About Me
I was a portfolio manager at a multi-billion dollar investment fund for about 17 years and have been a security analyst for 25+. I was also an adjunct professor teaching Securities Analysis at a prominent business school for about 12 years. I like researching stocks and investing. I am a fundamental, buy-and-hold investor.
I intend to cover the following topics on this blog (for now):
- ROIC Practice Over Theory – I am particularly interested in return on invested capital. When I was teaching this topic got a single lecture, yet students had endless questions about the details of applying ROIC analysis, and justifiably so: ROIC sits at the intersection of finance, economics and accounting, and thinking about it in a useful way requires a good amount of practical knowledge and judgment about all of these topics, not to mention an understanding of the company and industry involved. In my opinion it is the essence of any fundamental investment decision.
I would like this blog to be a useful source of information on applying ROIC to specific companies on a real-time basis, instead of purely from an academic standpoint.
I will often write posts solely about a company’s ROIC and usually leave the “deep dive” aspects of the company to others. Though I will also occasionally incorporate my ROIC thinking into stock pitches (see below).
Above all else, I want this blog to be a place where I can share my thoughts but also learn from others. If Margin of Maybe becomes a way to crowdsource insight on capital productivity for companies I am interested in or own in any small way, that wouldn’t suck.
- How Does The Business Make Money? – Speaking of “Deep Dives,” much of what is billed as a deep dive on the Internet is shockingly bad and nothing more than a slightly modified version of cut and paste. Specifically, I have been consistently astounded by how many students and investment analysts fail to answer the How Does The Business Make Money question when pitching investment ideas, or at least fail to explain how the business makes money in a readable, commonsensical, and concise way. Yet this is a critical aspect of any stock pitch and of course ties directly into any decent ROIC and any valuation exercise. I will write blog posts devoted solely to this question for individual stocks and try to do a good job at it. Just…because.
- Stock Pitches – I will sometimes post full stock pitches (warning: I subscribe to the Amazon 6 Page Memo Rule for stock write ups) with the goal of getting feedback and hopefully learning more about the company I’m working on from others out there.
Please send me your comments and stock pitches if you think they tie into this blog (e.g., there is a misunderstood and juicy ROIC thesis involved for company X, or I made a big mistake on company Y). I am happy to post or respond to anything that is additive in some way.
LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/margin-of-maybe-0215a02a2
Youtube Channel: