My goal for these blog posts is to provide useful information so that you can make more accurate decisions.
Below are some basic definitions that I found helpful from a book called “Investment Management: Portfolio Diversification, Risk and Timing – Fact and Fiction” by Robert Hagin:
- Facts & data are both descriptive measures of things that have happened
- News includes all new facts and data
- Knowledge is required to translate news, facts and/or data into useful information
- Noise is facts/data/news that cannot be processed into useful information (<— WHAT MOST STUFF IS)
- Useful information can be used to make more accurate decisions (<— WHAT I’M TRYING TO PROVIDE)
Since there is an endless and ever growing amount of things to learn, I hope that these posts are helpful in summarizing important topics related to investing.
Each post will include three things that I’ve learned from books, podcasts, articles, newsletters and company call/presentation transcripts that I’ve been reading and/or listening to.
#1
Luhnow, David, and Tom Fairless. “Europe Is Losing.” The Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2025.
Quote: “America innovates, China imitates, Europe regulates.” – Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
This article was a bit long but worth the read, as it shed light on how and why Europe has fallen from 33% of global GDP in 2005 down to 23% in 2024. Many structural headwinds to economic growth remain in place (shrinking workforce, high government spending, strong national unions) though some countries like Sweden have shown progress recently. The biggest takeaway for me was that the U.S. is still a pretty good place to be on a relative basis from a long-term investment perspective (even when companies based overseas have cheaper valuations as is currently the case).
#2
Mauboussin, Michael. “Seth Klarman – Contrarian Investing, Discipline, and Building Baupost.” Value Investing with Legends, Season 11, Episode 2, August 1, 2025.
Quote: “The area of most interest at the moment is probably commercial real estate.” – Seth Klarman
While I’m not surprised that a value guy like Mr. Klarman is not excited about buying stocks with the S&P 500 trading above 20x forward earnings, this comment struck me as notable given the price of VNQ (our real estate investment vehicle of choice) is still 20% below recent peak levels and the near term path for short-term interest rates is likely lower. Remember, as Jamie Dimon said previously, a 2% increase in rates reduces financial asset values (including real estate) by 20% all else equal. Thus, rates heading lower should be a tailwind for real estate values broadly.
#3
ORCL Earnings Call Transcript from September 9, 2025 (1QFY2026)
Quote: “I mean we — historically, we don’t deal with CEOs. Now we deal with CEOs. Now we deal with heads of government and heads of state on this because AI is so important.” – CEO Larry Ellison
I am not a technology analyst, nor am I able to explain in great detail how Oracle’s products actually work, but this statement (along with their projection of $100bn+ revenue growth over the next few years) seems to be a pretty clear indication that demand for their products and services has inflected meaningfully higher in recent months. While there is clearly execution risk whenever any management team gives a multi-year revenue forecast, this outlook makes it seem like there is still room for AI and related technological improvements to drive upside to earnings estimates (which have historically been the #1 driver of stock price performance over time).
