What if I told you, the most underappreciated alpha generator on public markets isn’t corporate breakouts, artificial intelligence, biotech, or cryptocurrency?While everyone else chases the latest buzzword, true value can occasionally be found in the quietest corners of the market. And few corners are less routinely mispriced or quieter than spinoffs. On social media, spinoffs do not follow any trends. They barely make the news, in contrast to IT IPOs. More importantly, though, they generate dislocations, expose latent options, and provide patient investors an advantage before the rest of the market catches on. In a world fixed on stories, spinoffs…

Tencent Earnings Review Tencent (700 HK) reported Q1 financial results after the Hong Kong close today that beat analyst expectations on the big three: revenue, adjusted net income, and adjusted EPS. Unfortunately, due to a flight, I wasn’t able to catch the earnings call. Looks like a solid beat! Party on, Garth! Party on, Wayne! Revenue increased by +13% to RMB 180 billion ($25.1 billion) from RMB 159.5 billion versus expectations of RMB 175.6 billion. Revenues from Value Added Services increased by 17% year-over-year (YoY) to RMB 92.1 billion in the first quarter of 2025. Domestic Games revenues were RMB…

With an ever-growing list of similar-sounding mutual funds to choose from, finding the best is an increasingly difficult task. How can investors change the game to shift the odds in their favor? Don’t Trust Mutual Fund Labels There are at least 167 different Real Estate mutual funds and at least 648 mutual funds across eleven sectors. Do investors need 58+ choices on average per sector? How different can the mutual funds be? Those 167 Real Estate mutual funds are very different from each other. With anywhere from 24 to 158 holdings, many of these Real Estate mutual funds have drastically…

Are we careening towards a recession, or is a pickup in inflation the big threat to the stock market? The negative first quarter GDP print has recession fears in the financial headlines. Meanwhile, Fed Chair Jay Powell remains fixated on inflation. Ironically, both may come to pass. Which means we must prepare our portfolios for a slowdown that is quickly followed by a pickup in prices. Let’s put one smart lender on our “Goldilocks” watch list. This ticker yields 10% today (with some nice “dividend insurance” we’ll talk about in a moment). But the key point is that it profits…

The first part of May has been a particularly terrible period for short sellers, who lost $69.4 billion through May 9, according to data from Ortex. However, short sellers are having an outstanding year overall, gaining $63.1 billion year to date through May 9. March was a particularly good month, with short sellers gaining $86 billion, although they were down $14.7 billion for January. Now with more than half the year left, some short sellers are anticipating a good year for the practice, while others remain a bit tentative on the topic. Nonetheless, at least two notable short sellers are…

JD.com Earnings Review JD.com (JD US and 9618 HK) released Q1 financial results after the Hong Kong close that beat estimates on the big three: revenue, adjusted net income, and adjusted EPS. JD’s new food delivery business appears to be off to a strong start, though it will raise concerns about expenses and the firm’s desire to build market share at the expense of profits. JD’s E-Commerce focus on electronics and home appliances increased sales by +17.1% to RMB 144.3 billion ($19.884 billion). Revenue increased +15.8% to RMB 301.1 billion ($41.5 billion) from RMB 260 billion, versus expectations of RMB…

I get it: For many CEF people, the rough start to 2025 conjures (painful!) memories of 2022. It’s an easy comparison to make. But we must resist doing so. Because unlike in 2022, today’s volatility is caused by panic alone. That’s the kind of situation we contrarians love! Nonetheless, I get it if you still want to be cautious. With that in mind, I’ve got a fund that gives us full market exposure with a key “hedge”—and a growing 8.1% dividend, too. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s first talk about what’s causing this “Chicken Littleism” in the first…

Politics and science have combined to wipe $225 an ounce off the price of gold in three weeks with worse to come if peace takes hold in war zones and if an experiment in man-made gold moves out of its laboratory phase. The fall from a peak of $3433 an ounce on April 22 to around $3208/oz today was caused largely by the promise of peace in Ukraine and Gaza and an easing of tariffs in the U.S. v China trade war. But, in Europe the attention of gold investors turned to the results of an experiment at the European…

Life seemed much easier for business leaders when they could just complain about what they perceived to be excessive and inconsistent sustainability regulations. Complex, global disclosure requirements – some mandatory, some voluntary – elaborate supply chain due diligence processes, greenhouse gas emissions reporting: they all seemed challenging enough. But when the regulators themselves started changing, editing, simplifying and clarifying already agreed upon sustainability mandates, and adjusting course on associated policy, that’s when things got really complicated. Regulatory Uncertainty Sends Mixed Signals In the European Union (EU), for example, recently leaked documents have revealed continued disagreement among EU Member States over…

Key News Asian equities cheered the initial positive comments concerning the US-China trade meeting over the weekend and the India-Pakistan truce, as the Renminbi appreciated nearly +0.5% versus the US dollar. Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore were closed for Vesak Day, celebrating the birth, Enlightenment, and death of the Buddha. After Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Mainland China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen markets closed today, Hong Kong stocks went vertical once the 3 pm local time press conference from Treasury Secretary Bessent and US Trade Representative Greer revealed the larger than expected 90-day drop in US tariffs on Chinese goods from 145%…