Debentures and Collateral

In Disney’s 1997 cartoon adaptation of the Greek legend of Hercules, the evil Hades says to his kindhearted-but-enslaved underling, “Meg, Meg, Meg, my sweet deluded little minion. Aren’t we forgetting one teensy-weensy, but ever so crucial little, tiny detail?”...

The First Principle of Investment

The term value is frequently misused. Dollar-store advertisers use it to mean that even though something is complete garbage, at least it’s cheap garbage. Portfolio managers use the term “value” to mean an underpriced-but-valuable asset. That’s better, but also...

Understanding Industry Rivalry

Michael Porter, a well-known strategy professor at Harvard identified five forces that shape the profit-making potential of the average firm in the industry. The five forces are: rivalry, buyer power, supplier power, threat of new entrants, and the threat of...

5 Lessons from The Big Short

In 2010, financial journalist Michael Lewis published a book telling the story of investors who made money in the 2007-2010 crash by betting against the mortgages we now know were doomed. He called it The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. On 11 December 2015,...

3 Ways to Think Like a Consultant

Consultants are third-party resources companies can use to fix problems within their organizations in all kinds of areas. Some specialize in advising on general strategy problems, while others focus on technology, marketing, finance, operations, or human resources....