Long $MVBF:

At the surface, this is a small W. Va. bank trading around 1.7x TBV.

But a deeper looks shows that it's a fintech play with exposure to Credit Karma, crypto (Kraken) and most importantly igaming (Draftkings, Fanduel, etc)

Gaming deposits grew 70% from Q3 to Q4! Around 2014-15, MVB was growing loan portfolio at 20% CAGR, but the deposits were not growing.

So CEO Larry Mazza and team went towards fintech as a way to get low cost deposits.

I was still in high school in 2000, so obviously wasn't investing.
But the more I read, the more I realize it wasn't just a using "eyeballs" for valuation problem.

Thread below: First up Xilinx

They were the leaders (and still are) with ~40% share in FPGAs. The end market was growing. They were growing fast as shown in this chart for fiscal year 2001 ending in March 2001

I am long Nintendo.

It's fascinating setup because it's a great product, but it's an open question if it will be a good investment.

A thread on both sides here: First, the long side

@aaronvalue does a great job highlighting the bull thesis here. tl;DR: Nintendo has great IP and they could monetize it in various ways.

mindsetvalue.substack.com/p/mama-mia-nin…

No one knows the impact of COVID yet because it's unknown and unknowable.

Reading Zeckhauser and @AnnieDuke is a better preparation for investing in this scenario than the predictions of economists.

Also, focusing on analyzing a single business at a time helps a bit.

https://twitter.com/AnnieDuke/status/1243216731453050880

" In the fog of pandemic, action must come before perfect information"

$EVI

Quick summary of last QTR results:
GM% down due to initiatives to gain market share
Higher SG&A as they try to modernize their subsidiary operations

CEO called it "short term tradeoff for longer term growth"

/1 Why can they make these short term tradeoffs?
1. Because the majority owners are insiders
2. Most stock options for employees vest at retirement

Folks on fintwit say they are looking for management with long term focus, but lot of digs at $EVI results

/2

Shipping thread:

There's been a long bear market in shipping rates. And new ship building activity dropped post 2010. And more than half of the shipyards close

/1 If we look at the sub-segment of tankers, and specifically clean tankers, in the last 5 years supply has gone up in terms of dead weight tons. In 2019, the deadweight tons went up by another 6 million, but the TCE rates have still gone up a lot.

/2

Thread - examples of steep drops in wealth from not managing risks esp. in business with operating leverage

Reichmann wealth collapsed 90% due to the huge bet on Canary Wharf when real estate demand / pricing dropped and credit was hard to get /1 Next up: flashy salesguy Erik Bautista who lost 90%+ of his wealth in one year. His investors also lost it all because he lied about OGX offshore oil potential. Here's an article from 2013 that talks about it. /2

Re-reading some parts of @AnnieDuke 's fantastic book Thinking in Bets. "Hearing is believing" explores how our beliefs are based on efficiency and not accuracy. Good reminder to question all investment beliefs /1 Motivated reasoning example: is selling of stock by big shareholder forced selling or smart money exiting? How much of this interpretation is dependent on motivated reasoning? /2

Just finished reading Thinking in Bets by @AnnieDuke. Key points relevant to investing:
A. History is not inevitable. Similar to @nnataleb 's Alternative histories concept - Look at history as only surviving branch of a tree, and low chance branch might survive /1 B. Avoid looking at only results (Resulting) to decide if investment decision was correct or not. In boom years, all decisions can look skillful, but its most likely luck.

C. Pre-mortem: consider everything that go wrong (similar to don't lose money) before investing. /2