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Argentina

I have a strong interest in emerging markets. When Turkey blew up, I looked at Turkish stocks. The Argentine stock market vomited the other day, so most recently I have been looking there (some might also remember my Despegar posts).  Argentina now holds the title of the second greatest single-day stock market meltdown in history (in …

Revenue Is A Trailing Metric

An interesting discussion I heard recently was “how can we enhance an organisation’s ability to hit its targets”?  The natural response is to ask “how do you hit a target” and the answer of course is that you can’t. You can’t go out and hit a target because the target (sales, in this case) is a …

Despegar: Too Hard

I’ve sold my 10 shares in Despegar. I wrote about the company here and here and wanted to like it but couldn’t get comfortable. There were a few key issues: High margins and commission rate relative to mature global peers Among the most aggressive revenue recognition in the industry Terrible working capital 3a) Growth likely driven …

BYND: Beyond Multiples

I have been thinking about Beyond Meat, a recent US IPO that basically tripled from its $25 IPO price to $66 in a short period of time.  It is possible that the new era business model of delaying profitability in favour of maximising growth proves me wrong, and I want to get down some thoughts …

Change of plans

Just a quick note to disclose that I’ve sold (almost) all of my stocks in the past few days to make an investment outside the stock market. (I won’t be writing about that one). I don’t think I’ve not had almost all my money in stocks since I was 17, so I feel a bit …

Quarterly Review: Q3 (March) FY 2019

The end of March marks two years of the 10foot portfolio. It has not gone as expected and I have been doing a lot of thinking in the past few months. There are also some big changes to the portfolio, most notably converting it to a unit basis (measuring value per fictional “unit” instead of …

fifty dollar cash notes

Private Markets Hide All Manner Of Sins

A number of notable companies and investors today appear largely unaware of the relationship, and potential disconnect, between growth and financial sustainability. It is all well and good to own part of a technology firm that is growing revenue and users rapidly and burning cash. It is also fine to systematically bet on small tech co’s …

Down 95%: Oliver’s Real Foods

There’s been some water (mostly radioactive) pass under the bridge since I last wrote about Oliver’s Real Foods (ASX:OLI). I’m sitting on I believe my first ever position that is down 95%. It’s worth a brief recap of how things got to this point. After my earlier presentation, I felt that the company was on the …

Getswift Comes Full Circle

Well well. In a pleasing dose of regulatory aggressiveness, The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has filed a Federal Court lawsuit against Bane Hunter and Joel MacDonald of the infamous Getswift (ASX: GSW) – reporting in well under their usual 3 year lead time, I might add.  And they would be silly not to, because the …

Four shipping investment ideas

I recently read a presentation on Scorpio Tankers (NYSE:STNG) pitching the company as a potentially undervalued stock. Following research I have come across several other ideas that may be worth looking into. I pass them along for readers’ potential benefit. The original pitch for Scorpio went like this: Shipping industry is at bottom of cycle and …