About me and my philosophy on investing
I am a non-professional value investor based in Sweden. When I describe myself as a “value investor” I don’t mean to say that I only invest in low P/E stocks, low P/B stocks, slow growers, or whatever it is Wall Street thinks value investing is. To me, value investing is a form of investing that acknowledges the probabilistic nature of investing. It is a highly rational methodology which involves looking at the facts & figures and deciding whether or not an investment makes sense, whether or not the potential reward makes up for the risk involved. A value investor realizes that value can come in many forms, and as a result, moves wherever the opportunity is. Finding value then, requires an open mind as well as a good understanding of accounting and company valuation. One has to be logical in the sense that the math has to make sense, but also have the ability to think outside the box, to see things other investors don’t see. Being comfortable as the contrarian, the lone wolf, is therefore also crucial.
Why the name Robinia Research?
Robinia Pseudoacacia is the name of a tree, more commonly known as black locust, or just locust. Growing up, my family had a beautiful Robinia tree in our courtyard, and I have spent many hours admiring its beauty and resilience over the years. It is still standing today, taller than a five story building. The Robinia is also a tree that possess many attributes that I think describe the value investing methodology pretty well. The following quote is from the Wikipedia page of “Robinia Pseudoacacia”.
Robinia pseudoacacia is considered an excellent plant for growing in highly disturbed areas as an erosion control plant. As a value investor, one often seeks out the disturbed areas of the market, because that’s often where the value is found. And in a way, value investors do act as “erosion control”. When everybody else is freaking out, when everybody wants to get out of the market and prices fall dramatically, the contrarian value investors are putting money into the system, thus providing a form of stability in the market.
The Robinia species is very durable, being one of the hardest woods in North America. Durability is very important in value investing, because the value investor cares about sustainable long term results, and therefore focuses a lot on downside protection and insists on a margin of safety. This, in theory, makes for a durable portfolio that can withstand all kinds of markets.
Additionally, the Robinia tree reproduces via root suckers which means that the roots of the trees can sprout new trees, and the roots of the new trees can sprout even more trees, and so on. A parallel can therefore be drawn to the compounding of capital an investor wishes to achieve. Like Benjamin Franklin said: “Money makes money. And the money that money makes, makes money.”
The “Research” part of the name aims to describe the purpose of the website, which is to do research on topics ranging from financial markets, investing methodology, accounting, and company valuation. The research is not scientific in nature, but instead journalistic, where the goal is the get to the bottom of a specific topic, and to make the reader think. I don’t claim to be an expert, and the topics I’m doing research on are simply topics that interest me personally. Nothing on this website should be taken as the absolute truth. I reserve the right to make mistakes, both in my research and in my writing. Thank you for being here. I hope you find anything of value!
