Category Archives: Uncategorized

Some links 09/2026

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A very good description of Sabre’s business from Best Anchor Stocks (following the Constellation Software investment)

Interesting Deep Dive into “bill and hold” revenue recognition from Prof. Meitner (Gerresheimer example)

Antropic has released a very interesting report on which professions they see as most likely to be disrupted by AI soon

A good reminder that long term index returns are not so easy to achieve in reality

A certain sort of Ants can transform CO2 internally into a mineral that strengthens their body armour

Great summary of how to spot (and avoid) frauds and hypes in Technology investments

The Bireme Capital 2025 annual letter is worth reading

Some thoughts on Vibe Coding, SaaS vs AI (10 Moats) and Guidewire Software

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Executive Summary:

This post does not contain any actionable investment advice but rather some personal ramblings on Vibe coding and the attempt to analyze a specific Software company (Guidewire) according to a Template of 10 Moats for Software companies and their vulnerability to the AI threat.

Introduction:

My track record as a Software investor is to put it mildly, very poor. My best Software Investment so far is Chapters Group which I bought as a net-net before it even became a VMS Serial Acquirer. My blog and portfolio archive also tell me that I sold Microsoft in 2011 at ~25$ per share with a 4% gain because I thought that the Office products had no future. So please take everything I say about Software with a grain of salt or even better, just ignore it.

I do have a background in Software development. Although I would not call it Software development but “Code butchering”. It started as a teenager on a C64 with Basic and Assembler and ended in the late 1990s with Cobol/PLSQL working for a large US Consulting Company (yes, I was young and needed the money). Knowing the speed of financial institutions, I would not be surprised if some of my Spaghetti code would still be running somewhere….

Why am I saying this ? Because of course, Software stocks have been doing quite poorly over the past weeks/months. In addition, I also had the opportunity to play around with Claude Code first hand. 

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Navel gazing Alert: How to improve my investment process by incorporating “Momentum”

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Management summary:

“Navel gazing” alert: This post doesn’t contain any actionable investment ideas but rather explores how I can enrich my own investment process in the future by incoprorating some measures of Stock price and fundamental momentum.

Excursion: My secret hobby

First I have to admit that for a few months now, I do have a secret hobby: I am watching on a regular basis a Wikifolio (Wikifolio is a German/Austrian platform where everyone can set up a “fund” and other investors can participate) from an Austrian trader with the name Richard “”Ritschy” Dobensberger.

Not only has he managed to attract 160 mn EUR in investments into his portfolio but he has averaged 33% CAGR over the last 13 years, resulting in an overall performance of around 4000% which is really really remarkable and puts him into the top of any trader I know.

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Some links 13/2025

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Rob Vinall has sent another “Postcard from Around the World”

Larry Swedrow shows (once again) that most active funds underperform their Benchmarks

Great article on the virtues of investing into “Controlled” companies

Interesting first part of an “Airport deep dive” series with many interesting details

Nice deep dive into UK’s Games Workshop from the Stoa Capital substack

Timely FT article on the foolishness of taking Private Equity IRRs seriously 

Edelweiss Capital with a deep dive into fraudulent Intercompany accounting (Pescanova & Wirecard)

Some links 08/2025

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If you have 2 hours to spare and want to know more about AI LLMs than 99,8% of your peers, then this video from Andrej Karpathy is what you should watch

Maynard Payton on Filtronic, one of the very few winners on the UK AIM Market

BYD shocked competitors with Super-duper fast charging some days ago. And it’s being rolled out in April.

The Private jet market is doing very well

Smoking Mariuana really seems to impact consumer behaviour. I wonder how that would interplay with Ozempic.

The Behind the Balancesheet Substack with a nice summary of a recent Value & growth conference in New York

The “Dividend anomaly” could be quite easily exploited

Quick update Thermador & Some thoughts on Defence stocks

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Thermador 2024 numbers

Thermador released 2024 numbers last Friday. The most positive part of the release is the fact that Thermador manages to put everything you need to know on two pages without any BS. The numbers were clearly not good, with sales down -13,5% in 2024 and profit down -23,3%:

On the positive side, Thermador seems to continue to look for acquisition targets:

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Some links 03/2025

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Ben Evan’s “State of AI” presentation is a must read

Despite lackluster performance, David Einhorn’s Q4 letter is worth reading

Annual letter time: Partners Fund 2024 letter, Rubicon Stockpicker 2024 letter, Compound Interest 2024 letter

An interesting new Subtack called “Building Things that last” has just launched with a few great posts

For me, the story of the week: Chinese LLM Deepseek seems to be (almost) on par with the OpenAI &Co at a much lower cost. Maybe it’s just Chinese propaganda, maybe it’s not.

A very detailed Nvidia short case including an (expert) assessment of Deepseek

The “Behind the Balance Sheet” Substack and Podcast are both worth the time

Some links 20/2024

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Clubbing or “the big night out” seems to be a thing of the past. On the other hand, Guiness has to be rationed in the UK due to sudden popularity with GenZ

Interesting FT “Big read” about Orsted, the Off Shore Wind pioneer (search result)

For now, the “Endowment Model” of investing mostly in Alternative Assets seems to be a losers game due to high fees

What a surprise – Retail Stock traders on Twitter on average are doing very poorly according to an analysis done by AI

Good “post mortem” analysis of UK Insurer DirectLine after the Aviva take-over offer

Sixt competitor Hertz has some dirty tricks up it’s sleeve when it comes to bond issuance (FT, Google search result)

Private Equity is going retail mainly because institutional investors seem to be tapped out

Some links 18/2024

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Alluvial Capital with an interesting Colombian “sum of the parts plus catalyst” Cement company

A great deep dive into the much improved technology of Desalination from Tomas Pueyo

Some good lessons from watching and commenting on markets for 37 years

A very nice article explaining the three main contributors to the current success of LLM Gen AI models

It’s always worth listening whenever Prof Damodaran is on a podcast. His (critial) post on “Sustainability is equally worth reading.

Great write-up on French research company Ipsos

Part 1 of a very promising deep dive into the issue that Private Market IRRs do not equal investment perfomance

Some links 17/2024

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Must read (for Oak barrel afficionados): Wintergem’s deep dive into TFF and the oak barrel market

Local Indian Whisky seems to become a thing in India

A very deep dive into HAL Trust in the latest East 72 Dynasty Trust investor letter

Air Street Capital’s “State of AI 2024 report” has been released

Some interesting charts why the current “American stocks are the only game in town” period might soon be over

John Hempton with a rare long pitch on Brambles, the Aussie Pallet maker

A deeper look into the problems brewing under the surface in the Private Equity industry

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