As you'll be aware, I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy managing my fund and attending to other priorities. I didn't/don't have any explicit plan to reboot the blog near term. I have, however, been doing some research on Georgia of late, and felt passionately enough about my ideas and the potential contribution I could make to the issue (and its importance), that I started to pen a twitter thread about it. That thread inadvertently grew into a long blog-worthy essay (brevity is not one of my attributes), so I thought I might as well post it on my blog as well, for what it's worth. Thanks to all my readers, and keep a look out as I may be back one day! LT3000
The LT3000 Blog
Eclectic musings on value investing, business, economics, and life
Thursday 16 May 2024
What is really going on in Georgia
Thursday 24 February 2022
Russia update - the road to war
I thought it would be worth penning a few further thoughts on the current Russo-Ukrainian situation, as my thoughts have evolved somewhat in recent days, coincident with recent events which are changing rapidly. While the situation in the Donbass has now been (somewhat) resolved - though the potential for disputes about the resultant borders remain a potential source of near term conflict - the longer term issues have not yet been resolved, and indeed there is a growing risk of an escalation into an all out Russo-NATO hot war. These issues may or may not lead to a major short term escalation extending up to the point of a nationwide Ukrainian invasion, but irrespective of that, they will continue to linger and lead to potentially longer term escalation and conflict. Given the graveness of the situation, it believe it is important the issues are properly understood. (please read footnote)*
Sunday 30 January 2022
Neil Young vs. Rogan/Spotify, Meta Values, and Pluralistic vs. Authoritarian Societies
This will not be a long blog article, as I only wish to make one simple point, and doing so does not require a long exposition. However, I believe the point to be of absolutely vital importance, and is too frequently overlooked in today's tortured political discourse and latest skirmish de jour. And its import extends well beyond the proximate instantiation at hand.
Friday 28 January 2022
Demystifying Putin: US vs. Russia geopolitics - the real story
In recent months, Russia has once again been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, with the US and Western media loudly proclaiming (since November) that Russia is planning an imminent invasion of the Ukraine, though Russia has repeatedly denied that fact and it's not exactly clear what Russia is waiting for, or what advantage it could expect to derive from lying about its intentions at this point (the whole Western world expects an invasion and the US has pulled embassy staff from Kiev).
Thursday 20 January 2022
Taking (slight) issue with Graham's "weighing machine"; and unpacking "intrinsic value"
In this post, I thought I'd kick off the new year with some minor sacrilege, by taking slight issue with some of Ben Graham's most-quoted ideas. Ben Graham very famously asserted that "in the short run, the stock market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine". However, when subsequently asked what the specific mechanism was by which stocks were, in time, pushed towards their fair, weighted value, Graham was unable to specify one (though a quick Google for the specific quote did not yield a source I can supply here).1 He also advocated for the disposition of positions after a specified holding period, should the said appropriate re-weighting fail to transpire (2-3 years from memory).2 As I will discuss, this is not a policy/framework I agree with.
Thursday 13 May 2021
Tech, inflation, and the tyranny of the numerator
Over the last three months, market inflation fears have increased - and not without good cause, given the increasing number of companies reporting supply shortages, cost pressures, and price increase, and the recent US CPI print coming in at 4.2% - which has pressured the share prices of tech/growth stocks in particular (and to a lesser degree, the broader market). US 10 year treasury yields have risen from 0.9% to 1.7% this year, in fits and starts, and tech and other narrative-driven growth stocks have come under pressure with sell-offs correlating with higher inflation concerns and rising treasury yields.
Friday 23 April 2021
Elon Musk; Simulated Universes; Moore's Curse; The Fermi Paradox; Mars colonization; and Technological Hubris
Overall, I'm a fan of Elon Musk. He is smart; articulate; a great innovator, engineer, and entrepreneur; an incredibly hard worker; and in many ways a very inspirational figure - someone willing to try bold new things and tackle difficult problems. Oftentimes controversial, to be sure, but a net force for good in the world. The world needs more people like Elon Musk. As I've commented in the past, Musk is the virtual embodiment of George Bernard Shaw's quote: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man". Musk is the paradigmatic unreasonable man.
Saturday 17 April 2021
Crypto-mania is back: Crypto vs. Fiat, and why newer isn't always better
After a multi-year hiatus, cryptocurrency has recently stormed back to the fore, with Bitcoin breaching new highs above US$60k, along with a resurgence in a multitude of other crypto currencies, whose aggregated market capitalization has now run up to some US$2tr.
Wednesday 11 November 2020
Unravelling value's decade-long underperformance (and imminent resurgence)
In a recent (generally excellent) podcast with Inside the Rope with David Clark (#78), John Hempton discussed (amongst other things) value's past decade of underperformance, and opined that the primary driver was the fact that the pace of technological change had accelerated, such that we have seen an unprecedented level of disruption to traditional business models. Value investors have apparently spent a decade naively riding doomed low-multiple companies like the Myers of this world into oblivion.
