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As value investors, we like the so-called moats, i.e. characteristics of a business that enable it to generate...
We have been hunting over the past months for investment opportunities in Europe benefitting from the rise in...
Luxembourg School of Business is organizing on a yearly basis a course on value investing where I had...
“Vulnerabilities associated with elevated risk appetite are rising,” Fed Governor Lael Brainard, the head of the Board’s financial...
The inflation theme is everywhere in the financial press. However, central banks remain pretty silent on the matter...
Rising commodity prices leading to lower profit margins is the simple top-down assessment. In this case, this view...
I recently came across extensive comments from so-called growth investors making the point that the reflation trade had...
Performance overview: MSCI Europe was up 8.35% during Q1 2021 Strategy up 9.14% (share class A Eur), Outperforming...
In the middle of a consensus trade favouring value names, it is very painful to see a text...
Lately, you must have come across lots of articles discussing how increasing yields on sovereign bonds have led...
With the hindsight bias of course, but sometimes we get a sense that not all investment decisions are...
This week we would like to discuss about a market leader, which was already facing tremendous pressure across...
The stock-market performance of insurers has been historically tightly linked to the evolution of corporate spreads. In case...
Executive Summary Performance overview MSCI Europe was up 10.8% during Q4 2020 Strategy up 12% (share class A...
In the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC) held in the 4th quarter of last year, an interesting theme...
Back in November, during our brain storming session we came across an interesting investment opportunity in a very...
Just a couple of days into the new year, we already celebrated this week in Washington the premiere...
One year ago, in the Christmas double edition of December 19th 2019 of our Friday morning coffee we...
In their widely acclaimed and celebrated masterpiece “Thinking, Fast and Slow” Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and his collaborator...
This week we thought of revisiting Friday Morning Coffee Nr. 59 — “The devil wears Prada” that we...
A lot is currently being written about the rotation from momentum/growth stocks into value stocks. To us, the...
The beginning of this week has been marked by a violent rotation out of Big Tech and so-called...
Just when we thought the rotation into value was getting traction, the long duration play with a preference...
Recently we came across a couple of articles formulating cases either “for” or “against” value investment. True to...
The US presidential election is approaching and both candidates are in the final run of their campaigns with...
Executive Summary Performance overview MSCI Europe up 0.1% during Q3 2020 Strategy up 2.5% (Share class A EUR),...
It is not a surprise that interest rates are at rock bottom levels. An already anaemic economic activity...
Big Tech has had a tremendous run since over the last years against the US broader market. The...
It has now become a tradition for me to present the principles of value investing to students in...
Allow us to reproduce the chart of the Eurozone banking index, which we are sure you must have...
What if we were to tell you that this large cap company operating in the cement industry has...
We hear that several large asset managers are throwing the towel on value investing. One example is Nordea...
“People calculate too much and think too little”- Charlie Munger (Vice Chair at Berkshire Hathaway). Our confession –...
Referring to the telephonic conversation with the boss of a large US cruise line operator at the onset...
One of the attractions of European equity markets is their valuation gap compared to the US. According to...
Think of an automotive supplier and the first thought that comes to mind is a “component pusher”. Given...
In a 2001 Fortune article, Warren Buffett described his favoured valuation indicator for the US stock market, namely...
Following on from our thoughts and discussions in our Friday Morning Coffee Nr 106, wherein we presented our...
I must admit that I felt a little nervous over the last weekend while following the EU summit....
Bond veteran Bill Gross is taking a break from his retirement on the golf course and is back...
Executive Summary Performance overview MSCI Europe up 12.6% during Q2 2020 Our portfolio performed better than market and...
Gold has been a difficult asset class for us in the past. We find it hard to get...
The current mood in the equity markets reminds us sometimes of the song by the Clash : “Should...
We have been writing in previous morning coffees about our investment in the Swedish confectionary producer Cloetta. Cloetta...
In our last morning coffee ( Nr 106 ), we described how we had made use of the...
When the bubonic plague hit England in 1665 killing 100,000 people, the young Isaac Newton was forced to...
It may have gone unnoticed with many investors: value has actually started to perform better than growth recently....
Value investing and Covid-19 crisis did not mix well. Value has indeed been underperforming growth going into the...
As value investors, we continue to have a tough time in the stock markets. The underperformance of value...
On the surface, market commentators may easily come to the conclusion that there is a growing gap between...
We have been asked over the last days on how we exploit the current weakness in the oil...
The Economist run a cover last week with the title “The business of survival : How COVID-19 will...
Executive Summary Performance overview MSCI Europe down 22.6% during Q1 2020 Our portfolio suffered too, since small &...
