Bitcoin for (Value Investing) Dummies like myself

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Background:
Some of my readers might have noticed that starting in the last year I have become more interested in Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies. Don’t worry, I will not invest gamble with them but I do think it is important to understand what is going on in this area as this could change many things especially within financial services. As this blog functions primarily as my own diary, I have decided to do a few posts about my own learnings so far.

Bitcoin explained (maybe wrongly) in 10 Points:

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Universal Insurance Holdings (UVE) – Just punched by “Irma” or potentially knocked out ?

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Universal Insurance is an US-based P&C Insurance company which has been on my extended watch list for some time now. Why ? Well, the company always traded cheap (single digit P/E), was very profitable (~31% ROE for the last 9 years on average) and growing strongly year by year (400% over 9 years). So from the outside this looked like a cheap but highly profitable growth stock.

The main reason why I didn’t analyze the stock further is that Universal is a specialized homeowner insurance company which almost exclusively operates in Florida.

The company has a market cap of currently ~620 mn USD.

Not surprisingly Universal now is in a tough spot as “Irma” is creating havoc on Florida as I write this post. The stock price has dropped by around -30% by Friday:

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Some links

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UK “guru” Neil Woodford tries to explain his currently bad performance (incl. Provident)

Some interesting thoughts on mining stocks

Ad agencies vs. platform companies 

“Big Money thinks small” looks like a really interesting investment book

Nacco Industries looks like a potentially very interesting spin-off candidate

Some interesting thoughts from Horizon Kinetics (FRMO, Murray Stahl) on “investing” in Cryptocurrency (and other stuff)

3D Printing: The “Disruption” which didn’t really disrupt

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It feels like decades ago but actually it is only 4 years ago when 3D printing was supposed to disrupt each and everyone.

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Googling around, it is quite easy to find articles like this one in Forbes from October 2013:

We are a few years away from a printed economy – an economy in which 3D printing will have a major role in manufacturing. Up to now, 3D printing has been most useful in creating prototypes. But from the automotive to the electronics and toy industries, 3D printers will increasingly produce critical parts and finished products. What are some industries 3D printing will disrupt? Here’s our list of seven.

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Book review “Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain”

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Almost a year ago, I reviewed the excellent book “Digital Gold” which covered the story of Bitcoin from its beginnings.

Back then I said the following:

I have absolutely no clue what a fair price of a Bitcoin might be. But I believe that in order to have value it has to be widely used and not just to speculate on an increase in value. Personally I would never “invest” in Bitcoin as for me, an investment needs to produce cashflows.

Well, this was (so far) one of my weaker calls. Back then in September 2016, Bitcoin traded slightly below 600 USD, at the time of writing, the price has went up almost 8 fold to  4500 USD per Bitcoin (at the time of writing).

Book review: Attack of the 50 foot Blockchain

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Short cuts: Lloyd’s Banking (Sold), Admiral ( Add) & Silver Chef (Add)

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Lloyd’s Banking

Some readers might have noticed that I sold my Lloyd’s banking position (with a loss of -16% in EUR7 -8,4% in GBP) in order to partially fund the new Record Plc position.

So why did I sell Lloyd’s ? For this it makes sense to go back to the original write up in April 2015. At the core, I liked the business and the bank as such and thought that government selling and election uncertainty provided an attractive entry price:

Anyway, to me Lloyd’s banking Group looks like an interesting special situation at this time. The share overhang and selling should clear at some time, profits will most likely increase. Over 3-4 years I look for an upside of around 50% plus dividends or ~15% p.a. if my assumptions turn out to be correct.

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Record Plc (ISIN GB00B28ZPS36) – I like that record too !!!

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Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH !!!

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A few months ago, fellow blogger Wexboy had a very interesting post on Record Plc, a UK based “specialty asset manager”. Go and read the whole thing, it is worth it.

I try to summarize the business & background  in my own words:

Record Plc provides so-called “Currency overlay” asset management services. Currency overlays are in principle used for two reasons.

  1. To hedge an international investment portfolio into one single currency, usually the currency of the investor and/or
  2. To gain some extra yield by hedging currency exposures more “dynamically”

It is important to know that they do not manage the underlying assets, but “just” a derivative portfolio hedging the underlying assets and that they do not use their own balance sheet but act solely as an agent for the ultimate client.

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Short cuts: Provident Financial, Topdanmark

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Provident Financial

Wow, that was fast. In November I looked at the stock but luckily dismissed it. This is what I wrote back then:

However for me, despite I do like financial companies, I don’t want to invest into a company which in my opinion runs an ethical questionable business. Some might argue that Lloyds Banking is not much different but I think that there is still a big difference between a well run main street bank and an aggressive subprime lender.

I do belive that in the long run, a company which takes advantage of clients has a higher probability to get into troubles than one which actually benefits the customer.

Although the “Crook” is out, the stock tanked an incredible -70% alone on Tuesday

So what happened ?

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