The Intelligent Investing Podcast

If You’d Like To Watch The Intelligent Investing Podcast On YouTube, Click Here.   Subscribe If you like The Intelligent Investing Podcast, please consider subscribing on: Apple Podcasts Stitcher TuneIn Spotify Podbean iHeart Radio   Summary In this episode of the Intelligent Investing Podcast, Eric Schleien sits down with Winston Justice, former OT for the Philadelphia Eagles and founder of Elixr Coffee Roasters. By the time Winston graduated, Justice was widely considered one of the best tackles ever to come out of USC, blocking for two future Heisman Trophy winners, Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush. That's what caught the eye of the Eagles. In the ensuing years with the team from 2006-11, he played in 47 games, with 31 starts, and was named to USA Today's 2009 All-Joe Team. Winston now serves as a Vice President in Bernstein's Nashville headquarters, serving as an asset manager to multigenerational families, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits.   Winston Justice was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles under coach Andy Reid in the second round (39th overall pick) of the 2006 NFL Draft. He played college football at USC under coach Pete Carroll. Prior to joining Bernstein in 2019, he was a portfolio manager for PIA's Alternative Investments Group. Earlier, he co-founded MJC Capital, an early-stage investment vehicle, and also served as a portfolio manager for Wells Fargo Securities. He holds a BA in Public Policy from the University of Southern California, an MBA from George Washington University, and the Certified Investment Management Analyst designation from The Yale School of Management. Winston's philanthropic work includes serving on the board of directors for YCAP, Nashville Coaching Coalition, and service efforts with Habitat for Humanity of Collier County, Young Life Naples, and Eagles Fly for Leukemia in Philadelphia. In 2010, he was the recipient of the Walter Payton Philadelphia Man of the Year award. He relocated to Nashville in 2018 with his wife and their three children.   Staying In Touch With Eric Schleien Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Twitter Instagram GSCM

For Dr. Charles Schleien's Op-Ed in the New York Times on his experience with COVID-19, click here.   If You’d Like To Watch This Episode On YouTube, Click Here. Subscribe If you like The Intelligent Investing Podcast, please consider subscribing on: Apple Podcasts Stitcher TuneIn Spotify Podbean iHeart Radio   Summary In this episode of The Intelligent Investing Podcast, Eric Schleien sits down with his father, Dr. Charles Schleien to discuss everything from COVID-19 to healthcare economics. We take questions from finance professionals on Twitter as well.    Resources Dr. Charles Schleien - New York Times Op-Ed Dr. Charles Schleien - CBS Dr. Charles Schleien - CNN - Don Lemon (TRANSCRIPT) COVID-19 Up To Date Research - NEJM Staying In Touch With Dr. Charles Schleien Twitter   Staying In Touch With Eric Schleien Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Twitter Instagram GSCM

If you'd like to watch this episode on YouTube, click here. Subscribe If you like The Intelligent Investing Podcast, please consider subscribing on: Apple Podcasts Stitcher TuneIn Spotify Podbean iHeart Radio   Coronavirus Investing Series: Part 11 This is Part 11 of a special Coronavirus Investing Series. If you have not listened to Part 1, please click here to get the overall context/market overview during this unprecedented time. You can also listen to: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10   Summary In this episode, Eric Schleien and Alex Portelli discuss the economics of facemasks and COVID-19 tests. Alex has started a company shipping in facemasks and COVID-19 tests and has some very interesting stories. He also makes some suggestions on policy and gives his view on what is working and not working. For a previous episode with Alex, you can listen, here. Alex is a serial entrepreneur and has started a diner, an ATM business, a real estate company, and an online news organization. He’s now currently working on his next venture. Alex is currently an investor in short term rental properties and is the owner of several successful websites. Alex started his privately held AirBnB business 4 years ago and went from owning 0 to 8 properties since then. His web company is prntly.com and he is currently launching another company called prntpage.com which is currently in beta-testing. Prntly.com became notorious after Donald Trump started re-tweeting some of their posts during the primary election cycle in 2016.   Staying In Touch With Eric Schleien Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Twitter Instagram GSCM

