When the Log Rolls Over
Emerging Markets (EMs) are highly fragile. This is due to the fact that usually when there’s a recession, capital flees, the currency melts, inflation increases and interest rates explode, choking businesses, and making the situation far worse than it would otherwise be. To fight this, the local Central Bank often aggressively raises rates, which defends […]
On Businesses with Zero Visibility
As the owner of a hedge fund business (defined as a management company and incentive fees received though an affiliated entity), I’m always amazed at the returns on capital in the business. Excluding the first start-up year, the business has annually earned many times the total capital initially invested, and only requires rather minimal working […]
On Breakouts Part II
In my prior article about breakouts, I missed out on a chance to speak about the recent change in market structure, and what it means for all of us as investors. Let’s go back in time a few decades. When I think about back then it felt like, most investors bought stocks, collected their dividends, […]
Argentina…
This post originally appeared in KEDM on June 4, 2023… “We originally spoke about Argentina back in October of 2021 and said to put it on your radar. We think the time has now come to load up. Let’s start with the obligatory note that we love Argentina; friendly people, beautiful countryside, great wine. We’ve […]
On Breakouts
Let me cut to the chase, I can read a chart, but I would almost never invest based on a chart. In fact, I’ve always been baffled by who it is that buys a “breakout.” Seriously, why pay more than yesterday’s price, when you could have bought it yesterday for less?? What is it that […]
AiC is Kuppy’s Korner
Nearly 15 years ago, I became one of the first financial bloggers, not because I sought fame, but because I needed a better way to share stock ideas, vacation pictures, and the occasional political rant with a few close friends. Out of the ether, random people I had never met, asked to be added to […]
I Just Don’t Know…
Long-time readers of this site know that I prefer an investing style that is both highly-concentrated and hyper-aggressive. My only goal is to maximize returns over rolling three-year periods. As a result, I’m completely agnostic about volatility, usually running my book well over 100% net-long, while rarely hedging. At the same time, I’m not a […]
On Inflecting Trends…
As a long-time inflection investor, I’ve learned that many themes simply do not inflect. There are multiple causes for this; often tied to a bad thesis, or a bad set of assumptions. Sometimes, it’s simply bad luck as some other macro trend supersedes my trend. Even when I get it wrong, there is often still […]
2022 Position Review
It seems that everyone has a blog these days. Once a year, we must stop everything, tally up the scores and see who got it right. Besides, what’s the point of going through all this effort, if you cannot point to your record of continuously nailing major trends and investment themes. Even when I get […]
The Fed Is Fuct (Part 5)…
I know that I touched upon this in Part 2 of this “Fed is Fuct” series, but I just cannot let go of this topic. It is simply too important of a question—in fact, it seems to be the only question in my mind as we find an event-path for “Project Zimbabwe” to re-accelerate. Let’s try a thought […]
Are DMs now EMs…???
The history of finance, is basically the history of ruined speculators claiming that “no one could have seen that coming.” I believe to be successful at this game, one must focus on the unexpected—the tail risks that no one is even thinking about. However, in the echo-chamber that is modern finance, these tails often get […]
The Fed Is Fuct (Part 4)…
I believe the Fed is trapped in a box of their own creation. As a result, they may want to talk tough, but their ability to maneuver looks severely restricted. The Fed claims that they’re targeting a terminal rate of 4.6% for Fed Funds, but if they did that for any period of time, they’d […]
