The LT3000 Blog

Over the last three months, market inflation fears have increased - and not without good cause, given the increasing number of companies rep...

Overall, I'm a fan of Elon Musk. He is smart; articulate; a great innovator, engineer, and entrepreneur; an incredibly hard worker; and ...

After a multi-year hiatus, cryptocurrency has recently stormed back to the fore, with Bitcoin breaching new highs above US$60k, along with a...

In a recent (generally excellent) podcast with Inside the Rope with David Clark (#78), John Hempton discussed (amongst other things) value&#...

Conventional economic theory holds that the marketplace in financial assets ought to be 'efficient'. Large numbers of intelligent an...

On March 17th, I blogged some thoughts on the coronavirus outbreak; its significance; and how I was seeing the outlook. While we are still f...

Over the past few weeks, markets have witnessed a legitimate 'black swan' event with the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic, which h...

Over the past decade, few industries have incinerated as much shareholder capital as the US shale oil and gas (O&G) sector. Attracted by...

Afterpay Touch (APT AU) is a stock that has acquired a cult following in recent years. The shares have risen spectacularly, and catapulted t...

Facebook is currently a stock beloved by both growth and value investors alike. It is an esteemed member of the FANG club - an aristocrat of...

There are many things that separate the great value investors from the poor to mediocre, but aside from simply being better or worse at valu...

Of the many causes of market inefficiency and investor misjudgement, there is perhaps no more important contributor than investors' tend...

The post-GFC era has given rise to widespread investor confusion, as macroeconomic and market outcomes have deviated from the received econo...

Over the past decade, a number of highly-regarded value investors with attractive long term track records have lagged the major benchmarks, ...

I've been intending to write a post on free speech for quite some time. I've made several attempts, but it never quite crystallised ...

It is widely acknowledged in the investment world that one need think and act in a contrarian manner in order to achieve outsized returns an...

I'm a fan of Antipodes Partners, and always find their commentaries insightful. In the company's latest investor update (see below),...

In an interview a few years ago, Elon Musk responded to a question on what had enabled him to innovate so effectively by saying: "I thi...

It is fashionable amongst the value investing community these days to hold a concentrated portfolio of high conviction ideas. Indeed, any ot...

The history of financial markets makes it abundantly clear that empirically, P/E multiples have sharply compressed during periods of high in...

We have currently reached the point in this (unusual in many respects) cycle where many investors/commentators have started to question whet...

Late last year, I wrote a blog post on the Greek banks, with a particular focus on Eurobank. I discussed how the popular narrative at the t...

Last year, I wrote a piece ( here ) opining that Trump had a point in objecting to the US's large and persistent trade deficit - even if...

Ben Thompson, via his website Stratechery ('Strategy' and 'Tech'), has made a name for himself over the past decade populari...

We have currently reached the point in the cycle where investors are once again questioning whether traditional value investing is dead. The...

Uber's much-anticipated IPO occurred on Friday, and to the surprise of almost no one (sensible), the stock ended the session down 7% (de...

In recent weeks/months, Turkey has again been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. This time the focus has been on the acrimonious o...

The US Senate Finance Committee recently conducted a hearing investigating galloping list prices for US drugs, quizzing the chiefs of a numb...

The technology sector (referring to online services, and to a lesser extent, SaaS, which is somewhat different in the B2B space) has been on...

Something I encounter repeatedly in the world of investment commentary/analysis is a lot of flawed thinking and fundamental confusion about ...

In the past, I have blogged about both the often-tortured debate on the growth vs. value investing dichotomy, and how in my assessment, many...

In recent years, we have seen the emergence of 'populist' movements across many developed countries, from the US (Trump) to the UK (...

In the world of investing, politics is a little bit like economics. Despite all the incessant media chatter, most of the time it doesn't...

When students study either undergraduate finance or an MBA, they are taught various methods of valuing companies - primarily discounted cash...

After a heady run, Apple has been a poor performer over the past several months, and has de-rated to levels that have started to attract val...

I've been thinking a lot over the past few years about some of the things I seem to be doing differently to the vast majority of self-de...

Earlier this week, Capital One Financial (COF US) - a stock I own - announced a 4Q18 result which, while above expectations at the EPS line ...

Netflix has become a darling stock over the past decade (despite a moderation in the euphoria of late), and is an honourary member of the FA...

Fairly extraordinary things are currently happening in US popular culture. A short clip of a native American man banging a drum near the fac...

Ominous music plays. "Women, is this the best we can do, really?", booms a voiceover. Scenes play in the background of women being...

In November of last year, I blogged about the Greek banks, and specifically Eurobank. Since that time, Greek bank prices have remained under...

Last year, I discussed how corrupted incentives have acted to inflate drug prices well above what would have occurred in a properly functio...

The very next day after the publication of my recent piece on Eurobank, the company announced a merger with Greek real estate investment com...

Human beings love to tell stories. It is thought by anthropologists that throughout much of human evolutionary history, large amounts of tim...

The WSJ reported this morning that, quoting BoAML data, "fund managers are the most pessimistic they have been on global growth since N...

In recent times in the West, we have seen a trend towards outraged activism being taken to sometimes absurd extremes. Furthermore, we have s...

I really hate to write another piece on the Kavanaugh saga, as I really do not wish to unduly politicise this blog. However, this is entirel...

For the good governance and prosperity of the Venezuelan people, we recommend policymakers adhere to the following policy framework:

I'm going to wade - perhaps unwisely - into some fraught and controversial territory with this post, but I can't help myself because...

In recent months, media articles have begun to surface highlighting the fact that Australian property prices have started to fall, and indee...

The consensus opinion in many parts of global financial markets is that China's economy is little more a giant leveraged real estate and...

In my opinion, most stock market investors fundamentally misunderstand risk and think about it in the wrong way. Most investors abhor risk a...

In recent years, there has been a trend towards the launch and promotion of 'ethical' funds, that forbid investment in companies eng...

I've been a long time follower and admirer of Elon Musk. I've listened to all his interviews, watched many of his presentations, and...

If the media and financial market consensus is to be believed, Turkey is currently in the midst of a veritable financial crisis. Yet in trut...

Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn was recently the subject of a widely-circulated hit piece by the Wall Street Journal, which came a fe...

Trade has become a hot-button issue this year, with Trump having already implemented several rounds of tariffs targeted (primarily) at China...

There is a very old saying in markets - that the four most dangerous words in the English language are 'this time is different', and...

I am often asked why I expect value investing (traditionally defined as focusing on buying sectors of the market trading at relatively low m...

Gold has been a longtime investment favourate of many investors, despite its lackluster long term track record,* and not just for perpetual ...

To anyone who has been paying attention to issues of free speech and radical liberalism in places such as the US (and increasingly in most W...

It is popular in markets to make definitive predictions about the future, and then position one's portfolio to benefit should those pred...

In his recent state-of-the-nation address, Russian president Vladimir Putin demonstrated new nuclear capabilities the nation has been develo...

In markets, there is a frequent biasing of the general over the specific, and it is a recurring source of opportunity for investors that are...

It's an age-old question, and is one that is usually answered a lot less well than it should be. As is usually the case for questions li...

I took a quick look at Expedia (EXPE US) last night (yes, this is indeed how I like to spend many of my Saturday evenings). Expedia is one o...

It is popular in many financial circles to compare the level of asset prices (which is the inverse of the cost of capital) to 100-year marke...

Despite the putative universal overvaluation of global equity markets at present (although the current correction, which Jim Grant would des...

It's been a eventful week for markets. After a long period of subdued volatility and steady (and accelerating) gains, global markets suf...

The market is supposed to be efficient. There are a lot of smart and hungry investors out there competing vigorously with one another to fea...

A few days ago, news emerged that Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck had been hacked, with more than US$500m worth of digital tokens...

Suppose I was to offer you two job opportunities. For one, I would pay you a flat US$500k a year, in perpetuity (the value option). For the ...

There is currently a generally held view that one of the biggest risks global equity markets face at present is that interest rates rise mor...

I am often asked how I source my ideas - particularly operating as a one-man band running a global equity fund. I currently have approximate...

The US pharmaceutical industry is fundamentally broken. As has now been widely publicised, drug prices have been rapidly rising for several...

It is often said that successful investors require a paradoxical blend of confidence and humility. Confidence, it is argued, is essential s...

We are currently living in an era of increasing societal polarisation, in which the level of popular angst, outrage, and disagreement over v...

I am a big fan of multi-disciplinary thinking. I think it leads to vastly superior judgement, and in the field of investing, superior judgem...

We are currently living in an era of putative radical disruption. New players such as Elon Musk's Tesla Motors are - it is argued - disr...

I really can't resist a quick addendum to my recent bitcoin post . I thought I had said all that needed to be said. But as Bitcoin'...

I really hate to do this. There has already been an inordinate wastage of humanity's collective time spilling ink on Bitcoin in recent m...

I started this blog nine months ago, and have since published 30 articles (excluding this post). On average, each article takes me about fou...

Back in February, I wrote about how my biggest fear in markets was not a melt down, but rather a melt up - a risk I felt investors continued...

Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler was recently reported as expressing bemusement about why global stock markets continued to levitate, and parti...

Livewire Markets today posted an article by Stephen Koukoulas from Market Economics, entitled "The Truth About our Debt". The full...

I was distressed and saddened this week to learn that Google had decided to fire James Damore for his circulation of an internal memo that d...

Overnight (I reside in Asia), Michael Kors (KORS US) announced an above-expectation fiscal 1Q18 result, which sent the stock up 21.5% to US$...

If the bears are to be believed, we are living in a world of overvalued global markets inflated by excessive central bank stimulus, that off...

Of the many absurdities traditional economic theory has served up, one that I find particularly bemusing is the following: that deflation is...

A large and perennial frustration I have when researching companies in the US is the propensity of many companies to add back stock-based co...

In 2011, my girlfriend at the time, who knew next to nothing about finance and investments, asked me out of the blue if she should buy some ...

I have found that a fruitful place to look for good investment ideas is amongst stocks that suffer from what might best be described as the ...

Nagacorp (3918 HK) is a company I have followed for a while. The company owns a first-class asset - an exclusive monopoly license to operate...

In recent years, Silicon Valley has witnessed something of a technology bubble Mark II, although this time the excesses have been concentrat...

Permit me a little bit of a rant here, but it is actually a very important case study in public policy gone awry, and how vested interests c...

The NZ Herald recently reported on the Labour Party's proposal to eliminate negative gearing tax deductions for property investors. The ...

I attended the University of Auckland between 2001-05. Throughout this period I had to J-walk back and forth across a busy street regularly ...

Today it is my great pleasure to introduce to you the co-founder and CEO of dollar-discount.com. Since its founding two years ago, the compa...

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Fidelity has announced a reduction in its online trading commission rates from US$7.95 to...

I recently took a quick look at ASX-listed Money3 (MNY AU). A well-known NZ-based small-cap outfit own it and have labelled it one of their ...