What is Value Investing Substack?
This is a blog about Value Investing.
I am a value investor. "Value", as defined in Value Investing, is simply the act of buying something for less than its worth. For the long version, please visit my articles about value investing by clicking the links below:
The father of Value Investing, Benjamin Graham, defined an investment as an "operation which, upon thorough analysis, promises Safety of Principal and a Satisfactory Return".
In the context of the stock market, I interpret this to mean making an equity investment with the same risk:reward as bonds. This means that I treat my equity investment as a loan to the business - where the priority is to get back my principal in full, rather than achieving maximum yield. I consider my equity investment as a slightly higher risk loan extended to the business with slightly more accommodative loan covenants - hence justifying a slightly higher yield. My investment philosophy with regards to risk management can be found in this blog post here.
The distinction to be made with regards to analysis with a fundamental focus is expecting to profit from a stock investment via only its EPS (or by liquidating the investment in the secondary market at a price reflecting only the visibility of future EPS). No profits are expected to be made from reselling the company’s shares independently of EPS.
One should treat fund management itself as the business of acquiring businesses - rather than simply a gilded layer of financial tapestry draped over business.
While I identify as a value investor and cover all stocks and macro topics indiscriminately, most of my research will have an ASEAN bent as that’s where I’m geographically located. You can read my interview with Michael Fritzell - the author of the similarly-themed Asian Century Stocks blog - for an overview of Malaysia as an EM investment destination below:
With ASEAN shaping up to be the next China in terms of geoeconomic bloc positioning, it definitely pays to get up to speed on the region early - and reap the same rewards that those who had invested in China 30 years ago have by today!
Having said that, if you’re here for the macroeconomic updates then you’re in for a treat - as this blog covers global macro quite extensively as well. So if you’re here for a deep dive into macroeconomics (across time, past and present), then set this blog as one of your Internet bookmarks!
Also, do look forward to enjoying certain philosophical discussions about how classical investing can be further improved on, according to the visions of the greatest value investors of all times - Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham. If you already have a baseline grasp of value investing and its first principles and are looking for more, look no further!
Please go through my research report archive to see if there’s anything you enjoy… including several immediately actionable ideas! As value investing tends to operate over the long-term, many of the ideas written months or even years ago can still be relevant today. Hope you’ll stick around on this wonderful journey with me while we fly the banner of value investing!
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