The father of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) was recently on the Lex Friedman podcast eliciting sympathy from the audience by talking – in that soft-spoken voice – about how difficult his upbringing was. It’s a shame he wasn’t confronted about how much damage he did to retail investors while amassing his wealth. Mr. Palihapitiya […]
Deciding to buy a stock is easy. We spend a minimal amount of time convincing ourselves that it’s worth the risk while conducting due diligence that would hardly be considered sufficient. If 95% of professional money managers can’t succeed at stock picking, spending several hours in your underwear on a Saturday morning “researching” a stock […]
Our recent piece on water IoT stock Xylem (XYL) looked at the wide differences in which the finance community defines a growth stock. Usually, this involves looking at earnings growth which doesn’t work so well for disruptive growth stocks which typically don’t have positive earnings. That’s why revenue growth becomes such an important metric for […]
About 20 years ago, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) introduced a new concept called goodwill impairment, which despite the name has nothing to do with being charitably challenged (see Jeff Bezos). Just the opposite, in fact. Goodwill in accounting speak refers to the premium one company donates pays for another that is supposed to […]
Investing in disruptive technologies sounds easy on paper. First, you identify when a technology moves from being emerging (team-with-a-dream) to disruptive (meaningful revenues growing quickly). Second, you find the leader(s) and invest in them, trusting that economies of scale will benefit the biggest fish in the pond. But things quickly become complicated when the technology […]
If we had to pick our best quality, it would probably be modesty. Unlike other pundits, you won’t hear us constantly flaunting our best calls. We almost never mention the fact that we sold our Ali Baba holding right before shares tanked because of risks we pointed out. That call we made on Palantir and […]
One benefit of investing in technology companies with conviction is that you don’t need to be checking stock prices every five minutes (though as humans, most of us will anyway). Investing in quality companies means you can often ignore them for years barring any major events that take place which merit vetting. We find that […]
Here’s a thought exercise. Let’s say you invested in a stock that you believed was the market leader. Later, another company goes public which looks attractive – high growth and challenging the leader. The leader’s growth stalls and share price plummets. You’re underwater holding the “leader” and missing out on the upside of the challenger. […]
Whoever proposes that “upspeak” should be viewed as acceptable in the workplace should choose another hill to die on. Also referred to as “Valley Girl talk,” this method of speaking telegraphs to the audience that you’re uncertain about what you are saying. To be seen as an authority, you need to speak and act with […]
Our market research shows that an incredibly large number of you are interested in 3D printed houses. You want to know when they’ll be available, how much they’ll cost, and how big they can be built. It’s all rather unusual because we’re not sure what the appeal of 3D printed houses would be. Given the […]