Marathon Asset produced several iconic investors such as Nick Sleep and Jeremy Hosking.

Their letters from 2002 to 2015 provided a treasure trove of insights into their investment frameworks and how they look at the capital cycle.

Here are my main takeaways:

1/ Periods of high profitability leads to reckless investments.

When profits are high:

-Boost CAPEX with little regard for ROIC
-Competitors will follow suit to avoid losing market share
-CEO's incentives aren't aligned with shareholders

It's a race to the bottom.

2/ The capital cycle will swing down when investments are taken too far.

Forecasts that were reasonable will now look overly optimistic.

Profits collapse, management teams are changed, CAPEX is cut, and consolidation begins.

This will pave way for a recovery of profits.

3/ Asset growth matters

Consider both asset growth at the company and industry level.

Avoid industries where assets are growing rapidly.

4/ We tend to extrapolate

When overdone, investments that appear logical at first can become disastrous.

We have a tendency to forecast linearly when many things are cyclical.

Examples: trade cycles, credit cycles, etc

🚨FINANCIAL TRUTH: ANTIFA🚨

antifa thugs have been looting and rioting across our nation for several months now.

who sets up and funds these riots?
what is the purpose of them?
who financially benefits from them?

let’s take a deep dive👇🏽

🧵: The 10 Metrics for SaaS Startups (an Operator's Guide)

Focusing on the wrong things can kill your startup.

Based on founding and scaling @edenworkplace, here are the metrics that matter most:

Metric 1: ARR (Annualized Recurring Revenue)

You will need to know this number each day, so you'll focus on Contracted ARR in your CRM tool (as opposed to accounting ARR).

Big ARR milestones are $100K (Signal), $1 million (PMF), $10 million (Growth), $100 million (IPO Scale)

Metric 2: ARR Growth

Once you get past the Signal stage, your ARR growth is the primary determinant of future success (and valuation).

Strong annual growth rate from Signal to PMF is 4x+ and from PMF to Growth is 2.5x+.

@edenofficemagic grew 11x between Signal and PMF stages.

Metric 3: ACV (Average Customer Value)

ACV often starts low for a SaaS company (as your product is not featureful enough for large enterprises) and grows as the company moves upmarket.

ACV is calculated by taking total revenue and dividing it by your number of customer logos.

Metric 4: ACV Growth

Most SaaS companies will make ACV growth a focus.

It is fair to increase revenue per customer as you add more value to users in new features, integrations, and products.

@edenofficemagic grew ACV 2.3x last year, mostly through cross-selling new products.

I sense a few double standards present in the debate over Bidens’ historic Child Tax Credit proposal that would cut the child poverty rate by more than 40%.

My focus here is on a perhaps less obvious one but I think relevant: trust fund kids & the tax treatment of inheritances

Since the mid-1990s, as I’ll walk through, reducing the taxation of large inheritances has been a top, if not the top, tax policy priority of conservatives and Republicans.

In parallel, as I’ll also walk through, there has been a steady stream of research concluding that large inheritances reduce the work effort of wealthy heirs

Unless I’ve missed it, I’ve not sensed the type of concern about the work effects on wealthy heirs among conservative proponents of large tax-free inheritances, which we now see among some conservatives and Republican lawmakers around poor people and a larger Child Tax Credit

In 1997, as part of an agreement with Clinton, who secured wins to make health care more affordable for poor children and college tax credits, Gingrich won “reductions in capital gains and estate taxes that had been principal goals for the GOP.”

One of the most influential songs that I can recall is “All Along the Watchtower.” Have you ever really listened to it? This was originally written by Bob Dylan, covered by innumerable artists. Each putting their own spin on the ball as it approaches the plate, and in almost

every case it’s a grand slam. Think of how it begins. It’s in the A minor key, dark and driving. Like a hard rain at your back. The song literally starts off with the musical equivalent of “It was a dark and stormy night…” And there it is, the chords drilling you down into

the spot you’re standing. Try to keep your stride as the intro unfolds. The rhythm arrests you in place – you’re about to hear something important, you can’t miss this. Like an approaching freight train, the locomotive barreling down nearly out of control. You can look away

just the same as you can look away at a car accident you know is about to happen. Out of nowhere you get a taste of the scene, it’s heavy to match the beating wall of sound. “There must be some kind of way out of here, said the Joker to the Thief…” So now we have a

conversation. Two associates, clearly involved in the daily grind coalesce out of the mist. There’s a Joker and a Thief. Who among us has trouble immediately relating to at least one of them? The Joker, obviously troubled. Insanity creeping inwards. The world aflame.

