It’s a blog.
It’s educational.
It’s hopefully entertaining.
It’s not investment advice.
How to think about investing.
The Treachery of Profit
How did the surrealist movement in the early 20th century influence modern accounting? Why does counting bits and pieces matter? How to find an economic profit from an accounting one.
Considering Investment: Planet Labs
Accounting hasn’t kept up with how companies operate. Lamplighter goes through one of the short comings — long-term investments expensed through the P&L — and shows its impact on data and AI outfit, Planet Labs.
Reasonable Demands
Can companies boost demand for their shares outside of just running the company? How should companies interact with the softer sides of stockholder demand? How to sort management who are stockholder’s partners from pirates.
Copy Cat
How do banks make money? Could they make more doing the same things but not be a bank? How to evaluate opportunity in financial companies that aren’t banks.
Is It Cake?
What makes a good illusion cake? What do illusion cakes have to do with investing? How to think about companies that lose money as investments.
Loose Threads
What’s the return policy when your handbag starts unravelling? Do you get the same policy under with a merger agreement? How to look at a merger opportunity when it looks dicey if it goes through and even dicier if it doesn’t.
Sneaker Trade
Why are shoes priced differently different places on the internet? Why does it matter where things sold? How to evaluate an opportunity when a company moves its listing from one place to another.
The Bogeyman
What happens when the Bogeyman takes your cookies away. What are investors afraid of? What’s the right thing to be afraid of anyway? How to put a box around risk to measure it and evaluate an opportunity.
Captive Audience
What happens when companies try humor? What kind of espresso drink makes the best investment? How management’s signaling impacts an investment.
Well Mixed
Do cocktails and investing mix? What does a balanced drink tell us about the semiconductor business? How to evaluate a subtle, well-balanced memory company.
Special Edition
Do all investors value things the same? What’s so special about “special situations” anyway? How to find investments when ownership changes hands.
Tagalongs
Do Girl Scout cookie booths make a good investment? What do Girl Scouts and banks have in common? How to look for opportunities in companies brining in shareholders for the first time.
Buffalo Bill’s Civilized West Show
What happens when a company competes with hustlers, grifters, sharks, conmen and bandits too? Can it win? How to carve a niche by avoiding all of this.
Roadmap
How damaging is distracted investing? What happens when your financial tools lead down that road? How fostering good investing habits can keep you on the right path.
Cashcade
Profits: where do they come from? Where do they go? How to evaluate whether a company is doing a good job at shareholders or not.
Reading Tea Leaves
What does the future hold for your investment? Does management always say “the future is prosperous?” How to assess the quality of your fortune telling.
Empty Spaces
Do companies make money in space? Are there different prices for stocks in orbit and ones on Earth? How to find investments in the space between prices for one company’s stock.
Subtraction by Addition
Does merger math work different from what you learned in school? What are your options when you put 2 and 2 together and end up with less than you began? How to find opportunity in deal rubble.
What’s in the box
When shareholders revolt, should management listen? Are all shareholder returns created equal? How to find value in flailing industries.
One Size Fits All
How does shopping for clothes compare to picking investments? What do wear and tear tell us about how attractive a company might be? How to compare the relative merits of companies in a lively M&A market.