What are we doing here?

I’ve thought about starting a newsletter for a while, but always hesitated because I wasn’t sure if I could produce something useful frequently enough to justify charging people money. I thought maybe once I had a really good, live idea, then I could start. The trouble is that good, live ideas don’t come around very often.

I have a thing for reading old financial books, and recently I started on One Thousand Ways to Make $1000, by F.C. Minaker. Published in 1936, the book begins with a bit of a pep talk to the reader about how to get up the nerve to start a business. I was struck by this particular line:

“The way to begin making money, is to begin. That may sound foolish. But the hundreds of thousands of people in this country who would like to make a lot of money are not making it because they are waiting for this, that, or the other thing to happen.”

One Thousand Ways to Make $1000, by F.C. Minaker

I’m not necessary starting this with the sole goal to make money, but it’d be nice, and the more general point about just starting really struck home.

So here I am.

An Anonymous Tree

I’d prefer to remain anonymous because I have a professional life outside of this endeavor, and for personal/family reasons. (If you figure out who I am, please help me keep the secret.) You can find me on twitter at @loneelmcapital.

Goals and Structure

I plan to write a mixture of free and paid articles. The paid ones will concern single stocks and/or live ideas. Everything else will likely be free.

I will not play coy with the ticker/company names. However, as a free subscriber, you should know that just because I post about a company doesn't mean I am "recommending" it, or even that I have a position. Some write-ups will be negative. Others might be "here is what I know/think but I haven't taken a position".

I’m hoping my paid subscribers will engage with me on the live ideas and that we can all work together to understand the situation. (Just for the avoidance of doubt, I’m NOT a financial advisor nor am I giving out financial advice. I’m a software engineer, and I just want a place to discuss things I think are interesting.)

I’m not offering monthly subscriptions. I am not a short-term trader, and most of the things I do take years to work out, so I’d like people to give me years to work out as well. In my experience, one good idea makes an annual subscription worth it. If you stand to make substantial sums on an investment, the $600 is a small price to pay.

What You Can Expect

I look for undervalued securities, and generally am long-only. The situations usually take a while to develop, and winners may take 1-3 years to play out. Losers become apparent much more quickly. In a good year, I might find a couple good situations (and several bad ones). I tend to buy mid-to-high single digit positions, scaling in as I gain conviction.

Suffice to say, I’m not a trader and this won’t be a get-rich-quick trading newsletter. In fact, I joke with a friend that buying stuff a month after I do is probably a good strategy to get better entries.

My goal when writing something up is to make the idea concrete, and I find that writing forces me to be honest with myself. I’m a big believer that the upside case should be short and obvious and the real useful bits are examining the downside. Sometimes I’ll start writing something with the intent to buy and realize by the end that I shouldn’t. In those cases, the writing was successful, because I learned something by doing it. I’ll be sharing those as well.

When I don’t have a live idea to write about, I’ll be writing free articles about whatever strikes my fancy.

Now I Ask You For Money

If that sounds good, please consider subscribing.

Thanks for reading!