Monthly Archives: May 2023

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Why “buy and hold” is nonsense and not the key to successful investing

One of the first major “mindset tips” new investors either directly receive from someone more experienced or stumble upon by themselves is to “buy and hold” stocks. The reasoning seems to make sense, as a longer holding period should level out short term fluctuations and enable a positive investing outcome. However, this concept does not take into account a key component, misleading many investors, often causing avoidable disappointments.

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Will Philip Morris split itself, soon?

Company transformations and separations are not an uncommon occurrence. The goal of so-called spin-offs is to grow by shrinking first. Such special situations can create shareholder value that is uncorrelated to broader markets. Over the past days, I started to think through possible coming spin-offs. The iconic Marlboro maker Philip Morris came to my mind, as it could slowly start to make sense for them to start a divorce to focus on their growing business unit, throwing off ballast and cashing out, soon.

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Is the stock of M&T Bank the best pick among regional US-banks?

After the first wave of banking collapses last March and some subsequent calming down, the last few weeks have again been dominated by fears about who’s next. The California based First Republic Bank was the next to fall. Its assets were sold to JPMorgan. Stocks of other regional banks got hammered by even 50% in single trading days, as if this were nothing unusual. The search for the next victim is running. M&T Bank so far held up rather well (and managed to stay under the radar). Is it worth a closer look?

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The Panic of 1907 – a financial chain reaction

With this Weekly, I am finally writing my first book review. The book I now finished, is about the financial panic of 1907. However, it is not just a short-lived event with a simple crash in stock markets, limited to that particular year, as the title might suggest. Furthermore, it is about a sequence of events that caused a chain reaction of significant relevance, laying the foundation for the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank (although not what you know today).

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