Monthly Archives: July 2021

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A good reminder that the “cash on the sidelines” argument is nonsense

9 very good questions that every investor should ask himself after the recent bull run

Great Profile of iconic VC firm Bessemer Venture Partners

AI company DeepMind has found out how to model the folding of Proteins. This could be big. More here.

David Einhorn’s  Q2 letter. As always, good comments but awful performance.

Nice write up on DNA sequencing pioneer Illumina

For finance nerds: Special report on Credit Suisse’s 5,5 bn Archegos loss (and I learned a new word: lackadaisical)

 

All Swiss Shares Part 8 – Nr. 71-80

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And another 10 randomly selected Swiss stocks. Again, I found a couple of high quality businesses that are unfortunately very expensive. However, I did find one candidate to “watch” and actually bought one 1% position in one stock that I liked.

71. Klingelnberg AG

Klingelnberg is a 180 mn CHF market cap company that manufactures machinery for the Automobile and Mining industry. The company was IPOed in 2018 at CHF 53/share. As the chart shows, the IPO was not a big success ,losing more than -50%.

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Prof. Damodaran looks at Zomato, the Indian Food Delivery market leader

An interesting analysis on (abnormal) returns of SPACs

A good reminder how bad behavior can prevent success in investing

The story of (soon to be public) Chobani Greek Yoghurt

Form Energy (backed by Bezos and Gates) has developed a new (and cheap) powerful Iron based battery 

Nice pitch for European Stocks in general

Fred Wilson on how the VC process and landscape has changed since the start of the pandemic

Back to boring: Meier & Tobler (ISIN CH0208062627) – Boring enough to invest ?

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Background/ The company

During part 6 of my “All Swiss Series” I mentioned that Maier Tobler looks interesting, at least if one likes “boring” stocks which I do.

Meier_Tobler_logo

Meier & Tobler these days is a Swiss focused company that is active in heating, cooling and ventilating homes and buildings. They are both, distributing appliances and spare parts as well as offering direct maintenance services.

Until 2013, the predecessor company Walter Maier was a pretty diversified company, with the main areas of cooling/climate (DACH) , tools (Us) and machinery (among others wood working machines). In 2013/2014, they completely changed their strategy: They sold the tools division and the German climate business and spun-off all manufacturing activities that they had bundled under the name WM Technology.

In 2017 they took over/merged with Swiss competitor Tobler, creating the clear market leader in Switzerland.

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Some Links

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Peak SPAC ? A non-revenue healthcare litigation company wants to be valued at 32,6 bn USD.

Half year fund letters:

Fascinating paper on the massive Albanian Ponzi system of 1996-1997

Nice pitch for European stocks vs American stocks

Very interesting deep dive into Roku

And a pitch for Imperial Brands

To make it three: Write-up on Brook Compton 

All Swiss Stocks Part 7 – Nr. 61-70

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This time, only one out of the ten randomly selected stocks made it onto my watch list.

61. Alpine Select AG

Alpine Select select is 129 mn CHF market cap listed investment company. The name rang a bell and when I searched my own blog, I found them as one of the “co-investors” in the AIRE KgAA special situation in 2012.

Including their significant distributions, Alpine Select has an Ok track record over the last years. The stock trades very close to NAV. Their portfolio these days seems to consist mostly out of hedge funds and even a crypto fund more recently.

This is not exactly my cup of tea, so I’ll “pass”.

62. Elma Electronics AG

Elma is a 146 mn CHF market cap company that manufactures electronic components. The stock chart looks strange: After effectively flat-lining for around 12 years before increasing by ~+50% in 2021: 

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SkilL vs. Luck: Euro Final Penalty shoot-out Edition

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A lot has been written already about the Euro Finals two days ago with England losing (again) the final penalty shoot out. To be honest, I was supporting Italy in the finals because I think the showed the best performance in the tournament overall, with a refreshingly “un-Italian” way of playing attractive offensive football.

I don’t want to repeat what has been written in the English press on who and why has to take the blame for missing the penalties. However I want to focus on what the coach, Gareth Southgate said when he explained the choice and the fact that two of the penalty shooters were just brought into the game at the very last minute.

Personally, I thought at first that it was a pretty bad idea to let players shoot that did not really play in the match but this is what Southgate said:

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A banking stock that los -93% without any (obvious) fraud

Very good post on “playing the losers game” by avoiding “unforced errors” (h/t S4V)

Why keeping cool despite meme stonks and crypto might be a good idea

Investing into Carbon Prices looks almost like a no-brainer

Short write-up on EV charging stock Chargepoint

Great write-up on Total Produce (Merger, De-Listing, Re-Listing)

Good long read on the “Invisible caffeine addiction”

All Swiss Shares Part 6 – Nr. 51-60

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Another 10 randomly selected Swiss shares with very short “High level” analysis. This time, I actually identified three companies that are worth watching. Enjoy !!!

51. Sika AG

Sika is a 43 bn CHF market cap specialty chemical company that produces material for the building sector. What makes the company especially interesting is the fact that despite being very dull at the surface, the stock went up by 10x over ther last 8-9 years. Even Covid-19 could not stop Sika:

Sika

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PerfOrmance Review Q2 2021 – Comment “Expectation Management”

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In the first 6 months of 2021, the Value & Opportunity portfolio gained  +14,7% (including dividends, no taxes) against a gain of +13.8% for the Benchmark (Eurostoxx50 (25%), Eurostoxx small 200 (25%), DAX (30%), MDAX (20%), all TR indices).

Links to previous Performance reviews can be found on the Performance Page of the blog. Some other funds that I follow have performed as follows in the first 6M 2021:

Partners Fund TGV: +22,1%
Profitlich/Schmidlin:  13,3 %
Squad European Convictions +18,54%
Ennismore European Smaller Cos +16,01% (in EUR)
Frankfurter Aktienfonds für Stiftungen 12,35%
Greiff Special Situation 3,45%
Squad Aguja Special Situation 10,37%
Paladin One 5,94%

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