Subscribe If you like The Intelligent Investing Podcast, please consider subscribing on: Apple Podcasts Stitcher TuneIn Spotify Podbean iHeart Radio   Coronavirus Investing Series: Part 10 This is Part 10 of a special Coronavirus Investing Series. If you have not listened to Part 1, please click here to get the overall context/market overview during this unprecedented time. You can also listen to: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9   Summary Eric Schleien and Brian Dress discuss investment opportunities in the bond market. Brian Dress is an investment analyst at Left Brain Capital Management, LLC.  Brian's angle relates to value opportunities his firm is seeing in the corporate and municipal bond markets, based on the massive selloff in credit markets over the past 6 weeks.  Particular discussion points in this episode include:   Discussion of Bond Markets Pre-COVID  Brian thinks the spreads were far too tight which made it very difficult to position portfolios with income to match future expenses.  Investors were forced to take too much risk to attain yield. This is something we have discussed extensively before on The Intelligent Investing Podcast.   How Credit Cycles Work Historically The main takeaway here is that credit booms and busts occur far more often than do booms and busts in the equity markets.  Savvy investors should be willing to take risks on bonds in trough phases like this one and gradually lighten the load as spreads tighten, creating the capacity to take advantage of the next down cycle.  Note: high yield bonds have led stock recoveries after every market drawdown since 1980 (1982, 1991, 2002, 2008-9, 2016)    Observations In Credit Markets  Brian has noticed indiscriminate selling related to a liquidity crunch, causing bonds at all levels of credit quality to sell off heavily.  Brian believes this creates fantastic opportunities across the credit spectrum, which he and his company are taking advantage of to reposition clients. I discuss that in regards to all markets, here.   COVID-19 Gameplan  Brian is upgrading the credit quality of bond portfolios, taking the opportunity to lock in large coupons on stable companies, some of which continue to trade at a discount. Markets have been starved for these types of opportunities in the bond world and, while many of these have already narrowed, plenty of mispriced securities are still out there for investors.  There are still chances to lock in great coupons, along with the potential for capital appreciation.  Brian believes it is important to recognize that it is likely we will be in a 0% interest world for the foreseeable future.   Bond Opportunities After Eric and Brian discussed the general overview/strategy with respect to bonds, Brian presents a few examples where he sees opportunity. Qurate (QRTEA) 8.25% 2030 bonds (Yield to maturity >12% at current price levels) Travel and leisure: Delta 4.375% 2028s (yielding >7% at current prices) and Carnival Cruise (unsecured 2020s and secured 2023s) Illinois Municipals General Obligation 5.1% bonds: effective yield of more than 8% for those in highest tax bracket, possible appreciation potential with interest rates now firmly at 0.   New Service Brian is debuting a new service next week at Left Brain Investment Research, which is a twice-monthly pay-per-view Zoom call for investors of all types, where his firm will be introducing a single bond idea and a single stock idea each month and explaining the entire research process that went into those recommendations.   Brian has his firm's “shelter-in-place” specials available on his firm's website.  Listeners can enter the promo code “Eric” on the subscribe page and receive a full research service (stocks and bonds) for $99/month for the life of the subscription.  ***FULL DISCLOSURE, I, Eric Schleien, DO NOT MAKE ANY MONEY OFF THIS PROMO CODE. ALL SAVINGS GET PASSED BACK TO INTELLIGENT INVESTING PODCAST LISTENERS.   LBIR Investment Ideas Forum Second, Left Brain Research has its LBIR Investment Ideas Forum with the first two installments coming on April 30 where Brian and his firm will discuss a stock idea with the same format.  Listeners can find all the information for these events on the front page of the LBIR website.     About Left Brain Left Brain opened the wealth management business in 2014, a hedge fund in 2016, and an investment research platform in 2019. A differentiating characteristic of Left Brain's investing platform is an emphasis on selecting individual securities, particularly individual bonds in the high yield space. Brian genuinely enjoys and gets excited to share his investment philosophy with both individual investors and advisors.  