ACooke

Just finishing this up now. Great, entertaining book on the Wirecard blow up. It always amazes me how these things float along for so long and the level of push back any pessimism - no matter how objective and provable - is given from regulatory and financial institutions. it's literally like they block their eyes and ears and repeatedly sing 'la la la, we can't hear you, la la la'; it's utterly absurd. Anyway - pretty easy and entertaining read - not financially heavy. Similar to something like Red Notice, Billion dollar whale, blood and oil. Certainly worthwhile picking up if financial shenanigans is your jam.

I find it difficult to get my head around the market being at ATH's again by year-end. If margins continue to compress like they have been for many industries (without considering total sales) - input costs, supply chain issues, energy, labour, interest etc. - then assuming actual stock price/market cap is what's referred to, that'd involve some pretty meaningful multiple expansion; all the whilst we'll almost certainly still be dealing with inflated input costs and so forth. Keeping in mind valuations were very high pre this draw down. Seems like a big ask to me, I tend to think we probably go lower and almost certainly go longer, but then again - I have minimal faith in my ability to predict 'Mr. Market'.

Almost through this one - truly fascinating. Essentially as the title suggests it's a diary from ~1930 through ~1940 America from the viewpoint of a small business owner - a lawyer - who's keenly interested (and very intelligible) in the securities markets, business, economic policy and politics of the time. Very intriguing to hear him think through what might be best practises for the time and forecast what he believes is to come, all the whilst real estate is being repossessed but unable to be moved on from bank's balance sheets, causing banks to close their doors. The world is bouncing between deflationary and inflationary scares, war and poverty, and whiplashing securities markets. Fascinating as to how brutal the period was. A lot of stuff can be related to today but most is difficult to imagine happening *here* again (at least for me).

Sourcing/time drag is probably my largest concern here too, was hoping I'd grab an idea or two from this thread which has been fantastic so far - great hearing everyone's input. There's been a fair bit of commentary re. risk arb/special situations on some podcasts and blogs lately which is probably the main reason I'm considering throwing a basket together - plenty of stuff floating around and some decent looking spreads. Do you just equal weight for the most part? I think equal weighting say a 10% chunk or whatever of you're portfolio makes sense if: You're not bringing much to the table in regards to likelihood of closure. You're not wanting to spend a hefty sum of time on each situation.

Has anyone considered throwing together a basket of merger-arbs? To be forth-coming, I don't bring much to the table in regards to the likelihood of certain deals closing or breaking which is why I'm intrigued by taking a basket approach. There seems to be a stack of pretty juicy spreads around; presumably many of these will close at close to current terms, and some will break. Assuming the above is correct and with regards to some of the current spreads - it seems at first pass that a basket of these could net some reasonably low risk, decent, and market-neutral returns. Would be interested if anyone is playing around with this approach. Again, I haven't much to add outside of a set of keen eyes.

Mike's awesome - funny dude, too. The Stronger by Science and 3dmj guys are unreal as well, as is Jeff Nippard (if you're in to the non-PED side of things anyway).

Fantastic listen as always; well worth the hour.

Just finished Junk to Gold, written by the founder and about the founding of Copart CPRT. Willis (the founder) takes the business from a small scrap yard, scrapping cars for iron, copper etc. and living in a trailer on-site, to the international insurance auctions business it is today - or more accurately 'was' when Willis handed the business over to the current CEO in 2010-ish. It covers the differing business models of Copart vs IAA, having both publicly listed at around the same time, expanding and competing for the same market. Great book. Not super in-depth but certainly an entertaining read.