The LT3000 Blog

Eclectic musings on value investing, business, economics, and life

Thursday, 16 May 2024

What is really going on in Georgia

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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...
Thursday, 24 February 2022

Russia update - the road to war

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I thought it would be worth penning a few further thoughts on the current Russo-Ukrainian situation, as my thoughts have evolved somewhat in...
Sunday, 30 January 2022

Neil Young vs. Rogan/Spotify, Meta Values, and Pluralistic vs. Authoritarian Societies

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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 b...
Friday, 28 January 2022

Demystifying Putin: US vs. Russia geopolitics - the real story

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In recent months, Russia has once again been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, with the US and Western media loudly proclaiming (s...
Thursday, 20 January 2022

Taking (slight) issue with Graham's "weighing machine"; and unpacking "intrinsic value"

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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-q...
Thursday, 13 May 2021

Tech, inflation, and the tyranny of the numerator

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Over the last three months, market inflation fears have increased - and not without good cause, given the increasing number of companies rep...
Friday, 23 April 2021

Elon Musk; Simulated Universes; Moore's Curse; The Fermi Paradox; Mars colonization; and Technological Hubris

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Overall, I'm a fan of Elon Musk. He is smart; articulate; a great innovator, engineer, and entrepreneur; an incredibly hard worker; and ...
Saturday, 17 April 2021

Crypto-mania is back: Crypto vs. Fiat, and why newer isn't always better

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After a multi-year hiatus, cryptocurrency has recently stormed back to the fore, with Bitcoin breaching new highs above US$60k, along with a...
Wednesday, 11 November 2020

Unravelling value's decade-long underperformance (and imminent resurgence)

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In a recent (generally excellent) podcast with Inside the Rope with David Clark (#78), John Hempton discussed (amongst other things) value...
Tuesday, 28 July 2020

Market inefficiency, liquidity flywheels, asset class arbitrage, and Hong Kong Land

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Conventional economic theory holds that the marketplace in financial assets ought to be 'efficient'. Large numbers of intelligent an...
Monday, 11 May 2020

Coronavirus update: From an unknown unknown to a known unknown

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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...
Tuesday, 17 March 2020

Coronapocalypse - some thoughts

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Over the past few weeks, markets have witnessed a legitimate 'black swan' event with the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic, which h...
Saturday, 29 February 2020

Dynamic vs. static analysis, and what the US shale and technology sectors have in common

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Over the past decade, few industries have incinerated as much shareholder capital as the US shale oil and gas (O&G) sector. Attracted by...
Thursday, 6 February 2020

Afterpay Touch: a more expensive solution to an existing, solved problem

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Afterpay Touch (APT AU) is a stock that has acquired a cult following in recent years. The shares have risen spectacularly, and catapulted t...
Friday, 31 January 2020

Facebook - the bear case

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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...
Thursday, 30 January 2020

Learning the wrong lessons; style drift; and why smart value investors underperform

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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...
Friday, 24 January 2020

Extrapolation; Technology One & SaaS; Affiliated Managers Group; margins of safety; and growth bubbles

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Of the many causes of market inefficiency and investor misjudgement, there is perhaps no more important contributor than investors' tend...
Sunday, 12 January 2020

Demystifying post-GFC economics; the problem with scarcity; interest rates; long political cycles; and the end of history

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The post-GFC era has given rise to widespread investor confusion, as macroeconomic and market outcomes have deviated from the received econo...
Sunday, 10 November 2019

How much cash should you hold? The case for being fully invested

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Over the past decade, a number of highly-regarded value investors with attractive long term track records have lagged the major benchmarks, ...
Friday, 8 November 2019

Free speech; Mark Zuckerberg; and online 'misinformation'

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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 ...
Thursday, 7 November 2019

Contrarianism; ESG investing; coal; and climate change

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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...
Monday, 2 September 2019

A duration-bubble or a low-volatility bubble?

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I'm a fan of Antipodes Partners, and always find their commentaries insightful. In the company's latest investor update (see below),...
Thursday, 29 August 2019

How worried should we really be about an inverting yield curve?

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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...
Thursday, 15 August 2019

Investing in low conviction stocks; jumping the gun on EVs; and Tenneco

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It is fashionable amongst the value investing community these days to hold a concentrated portfolio of high conviction ideas. Indeed, any ot...
Wednesday, 14 August 2019

Why P/E multiples are (justifiably) lower in periods of high inflation

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

Why profits matter (and value investing is not dead)

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We have currently reached the point in this (unusual in many respects) cycle where many investors/commentators have started to question whet...
Thursday, 6 June 2019

Greek update #3: The narrative flips; selling Piraeus

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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...
Saturday, 1 June 2019

The (real) way to solve the (real) US trade deficit problem

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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...
Monday, 20 May 2019

The problem with Ben Thompson's 'aggregation theory'

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Ben Thompson, via his website Stratechery ('Strategy' and 'Tech'), has made a name for himself over the past decade populari...
Saturday, 18 May 2019

Berkshire Hathaway succumbs to the tech bubble

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We have currently reached the point in the cycle where investors are once again questioning whether traditional value investing is dead. The...
Monday, 13 May 2019

Uber, delusion, and ride-hailing's structural economic inefficiency

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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...
Thursday, 9 May 2019

Turkey update, Lira outlook, and keeping one's eye on the ball

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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...
Wednesday, 13 March 2019

The great bribe-the-distributor US drug pricing scam

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The US Senate Finance Committee recently conducted a hearing investigating galloping list prices for US drugs, quizzing the chiefs of a numb...
Thursday, 7 March 2019

Is another tech bust coming?

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The technology sector (referring to online services, and to a lesser extent, SaaS, which is somewhat different in the B2B space) has been on...
Thursday, 21 February 2019

Flawed thinking on buybacks, and why buybacks are still underutilized

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Something I encounter repeatedly in the world of investment commentary/analysis is a lot of flawed thinking and fundamental confusion about ...
Wednesday, 6 February 2019

The value of what is vs. what could be, and the economics of disruption redux

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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...
Sunday, 3 February 2019

The real reason populism is rising in the West

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In recent years, we have seen the emergence of 'populist' movements across many developed countries, from the US (Trump) to the UK (...
Thursday, 31 January 2019

The Road to Serfdom: How identity politics and socialist-communist ideology are intimately linked

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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...

The art of worldly wisdom, smoking, and British American Tobacco

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When students study either undergraduate finance or an MBA, they are taught various methods of valuing companies - primarily discounted cash...
Monday, 28 January 2019

Apple's strategic dilemma

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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...
Saturday, 26 January 2019

Fishing where the cod is, and Munger's stunning rebuke of many 'value' investors

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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...
Friday, 25 January 2019

The capacity to suffer, LCV/CAC, and Capital One Financial

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Earlier this week, Capital One Financial (COF US) - a stock I own - announced a 4Q18 result which, while above expectations at the EPS line ...
Wednesday, 23 January 2019

Is Netflix screwed?

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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...
Tuesday, 22 January 2019

US cultural breakdown, and identity politics run amok

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Fairly extraordinary things are currently happening in US popular culture. A short clip of a native American man banging a drum near the fac...
Sunday, 20 January 2019

Worst marketing campaign ever...?

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Ominous music plays. "Women, is this the best we can do, really?", booms a voiceover. Scenes play in the background of women being...
Saturday, 19 January 2019

Greek bank update: The importance of regulatory forbearance

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In November of last year, I blogged about the Greek banks, and specifically Eurobank. Since that time, Greek bank prices have remained under...
Thursday, 17 January 2019

WSJ exposes corrupt hospital practices that inflate healthcare bills

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Last year, I discussed how corrupted incentives have acted to inflate drug prices well above what would have occurred in a properly functio...
Wednesday, 28 November 2018

Eurobank addendum: Merger with Grivalia

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The very next day after the publication of my recent piece on Eurobank, the company announced a merger with Greek real estate investment com...
Sunday, 25 November 2018

Stories, Greek myths, and Eurobank

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Human beings love to tell stories. It is thought by anthropologists that throughout much of human evolutionary history, large amounts of tim...
Wednesday, 17 October 2018

Pessimism on global growth reaches November 2008 levels; is it justified?

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The WSJ reported this morning that, quoting BoAML data, "fund managers are the most pessimistic they have been on global growth since N...
Monday, 15 October 2018

Activist excess, incentives, and the undersupply of grievance

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In recent times in the West, we have seen a trend towards outraged activism being taken to sometimes absurd extremes. Furthermore, we have s...
Monday, 1 October 2018

When reason fails: Mitchell's damning report; media bias; and disillusionment

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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...
Sunday, 30 September 2018

The Venezuelan economic policy manual (satire)

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For the good governance and prosperity of the Venezuelan people, we recommend policymakers adhere to the following policy framework:
Saturday, 29 September 2018

Kavanaugh-gate and human irrationality

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I'm going to wade - perhaps unwisely - into some fraught and controversial territory with this post, but I can't help myself because...
Wednesday, 19 September 2018

The Australian housing bust: Why this time is different

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In recent months, media articles have begun to surface highlighting the fact that Australian property prices have started to fall, and indee...
Monday, 17 September 2018

On China's (putative) real estate construction bubble... facts vs narratives

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The consensus opinion in many parts of global financial markets is that China's economy is little more a giant leveraged real estate and...
Friday, 14 September 2018

The correct way to think about risk

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In my opinion, most stock market investors fundamentally misunderstand risk and think about it in the wrong way. Most investors abhor risk a...
Thursday, 13 September 2018

The ethics of ethical investing

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In recent years, there has been a trend towards the launch and promotion of 'ethical' funds, that forbid investment in companies eng...
Thursday, 16 August 2018

Is Elon Musk's attempted Tesla privatisation a covert bail-out?

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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...
Monday, 13 August 2018

A capitulation point in Turkey?

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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...
Wednesday, 1 August 2018

The (real) cautionary tale of David Einhorn

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Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn was recently the subject of a widely-circulated hit piece by the Wall Street Journal, which came a fe...
Tuesday, 17 July 2018

Trade wars, economic ideology, and why Trump has a point

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Trade has become a hot-button issue this year, with Trump having already implemented several rounds of tariffs targeted (primarily) at China...
Tuesday, 29 May 2018

New valuation metrics for tech companies, and Spotify

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There is a very old saying in markets - that the four most dangerous words in the English language are 'this time is different', and...
Monday, 28 May 2018

Why value investing works and will continue to work

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I am often asked why I expect value investing (traditionally defined as focusing on buying sectors of the market trading at relatively low m...
Friday, 18 May 2018

Gold's hidden risk

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Gold has been a longtime investment favourate of many investors, despite its lackluster long term track record,* and not just for perpetual ...
Saturday, 31 March 2018

Motivated reasoning and the root cause of intellectual intolerance

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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...
Saturday, 3 March 2018

Samsung, and how to make money without a crystal ball

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It is popular in markets to make definitive predictions about the future, and then position one's portfolio to benefit should those pred...
Friday, 2 March 2018

Why Russia public display of nuclear strength is paradoxically comforting

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In his recent state-of-the-nation address, Russian president Vladimir Putin demonstrated new nuclear capabilities the nation has been develo...
Friday, 23 February 2018

Favouring the specific over the general; Tinkoff and Washington Prime Group

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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...
Monday, 12 February 2018

Does money make you happy?

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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...
Sunday, 11 February 2018

Expedia and dodgy accounting

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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...
Saturday, 10 February 2018

Life expectancy and the cost of capital

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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...
Friday, 9 February 2018

Bargain stocks in HK/China; no-brainer investing; and Dongfeng Motor

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Despite the putative universal overvaluation of global equity markets at present (although the current correction, which Jim Grant would des...
Wednesday, 7 February 2018

Some thought's on the market's recent volatility

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It's been a eventful week for markets. After a long period of subdued volatility and steady (and accelerating) gains, global markets suf...
Monday, 29 January 2018

Market efficiency and Telecom Italia Savings Shares

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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...

