Hitting The Century: It’s Pretty Panties Time..! (I)

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alpha, catalyst, developed markets, emerging markets, EUR/USD, European sovereign debt crisis, foreign exchange trading, foreign stock listings, frontier markets, FX rates, Human Capital, macro perspectives, Margin of Safety, portfolio allocation, portfolio performance, stock screener, value investing, value investing bloggers

Oh Gawd, when will I learn..?! Last time ’round, the ‘pretty panties‘ phrase grabbed a whole new wave of (doubly) frustrated web searchers & readers. Who knew? But perverts¹ are people too! A majority even have jobs, I suspect. And many of these hand shandy artists are probably good savers (limited range of interests, they stay home a lot…). They might just appreciate some investing insight! In fact, gentlemen, we can rebuild them. With their powers of concentration, and attention to detail, surely they’d make excellent value investors?! My dear mother would be so proud if I converted even one of these bishop buffers…

So we’ve reached Post 100 – time to show off my pretty panties a little?! This blog’s mostly been about my stock picks and, more recently, I’ve stepped back to write more about macro perspectives. What’s perhaps been missing, as I’ve noticed with many other blogs, is a closer look at portfolio construction, allocation and metrics. This is a big oversight on my part – if you’re a regular reader, you already know this aspect of investing is actually v important to me!

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AGI Therapeutics – Anatomy of a Takeover (IV)

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AGI Therapeutics, AIM stocks, compulsory acquisition, delisting risk, EUR/USD, Event Driven, Expected Value, Gross IRR, Irish shares, market-makers, Recommended Cash Offer, Risk Arbitrage, takeover offers, technical analysis

Continued from here.

OK, to recap the latter part of my previous article, I put forward 2 (hopefully strong) arguments why you should embrace (unhedged) FX risk in your event-driven investing (and, of course, elsewhere in your portfolio). With AGI Therapeutics (AGI:ID/LN), however, I essentially faced no FX risk on the deal in the end.

Remember, AGI traded in EUR (or GBP) but the takeover price was $0.1171 per share (and holders could opt for equiv. EUR proceeds). My solution was to round-trip surplus USD I had available. Yes, I’d incur a small FX spread to convert USD for my EUR share purchases, but by opting to receive USD takeover proceeds I’d eliminate subsequent FX risk, and end up back in USD cash.

Whither the US, Europe & the EUR/USD..?

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activist investors, austerity, Bundesbank, catalyst, CNBC, distressed assets, Edward Gibbon, emerging markets, EUR/USD, Europe, Event Driven, Fed, frontier markets, idiots, Japan, Japanese debt crisis, NAV discount, private equity funds, Red Bull, student debt, US

OK, I confess, this isn’t really about the EUR/USD FX rate. I was beginning another article, and my despair over the developed markets & their prospects just kept interfering..! But let’s try keep this somewhat brief – maybe I’ll return again after reading my Gibbon – and hopefully it will prove a good lead-in for my other article.

Despite the dismal performance in the US & Europe (why even talk about Japan..?) over the past decade, I just can’t get too hopeful from here. I sighed, and resolved again to just ignore the news, when I heard the growing swell of anti-austerity political dissent in Europe (and even fresh mutterings about EUR exit, and devaluation).