Another week, another 10 randomly selected Swiss stocks. This time, two of them made it onto my watch list.
21. Basilea AG
Basilea AG is a 569 mn CHF “biopharma” company that was spun off in 2000 from Roche. Other than for instance Actelion, Basilea doesn’t seem to be a big success when looking at the share price:
Marc Rubinstein with his Adventures in Cryptoland
Recommended: A surprisingly good (German) Reddit forum on Investing and stock analysis
Prof. Damodaran with a very comprehensive post on inflation and potential impacts on asset prices.
Morgan Housel explains why real long term thinking is hard
A good collection of Spin-off related links
A great “Post mortem” analysis of an investment (Viacom) with important conclusions
Very good examples on company growth that does not create value
And the next batch of randomly chosen Swiss stocks, however this time I only identified one potential “watch list” candidate.
I do have to say that I enjoy this kind of research a lot. After looking now at 20 stocks so far I have to say that reporting quality is generally a lot better than for German companies, independent from the size of the company.
11. Varia US Proporties
Varia is a listed property company that only invests in US real estate with a market cap of ~380 mn CHF. They seem to own a diversified portfolio of resdidential units. The company seems to be a “yield vehicle”, with relatively large distributions but little increase in NAV. As I am not a fan of listed real estate in any case, I’ll “pass”.
12. Lonza Group
Lonza is a 42,3 bn CHF “large cap” chemical and pharmaceuticals Group. What makes the company interesting is the fact that over the last 10 years, the share price has risen by around 10x:
Paul Graham on “Fierce nerds”
Google is experimenting with physical stores
Very interesting interview with Daniel Kahnemann
In a surprising U-turn, the IEA has gone “full electrification” in their new report “Net Zero by 2050”.
Great story on Kongo Gumi, a 1400 year old company from Japan
Gary Kasparov is once again trying his luck in Online Chess
Podcasts might still have a long runway for growth
Introduction:
At a very first glance, Tekmar Plc, a AIM listed UK company looks like a very interesting “hidden Champion”:
The company is active in a very attractive market: their main business is to provide sub sea protection systems for cables with its biggest entity providing this service to the fast growing off-shore wind farm market.
In addition, Tekmar claims to have 75% market share. the combination of a company providing an essential, relatively small ticket item to a large installation with a dominating market share makes many investors water their mouths I guess.
Even more mouthwatering looks their chart from the 2020 annual report (from August 2020):
An excellent write-up about Thomson Reuters and why it could be really interesting
The always excellent Matthew Ball on how a Entertainment Company should look like these days
The case for an extended bull run for “Value Stocks”
Interesting perspective: Crypto as “in-game currency” in the “Great Online Game”
FtAlphaville on the what is going on at Carson Block target Solution 30
If the US wants to increase its share in renewable power, the electrical grid requires a massive upgrade
The LT3000 blog on inflation and other things
Background:
As some of my readers might have noticed, I have been looking deeper into the topic of renewable energy and connected topics such as Climate change, Net Zero targets etc.
My current conclusion is that we might have reached a real “Tipping point” towards a significant increase in “Electrification” which in my opinion is driven by a confluence of several factors:
There remain a lot of challenges, especially the “intermittency” of renewable energy and the current lack of solutions for longer term storage. However, especially in the battery space there is significant progress made. Plus, all the billions now flowing into “Green tech” will create a “Cambrian explosion” of new technologies in a few years time.
The Brooklyn Investor with some interesting aspects from the Berkie AGM
Farnam Street explains why we all need some slack
The “Gig Economy” in the US may end soon
A great explanation what kind of business Investment Banking actually is (Credit Suisse)
The Irish Banking sector has consolidated to only two remaining players
Long read feature on Cal Newport and Digital Minimalism
The Carbon Credit market seems to be in need of an overhaul
Introduction
After the great fun of doing the “All German shares” Series in 2019/2020, It is time to start the new “All Swiss Shares” series in 2021. According to the Swiss Stock Exchange, there are currently 220 Swiss based listed companies, so the series will be a little bit shorter. The reason for choosing Switzerland is that I actually own already two Swiss based companies (Richemont, Zur Rose) and that I think there is an interesting mixture of companies in Switzerland, several of which I have covered over the last 10 years.
Again, mostly for my own entertainment, I will use a random approach in looking at the companies.
One difference to the German series is that I’ll try to better define what I am looking for. In principle, my portfolio comprises three different styles/buckets:
So now let’s jump into the first 10 stocks. Surprisingly, I found already 4 stocks worth “watching” out of the first batch.
How Solar energy became “insanely cheap”
Interesting deep dive into Nintendo’s strategy
A few insights from Berkie’s annual shareholder meeting
Klement on Investing makes a good case for CO2 certificates
The Amex Black Card looks like a really good deal….if you are rich enough to get it
A very good reminder: Now is the Golden Time for financial scams of all sorts
Good check list on how to avoid Value Traps
value and opportunity 