Equity markets have started to recover from the lows seen mid- March. This is partly due to a...
The broad market sell-off in March gave us the opportunity to enter the business of cancer treatment again....
Friday Morning coffee Nr 97 – Fog of war Over the past few days, economists and strategists are...
As Luxembourg has gone into a complete lock-down and our Prime Minister declared the state of emergency, I...
The world is currently facing a crisis our generation has not experienced before. We limit ourselves here to...
Low valuation has till now not provided capital protection in the recent market turmoil, as value has done...
One of the more interesting parts of being an asset manager is that every day Mr. Market comes...
That was quick! Investor sentiment went from extremely bullish to extremely negative in just a couple of weeks....
In my career as a stock-picker and value investor, I considered dispersion as my friend. The higher the...
We are scratching our heads as valuation of the so-called growth stocks has now reached what we think...
In the second half of 2018 a small Swedish company pops up in our screening. The company appears...
In his speech on Wednesday this week, Fed chairman Powell commented on the spread of the novel coronavirus...
It is still too early in the year with less than 20 active trading days to draw any...
What does a jet engine have in common with an elevator? Strange question, you may think, but let’s...
Executive Summary Performance overview Strong finish of the year for markets and our strategy Our value approach outperformed...
My co-manager Allan Jensen spent the first working days of 2020 at a broker conference in Copenhagen attending...
With the year-end festivities and a new decade just around the corner, I wanted to wrap-up the current...
With the year-end approaching, we are getting ready to enter a new decade. What does this mean for...
A year ago, we published a morning coffee with the title “No chocolate for St Nicolaus” where we...
We have been experiencing over the last weeks a timid return in favor of the value style that...
One of the remarkable things in our industry is the large amount of data available to us as...
As value investors, we are frequently being asked about market timing. Our standard answer is the famous quote...
My co-manager Allan Jensen and myself had the opportunity to present at the IVIC International Value Investment Conference...
In his most recent and highly recommendable book called “Propaganda”, German author Steffen Kopetzky describes the work of...
Performance overview Negative return for Fund during volatile quarter Rebound of our Value Portfolio in first half of...
Banks currently represent 8.9% of the broader European equity market index MSCI Europe. They have been the underdogs...
The Eurozone manufacturing business sentiment numbers published last week were hardly encouraging, especially the ones coming out of...
ECP presented this Thursday morning at a conference organized by a Dechert law firm on the subject “A...
One argument we hear quite often on why value investing would be no longer relevant is the growing...
Beginning of September, we experienced a substantial rotation from momentum stocks into value stocks. According to Bloomberg, it...
Today Léon Kirch‘s article appeared in the AGEFI Luxembourg newspaper. Have a read if you are interested in...
European Capital Partners is based on the original approach of Entrepreneurial Value Investing which consists of investing in...
Value investing has been under extreme pressure since the beginning of 2007. Value Managers experience difficulties to explain...
“It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a...
While looking at the daily fluctuations of the stock prices, investors sometimes forget that dividends are a big...
Our base scenario remains that we are in an environment of slowing economic momentum but certainly not under...
“Wrong, do it again! Wrong, do it again! / If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have...
It has become common knowledge that value as an investment style is out of favor and trades at...
While we are celebrating the 50th year anniversary of the moon landing, that undoubtedly a “big step for...
The economic data coming out of Europe remains weak. Leading indicators, particularly in the manufacturing sector, continue their...
The International Value Investing Conference will take place on November 6th, 2019. European Capital Partners’ Chief Investment Officer...
Performance overview Flattish quarter after strong Q1 for our strategy Return of 9.95% ytd (ECP Flagship European Value...
At the end of March, we commented in Friday Morning Coffee Nr. 50 that shorting European equities had...
We are now entering the Q2 result season. As usual, we are not overly nervous as long term...
Value as an investment style continued to underperform growth/momentum strategies in the first half of 2019. European value...
At ECP, we internally produce weekly investment risk reports to keep a tight grip on the underlying risk...
This week equity and bond markets have been fueled again by dovish comments from central banks. First, outgoing...
Value Investing makes again the headlines and not only in Europe. We indeed saw an increased number of...
The investment community is known for its colourful narratives. However, we could not help but smile when we...
In the 2006 movie “The devil wears Prada”, Meryl Streep plays an autocratic editor as chief of a...
Wounded in Action ( WIA ) describes combatants who have been wounded while fighting in a combat zone...
The adage “sell in May and go away” has definitely held true this year with European equities down...
While it is raining here in Luxembourg on the newly created legal holiday where we celebrate Europe, I...
One of the characteristics of the appearance of a bubble in financial markets is that most investors only...
