“We tend to assume that the worst that has happened is the worst that can happen, and then prepare for that. We forget that “the worst” smashed a previous understanding of what was the worst..” – Brain Food: Figuring it Out (https://fs.blog/brain-food/december-11-2022/)
Happy New Year!
First post of 2023. I’ve set a goal for posting more. Competing priorities last year, especially the fourth quarter, hampered my ability to read, write, and post.
However, we successfully sold the business to a new set of investors, delivering a great outcome for our prior shareholders. So with that behind me, I hope to be spending more time here.
Note on the book reading front – I did knock out the entire Travis McGee series.
Here are my most influential reads for the month – in no particular order:
- Take Calculated Risks – “Making an unconventional decision can be a very lonely action. Yet, when the person making it has intimate knowledge of a situation and has calculated the risks involved, it often proves to be precisely the right one.”
- 3Q 2022 GMO Quarterly Letter – ” Looked at in this way, it seems as if a value strategy in the U.S. should be avoiding the “shallow value” stocks that are mildly cheap relative to the market and focusing solely on the “deep value” quintile. “
- Summary of My Post-CPI Tweets – “Overall Core ex-housing (which includes core goods) is down to 5.2% y/y. That’s the lowest since…well, September 2021. Going the right direction but unless core services start to decelerate, there’s a limit to how good this picture can be.”
- The Fed is Dead – “In fact, rather than slowing corporate price increases, the Fed’s rate hikes seem to be having the opposite effect.”
- Billionaire David Tepper Is Betting Against the Stock Market Because of the Federal Reserve – ” I think the upside/downside [risk here] just doesn’t make sense to me when I have so many central banks telling me what they are going to do”
- Q&A with Scott Reardon: Great Investor Track Records – “Generally they were looking for companies where free cash flow yield + growth rate equaled 20% or more. In other words, they were looking for returns double the market average, which is exactly what all of them achieved over their long careers.”
- How private markets became an escape from reality – “Private equity firms reported gains of about 3 per cent this year, when public markets were down 20 per cent or more and tighter money battered all markets similarly.”
- How to Hedge Inflation and Avoid the Biggest Bond Risk – “Inflation is the biggest long-term risk for bond investors.”
- BNP Paribas studied 100 years of market crashes – “A typical recession bear market is 1.5 years in length, with a median drawdown of 38% and a median peak in the VIX of 40.5. “
- TeamDynamix Secures Investment to Deliver Rapid Innovation for IT Automation – ” TeamDynamix, a leading IT automation provider, today announced that it has secured an investment from New York-based Level Equity Management while existing investor, K1 Investment Management, will roll a material portion of its proceeds from its exit into the business.”
Note: This is based on when I read the article, not necessarily when it was first published. Unfortunately, my backlog of things I would like to read always seems to dwarf the amount of time I can devote to reading.
Updated stats:
| Read Articles | Books | |
| January | 89 | 1 |
| February | 110 | 0 |
| March | 102 | 3 |
| April | 103 | 2 |
| May | 134 | 3 |
| June | 74 | 0 |
| July | 82 | 2 |
| August | 112 | 7 |
| September | 72 | 4 |
| October | 61 | 4 |
| November | 81 | 5 |
| December | 76 | 5 |
| Total | 1,096 | 36 |