Author Archives: memyselfandi007

Book review “The Pay Off: How Changing the Way We Pay Changes Everything”

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I usually do favorable reviews of book because I don’t write about the bad ones. However this book is even exceptional among the many very good books I have written about.

There are some books that give you a new idea and/or explain something that I could never explain myself. This book created so many “Aha “moments for me that I am not sure if I have gained the same amount of new knowledge from any other book in the recent years.

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All Swiss Shares Part 13 – Nr. 121-130

Back to Switzerland with 10 “fresh” and randomly selected Swiss stocks. This time, 5 of the 10 stocks might be worth to watch after a first analysis, although I need to slim down my watch list to a more manageable number at some point in time. Enjoy !!

121. VZ Holding

VZ Holding is a 3,5 bn CHF market cap financial services company, that in contrast to most other Swíss financial companies seems to been able to create some long term value over the last years:

VZ Holding

VZ is an Asset advisor/manager and there is a very decent write-up available from Verus Capital (in German).

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Some links

Must read: Thoughts on investing (and life) from “The undercover Fund Manager”

Some thoughts on who might be paying the bill for Evergrande’s default and the impact on the Chinese Financial System

Is Facebook the “cigarette industry” of the digital age

Prof. Damodaran is no big fan of ESG Investing 

Good write up on SEA Ltd., South East Asia’s leading internet company

FrenchHiddenChampions has a nice series on Gerard Perrier (and other good stuff)

Interesting insights into the Business model of O’Reilly Automotive

Making Fun of Fundamental investors – The Frank Thelen edition

Frank Thelen is a household name in Germany. As part of the German version of “Shark Tank” (which he left in 2019), he clearly became the Venture Capital investor with the biggest public exposure (the guy in the back in the middle):

Recently, Thelen announced that he will launch the “German Version” of Ark Invest which he calls 10xDNA Fund. The idea behind is that he, as successful VC investor is able to run a big fund of public stocks that aims at “disruptive technologies”.

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Some links

HBR (and Bain) on why Founder led companies perform better

An interesting deep dive into the Market Panic of 1792

Very comprehensive overview how the Venture Capital landscape has changed over the past few years

Good profile of ETF tech guru Cathy Wood (ARK)

The Lightning network, Bitcoins answer to scaling issues, still doesn’t work

AQR thinks that shorting (high emission) stocks should decrease a portfolio’s carbon footprint

Microsoft did a big study on remote working on its own work force. The results are not positive.

Summer Reading summary

Over (spring and) summer, I managed to read a couple of books that might be interesting for my readers. This time a try a new format with a shorter summary on a couple of books compared to the more detailed single reviews I did in the past. I hope this is helpful nevertheless.

  1. The Rise of Carry

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“The Rise of Carry” is a more macro oriented book written by two former Hedge Fund “dudes”. Their thesis is that a significant part of today’s market activity is driven by “Carry Trades”, which are defined as leveraged bets with an asymetric return profile (“fat tails” on the downside). It is a very interesting approach to look at markets. The book was written well before Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital collapsed due to …leveraged bets.

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Some links

Great deep dive from Mathew Ball on Netflix and Gaming

An interesting look at “alternative performance measures” that are used by Tech companies

Highly recommended: AMA with Vitalek Buterin on Twitter (only people he follows could ask, first question from Elon Musk)

Thanks to Elon Musk, in theory “Space Base load Solar” could become a thing

6M reports from TGV Intrinsic ( Frontier Digital Ventures, VEF) and TGV Compound Interest (Amaysim, EQS, FEMSA)

A pretty cautious take on Chinese stocks

Spotify needs to take social streaming (and TikTok) very seriously

 

All Swiss Shares Part 12 – Nr. 111-120

Half time. With this post I will have covered more than 50% of the 217 SIX listed stocks. This time only one stock made it onto the watch list. Again, I will be on vacation when this scheduled post will be published.

111. Basler Kantonalbank AG

Basler KB is another one of the Swiss regional banks. The listed stocks seem to be “participation” shares only. As the other regional banks, the stock looks cheap with a dividend yield of almost 5%.

However, as the other banks, Business has been stagnating for some time and I don’t see any scenario that looks better. “pass”.

112. Hochdorf Holding AG

Hochdorf is a 115 mn CHF market cap Dairy company that has a surprisingly exciting chart for such a boring business:

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All Swiss Shares Part 11 – Nr. 101-110

Again 10 randomly selected Swiss stocks with 2 watch candidates. As I am still on holidays, please do not expect quick reactions from me on any comments.

101. Bank Cantonale Vaudoise

BC Vaudoise is with around 7 bn CHF market cap one of the bigger regional banks. As the other regional banks, business is stagnating since a couple of years, however with an ROE of 9-10% they achive one of the highest ROE’s in the industry.

However I am not interested in the shares of such a bank, therefore I’ll “pass”.

102. Stadler Rail AG

Stadler Rail is a 4 bn market cap company that manufactures “rolling stock” railcars and went public in 2019. Currently the stock price is pretty much where the stock started:

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All Swiss Shares part 10 – Nr. 91-100

Another 10 randomly selected Swiss stocks, this time with 3 candidates to potentially “watch”. As this is part of my pre-scheduled “Gone swimming” break, please do not expect quick reactions on any comment from my side.

91. Bellevue Group

Bellevue is a 570 mn CHF market cap asset manager that in contrast to many other listed asset managers seems to be doing quite good over the past few years, with the stock doubling since the beginning of 2020 after trading sideways for years:

Bellevue

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