1/ Hey guys, remember that time Steve Bannon ran an army of game virtual currency miners in Asia, for sale to westerners at discount prices, arbitraging attention for profit?

That was

2/ “The company was founded by former child star Brock Pierce, and Bannon was an investor. Bannon managed to convince Goldman Sachs to plow $60 million into a company that sold imaginary goods in an imaginary world.”

In 2020, Brock Pierce ran for President. Guess who...

3/ was Pierce’s campaign manager?

Brittany Kaiser, the fake whistleblower who left Cambridge Analytica in late March 2018 — right *after* it blew

4/ Guess who was all excited about today’s $GME activity? Steve Bannon and Russia shill, Jack Posobiec. They called it a “populist uprising against Wall Street.” That’s cool... just leftists, Steve Bannon, and Russia shills cheerleading for the same stuff. It happens...

[Thead] Ben Knapper - Arsenal's Loan Manager.

It is usually the big guys, your Artetas, Edus and Vinais who make the headlines for Arsenal but there are so many more men and women who are putting in their best to make Arsenal successful and Ben Knapper is one of them.

His presence might surprise a few but Ben Knapper would be playing a key role during this transfer window as he would looking after some of Arsenal's brightest prospects in William Saliba and potential Joe Willock and Reiss Nelson.

In this thread, I'll discuss

- The background of Ben Knapper and the post he holds.
- His primary duties.
- His impact.

Ben Knapper first joined Arsenal in 2010 as an Analyst from statistical analysis firm Prozone. He has since then worked his way and was promoted from the post of senior football analyst to newly created post of Loan Manager in February 2019.

Arsenal didn't have a loan manager for a long time, though after observing several top Premier League adopt the new model and employing loan manager and few incidents of mismanagement of players out on loan, Arsenal final created a post of loan manager.

#Milan 2019/20 accounts cover a season when they finished 6th in Serie A and reached the semi-final of the Coppa Italia, but were excluded from Europe for FFP issues. Second season under the ownership of American hedge fund, Elliott Management Corporation. Some thoughts follow.

#Milan pre-tax loss widened from €143m to €192m (post-tax €195m), the worst result in club’s history (partly due to COVID), as revenue fell €56m (25%) from €228m to €172m, while profit on player sales up €3m to €15m. Expenses slightly lower, including €30m exceptionals.

#Milan largest revenue decrease came from broadcasting, down €42m (40%) from €105m to €63m, though match day also fell €10m (31%) from €34m to €24m and player loans were down €5m to €8m. Commercial was slightly higher, up €1m to €77m.

As a technical aside, this international definition of #Milan €172m revenue is different to the one used in the club accounts, which also includes €20m gain on player sales plus a tiny increase in asset values, giving revenue of €192m, down €49m (20%) from prior year €241m.

#Milan wage bill was cut €24m (13%) from €185m to €161m, while other expenses were down €7m (8%) to €88m. Player amortisation rose €14m (18%) to €95m, while player write-downs increased €18m from €2m to €20m. Net interest decreased €4m from €10m to €6m.

1.Evolution is our top pick heading into February. We assess the company’s moat and long-term growth rate as highly misunderstood and often viewed upon with, in our view, undeserved skepticism.

2.We view the acquisition of NetEnt as a rare combination of revenue and margin expansion with tangible opportunities to leverage upon. It is our understanding that Evolution will further strengthen the offering and move more towards becoming a one-stop-shop for operators.

3.With the help of NetEnt’s offering, Evolution will be able to penetrate new markets faster. Furthermore, we assess that Evolution, who are known for their innovation, will infuse new life into NetEnt’s own product line.

4.We also see synergies from the acquisition on the cost side. Evolution’s management is renowned for running a tight ship with a focus on profitability, something we got a glimpse of as they announced a large restructuring on the day of the acquisition.

