Posts
Plus500 (PLUS.L): $779m of net cash and 50% ROE, but EBITDA margin has fallen from 62% to 40.5% as the business diversifies
*Researched and valued as of 13 July 2026. If you're reading this a few days later, treat the price/multiples below as a snapshot from that date, not today's numbers.* Plus500 is a CFD and options broker that's spent the last few years building a second business alongside its core OTC …
Pernod Ricard
​ Pernod Ricard looks like a classic quality company temporarily out of favor. The company owns some of the most valuable spirits brands in the world, including Jameson, Absolut, Chivas Regal, Martell, Malibu, and Beefeater. These brands have been built over decades and give Pernod significant pricing power. Consumers may …
Howdens Joinery (LSE: HWND) - Best In Class Building Materials Company, Running Out of Runway
Does anyone here own Howdens Joinery (LSE HWDN)? It posts gross margins 20+% higher than it's UK peers, and has a counter-intuitive model (sells directly to builders, not consumers). There's a moat (Helmer's counterpositoning) and local scale economies, although three year ROIIC is 1%. It does have a \~18+% ROIC …
WeTouch Enters Global Supply Chain of One of Japan’s Top Three Office Equipment Manufacturers - WETH
I realize I'm likely again only talking to myself, but here goes anyway. [https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/07/14/3326979/0/en/WeTouch-Enters-Global-Supply-Chain-of-One-of-Japan-s-Top-Three-Office-Equipment-Manufacturers.html](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/07/14/3326979/0/en/WeTouch-Enters-Global-Supply-Chain-of-One-of-Japan-s-Top-Three-Office-Equipment-Manufacturers.html) This is good news, $10 Million ADDITIONAL sales revenue with approximately 30% annual growth rate. From a Google search: "Canon, Ricoh, and Konica Minolta are widely recognized as Japan's "Big Three" dominant office equipment and multifunction …
Game of Thrones in AGI Infrastructure: The Monopoly Fracture and the Great Capital Rotation
Subtitle: How Physical Scaling Limits Encountered Material Physics, and How the Open Modular Alliance Restructured the SCM Landscape # Executive Summary The absolute monopoly of general-purpose merchant silicon is facing a structural fracture. Driven not by macro-demand contraction, but by the unyielding laws of material physics and advanced packaging yield …
Mr President, we have the second SaaSpocalypse.
Don't look at IBM stock.
Growth isn’t always good. Let me explain why in 20 minutes.
A lot of people seem pretty confused about ROIC and growth. Since this is a slightly more technical topic and involves concepts such as ROIIC, WACC and the reinvestment rate, I thought it would be useful to bring these ideas down to earth. I don’t think the basic idea that …
DCF is not magic - don't waste time on valuation
Classic comments on valuation and, in particular, Discounted Cash Flow, by John Hempton (at Bronte Capital), back in 2017: >"Proper valuations are far more art than science. DCF valuations - especially of something growing near or above the discount rate are famously sensitive to assumptions. The right comparison is to …
Buyback Watch
Last week’s notable buyback names: * EquipmentShare (EQPT): authorized a $500M buyback and raised 2026 guidance. Stock moved +16.56% after-hours. This is the strongest signal of the group because the repurchase came with better revenue, rental revenue, and EBITDA expectations. * WD-40 (WDFC): approved a new $100M buyback after a …
Deep Dive: Where Value Accrues in the AI Stack
Where does it start? Where does it end? Where does it fork? Which layers compound value, and which get commoditized? Who owns the fulcrum assets that pivot the rest of the stack? Every era of computing has been won by the people who got the stack right. This is the …