investing etc. 0001
Scores, bookshops, and companies that give
Welcome to the first edition of investing etc. It exists because a friend complained he was no longer up to date with what I had written because I no longer Tweet my own articles.
My disaffection with Twitter is multifaceted: It has not brought me as close to readers as I hoped, I do not know where the platform is going, and I am wondering whether I want to go with it.
Investing etc. is an experiment. If you subscribe, at irregular intervals I will send a list of links to my latest articles. I may also share a bit more about them, and other passion projects, investing in the wider sense of the word.
I am hoping to encourage conversation, which is where you come in. I believe you can reply to this email. You can definitely email me at richard@beddard.net.
I am also still on Twitter @RichardBeddard - liking, commenting and replying to interesting tweets, but rarely generating them myself.
New era for the Decision Engine
Today is a good day to start a newsletter because I have just improved the way I score the shares ranked by the Decision Engine.
The revamped system identifies dependable, distinctive, directed businesses to invest in for the long-term.
As well as feedback from readers, two books informed the design. A framework proposed in The Business Model Navigator helps me work out how firms make money, and the ideas in The Crux help me think through how likely they are to make more.
The genesis of the idea, that investing requires us to work out how a company makes money, and how it will make more is much older. It comes from a book I read about 25 years ago: One Up On Wall Street.
The Decision Engine powers both my own portfolio and Share Sleuth, Interactive Investor’s model portfolio. The latest update features the addition of more shares in Churchill China.
The first share scored by the new system is Renishaw. Renishaw celebrated its 50th birthday this year and a short illustrated history (pdf download) tells its story of innovation and self-sufficiency (two reasons it is probably a good long-term investment).
Over at ShareScope, I have reported on another scoring system: 5 Strikes. 5 Strikes quickly identifies candidates for investment using SharePad. These are my 15 newest ideas.
Thanks to Waterstones and the LTT
In case you are wondering why I link to books on the Waterstones website and not Amazon’s, or the publishers’, I spend so much time in bookshops I feel I ought to give something back. As I tell my family repeatedly, I could live anywhere as long as it is near a town with a Waterstones.
Christmas lights going up in my favourite bookshop
Talking of giving something back, I met Julian Page, founder and managing director of the Livingstone Tanzania Trust last week. The LTT is a small charity fostering education and entrepreneurialism in the region around a town called Babati in Tanzania. We have supported it for many years, and I promised to spread the word.
Julian asked me if I knew any companies that might support the charity, so I have commissioned myself to find some. I am paying more attention to what the companies say about charitable giving (typically in the 172 section of their annual reports) and if it is relevant to education, sanitation or Africa, I summarise it and send my notes to the LTT.
As luck would have it, Renishaw’s annual report, the first I opened after we met, indicates it might be a match. So too may be soap maker PZ Cussons, the share I am investigating today.
Investing in people is my investment philosophy, and Julian’s tales from Babati reminded me of the fun we have had funding (in small part) classrooms, toilets, pig farms and banana farmers there. This sort of investing brings different returns.
One day, investing etc. might be as uplifting and inspiring as the Livingstone Tanzania Trust’s newsletter. That would be something.