The company has slowly built up its investment staff in order to cover a large universe of high yield bonds (about 900) and about 200 stocks.  What they've come to realize is that many advisors lack the resources to replicate this type of research apparatus, so they decided to create a product to provide this research to advisors so that they can select stocks and especially high yield bonds that will help clients achieve income goals in a compressed interest rate environment. Data-Driven Bottom-Up Approach Left Brain has a data-driven, bottom-up approach that incorporates technology to rank securities on the basis of a number of quantitative and qualitative factors, including revenue growth, gross margins, competitive dynamics, and accelerating results. The company portfolios are concentrated, as they view this as an allocation model with the best chance to deliver superior results and excess returns; usually no more than 20-25 stocks at any given time, particularly in the hedge fund.   Management Company management is paramount in both equities and credit.  Left Brain wants to see a history of success for the CEO, a strong capital allocation strategy, and an alignment of interests with investors (“skin in the game”); also for equities and bonds, they want to see strong fundamentals in the underlying business, no matter what the valuation or possible yield compensation   Equities The company looks for strong (and accelerating) revenue growth, high (and expanding) gross margins, favorable competitive dynamics   Distressed Bonds For distressed bonds: Left Brain looks for deleveraging (either through improved EBITDA or retiring debt through asset sales), improving trends in operating metrics (revenue, EBITDA, total debt), high yield compensation per unit of leverage (Debt/EBITDA), and most importantly, a strong Free Cash Flow (FCF) profile.   Staying In Touch With Left Brain Investment Research Click here for more information on Left Brain Investment Research Click here for more information on Left Brain Wealth Management   Staying In Touch With Eric Schleien Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Twitter Instagram GSCM

For a review of this situation, please see: https://savefirsthandtechnology.com/ Subscribe If you like The Intelligent Investing Podcast, please consider subscribing on: Apple Podcasts Stitcher TuneIn Spotify Podbean iHeart Radio   Overview In this episode of The Intelligent Investing Podcast, I had the pleasure of chatting with Don Chambers who is an activist currently involved with shaking things up at Firsthand Technology Value Fund (SVVC) To see Don's presentation on SVVC or to get in touch with questions if you are a shareholder of SVVC or want to learn more information, please go to the presentation website, here.   About Don Chambers Donald R Chambers currently runs the website, SaveFirstHandTechnology. He is also a recently-retired (June 2017) professor of finance with 36 years of teaching experience. Dr. Chambers has written several books regarding investments and personal finance that are distinguished by their clear writing and ability to make difficult concepts accessible to his audience. He is the lead author of the 600+ page Modern Corporate Finance: Theory and Practice which is in its eighth edition (forthcoming with FlatWorld), the 1,000-page Alternative Investments which is in its third edition with Wiley, and several other books on finance. Dr. Chambers has published over 50 scholarly articles. ​Dr. Chambers has had numerous appearances in media including national television, national public radio, regional television, and regional radio. Dr. Chambers co-starred in a nationally-televised cable television series regarding finance in 1988 (45 Fortune) and frequently serves as a public speaker. In more recent years, he has written numerous blogs and spoken frequently regarding investments in his role as Chief Investment Officer of Biltmore Capital Advisors.   About Eric Schleien Over the past decade, Eric has trained thousands of individuals including board members of public companies as well as several Fortune 500 CEOs. Eric specializes in organizational culture and has become a leading authority on organizational culture in the investment industry. Eric has been investing for 15 years and has been using breakthrough coaching methodologies for over a decade. Eric had the insight to combine proven coaching methodologies with shareholder activism techniques to create an entirely new model for shareholder activism that was more reliable and created greater sustainable results in a rapid period of time. On average, Tribal Leadership produces a 3-5x increase in profits of culturally troubled companies within an average of 24 months or less. Eric currently resides in Philadelphia, PA.

