value and opportunity

Some really good advice on how and for what to use Twitter

Morgan Housel with a big post on 17 “common mental models”

Value Situations with a write up on Spin-off Wickes Group Plc

Interesting Twitter thread on how much wheat could actually be missing from world markets due to the Ukraine War (Spoiler: very little). From the same author some facts on fertilizer as well.

Despite the “tech crash”, private Ultra Fast delivery start-up Getir is able to raise money at a record valuation

Some thoughts on what might have triggered Buffett’s interest in Alleghany

The low beta premium seems to be mostly an illiquidity premium

Roughly two years after the beginning of the Pandemic, a lot of people thought that we would now get slowly back to our “normal lives” and chill out. Until Mr. Putin decided that he needs to protect himself by invading Ukraine.

As in the original Panic Journal series, these posts are more “self therapy” than anything else, so please excuse me any irrelevant ramblings.

Maybe one upfront remark: I am an investor, not a political expert. So I don’t know what will happen and speculating about it will not add any value. However one thing is clear: War is always a catastrophe, not justified by anything and in the end, everyone is a loser (or dead). Everyone will pay a price, someway or another.

For good measure, I will add some general remarks about Putin and Ukraine at the end.

Russian stocks: No, no and again no

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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

Disclosure: I have no exposure to Grenke nor do I plan to have no exposure for the foreseeable future.

Grenke is a company I have written about quite often in this blog. My only investment had been the purchase of Grenke Bonds after the “Short Attack” in September 2020. I divested them relatively soon after the first rebound with a decent profit.

Since then a couple of things happened: The COO suddenly resigned on Feb. 8th, with an understandable explanation given only one day later. The story that was also communicated via some back channels was, that everything was fine and the main issue was that the German regulator BAFIN is over eager after the Wirecard Fiasco and there is no reason to worry. Another story is that Grenke is still an “innocent” inexperienced company and therefore communication is not so professional but the company as such is a great company with a great future.

Personally, I always had issues with Grenke. Yes the numbers always looked great, but I found the reporting very intransparent, for instance their “Free Cash Flow” definition which included debt issuance which at least in my “old school” thinking is not even close to free cash flow.

Last week now, Grenke came out with an update which at first sounded like what we in Germany would say is a “Persilschein” or a proof that everything is great. It starts as follows:

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