Tuesday 28 July 2020
Market inefficiency, liquidity flywheels, asset class arbitrage, and Hong Kong Land
Monday 11 May 2020
Coronavirus update: From an unknown unknown to a known unknown
Tuesday 17 March 2020
Coronapocalypse - some thoughts
Saturday 29 February 2020
Dynamic vs. static analysis, and what the US shale and technology sectors have in common
Thursday 6 February 2020
Afterpay Touch: a more expensive solution to an existing, solved problem
Friday 31 January 2020
Facebook - the bear case
Thursday 30 January 2020
Learning the wrong lessons; style drift; and why smart value investors underperform
Friday 24 January 2020
Extrapolation; Technology One & SaaS; Affiliated Managers Group; margins of safety; and growth bubbles
Sunday 12 January 2020
Demystifying post-GFC economics; the problem with scarcity; interest rates; long political cycles; and the end of history
Sunday 10 November 2019
How much cash should you hold? The case for being fully invested
Friday 8 November 2019
Free speech; Mark Zuckerberg; and online 'misinformation'
Thursday 7 November 2019
Contrarianism; ESG investing; coal; and climate change
Monday 2 September 2019
A duration-bubble or a low-volatility bubble?
Thursday 29 August 2019
How worried should we really be about an inverting yield curve?
Thursday 15 August 2019
Investing in low conviction stocks; jumping the gun on EVs; and Tenneco
Wednesday 14 August 2019
Why P/E multiples are (justifiably) lower in periods of high inflation
Why profits matter (and value investing is not dead)
Thursday 6 June 2019
Greek update #3: The narrative flips; selling Piraeus
Saturday 1 June 2019
The (real) way to solve the (real) US trade deficit problem
Monday 20 May 2019
The problem with Ben Thompson's 'aggregation theory'
Saturday 18 May 2019
Berkshire Hathaway succumbs to the tech bubble
Monday 13 May 2019
Uber, delusion, and ride-hailing's structural economic inefficiency
Thursday 9 May 2019
Turkey update, Lira outlook, and keeping one's eye on the ball
Wednesday 13 March 2019
The great bribe-the-distributor US drug pricing scam
Thursday 7 March 2019
Is another tech bust coming?
Thursday 21 February 2019
Flawed thinking on buybacks, and why buybacks are still underutilized
Wednesday 6 February 2019
The value of what is vs. what could be, and the economics of disruption redux
Sunday 3 February 2019
The real reason populism is rising in the West
Thursday 31 January 2019
The Road to Serfdom: How identity politics and socialist-communist ideology are intimately linked
The art of worldly wisdom, smoking, and British American Tobacco
Monday 28 January 2019
Apple's strategic dilemma
Saturday 26 January 2019
Fishing where the cod is, and Munger's stunning rebuke of many 'value' investors
Friday 25 January 2019
The capacity to suffer, LCV/CAC, and Capital One Financial
Wednesday 23 January 2019
Is Netflix screwed?
Tuesday 22 January 2019
US cultural breakdown, and identity politics run amok
Sunday 20 January 2019
Worst marketing campaign ever...?
Saturday 19 January 2019
Greek bank update: The importance of regulatory forbearance
Thursday 17 January 2019
WSJ exposes corrupt hospital practices that inflate healthcare bills
In December, the WSJ ran an excellent article/expose on another feature of the system that is well worth discussing. I highly recommend the article be read in full (paywall). The article highlights how increasing market consolidation and 'vertical integration' amongst hospital networks into the provision of primary healthcare services, coupled with a third-party payer system and a lack of price transparency, have all contributed to the cost of labs tests and other tests & procedures all being grossly inflated.
Wednesday 28 November 2018
Eurobank addendum: Merger with Grivalia
Sunday 25 November 2018
Stories, Greek myths, and Eurobank
Wednesday 17 October 2018
Pessimism on global growth reaches November 2008 levels; is it justified?
Now I find this very interesting. Global markets were a day ago down more than 6% MTD, and outside of the US, markets have been pummelled this year across EM (emerging markets) and Europe. Investors have been gripped by trade war fears, rising short and long rates in the US alongside tightening Fed policy, a rallying USD (harming EM, and creating fears around USD-denominated indebtedness in some of these nations), as well as rising nationalist politics in countries such as Italy. This has created a pervasive sense of malaise, and sent markets into a tailspin.
Monday 15 October 2018
Activist excess, incentives, and the undersupply of grievance
Monday 1 October 2018
When reason fails: Mitchell's damning report; media bias; and disillusionment
Sunday 30 September 2018
The Venezuelan economic policy manual (satire)
Saturday 29 September 2018
Kavanaugh-gate and human irrationality
Wednesday 19 September 2018
The Australian housing bust: Why this time is different
Monday 17 September 2018
On China's (putative) real estate construction bubble... facts vs narratives
Friday 14 September 2018
The correct way to think about risk
Thursday 13 September 2018
The ethics of ethical investing
Thursday 16 August 2018
Is Elon Musk's attempted Tesla privatisation a covert bail-out?