This is Part 9 of a special Coronavirus Investing Series. If you have not listened to Part 1, please click here to get the overall context/market overview during this unprecedented time. You can also listen to: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Overview In this episode, I interview Shelly Lombard who spent over 30 years on Wall Street.  Shelly started her career with financing leveraged buyouts at Citibank and then spent the rest of her career either at a hedge fund investing in high yield and distressed companies or at a research boutique covering those companies. During the 2007-2009 automotive crisis, Shelly was one of the most quoted auto analysts on Wall Street, frequently appearing in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and on CNBC. Currently, she reviews investment ideas for a family office; trains new analysts at several leading investment banks; and guest lectures in the executive education programs at Columbia and Wharton. She is also an active investor in two startups: GuessWhatIBroughtYou.com which delivers cool souvenirs made locally to a traveler's hotel or home and MilleMoney, which features financial content for novice investors.   STAYING IN TOUCH WITH ERIC SCHLEIEN Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Twitter Instagram GSCM STAYING IN TOUCH WITH SHELLY LOMBARD LinkedIn YouTube   Other Resources Introduction To Distressed Investing by Shelly Lombard

This is Part 8 of a special Coronavirus Investing Series. If you have not listened to Part 1, please click here to get the overall context/market overview during this unprecedented time. You can also listen to: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7   In this episode of The Intelligent Investing Podcast, I sit down with Jeremy Raper to chat about a potential opportunity in Japanese Mall REIT's which have been hit pretty hard during this coronavirus pandemic.    Overview If you are willing to look through whatever happens in 2020 and assume we go back to a normalized environment in 2021, then you should be looking at some of the most beaten-down sectors. You have to ask yourself a few questions when valuing names in the most beaten-down sectors of the economy:   Is the equity going to survive? What losses are they taking along the way? What does that post-corona-world look like?   Japanese REITs Japanese Mall REITs fall within the broader subsector of Japanese REITs. REITs are real estate investment trusts. Furthermore, REITs must pay 90% of their income as dividends.    Japanese Hotels Why Japan hotels in particular? Japan has been under-hoteled for a long time. There has been a shortage of hotels and that had been rectified somewhat on the runup to the Olympics.  However, the hotel fleet is still pretty tight.    Two Cheap Japanese Hotel REITs On this episode, we discuss two Japanese Hotel REITs Japan Hotel Investment Corp Invincible Investment Corp   Both REITs trade at fractions of NAV and high normalized cap rates.   Staying In Touch With Eric Schleien Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Twitter Instagram GSCM Staying In Touch With Jeremy Raper Blog Twitter  

This is Part 7 of a special Coronavirus Investing Series. If you have not listened to Part 1, please click here to get the overall context/market overview during this unprecedented time. You can also listen to: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 You can also listen to a previous episode where we discuss GAN, here. You can also listen to our YouTube clip about GAN, here.   Overview In this episode of The Intelligent Investing Podcast, Eric Schleien and Jeremy Raper discuss GAN plc. GAN is a leading developer and supplier of online gaming content and enterprise-level business to business gaming software systems as well as a provider of supporting operational services. GAN has developed the GameSTACK Internet Gaming System (or “IGS”) which the company licenses to online and land-based gaming operators as a turnkey technology solution for both regulated real-money and Simulated Gaming online.   GAN will benefit from people staying at home who do online gambling, they have a competitive moat which we go further into detail in the episode, and the company trades at a low multiple for a high growth stock.   Staying In Touch With Eric Schleien Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Twitter Instagram GSCM Staying In Touch With Jeremy Raper Blog Twitter  

