On Reading: How reading forms our world views

Why read when most of us can’t even remember what we just read? That’s a question I’m sure lots of us wrestle with and get frustrated by. Gladly, there were two specific beliefs that brought me solace and motivated me to read even more. The first one came to me after reading Paul Graham’s essay, […]

Portfolio Review

2019 has been a fruitful year for the portfolio so far. In 1Q19, the portfolio returned 17.69%, versus 10.51% for the MSCI ACWI ex-US, and 9.16% for the DAX. Year-to-date, the portfolio has returned 23.22%, versus 11.84% for the MSCI ACWI ex-US and 16.60% for the DAX. The careful and strategic choice to operate a […]

My Investing Blueprint

I believe in cataloguing my progress and decisions so I can always come back to study them and improve as an investor. Therefore, I would like to share part of my pitch that I used to raise capital from family and friends back in mid-2018. The document below covers my investment philosophy and process. But […]

The Imitation Game: Part 2

Intro Previously, in Part 1, I discussed a way of scrutinizing funds’ holdings to find a handful of ideas that meet one’s criteria for investing. This part will focus on applying the framework laid out in Part 1 to FPA’s International Value Fund [referred to in the rest of the post mostly as ‘FPA’] portfolio, […]

Understanding Amazon’s Economic Moats

Thesis This piece is about understanding the source, power, and reach of Amazon’s competitive advantage(s). My thesis is the following: Amazon’s durable and non-replicable advantage stems from the successful integration of its retail, technology, and logistics businesses; and this integration is itself a derivative of Amazon’s customer-centricity. Context Identifying and assessing companies’ competitive advantages […]

Activism Is Dead, Long Live Activism

Shareholder activism has evolved from the leveraged raiders of the 80s to a more collaborative approach, without losing its assertiveness of purpose. The big picture changes in the world have aided this shift. Good governance has become a mantra for businesses, and it has been proven to be the key for corporate efficiency and shareholder […]

Keep On Keepin’ On

Markets today are more challenging than ever, but value investing is the way going forward. The choking volume of ETFs trading and indexation in the market, the normalization of interest rates, low volatility (VIX), China’s rebalancing, the ongoing EU worries, and mainly the volume of personal, corporate and sovereign debt in the US and the […]

Don’t pay TOO MUCH attention to the Fed!

“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of […]

The Investing Wisdom of a 1920s Bootlegger

“A deal will always wait, and a fool will always rush in” –– Arnold Rothstein Life seems to have very few fundamental truths that aren’t up for interpretation. The value of patience for success in investing is one of them. Learning to deal with the abyss of uncertainty and the plague of loss seems […]

Value Tripod

Much has and will been written about the anatomy of value investing. Anyone who has studied and practiced the discipline knows that whilst clear, value investing is far from easy. Thinking otherwise makes for a mechanical and myopic approach. Value investing, in its core, is a philosophy. An investment process follows, and may take many […]