A small, niche sector that has done incredibly well over 2022 was that of small, local banks which were eligible for the so-called Emergency Capital Investment Program (ECIP). Under the ECIP, the US Treasury provided capital injections into certified Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) or minority depository institutions (MDIs) with the end-goal to support small […]
My last two write-ups (FlatexDegiro and UMT) were relatively long and provided more depth than usual. This time I would like to go back to the original purpose of this blog, which is to present concise and easy write-ups, digestible for everybody. The blog is free (and will remain so) and it has no other […]
History seems to be repeating with UMT. In the fourth quarter of 2018, an environment of economic uncertainty strongly pressured stock markets, particularly in the micro-cap space. During this period, UMT’s share price declined rapidly to <€2 per share, before rebounding to €10 during 2019. A similar set-up appears today, where a rising interest rate […]
I wanted to close the year with some general comments and by taking a quick look at the ideas I’ve written up since I started to write again. I’m happy that after a longer period without being able to post new ideas I’ve been able to structure my time and work to allow me to […]
As I looked over the past weeks through the names on my watchlist, I noted the long list of companies that are down >50% year to date. Not surprisingly, many of these companies are European and have enjoyed a couple of good years thanks to covid tailwinds. Now that growth has slowed during this year […]
I’ll keep this one relatively brief, mainly because it’s about tankers. If you don’t know anything about the tanker industry, better stay away. There are very few industries I’ve studied over the years where so much shareholder value has been destroyed on such a regular basis. Pretty much all public tanker companies have a long […]
This write-up is based on my recent tweets on the company and includes some updated thoughts and figures. Surgepays offers telecom, mobile broadband and various fintech services to underbanked and underserved communities. Keeping it simple, the company offers two different products. The ‘oldest’ product is a software platform, installed in ~8,000 local stores / bodegas, […]
After a break of several months from the markets its time to get back on the saddle and start searching again for those hidden gems that might become very profitable investments. One such potential gem is Apex Clearing. Apex Clearing mainly provides custody, clearing and settlement for fintech companies and (online) brokers. The business itself […]
While the largest part of my portfolio consists of long term investments (generally cheap stocks), currently a relatively large portion comprises short(er) term trades. The size of this bucket within the portfolio varies throughout time depending on the opportunity set available. Interestingly, over the past few years these trades have mostly been related to spac […]
When it comes to analyzing potential investments, I spend a good amount of time on assessing the up- vs downside potential of a certain investment. I have no problems investing in a bad company if the pay-off seems asymmetric enough. A company might be fundamentally horrible in my opinion but if I can get it […]