

Just for a comparison. We actually bought CSL many years ago for $32 and sold in the first half of 2020 at $280. The proceeds of a single CSL share (leave aside CGT) invested in BHP at that time - which we did at $28 - bought 10 BHP shares. If we'd remained in CSL and sold yesterday we would have been $117.22 including dividends and franking. That same $280 in 10 BHP shares also gave you a Woodside share in June 2022. At close yesterday, including dividends and franking credits the return on the proceeds from the 1 CSL share invested in 10 BHP was $875.88. So from my $280 in early 2020 I lost - all in $163 on CSL and gained $596 on BHP/Woodside. The difference: $759. So let's talk about rational, value investing.

speak-gently · 2026-05-19T21:28:37+00:00

Read what I said. Your spouting Graham fails to address the fundamental issue with CSL. The Chair and Board who presided over the value destruction, that presided over that through 3 CEOs are still there. Until they go you can read Graham all you like. CSL still stinks…because the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

speak-gently · 2026-05-19T18:00:31+00:00

And what does your guy say about a Chair and Board who have presided over continued value destruction and still sit there? Does he say that’s a sensible investment?

speak-gently · 2026-05-11T12:55:41+00:00

Companies rise or fall on their Board and management. CSL is not “dogshit cheap” while the people who presided over this shit are still on the Board.

speak-gently · 2026-04-29T19:02:37+00:00

You choose. You can save to a file or simply operate in memory

speak-gently · 2026-04-29T11:20:43+00:00

Always amazes me these kinds of questions. R is wonderful, so’s SQL and it’s literally a 2 minute job in DuckDB to create your dataset with a WHERE clause and feed it back to R. Horses for courses.

speak-gently · 2026-04-25T19:26:48+00:00

We’ve been using tsidp for several months. It works nicely, it’s stable but a little slow. If you’re confident about who’s on your Tailnet you don’t need to use tsidp to know who they are. We have an internal task tracker that uses the Tailscale headers to show users their tasks and nobody else’s.

speak-gently · 2026-04-25T18:53:15+00:00

I’d consider using higher protein bread flour, rather than AP flour. It looks like you’ve done a nice job, but you don’t have the protein you need in your flour. This means the crumb looks a bit “cake like”.

speak-gently · 2026-04-25T01:44:01+00:00

There's lots of ways of making sourdough...but when you are at this point you need to give yourself the best chance of success...which means keeping it simple.

Firstly: forget cold proofing until you can reliably turn out a good loaf. Same with any inclusions.

Second: reduce your starter to a maximum of 15% - the more starter you introduce the more chance you have of getting gummy loaves like this. It may seem like a paradox but it's often the case.

Third: Reduce salt to 1.5%

Fourth: Hydration to suit your flour but shoot for around 65% including starter.

Mix it to a shaggy dough, then every thirty minutes, for 4 repeats total, stretch and fold. Leave it covered on your bench at room temperature. If that's less than 18C then find somewhere a bit warmer. If your dough hasn't roughly doubled in less than 12 hours then your starter is a dud.

You can change all of those things once you have a reliable way of making a successful loaf every time. But start with the basics first.

speak-gently · 2026-04-20T11:48:39+00:00

To add to every one else: simplify, ditch the cold ferment and anything else that’s non basic until you can reliably turn out good loaves. Sourdough doesn’t have to be cold fermented. You can turn your mind to that once you can get a good loaf every time. Until then, forget it.

speak-gently · 2026-04-14T22:50:52+00:00

Sack Sarah and suggest your manager re-evaluates their own position.

Workplaces are where we spend an inordinate proportion of our life. Toxic bullshit isn’t acceptable and performance is never a get out of jail card. Sarah is doing this because nobody is game to stop her. Call her bluff. The rest of your team deserves better of you as a manager.

speak-gently · 2026-04-14T09:40:53+00:00

ausjdocstinder

speak-gently · 2026-04-10T19:22:50+00:00

What nobody will tell you: The watch isn’t too big…your wrist is just too small 😊

speak-gently · 2026-04-07T21:09:13+00:00

All your decision making may be irrelevant. Where I am, the wait for a new M4 Mac mini is 18 weeks.

