I buy things
nobody wants.
I spend most of my time in shipping, offshore, energy, mining and other capital-intensive cyclical industries. They tend to become interesting to me after several years of poor returns have pushed capital and investor attention somewhere else.
Once a month I write about what I own, what I sold, what changed in my thinking, and what I got wrong.
Free. Roughly monthly. Unsubscribe whenever.
Starting before the results exist.
I have been thinking about doing this for a while. From January 2027 my account is entered in an externally reported investment competition, which made this a reasonable point to begin.
The timing is deliberate. I could wait a few years, see how the performance turns out, and then build a site around whatever worked. The problem is that hindsight makes any investment process look more deliberate and more coherent than it was at the time. Writing now, before the outcome is known, is the only way the record means anything later.
This is my own account and my own money. There is no fund, no outside capital and no clients, and I do not manage money for anyone else. There is no course and no paid stock-picking service behind it. The site is a record of how I invest and how that changes over time.
Fundamentals decide what. Price behaviour helps with when.
The industries I follow share one feature: adding supply is slow, expensive and difficult. A shipyard berth takes years to convert into a delivered vessel. A mine takes longer. Refining capacity does not appear because margins improved last quarter. That lag is what creates the cycle, and it is what I spend most of my time trying to read.
Fundamentals first
The business and the industry: supply and demand, asset values, replacement cost, balance sheet, cash flow, how management allocates capital, and how much new capacity is already under construction. In shipping that means the orderbook and the age profile of the fleet. In mining it means development timelines. This is what decides what I want to own or short, and why I think the price is wrong.
Timing matters
The most expensive lesson I have had is that a correct thesis is not the same as a good entry. I have been right about an industry and right about the company and still lost money by arriving a year early. That is why I now pay close attention to price behaviour: trend, relative strength, how a stock reacts to news, whether buying is rewarded or immediately sold. It is not a signal to act on by itself. It tells me whether the market is starting to agree.
Concentrated, not restricted
Most of my research and most of my exposure sits in shipping, energy, offshore and mining, because that is where I have spent the years and where my judgement is worth something. It is not a rule. If something outside those industries is clearly mispriced and I understand it well enough, I will own it.
What I spend most of my time on.
These are not portfolio restrictions. They are the industries I follow closely and where most of the research hours go.
Shipping
- Crude tankers
- Product tankers
- Dry bulk
- Containers
- LNG and LPG
Energy and offshore
- Offshore drilling
- Oilfield services
- Refining
- Natural gas
- Energy infrastructure
Mining and materials
- Copper
- Uranium
- Coal
- Precious metals
- Other commodity producers
The public record starts in January 2027.
From January my account is entered in Money Manager Verified Ratings, the category for accounts over $1,000,000 run alongside the United States Investing Championship. I submit the brokerage statements each month and the organisers compile and publish the standings. Whatever they publish will be reproduced here, month by month.
Roughly once a month.
What I bought and sold, the reasoning behind it, what I am seeing in the industries I follow, and where my thinking has changed. Written at the time, not reconstructed afterwards.
All lettersLetters by email.
Roughly monthly, starting now, with the reported results added from January.
Free. Unsubscribe whenever.