Monday 13 August 2018
A capitulation point in Turkey?
Wednesday 1 August 2018
The (real) cautionary tale of David Einhorn
Tuesday 17 July 2018
Trade wars, economic ideology, and why Trump has a point
Tuesday 29 May 2018
New valuation metrics for tech companies, and Spotify
Monday 28 May 2018
Why value investing works and will continue to work
Friday 18 May 2018
Gold's hidden risk
Saturday 31 March 2018
Motivated reasoning and the root cause of intellectual intolerance
Saturday 3 March 2018
Samsung, and how to make money without a crystal ball
Friday 2 March 2018
Why Russia public display of nuclear strength is paradoxically comforting
Friday 23 February 2018
Favouring the specific over the general; Tinkoff and Washington Prime Group
Monday 12 February 2018
Does money make you happy?
Sunday 11 February 2018
Expedia and dodgy accounting
Saturday 10 February 2018
Life expectancy and the cost of capital
Friday 9 February 2018
Bargain stocks in HK/China; no-brainer investing; and Dongfeng Motor
Wednesday 7 February 2018
Some thought's on the market's recent volatility
Monday 29 January 2018
Market efficiency and Telecom Italia Savings Shares
Bitcoin holder alert: financial libertarians beware
Sunday 28 January 2018
Which job offer would you prefer? A value vs. growth allegory
Saturday 27 January 2018
Bill Miller & the coming equity bubble
Wednesday 24 January 2018
Finding investment ideas, Brighthouse Financial; Dignity plc; and favouring breadth over depth
Saturday 20 January 2018
Why US drug prices have been rising, not falling
Friday 19 January 2018
Exit humility; enter mental flexiblity
Wednesday 17 January 2018
Why is society becoming so polarised?
Sunday 14 January 2018
Multi-disciplinary thinking; the gender wage gap; and amoral markets
Saturday 13 January 2018
The real (and misunderstood) economics of disruption
Thursday 21 December 2017
Bitcoin addendum: Running out of oxygen; the 'money of the internet' fallacy; and bitcoin futures & systemic risk
Saturday 2 December 2017
Bursting the Bitcoin Bulls' Bubble
Tuesday 28 November 2017
The economics of blogging, and the challenges for traditional media & content creators
Monday 27 November 2017
All set for the biggest equity bubble in history?
Monday 16 October 2017
Why I (and the market) are not worried about nuclear war with North Korea, and why Richard Thaler is wrong
"We seem to be living in the riskiest moment of our lives, and yet the stock market seems to be napping.... I admit to not understanding it".
Thursday 12 October 2017
The (real) truth about our debt
Friday 11 August 2017
James Damore vs. The Google Archipelago
Wednesday 9 August 2017
Michael Kors +21.5%, and why value investing is so hard
Sunday 6 August 2017
BMW & bargains in plain sight
Saturday 5 August 2017
Deflationary delusions, the wealth effect, and the direction of causality
Monday 31 July 2017
Seeing through the stock-based compensation ruse
Friday 28 July 2017
Why I think digital currencies will go to zero
Sunday 23 July 2017
The 'ick factor', and Ambac as an interesting long
This is so for many reasons. For a start, it goes without saying that growth & fashion-chasing investors are unlikely to be interested in picking over dead carcasses, but the ick factor also means that a lot of otherwise intelligent and contrarian value investors, who generally act as the buyers of last resort in out of favor industries/stocks/countries, are also unlikely to even bother looking at it. This can result in larger-than-average degrees of undervaluation.
Wednesday 19 July 2017
Time to take a punt on Nagacorp?
The company took the significant downturn in Chinese VIP gambling activity in 2015-16 in its stride (which followed a Chinese corruption crack-down which hit Macau pretty hard), with the downturn barely registering in Nagacorp's financials. This reflected the property's mass-market appeal (about 50% of gross profit), coupled with its VIP positioning as something of a 'poor man's Macau' (although it has also been speculated that company has benefitted from Cambodia's somewhat more 'off the radar' location and lax oversight). The casino also benefits from gambling tourism from Vietnam, where until recently gambling was outlawed (a modest relaxation of these restrictions is currently being discussed/trialled).
Saturday 15 July 2017
Unicorn bubbles, Clutter, and the value of time
Many of these Unicorns are marketing a number of cool new O2O services, and are growing active users and (sometimes) revenues very rapidly. The narrative is that everyone else - including incumbent players in adjacent old-world industries - have been too dumb to recognize the opportunity to provide such services on new-technology platforms, and that only tech-savvy 20-somethings have been smart enough to figure out both the business opportunity and how to bring such products & services to market. Mobile apps now mean every industry is ripe for 'disruption'.