Category Archives: What we read

Wise Plc – The “Costco of Currency transfers” ?

Investment Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH !!!!

AI Disclaimer: This post has been written entirely “by hand”. I do use LLMs as a research assistant but not for generating any parts of this post.

Introduction:

Wise Plc has been on my to do list for some time. A long time ago, part of my professional duty was to monitor and execute (large) international payments and I was always perplexed how slow and cumbersome the process was even for large Financial Institutions. Back then we made the joke that it would be much faster to travel by plane with the cash in a suitcase instead of wiring it through the SWIFT system.

The final push to look deeper into it came when Wise moved into the “Top 10” of my newly created watchlist.

Initially I planned to write a shorter post as a couple of really good write-ups already exist (see appendix), but I had so much fun looking into Wise that I decided to give it the “full treatment” however with a stronger focus on business model, competition and uniqueness.

Here is “the full monty” in PDF form.

Read more

Some links 25/2025

Sung Capital Substack on Karelia Tobacco from Greece

Govro with another “alcoholic deep dive”, this time Cuervo from Mexico

Bob’s Payment Substack on the Fiserv massacre

The Optima’s Substack thinks that Coffee prices could go much higher

Weight loss drug use in the US is up and obesity down significantly according to this study

Some thoughts from Dwarkesh on possible AI buildout trajectories

The BG2 Podcast with Sam Altman and Satya Nadella is definitely worth watching/listening to

Some links 24/2025

The Brooklyn Investor with an long all-round post and another one on Bubbles

The “Made in Japan” Substack with a nice guide to get started in the Japanese stock market

A great summary from the Latticework 2025 conference with various “Value Investing Legends”

The French Focus Investing Substack with a nice deep dive into Safran

The current LLM’s models do not think highly of Private Equity as an Asset Class

A nice and easy CEO checklist from the Dutch Investors Substack

Thomas Puyo on why Argentina is not doing much better economically

Some links 23/2025

Finally, 5X leveraged single Stock ETFs are available

The maybe most consistent financial blog out there, Abnormal Returns, celebrated it’s 20th Birthday this week.

Another OG, 20 Year Blogger, Eddie Elfenbein, has been on the Meb Faber Podcast

Good Morningstar article on “Performance Shenanigans” of Private Equity Secondary Funds

Liquid Air Energy storage is a very interesting concept

For some strange reason, horizontal paintings trade at a (significant) discount to vertical ones

Govro from Wintergems dives even deeper into Alcohol Stocks 

Some links 22/2025

Govro from WIntergems with a deep dive into Pernod Ricard’s brands

Interesting writeup on Wise Plc from Ennismore (h/t Govro)

The East72 Synasty Trust Quarterly letter is always worth reading (Exor, Swatch, Bolore, Man United)

The Flyover Stocks blog with a great post on why Management Integrity is so important

Interesting article on some high end Cooperage (Barrel making) operations and their issues

A very detailed deep dive on the worrying Capex Mania in AI/LLM land

John Hempton on “Crypto Bucket Shops”

Some links 21/2025

Fantastic profile of Thomas Peterffy, the legendary founder of Interactive Brokers

Nice write-up on UK stock Johnson Matthey from the Modern Investing Substack

The Oracle of Oslo Substack on “sum-of-parts” play F.I.L.A. Sp

Maynard Payton with a “Super Deep Dive” on FW Thorpe

A great summary of Andrej Kaparty’s LLM talk (Twitter/X link)

Bain’s 2025 Tech report is an interesting read
A critical look into the “Quantum Bubble 2.0” from the recommended Shorts & Squeezes Corner Substack

Some links 20/2025

Interesting deep dive into the London Stock Exchange Group and its current problems

Already a few weeks ago, Rob Vinall published a very detailed 6M letter including a post mortem of Ryman

OpenAI has released interesting usage data for ChatGPT

The Valuelytica Substack (for some reason) backtested my own old BOSS Score method

Streaming services are jacking up prices on an ongoing basis without delivering more value 

Again, in 2025, Momentum investing is the way to gain Alpha (for the time being)

Secret Sauce Investing Substack with a deep dive into Novo Nordisk

Some links 19/2025

Microsoft has analyzed which business activities are easiest performed by AI (FT Link)

Great paper from AQR analyzing that “Buffer funds” using options to “improve” the risk return of stock portfolios underperform against simple stock & cash alternatives

Surprisingly, alcohol consumption has dropped most among Republican voters in the US

Noise Cancelling is the new sunscreen

An interesting glimpse into the past when some people thought that the Sony Walkman was a grave danger to humanity

And a look even further back: 1910, the year the Modern World lost it’s mind

Thomas Pueyo tries to answer the question why “Moskow is so weird”.

Some links 18/2025

The “Mr. Market Miscalculates” Substack does a very decent “monthly recap” post. I really like this format.

The “Secret Sauce Investing” Substack with a decent post on the Global Spirits industry

Interesting Podcast with Dan Rasmussen from Verdad on Private Equity as a liquidity trap

Some deep thoughts on the role of a repeatable process in investing and other areas

Diet Sodas are anything but clearly not healthy

Richard Beddard on a few UK stocks including Mortgage Advice Bureau

Klement on Investing with an interesting post on the sources of negative alpha for active stock funds (hint: Do not time the market)

Some links 17/2025

Ben Thompson (Stratechery) thinks that “community” is to only answer for content creators in the age of AI

Rubicon Stockpicker 6M report with some interesting new positions (Novem, Stratec, Hgears update)

Verdad Capital on increasing buybacks and dividends in Japan

An interesting pitch on an GLP-1 “stock basket” (Novo etc.)

Plus a pretty decent analysis if GLP-1 is indeed a wonder drug or not

Even more than 100 years ago, price momentum seems to have been a relevant factor in stock investing

A recent paper on low volatility stock alpha 

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