AppFolio and the business of property management software

scuttleblurb 2024 content review

[SNA – Snap-On] when brand meets distribution

what did Warren Buffett see in Simpson Manufacturing?

Wise and the business of cross-border transfers: part 2

Wise and the business of cross-border transfers: part 1

Yet another pricing update: Hi everyone,

[AEP.V] Atlas Engineered Products: A quick announcement: Windancer Holdings is hosting a stock pitch competition on December 6, 2024, with meaningful financial upside for the winner ($20k + 10% performance fees on a $5mn co-invest).

Building materials: part 3a (BLDR, AEP.V): Related posts:

Building materials: part 2b (TREX, AZEK): Related posts:

Building materials: part 2a (LPX, JHX): Related post: Building materials: part 1

Pricing update: Hi everyone, on July 29 I will be raising prices. Existing subscribers will be grandfathered in at their current rate. Thank you, I appreciate all your support!

Building materials: part 1: Many of the companies I discuss on this blog are not just good businesses, but obviously good. Visa, Moody’s, Sherwin-Williams, and Heico are wonderful and readers of this blog need not be further convinced of that fact. And notwithstanding regulatory or macro pressures that cast doubt on their prospects at certain points (interchange regulation in the case of Visa, the GFC ratings fiasco in the case of Moody’s) these companies are great for pretty much the same reaso

[MKTX] MarketAxess: I first wrote about fixed income trading platforms in 2020. To recap: this market has consolidated into an oligopoly, with MarketAxess, Tradeweb, and Bloomberg at its center. A number of other competitors have emerged over the years, some are still around (Trumid), others have failed (Bondcube, Algomi). But, for the most part, when an asset manager like PIMCO buys Treasuries or corporate bonds from a sell-side dealer or even another buyside participant without picking up the

quick Xpel update: Original post: [XPEL] Xpel (4/1/24) I bought some XPEL shares in March and wrote some nice things about them. Naturally, soon after, the company reported an awful quarter and the stock cratered. Management cited broad aftermarket weakness in the US – “it was not uncommon to see dealers who were down 10%, 15% in the first quarter from the prior year period” – and a horrendous 78% revenue collapse in China. Consolidated topline growth decelerated to 5%, down from 20% a year ago

[LW] Lamb Weston: Few menu items so singularly express our collective surrender to fat and carbs than the habitual ease with which we order french fries. We can’t get enough of them. At the McDonald’s I worked at one summer in high school, I recall heaving what seemed like an endless bounty of golden fries into the fry station knowing that a red box of them would find itself in the paper bag of pretty much every customer that placed an order.

Revisiting Burford: In what seems like ages ago now Fintwit darling, Burford Capital, was flamboyantly attacked by Muddy Waters. The prominent short seller claimed that Burford “misleadingly boosted its IRR numbers”, rendering ROIC and IRR metrics “meaningless”; misled investors through the “egregiousness of its fair value accounting”; and was “arguably insolvent”, raising outside capital as a matter of survival rather than growth. These charges followed on the heels of a Canaccord Genuity analy

[XPEL] Xpel Inc: Thank you for all the messages. The outpouring of support from you guys over the last several days was an unexpected bright spot in this otherwise dark period. My family and I really appreciate it. XPEL was a fun research project, hope you enjoy this write-up. I hope to be back in the saddle soon.

Update: Hi everyone, a few days ago I received devastating news of my brother’s sudden death. I am going to take some time off to pick up the pieces and help deal with the fallout. As far as scuttleblurb goes, the post I am currently working on is near completion and will be published on Monday. But you should expect a longer-than-usual wait for the next writ…

[ROP] Roper Technologies: Hi everyone, I embedded audio of me reading this post (below the paywall line). Let me know what you think. If enough people are into this feature, I will include it in future write-ups. These recordings won't be word-for-word translations (I'll summarize here and there) but pretty close. You'll notice that I confuse "Vertafore" and "Vertafone" several times in today's audio. Long night, please ignore.

[AME] AMETEK: AMETEK was birthed out of failure. After its predecessor, Manhattan Electric Supply Company, a supplier of electrical switches, telegraph sets, alarm clocks, flashlights and other novel gizmos of the late 19th/early 20th century, declared bankruptcy in 1930, months after the market crash, shareholders created a new company from the ashes. The newly formed American Machine and Metals sold heavy machinery (Troy Laundry Machinery) used by commercial laundry facilities to wash and star

[TDY] Teledyne: Many investors have come to know of Teledyne through Warren Buffett, who in John Train’s 1980 classic The Money Masters, declared the company’s co-founder, Henry Singleton, as having “the best operating and capital deployment record in American business”. Buffett’s seal of approval spawned a vast collection of fawning articles and books about the unconventional engineer, almost chess Grandmaster, and entrepreneur, who delivered 20.4% annualized returns for shareholders during his

why Cintas wins: Please check out my annual interview with @LibertyRPF, where I offer some thoughts on investing and provide an update on the business of scuttleblurb. If you’re looking for an eclectic mix of content related to investing, technology, art, and science, I recommend subscribing to Liberty's newsletter,

GFL update: (all $ are Canadian unless otherwise specified) I first wrote up GFL nearly 2 years ago. To recap: garbage collection and disposal is one of the few businesses that you can be sure will still be around in 20 years. Its recurring necessity gives rise to predictable and stable cash flows. Residential collections are locked in under 3 to 10 year exclusive agreements that are very hard to lose, as city officials don’t want to risk pissing off voters by re-bidding contracts, a lengthy and

[MTCH] Match Group: Online dating has easy parallels to other online social experiences that if taken too seriously can lead to dubious outcomes. A dating app is like social media in that there are lots of people broadcasting themselves, making connections, and seeking validation. You might “like” a photo on Instagram as you might right-swipe on a photo in Tinder or Bumble. So as Tinder, Match Group’s largest property – accounting for 66% of paying users (”payers”), 60% of revenue, and 80% of EB