Bitcoin holder alert: financial libertarians beware

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A few days ago, news emerged that Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck had been hacked, with more than US$500m worth of digital tokens...
Sunday, 28 January 2018

Which job offer would you prefer? A value vs. growth allegory

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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 ...
Saturday, 27 January 2018

Bill Miller & the coming equity bubble

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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...
Wednesday, 24 January 2018

Finding investment ideas, Brighthouse Financial; Dignity plc; and favouring breadth over depth

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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...
Saturday, 20 January 2018

Why US drug prices have been rising, not falling

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The US pharmaceutical industry is fundamentally broken. As has now been widely publicised, drug prices have been rapidly rising for several...
Friday, 19 January 2018

Exit humility; enter mental flexiblity

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It is often said that successful investors require a paradoxical blend of confidence and humility. Confidence, it is argued, is essential s...
Wednesday, 17 January 2018

Why is society becoming so polarised?

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We are currently living in an era of increasing societal polarisation, in which the level of popular angst, outrage, and disagreement over v...
Sunday, 14 January 2018

Multi-disciplinary thinking; the gender wage gap; and amoral markets

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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...
Saturday, 13 January 2018

The real (and misunderstood) economics of disruption

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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...
Thursday, 21 December 2017

Bitcoin addendum: Running out of oxygen; the 'money of the internet' fallacy; and bitcoin futures & systemic risk

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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'...
Saturday, 2 December 2017

Bursting the Bitcoin Bulls' Bubble

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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...
Tuesday, 28 November 2017

The economics of blogging, and the challenges for traditional media & content creators

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I started this blog nine months ago, and have since published 30 articles (excluding this post). On average, each article takes me about fou...
Monday, 27 November 2017

All set for the biggest equity bubble in history?

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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...
Monday, 16 October 2017

Why I (and the market) are not worried about nuclear war with North Korea, and why Richard Thaler is wrong

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Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler was recently reported as expressing bemusement about why global stock markets continued to levitate, and parti...
Thursday, 12 October 2017

The (real) truth about our debt

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Livewire Markets today posted an article by Stephen Koukoulas from Market Economics, entitled "The Truth About our Debt". The full...
Friday, 11 August 2017

James Damore vs. The Google Archipelago

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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...
Wednesday, 9 August 2017

Michael Kors +21.5%, and why value investing is so hard

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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$...
Sunday, 6 August 2017

BMW & bargains in plain sight

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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...
Saturday, 5 August 2017

Deflationary delusions, the wealth effect, and the direction of causality

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Of the many absurdities traditional economic theory has served up, one that I find particularly bemusing is the following: that deflation is...
Monday, 31 July 2017

Seeing through the stock-based compensation ruse

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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...
Friday, 28 July 2017

Why I think digital currencies will go to zero

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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 ...
Sunday, 23 July 2017

The 'ick factor', and Ambac as an interesting long

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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 ...
Wednesday, 19 July 2017

Time to take a punt on Nagacorp?

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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...
Saturday, 15 July 2017

Unicorn bubbles, Clutter, and the value of time

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In recent years, Silicon Valley has witnessed something of a technology bubble Mark II, although this time the excesses have been concentrat...
Tuesday, 16 May 2017

E-cigarattes; cultural bias; pluralistic society; and warped incentives

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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...
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About Me

Lyall Taylor
Former sell-side Equity Analyst/regional Head of Research; long time stock market enthusiast; and current Portfolio Manager of a self-seeded fund (LTCP Fund) on Swiss-Asia Financial Services Pte Ltd's platform. If you are an accredited investor and have investment interest, you can contact me at lyall.taylor@swissasia-group.com for further information.
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