This is Part 6 of a special Coronavirus Investing Series. If you have not listened to Part 1, please click here to get the overall context/market overview during this unprecedented time. You can also listen to: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5   In this episode of The Intelligent Investing Podcast, Eric Schleien & Jeremy Raper discuss opportunities in the Gold Sector. Macro View The macro view is that due to the massive debasement of currency during this coronavirus pandemic, that will be bullish for gold prices. In addition, gold companies such as Kinross Gold are shutting down production due to coronavirus outbreak which ends up being a net-positive for the commodity. Unlike commodities such as copper, gold demand is not impacted by economic activity due to less actual functional utility.    Gold Mining Stocks   However, Jeremy prefers Gold Minding stocks to owning actual physical gold outright. The reason for this is that if you can buy a gold miner that has been dumped during this coronavirus crisis, and you can find one where their revenue is in US Dollars but their costs are in their local non-US currency, you can also benefit from margin expansion. The margin expansion comes from cheaper labor costs, a lower price of oil, and a debasement of non-US currencies which have been destroyed in relationship to the US Dollar.   Polyus Gold Polyus PJSC (Russian: ПАО "Полюс") is a Russian gold mining company. It is the largest gold producer in Russia and one of the top 10 gold mining companies globally by output (2.84 million ounces of gold production in 2019). It is headquartered in Moscow and is listed on both the Moscow and London Stock Exchanges.Polyus’ main assets are located in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East - in the regions of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, Magadan Oblast and the Republic of Sakha. The company is controlled by Said Kerimov, son of Russian billionaire and politician, Suleyman Kerimov. Due to the majority share ownership of Polyus by Said Kerimov, the company is not a buyout candidate. However, the company will benefit from margin expansion and Jeremy believes the company is trading at low-mid single digits of earnings based on $1,500 gold price. That equates to a 7.5% dividend yield on a conservative basis and probably higher with margin expansion. If you want to listen to the episode of Jeremy discussing Polyus Gold, you can listen here. You can also listen to the commentary on Polyus on YouTube.   DRD Gold   Another gold mining stock that Jeremy likes is DRD Gold based out of South Africa. Like Polyus, they will benefit from a depreciation in their local currency (Rand), and benefit from higher gold prices. Unlike, Polyus, the company is a takeout candidate as their parent company has moved up its ownership stake in DRD from 40% to over 50%. DRD has a boatload of cash and no debt. The company currently trades at a very low P/E bases off $1,500 gold and their parent may very likely buyout shareholders in order to take advantage of the low stock price. Furthermore, the parent will probably want access to a large amount of cash being that the parent is somewhat levered. It's interesting to note that DRD pays an unusually low dividend which Jeremy suspects are due to marching orders from the parent company.   Staying In Touch With Eric Schleien Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Twitter Instagram GSCM Staying In Touch With Jeremy Raper Blog Twitter

In this episode of the Intelligent Investing Podcast, Eric Schleien sits down with WSJ Veteran Reporter, Gregory Zuckerman, to discuss his book "The Man Who Solved The Market: How Jim Simons Launched The Quant Revolution"   Editorial Reviews “Leave it to the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Zuckerman to lay open the golden mysteries of quantitative investing. With this fine, humane, and eye-opening book, he’s well and truly broken the code.” —James Grant, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer “Captivating.” —New York Times   “A compelling read.” —The Economist   “Reads like a delicious page-turning novel.” —Barry Ritholtz, Bloomberg   “One of the most important stories of our time.” —Financial Times   “Zuckerman brings the reader so close to the firm’s inner workings that you can almost catch a whiff of the billionaire’s Merit cigarette.” —Brandon Kochkodin, Bloomberg “A gripping biography of investment game changer Jim Simons… readers looking to understand how the economy got where it is should eat this up.” —Publishers Weekly "Worthwhile reading for budding plutocrats and numerate investors alike." —Kirkus “Immensely enjoyable.” —Edward O. Thorp, author of A Man for All Markets   “An extremely well-written and engaging book . . . a must read, and a fun one at that.” —Mohamed A. El-Erian, author of The Only Game in Town "Page-turning tale…bravura storytelling." —Gary Shteyngart, author of Lake Success About The Book NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award The unbelievable story of a secretive mathematician who pioneered the era of the algorithm--and made $23 billion doing it.   