Investing in Trusts: Why Andrew and I Don’t Own Them, Why You Probably Won’t Want to Too – And How to Get Started if You’re Sure This is Really an Area You Want to Explore Someone asked me a question about trusts: “I was watching one of...
Marcus (MCS) is not an overlooked stock. Despite having a market cap of around $300 million – the level usually defined as the cut-off between a “micro cap” and a “small cap” stock – well over $10 million worth of this company’s stock...
Someone asked me a question about using risk-adjusted discount rates when valuing stocks. Here’s my answer. The discount rate for a stock should be the opportunity cost of putting money in it instead of something else. For your average...
Someone asked me a question about relative valuations: “There are a couple of instances when we can value the stock based on comparables. However, for me, I feel that there is something in the middle that I can’t figure out. There is a...
Someone asked me this question: “Warren Buffett had commented that Coca-Cola has a durable competitive advantage. It is one of his ‘inevitables’. I am curious what is your thought on the investment merit of a business that may not grow...
Interesting Articles from the Week: Apple, Google and a Deal That Controls the Internet: Apple now receives an estimated $8 billion to $12 billion in annual payments — up from $1 billion a year in 2014 — in exchange for building Google’s...
From a “100-bagger” type perspective, the criteria are pretty simple: 1) Is it a small stock (probably a micro-cap, definitely a small-cap)? – We’re talking <$300 million market cap probably, but certainly like...
I’m writing again about Hingham (HIFS), because someone asked me this question: I was wondering how long it would take Geoff to talk about Hingham savings, seems to tick all his boxes – very low cost of funding on the...
This is the one “higher quality, more expensive” bank I mentioned in the podcast Andrew and I did where we talked about like eight or so different U.S. banks. Hingham’s price-to-book (1.7x) is very high compared to most U.S. banks. It is,...
Someone sent in this question: When deciding to look for a bank, where do you start? What is your initial approach when finding a bank? So, I don’t really have one specific thing I look for in a bank stock. The way it usually works...
On a recent episode of the rundown – a weekly YouTube show with Andrew Kuhn and Vetle Forsland – Andrew asked the question of whether you could be a good investor without being a good stock picker and vice versa. To answer this question,...
This is a simple situation. But, you’ll want some background info before reading my take on it. Information you might find useful about this one can be found at: Clark Street Value Hidden Value Seeking Alpha And my comments in this...
A Focused Compounding App subscriber had a question about something I said in a recent podcast: “In your recent podcast you said you thought a tobacco firm should buy back its own stock rather than pay dividends – you said you...
Flanigan’s (BDL) is a nano-cap full service restaurant and discount liquor store company. All of its locations are in Florida. And all but one of the locations are in South Florida. The company’s ticker – “BDL” – comes from the name of...
One of Warren Buffett’s basic tests for buying a stock is the idea that if you wouldn’t buy the whole company at this price – market cap, enterprise value, etc. – you shouldn’t buy the stock. Not even to hold it for just a week, month, or...
Hi, Geoff. I have just recently read your old article titled “How To Find Competitive Advantages In The Real World”. My question is, is that article still relevant at this point in time (because it is quite old)? If any, what would you...
Someone sent Geoff this email ( to ask your own question: just send me an email ) : Hey Geoff, The last 10 years saw the dominance of ‘growth’ (as quantitatively defined) over ‘value’. If you were a value (however it is defined) investor,...
We did a Focused Compounding Podcast episode that was 100% dedicated to bank investing. In that podcast notice that I analyze banks completely differently than most value investors. I don’t believe price-to-book is an especially...
One of the biggest issues I come across when talking with people about specific stocks is that while we can have a good discussion of bottom-line numbers like earnings – the discussion of items higher in the income statement is not so...
This is a follow-up article on Libsyn (LSYN). In my initial interest post on the company I talked a little about the fact that company’s CEO was named in an SEC complaint. That complaint was directed at the former CFO of the company and...