Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance
“It’s always darkest before dawn” is a phrase that I muttered under my breath this week while reading the latest investor letter from my friend Mark Spiegel, who has suffered the worst month, November, and worst year, 2024, in his fund's history.
I’ve read hundreds of hedge fund managers over the last 15 years, but only a few have produced letters during their poorly performing years that I could stomach. Many managers, when suffering terrible performance, pepper their letters with self-serving excuses and an inconspicuous inability to admit they were wrong.
As I have learned over the last 10 years – and as I recently admitted in my mea culpa on Tesla last month – sometimes it isn’t worth trying to figure out why you are wrong or why your thesis isn’t working, despite the fact that it makes sense to you. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes, realize for one reason or another you’ve been outfoxed, rip the Band-Aid off, and move on.
While this was my play last month on Tesla, it has not been the course of action that my friend Mark has taken on Tesla, the overall market or his position in Volkswagen (VWAPY). Upon reading his letter this week, I first felt frustrated on his behalf: why is he putting himself through this pain and misery? I know he thinks he’s right, and his reasoning makes sense to me, but the market simply isn’t agreeing for one reason or another.
But when I got to the end of Mark‘s letter and digested his arguments, I took a deep breath and realized that even if the market continues to prove him wrong, his reasoning and logic are so ripe with common sense, historical trends, and logical conclusions that I would be stupid to ignore them altogether.
As I said last month, I’m not sure if Mark will be proven right on the overall market or Tesla ever, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that I think he has constructed a well-reasoned argument on his positions.
Specifically, I think his argument as to why the broader market overall is overvalued is worth paying attention to. I know this blog can sometimes overdo it with skeptical stances and bearish assessments of an otherwise always bullish market, but such is the struggle of any medium trying to counterbalance the mainstream financial media, its sycophants, and its obsession with debt- and inflation-fueled economies.
Today, I’m passing along most of Mark’s letter for the month of November, with hopes that my readers will pay specific attention to what I believe is a very well-reasoned argument as to why the overall market is overvalued...(READ THIS FULL ARTICLE AND LETTER HERE).
