Blogs to watch (part 17): value and opportunity

Today's blog is guaranteed to find a lot of interest among my readers.

How come?

Because it's quite similar to Undervalued-Shares.com, but also totally different.

You can use value and opportunity to learn about investing in general, read about exciting investment ideas, and benefit from views that are outside of the mainstream.

And all for free!

Here is why I have long enjoyed reading value and opportunity (even before I relaunched Undervalued-Shares.com in late 2018).

1. A mysterious author who beat the Wirecard crooks

No one knows who's behind value and opportunity.

The author goes by the alias "memyselfandi007".

Much as I generally think readers should know who they are dealing with, I have a deep respect for content creators who need a level of privacy for legitimate reasons.

Back in 2008, memyselfandi007 posted a critical review of Wirecard on a German message board.

The company's aggressive legal department struck back. memyselfandi007 got summoned to the headquarters of the German Criminal Police (similar to the FBI), and Wirecard threatened to sue message boards where the author was active. This is not what you expect to happen when you post a stock analysis on a message board, nor is it an experience you'd wish on anyone.

We all know how it ended.

Wirecard famously imploded in Germany's largest corporate fraud in 2020.

memyselfandi007 was vindicated, which they wrote about when Wirecard finally unravelled.

Following such an experience, who would not want to reconsider having their name plastered all over the Internet?

Much as memyselfandi007's achievements go much further than this particular story, I simply enjoy following the person who recognised this major fraud years before the now-famous Financial Times journalist, Dan McCrum, latched onto it.

Never mind memyselfandi007 beating almost the entire mainstream media, the German securities regulator, and senior German politicians.

Clearly, value and opportunity is written by a smart person with the right ethics.

2. In-depth stock analysis that is a joy to learn from

If you wanted to check out just ONE article to see if value and opportunity is for you, make it this one: "Biontech SE – 'one hit wonder' or game changing biotech platform?"

Biontech is, of course, the famous German biotech company that developed a vaccine against the coronavirus, and its Turkish-heritage founders have become billionaires.

The article taught me a lot, about:

• The company.
• Its products and technology.
• The stock.

Probably not quite unlike myself, memyselfandi007 writes stock analyses to broaden their horizon:

"The simple act of writing things down for me is a benefit as such. In order to write down a thought, you need to think at least twice about things, reflect them and for me it is also much easier to memorize something if I have written it down once."

These in-depth stock analyses, which the blog features regularly, tend to take up 15-30 minutes of your time. They're all written in a wonderfully logical and accessible way.

There are two other examples that I would like to point out:

"Just Eat Takeaway.com - just another roll-up or long term growth opportunity?" analyses a stock that I also featured in one of my in-depth reports for Undervalued-Shares.com Members, so you can even use it to check on my work.

"Airbnb - 'Baller IPO' or desperate Hail Mary (including a 3.5bn USD accounting time bomb)?" provides an in-depth, independent review of the world-famous online rental company.

All articles fall under value and opportunity's motto "Slow Investing, Special Situations & Occasionally Wild Punts".

3. Alert to interesting posts on other blogs

memyselfandi007 is a voracious reader who sometimes sends out links to other recommended articles from other blogs or relatively obscure sources.

I find this selection of articles useful, and it regularly makes me come across publications that I had not previously known about.

You get alerts for these articles if you sign up for the free email list on value and opportunity.

4. Consistency and history

Nothing builds as much trust and appreciation as someone who has been at the game consistently for many years.

value and opportunity has no regular publishing schedule, but the oldest article dates back to 2010. Luckily, after originally starting to publish in German, memyselfandi007 later recognised what I keep preaching to all German-language bloggers (with varying success): "Write in English, or else 98% of the world's population can't follow you."

Over the last decade (perfectly summed up in "10 years of value and opportunity: 10 highlights, 10 lessons, and 10 books", memyselfandi007 has received comments from no lesser reader than hedge fund billionaire David Einhorn, issued an early alert to the Globo PLC fraud, and landed the spectacularly successful SAPEC investment thanks to a tip-off from a reader.

There aren't many authors and analysts in this space who have such a long history.

5. Ancillary reading materials

Depending on what you are looking for, there is a lot of additional material on value and opportunity:

• Articles on fundamentals and how to analyse stocks.
• List of recommended books.
• Model portfolios (which beat the benchmarks hands-down over the past ten years).

It makes you feel like you know the author, even though they steadfastly remain anonymous.

A meeting of fellow bloggers – with you peeking over our shoulders?

For full disclosure, I have long been in personal contact with memyselfandi007. We even planned to meet, to swap notes among colleagues.

Maybe the two of us should have a conversation about subjects that interest both of our readers, and publish a few observations and conclusions afterwards?

Would you be interested in such an approach?

When the world goes back to travelling again, this may just happen. In the meantime, I recommend you familiarise yourself with memyselfandi007's content.

It's entirely for free, making value and opportunity a blog in the original sense of the word!

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