The Man Who Solved The Market: How Jim Simons Launched The Quant Revolution": Summary Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor--Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros--can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance's signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth twenty-three billion dollars. Drawing on unprecedented access to Simons and dozens of current and former employees, Zuckerman, a veteran Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, tells the gripping story of how a world-class mathematician and former code breaker mastered the market. Simons pioneered a data-driven, algorithmic approach that's sweeping the world. As Renaissance became a market force, its executives began influencing the world beyond finance. Simons became a major figure in scientific research, education, and liberal politics. Senior executive Robert Mercer is more responsible than anyone else for the Trump presidency, placing Steve Bannon in the campaign and funding Trump's victorious 2016 effort. Mercer also impacted the campaign behind Brexit. The Man Who Solved the Market is a portrait of a modern-day Midas who remade markets in his own image, but failed to anticipate how his success would impact his firm and his country. It's also a story of what Simons's revolution means for the rest of us.   About Gregory Zuckerman Greg is a Special Writer at The Wall Street Journal, ​a 20-year veteran of the paper and a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb award — the highest honor in business journalism. Greg is the author of “The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters,” a national bestseller published October 2014 by Portfolio/Penguin Press. The book describes how several unlikely individuals created an American energy renaissance that brought OPEC to its knees. The Frackers was named among the best books of 2014 by The Financial Times and Forbes Magazine and book of the year by the New York Financial Writers Association. Greg also wrote “The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller published December 2010 by Crown Business/Random House. The book has been translated into 10 languages. Greg and his two sons wrote Rising Above: How 11 Athletes Overcame Challenges in their Youth to Become Stars,” a book for young readers and adults published May 2016 by Philomel/Penguin that describes the remarkable stories of how stars in various sports overcame imposing setbacks in their youth. The book was chosen by Scholastic Teacher magazine as a top pick for 2016 and a top 2017 recommendation of the Texas Library Association. In February 2018, Rising Above-Inspiring Women in Sports, also written by Greg and his sons, will be published. At the Journal, Greg writes about big financial firms, personalities and trades, hedge funds, the energy revolution and other investing and business topics. Previously, Greg was the lead writer of the widely read “Heard on the Street” column and covered the credit markets, among other beats. In 2015, Greg won the Loeb Award for a series of stories revealing discord between Bill Gross, founder of bond powerhouse Pimco, and others at the firm, including Mohamed El-Erian. The stories led to Mr. Gross’s surprise departure from Pimco. In 2012, Greg broke news about huge, disastrous trades by the J.P. Morgan trader nicknamed the “London Whale.” In 2007, Greg was part of a team that won the Gerald Loeb award for breaking news coverage of the collapse of hedge fund Amaranth Advisors and in 2003 he won the Loeb award for breaking news coverage of the demise of telecom provider WorldCom. Greg was part of a team that won the New York Press Club Journalism award in 2008. He was a finalist for the 2011 Gerald Loeb award for investigative news coverage of the insider trading scandal and a finalist for the 2008 Gerald Loeb award for coverage of the mortgage meltdown. Greg appears regularly on CNBC, Fox Business, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg Television and various television networks. He makes regular appearances on National Public Radio, BBC, ABC Radio, Bloomberg Radio and radio stations around the globe. Greg gives speeches to business groups on a variety of topics. Over the past year, he has spoken to groups in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Calgary, Montreal and Niagara Falls. Greg joined the Journal in 1996 after writing about media companies for the New York Post. Previously, he was the managing editor of Mergers & Acquisitions Report, a newsletter published by Investment Dealers’ Digest. He graduated from Brandeis University in 1988, Magna Cum Laude. A graduate of Brandeis University, Greg lives with his wife and two sons in West Orange, N.J., where they enjoy the Yankees in the summer, root for the Giants in the fall, and reminisce about Linsanity in the winter.   Staying In Touch With Gregory Zuckerman Twitter Email Website WSJ Profile   Staying In Touch With Eric Schleien Podcast Blog Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Twitter Instagram GSCM