Chris Davis and Robert Hagstrom explore the tension between holding great businesses and keeping a winning stock from becoming too much portfolio risk. Why do two investors who believe in letting winners compound also use 10% position limits?

On this episode of 100 Year Thinkers, Chris Davis of Davis Funds and Robert Hagstrom of EquityCompass join Matt Zeigler and Bogumil Baranowski to discuss position sizing, selling mistakes, index concentration and the cost of growth. From Chris Davis’s experience selling Costco to the debate over who will capture AI’s economic benefits, they examine what it takes to hold a business through uncertainty without ignoring risk. Stay for Matt and Bogumil’s closing discussion of the lessons for investors.

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Topics covered:

Why selling a genuinely great business can be an investor’s most expensive mistake
How client behavior and fund constraints influence 10% position limits
Chris Davis’s concerns about index concentration, momentum and future IPO incentives
Robert Hagstrom on trimming positions as the margin of safety shrinks
The bull-case pre-mortem: asking what could make selling today a mistake
What Chris Davis missed about Costco’s growth and ability to adapt
Why identical earnings growth can produce different shareholder returns
Whether AI spending builds durable pricing power or delivers more value to users
How customer trust and restraint on margins can strengthen competitive advantages
Balance sheets, circular financing and the humility required to size a position

⁠Chris Davis / Davis Funds⁠

⁠Robert Hagstrom / EquityCompass⁠

Chapters:

00:00 Holding great businesses and the case for position limits

06:47 Robert Hagstrom on concentration and client risk

12:40 Index concentration, momentum and IPO incentives

19:03 Trimming winners, margin of safety and the Costco lesson

30:09 Valuation, return on capital and the cost of growth36:01 Is AI’s capital spending cycle temporary?

40:10 AI pricing power: builders versus users

45:35 Competitive advantage, margins and customer trust51:45 Balance sheets and circular AI financing

55:53 Evaluating the AI investment cycle

01:00:23 Matt and Bogumil’s takeaways: position sizing and AI

01:10:25 Being an AI user versus an AI investor

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No information discussed in this podcast should be construed as investment advice. Securities discussed may be held by the hosts and guests, their firms or their clients.

The Winners That Get Away | Chris Davis and Robert Hagstrom on Holding Great Businesses

Excess Returns

The Winners That Get Away | Chris Davis and Robert Hagstrom on Holding Great Businesses