5. In addition, from our research, Playtech’s largest competitive advantage compared to Evolution is its ability to offer more services than just live casino.

Would you start your career as a model validator in a major bank if you hope one day to become a front office quant?
@GARP_Risk @actuarynews
@Actuary_Dot_Org @actuarialpost
@iSixSigma @artemisbm @SOActuaries
@CQFInstitute @aier @CFAinstitute

Many Financial / Middle Office Risk and other Quantitative Economics/ Financial Market-led research roles interface at one level or the other across FIs.
I don't know if a bank uses Employee Rotation, to foster employee learning, training and development across the 3LOD Model?

But, most of the banks, in the Advanced Markets, to use job rotation as a tool, to disseminate professional knowledge and understanding of financial market operations, among their employees.

I started my career as a Derivatives Dealer in the front office, but later ended up in the Middle Office Risk Control Unit, and further onwards in my career, moved directly into the Front Office, as a Fund Portfolio Risk Controller

Model Risk Assessment and its Validation now exists as an independent function among most of the large banks, funds and insurance firms.

1/13

$Band vs $link dep dive.

In many if not most use cases band protocol will be used ALONGSIDE that of #chainlink. $Band has a stronghold in South East Asia and will also generally pull it's data from different sources than link.

2/13
They are both working on verifying data validity right now but to answer the question plainly, there is not going to be one #Blockchain solution in any of the fields to rule them all, this is a perfect example of two block chains that will work in tandem with each other.

3/13
$link has seen mass adoption and band has a long way to go, but by the look of who is invested in #Band (sequoia capital) and the fact that they are already being used in conjunction with each other, I see a bright future for this #chainlink ally! (Not competitor).

4/13
These definitely are in the same market, but don't let that worry you, $Band does differentiate itself enough to make this more of an oligopoly than a monopoly. I see more financial gains in band if you invest now, but of course there is no reward without risk.

5/13
#Bandchain has the bonus of being built on cosmos technology that will allow it to easily interconnect with other blockchains and make it easier to be an oracle source for other non-Ethereum based smart contracts that need a decentralized oracle.

During yesterday’s Clubhouse session, @anuarfariz mentioned Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB), and that reminded me of some old notes I had.



A THREAD on one of the greatest struggles in providing a basic right, electricity, to residents in Malaysia's easternmost state 👇

1/ SESB was privatised circa 1998 to nurse a financially distressed state-owned utility back to profitability by taking it out of the hands of the state and placing it in the care of the federal government.

2/ Ownership wise: TNB is major shareholder with 82%, Sabah gov owns the remainder and the Finance Ministry holds a golden share.

3/ Back-of-the-envelope calculations from 2010-2019 annual reports showed that the company had received about RM13 billion in subsidies and development grants from Putrajaya. That number is sans loan obligations to the federal government which stood at RM2.39 billion as of 2019.

4/ Federal aid had helped SESB post stable revenue and net profits across the period under review since subsidies were recognised as company revenue and grants + loans used to finance capex/opex.

Northkoreas foregin policy,

Most important Nortg korea follows its 주체(Juche) ideologi, wich in short means self-reliance (Independent for itsself) based on historical inavsions by other nations, China,Japan,USA. Causing a genral hostlitiy against US allies.

-Good relations can be saied are
1.China wich is the life source and only one who can curb North korea, but China is in need of North korea as China dosnt want the USA via South korea at its border and so China dose everything to maintain the status of NK. China cant comdem NK

2014 China condemed NK for a nuclear test wich was btw recorded as a 5.3 earthquake. But at that time Kim Jong-un had to show strength to get full controll of the army and curb rivals. NK gets everything needed via China also its the cause of always possible collaps with news.

Russia.

Russia also wants to avoid more US troops at the border and esspecialy in its weaker east but Russia sees in NK a good buyer for missles and gives so sometimes its save veto in the UNSC. All sanctions were due to nuclear tests Russia couldnt prevent without losing face.

Russia and North korea etablished a special industrial cone ar its 18km long border in Rizon for a cooperative production as Russia sales the good and gives money to the Northkorean regime. Kim also visited Putin already in Wladiwostok. Russia buys many minerals from NK.