The Last Straw

Hairy Businesses

Every business, no matter how wonderful, has a few hairs on it. And if you don’t think that’s true, it’s only because you haven’t looked hard enough. But some hairs are, well, hairier than others.  It’s not ideal to see the CEO of one of your favourite companies sell shares right before an opportunistic capital raise, but that may be more palatable […]

The Rule Of Five

There’s an old (and quite unscientific) investment principle called the ‘rule of five‘ which states that for every five stocks in your portfolio, one will significantly outperform the market, three will more or less match it, and one will…well, it’ll suck. Badly. Overall, that makes the whole business of portfolio management seem rather futile. If the end result is pretty much a wash, […]

Big Swinging Stocks

When you’ve been around small-caps for a while, large daily moves aren’t unfamiliar. Much of the time, they’re best ignored. Shares in 8common (ASX:8CO) last month spiked by 29% in a single day after the business released an encouraging quarterly result. A nice gain, for sure, but one that was driven by less than $20k worth of trades. Shares are now back at where […]

Profiting From Volatility

With most companies issuing results this month, it’s a busy time for investors. And, given some of the volatility these results can induce, it’s also a period that can test your nerves. Sometimes the market’s reaction is perfectly rational. But not always, at least not in the context of how a long-term investor would appraise things. A good example lately is […]

Renovations And Valuations

Why is it that building or renovation cost estimates are always — and I mean always — wrong? Usually significantly so. If you’ve ever watched shows like Grand Designs, or undertaken a bit of remodelling yourself, you know this to be true. Projects that are completed on-time and on-budget are rarer than hen’s teeth. This is especially true for “nation […]

Investing In A Wild Future

If you’re a technophile, there’s a fast expanding array of things to get excited about. Synthetic biology, robotics, materials science, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing & (more recently) superconductivity are some of the more promising domains where very real progress is being made. Once in a species breakthroughs no longer feel as far fetched as they used to. And progress […]

Are The Bulls Back?

You don’t need us to tell you that it’s been a tough run for small caps over the past year or so. And the harsh truth is that much of the pain was well deserved. Things always look clearer with the benefit of hindsight, but there was never any good justification for a bunch of sub-scale, cash-burning, undifferentiated wannabees to […]

Strawman Custom Index Builder

We’re excited to reveal a new custom index builder for Strawman — one that will allow you to construct a performance index that is based on a specific subset of members. The default Strawman Index will, of course, remain unchanged. But the settings are somewhat arbitrary, and may not align with your preferences. To build your own index, navigate to the […]

The Power of Incentives

Charlie Munger once said “show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome“.  A great example comes from 1860s, when the British contracted ship captains to transport convicts to our sunny shores. Back then, the survival rate of those poor souls was a miserable 40%. Human rights weren’t exactly a high priority, but most still felt that allowing 6 […]

Lessons from a 10-bagger

In June of 2015, shares in Objective Corp (ASX:OCL) — a much under-recognised compounding machine that provides software to government and enterprise customers — hit $2 per share. It was a record high following a staggering rally from just 20c a few years earlier.  This ‘ten-bagger’ was certainly assisted by improving revenue and gross profits, both of which had grown 25% over the […]