Short selling, bear market opportunities, Trending Value and Stephen Kelly - the best investing blogs and podcasts from the past week
Hello! Welcome to this week’s Fully Invested newsletter.
I’m introducing some changes this week.
First off, I’ve had a sense that the long list of links to blogs and podcasts that I publish every week has been getting too broad and unfocused.
There’s a fine line between aggregation and curation. While I’m endeavouring to bring lots of great new articles and episodes together every week (which I still will), there’s a perennial risk of overdoing it and spreading things too thinly.
So I’m getting focused. Quite a lot of my day job involves writing about equity investing strategies and answering questions that are in the minds of investors. I want that to reflect here in the newsletter.
That’s not to say there won’t be broader and sometimes completely crazy things appearing. But generally, the focus is on stock market thinking and strategies.
With this in mind I’m being more ruthless about the quality and relevance of the links. Plus I’m introducing a new section with links to more institutional writing. It’s not that institutional stuff is better than non-pro investment writing (often it isn’t), but I sometimes see things I think would be useful here. So from now on they will go in.
Secondly, I love the freedom of writing whatever I want here every week, but levering it into this particular newsletter (which is supposed to be looking at other people’s work) is too much. So I’m splitting it up and plan to introduce a regular midweek article/newsletter that will have a strategy theme. That way, I’ll keep the Friday newsletter focused and get to work on a more coherent new series of articles.
As always, thanks for reading - I really appreciate it. Fully Invested is getting new free subscribers every week, so something must be right. I’ll try and make that continue.
With all that out of the way, here’s what I’ve been reading and listening to this week:
Top posts from the past week
#1. Behind the Balance Sheet podcast - Episode 15 - The Short Seller
There’s a moment in this podcast when Carson Block, the founder of Muddy Waters Research, ponders what his therapist might think about what he’s saying. It’s fair to say that being one of the world’s best known short-sellers probably takes its toll. Not only is the research painstaking and the risk of loss scary, but he’s also subject to relentless litigation and dark arts from those who either want to stop him or trade on his ideas. But despite all that, he has an unswerving view that his work borders on investigative journalism (with a financial edge) and offers some interesting ideas on the red flags regular investors should look for.
#2. Ben Carlson, A Wealth of Common Sense - Bear Market Opportunities For Every Generation of Investors
This is very much an American view of current conditions, but Ben Carlson’s article rings true here. It has been quite some time since there was a prolonged bear market. That presumably leaves financial advisors like him desperate to remind clients to “think long-term”. For years now there has been a narrative that Baby Boomers had financial conditions all their own way over many decades. Meanwhile Millennials and Generation Z and X didn’t quite get the same uplift. Time will tell whether what we’re seeing now are the tables starting to turn.
#3. Compounding Quality - Strategies that outperform the market (September 2022)
The Compounding Quality Substack is, as the name suggests, all about quality investing. This kind of style - buying and holding super profitable, moat-like companies - has proliferated in recent years and earned its advocates the moniker “Compounder Bros”. This is their natural home. Compounding Quality puts out a lot of stuff, but this round-up of James O’Shaughnessy’s Trending Value strategy caught my eye. If you want a crystallised version of the great man’s book, What Works on Wall Street, this is it.
#4. Quality Share Surfer - Portfolio Review: October 2022
This Q3 portfolio update from Quality Share Surfer likely echoes the thoughts of many growth-focused investors at the moment. While the market has been difficult, there are nagging donuts about whether we’re at the bottom. So while there might be plenty of potential buys lined up, it’s still a case of being defensive and treading carefully, with one eye on the risk that the market might fall sharply before it starts to recover.
#5. London South East, Investing Matters Podcast - Stephen Kelly, Company Builder & Entrepreneur - Part 1 and Part 2
Stephen Kelly is one of very few British tech company entrepreneurs who can genuinely lay claim to being a significant influence in the industry over many years. He started out at Oracle and was in Silicon Valley when the tech boom blew up in 2000. During his career he’s been chief executive of companies like Sage, Micro Focus and Chordiant. In this conversation, Pete Higgins talks to him about his early life, his perspective on tech and business in the US and UK, the challenges for CEOs, company culture and a lot more. He seems a genuinely humble guy and parts of this are absolutely fascinating.
Have a great weekend!
Ben
Thinking & Strategy (Blogs)
Athenarium
Reflexivity and Resonance — Beunza & Stark on Quantitative Models and Systemic Risk
Behavioural Investment
ESG Investing is About Values, Value and Valuation
Thinking & Strategy (Podcasts)
A Long Time In Finance
The Fall of Northern Rock: Part One
Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
Paul Orfalea - It’s About the Money - [Invest Like the Best, EP.299]
Infinite Loops
Emad Mostaque — The Future of AI (EP.128)
Institutional Research
Goldman Sachs - Portfolio Strategy
Bear Repair (September 2022)
Morgan Stanley
Growth vs. Value: Interest Rates as a Driver of Style-Relative Performance
Klement on Investing
Value fund managers: Let your winners run
The value of a brand
Verdad
Predicting Growth
Franklin Templeton
Quick thoughts: End of a golden era for profits?
Securities & Markets (Blogs)
Macro Ops: Unparalleled Investing Research
Value Investing Letter Recaps: Q3 2022
Quality Share Surfer
Portfolio Review: October 2022
Neckar's Minds and Markets
No Grand Strategy: The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway
Securities & Markets (Podcasts)
The Investor Way
E106 - easyJet, Sirius Real Estate, Entain, LVMH, Barratt Developments & Netflix
Twin Petes Investing
Podcast no.86 with LIVE in person video & special guest
AJ Bell Money & Markets
What the mini-Budget U-turns mean for your money, markets and pensions
Investors' Chronicle
The IC Interviews: Abrdn's Hugh Young
Quality Small Caps
Small Caps Podcast with Paul Scott – Episode 16