Featured
- What Differentiates McDonald’s from Other Restaurant Players? $MCDMay 28, 2020
Many know the history behind McDonald’s, but if you don’t I highly recommend the movie The Founder. It details how McDonald’s started as a simple restaurant business, but Ray Kroc took it over to expand the business and eventually takes it over. It also gets into the groundwork for McDonald’s …
- Assessing the Age Old Question: Home Depot vs. Lowe’s? $HD $LOWMay 8, 2020
In this post, I am going to compare Home Depot vs. Lowe’s. Note, I’m now including this in my Competitive Strategy series, as I think the decisions Home Depot has made to date compared to Lowe’s have clearly manifested themselves in their results. Pershing Square, now has a ~$1bn investment …
- Breaking Down Fastenal’s Moat in 3 PointsMay 1, 2020
Fastenal is a company that sells nuts, bolts, and other industrial and construction supplies. Pretty simple business – and definitely not sexy. How then has Fastenal stock created so much value? In keeping with comparisons to other high-flying stocks on sexier businesses (like my post on NVR) Fastenal stock has beaten …
Columns
- Bolster the Economy: Lower Bank Capital Requirements for the Foreseeable Future $XLF $WFC $BAC $JPMMay 22, 2020
I think the bank stocks look cheap, as I highlighted with a few in a recent post. But there are issues with lending right now — and I am not even including the wave of defaults & impairments people expect or forbearance. In the article in the WSJ titled, The …
- Google Should Take a Page from the IAC Playbook: Spin-Offs $IAC $GOOGL $GOOGMay 20, 2020
I’ve been thinking about Google recently… especially as concerns arose around COVID-19 and what it would do to the new era advertising giants. Everyone knows “search” is such a powerful business in advertising and benefits from the scale / platform benefits of everyone “googling” what they need. Though I can’t …
- 4 Bank Stocks Worth Considering $WFC $DFS $BNPQY $SNVMay 10, 2020
Bank stocks have gotten hammered this year. In fact, they only trail energy in terms of worst-performing asset classes. (thanks Callum Thomas for this chart) This makes sense. If I were to boil it down in one sentence its “banks do not do well in recessions.” Borrowers may default on …
Personal Finance
- 3 Reasons to Do a Cash Out Refinance of an Investment Property
One benefit of real estate investing is being able to take your initial capital out of the deal and still own the property. My wife and I just did this through a cash out refinance on investment property we’ve owned. It is fairly straightforward, but let me try to explain …
April 26, 2020 - Tax loss Harvesting: How to Reap the Most Rewards
Tax loss harvesting is something I tend to think about after a strong year of equity returns. I find myself asking if I should reduce risk in some names or at least re-balance the portfolio. The problem is that this can create significant capital gains. That said, if you are …
October 14, 2019 - What asset allocation performed best over time?
“Past performance is not indicative of future results” you say as you read this post. But it can be a tool for analyzing what asset allocation performed the best. The markets are particularly tough to apply history to, though, because of the wide amount of factors involved. Interest rates, valuations, …
February 18, 2019