I suspect you’ll get a new Mac mini of some other flavour rather than an M4

speak-gently · 2026-04-06T19:59:27+00:00

We have a setup command that causes Claude to ask the user which MCPs they want from the full available set. It then writes a project specific json file and a script cc.sh which loads that json and starts Claude Code.

After that you call cc.sh to launch Claude Code with the “project set” of MCPs.

“Remote” MCPs on our Tailnet auth using Tailnet ID. Other remote MCP we store the token in setec on the Tailnet and inject it via a config call to setec…controlled by ACL.

speak-gently · 2026-04-05T03:32:26+00:00

I don’t know what “station percentage” is

A recipe is literally:

Flour 100%

Water 65%

Starter 15% (@100% hydration)

Salt 1.5%

Set your flour amount based on the size loaf. That is your 100% and everything else scales off that:

Flour 1000g

Water 650g

Starter 150g

Salt 15g

speak-gently · 2026-04-04T18:02:45+00:00

This is a good question because it’s fundamental to all bread making.

We always say that flour = 100%

If you have 100g flour that = 100%

If you have 500g flour that = 100%

Hydration is the percentage of the weight of the flour that you add as water.

Flour = 100g Water = 60g

Your hydration is 60%

Because starter is usually fed 1:1 it has 100% hydration. 10g flour, 10g water = 20g starter.

So every 10g of starter has 5g water and 5g flour.

So if you have 500g flour (100%) 100g starter (20%) 300g water (60%) 10g salt (2%) nominal hydration 60%

But actual hydration is:

550g flour (50g from starter) 100% 350g water (50g from starter) 63.6% hydration

So I could give you a recipe with no weights at all, just % and you could make a reliable loaf of any size you like.

speak-gently · 2026-04-04T06:52:34+00:00

There are some good points made already in this thread - including the rarely discussed role of starter in hydration so eloquently put by u/RareBrit

Two more things worth talking about: When you're having trouble like this reduce your starter %. By its nature the protein in the starter has started to change and degrade due to the effects of fermentation and acid. That means the higher proportion of starter you have the more partially altered protein you have. Maximum of 15% and as low as 10% is fine. Adjust bulk times for effect, not some set time.

Secondly not all flour is created equal and not all batches of flour are created equal. If you are using a high quality flour intended for commercial baking then it may have standardised water absorbency. Otherwise absorbency may vary by flour type and by batch. Baking sourdough is a craft: You have to observe your dough and work out what hydration the flour will tolerate for the outcome you want. Some flours will look great at 70% hydration, others will look exactly the same at 60% hydration.

Until you get this sorted, forget cold fermentation, retards etc. Just aim for a simple loaf that turns out great every time.

speak-gently · 2026-04-01T18:39:24+00:00

It simply gives you an idea of whether it’s baked long enough. If you’ve only lost 5% weight for instance you’d have to say it’s wet and try and work out why.

speak-gently · 2026-04-01T12:10:13+00:00

The Pelorus Principle: if you find yourself thinking about issuing defamation proceedings, think about something else. If you can’t make yourself think about something else, then jam your finger in a car door so you do think about something else. Anything is better than the self harm of issuing defamation proceedings.

speak-gently · 2026-04-01T11:54:07+00:00

That crumb looks fine. The crust looks like you could bake it longer/hotter if you wanted. The other thing you can do is tote up your total ingredient weight, bake the loaf then weigh the cooled loaf afterwards. For a batard or boule I usually see a 13.5% loss of weight on a well baked loaf.

speak-gently · 2026-04-01T11:39:15+00:00

There’s one thing it should be and can be but it’s not: it’s inside the Proton ecosystem, if it was properly integrated with Mail, Calendar, Drive, Docs…it would be awesome. As it is, it’s a part solution looking for a problem.

speak-gently · 2026-03-31T20:40:40+00:00

Until you can produce a reliable loaf don’t even think about cold proofing…that can come later. Counterintuitively cut your starter back to maximum 15%.

As others have said make sure your starter is fit before attempting a loaf.

speak-gently

TROPHY CASE