Between seasons: Joseph's top articles in February
Joseph continued to comb investing books for useful insights and wrote about everything from "forever companies" to beaten up alcohol stocks.
I don’t know whether it was the post-holiday return to normality or – more likely – Sydney’s return to normal levels of traffic, but February felt like a bit of a slog. Either way, we made it. Here are some articles you may have missed from me along the way.
Bookworm continues
My weekly Bookworm column is published every Tuesday. It aims to share useful insights from investing books and letters.
I started February by exploring the ten-minute stock check from Pat Dorsey's book ‘Five Rules For Successful Stock Investing’. This process won’t bring you to an investment decision but it can quickly remove lower quality ideas from consideration. See how it works here.
Next I looked at David Dreman’s idea of "trigger events" and why this concept might explain Nvidia’s recent stock market reversal. I then walked through a simple (yet still highly complex) valuation method here.
Finally I looked at “legacy” versus “reinvestment” moats. This idea, presented in a classic investing article by a US investor called Connor Leonard, could hold the key to understanding why some companies grow exponentially while others do not. Read it here.
Forever stocks, Buffett, and a new holding
Asides from Bookworm, I revealed why I decided to buy an underperforming ETF for my retirement portfolio. I also looked at what might be Warren Buffett’s most obvious yet hardest to execute piece of advice for stock pickers.
Just how do you find companies that look 'almost certain' to grow their earnings significantly for many years? Let alone at a decent price? See my thoughts on this approach in ‘Simple but not easy: Investing as Buffett intended’.
Speaking of Buffett, the start of 2025 has seen Bill Ackman present his vision of building a Berkshire Hathaway style firm out of his "forever company" Howard Hughes Holdings. This led me to consider what might qualify something as a permanent holding.
Tacos, toilets and auto parts
With our analysts top to toe in earnings calls, Ask the analyst took a backseat. We did, however, manage to squeeze in a chat with Angus Hewitt before reporting season got too crazy. See why markets may have underestimated Bapcor here.
And while we are on the topic of earnings, I explained why two of reporting season’s biggest share price causalities – Guzman y Gomez and Reece – could have a lot more in common than you might think. See what I’m talking about here.
The personal front
February included a sweaty finale to the cricket season and a solid effort to make hay while there is still enough daylight to play nine holes on a school night. Not to mention making the most of Sydney’s cheaper golf courses before the government rips them all up.
March looks promising. A four week gap between cricket and soccer season should free up our weekends to see more of New South Wales. Meanwhile, the prospect of NRL returning to our stadiums and screens doesn't exactly fill me with dread.
Back on the work front, I'm looking forward to catching up with our analysts and hearing their thoughts once the earnings season dust has settled. Please send any questions you have about ASX stocks and industries in our coverage to [email protected].