Here we go again – the words ‘melt-up’ and ‘pain trade’ are coming up again in the financial...
The narrative economists use in their explanations can be very colorful and entertaining. Albert Edward for example, the famous...
Since the end of 2018, ECP deploys the Swiss portfolio management software Allocare AMS to support its activities. All...
The clothing brand Superdry, known for its pseudo-Japanese designs, is one of the fairy tales of the UK...
On April 1st, SGResearch published a note titled “TINA is back at work – Both bonds and equities...
BofA Merrill Lynch conducts on a monthly basis a Fund Manager survey where they poll the largest fund...
Several strategists are currently voicing concerns about the 2019 earnings outlook and stay cautious on equities in general...
With bond king Bill Gross retiring from Janus, a chapter in investment management is closing. Bond managers and equity...
One of our key convictions at ECP is that value as an investment style will make a comeback...
The German magazine “Der Spiegel” featured an article this week titled “Praise the debts” on the benefits of higher...
We recently came across a statement from a major US broker arguing that the recovery in global equities...
The CIO of NN invest, Valentijn van Nieuwenhuizen, published an excellent article last week “size matters, as does...
Here we go again, stuck in the midst of the result season, this time for the 4th quarter...
One of the positive aspects of being a small value boutique is to have the opportunity to exchange...
Are we potentially entering a Minsky moment that we in short can define as “a major collapse of...
In May last year there was a highly mediatized clash between Warren Buffet and Elon Musk on moats...
As value investors we have nothing against companies wanting to expand their businesses and show solid earnings growth....
Paul Samuelson, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, famously said “The stock market has...
This year has been difficult for investors into European equities and more particularly for investors into smaller European...
We have been arguing in past morning coffees that value investing has been out of favour as an...
“In the short-term markets are a voting machine, in the long-term a weighing machine”, is one of our...
During Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting in 1994, Warren Buffett made the following statement on trying to predict...
In its September quarterly review, the Bank of International Settlements published an interesting piece on the so-called...
The sell-off that occurred in October led us to postpone the publication of our quarterly market commentary in...
October was a cruel reminder of what can happen at this stage of the market cycle after 9...
As I write this column on late Thursday afternoon for publication on Friday, news on Brexit are filling...
In the context of the 2nd International Value Investing Conference in Luxembourg, ValueDACH did interviewed Léon Kirch on...
This Wednesday, we went in Germany to meet some investors. One of the discussion topic was the potential...
Article written by Léon Kirch and published in the section “Europe. Only available in French.
As a bottom-up value investor, we do not claim to have an edge into forecasting the future direction...
So now it is official: we broke this week through the 3% yield on the 10 Year US...
As an investment manager specialized in European, European Capital Partners’ hunting ground of investment opportunities consists of more...
In Cocaine, Eric Clapton is famously singing “If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on. Cocaine....
The debate about the respective virtues of active and passive management has been intense for years now, and...
Almost half a century ago, Lawrence Fisher and James Lorie from the University of Chicago published a research...
As stock pickers, we prefer to focus our attention on understanding the businesses and valuation of the companies...
As an investor, you must be wondering right now if it is this still a good time to...
I wanted to welcome you to our new ECP weekly column that will, as of today, be published...
In our last quarterly report, we expressed our belief that, sooner or later, volatility should rebound and that,...
Market environment & outlook An environment driven by exceptionally low interest rates and volatility levels The...
Press-Release, EC21 S.A. Luxembourg, January 17th 2018 – European Capital Partners (Luxembourg) S.A., Colombo Wealth Management S.A. and...
Market environment & outlook “It’s the economy, stupid!” James Carville was famously right focusing Bill Clinton’s...
Article written by Léon Kirch and published by the specialised magazine Investment Europe. http://www.investmenteurope.net/magazine/IE84/#/article/38/page/1-1
Market environment & outlook As stock pickers, our investment decisions are not dictated by macroeconomic and/or political...
On May 16th and 17th, Léon Kirch will attend the DACH Summit organised by Investment Europe. He will...
Article written by Léon Kirch and published in Agefi Luxembourg.
Marktumfeld & Ausblick Das politische Risiko: Ein gutes Beispiel dafür, dass man häufig vor lauter Bäumen den...
Discussion with Léon Kirch and Allan Saustrup Jensen about the evolution of ECP, their current positioning in the...
Recent months have shown a major trend shift in favor of value strategies. From an historical perspective are...
Executive Summary The “NO” vote to the Italian referendum will further weaken the euro, affect the European Bond...
Executive Summary We are long-term investors: our long-term returns will not be determined by a specific outcome in...
Macroeconomic backdrop The macroeconomic environment has not significantly changed over the recent months, it remains torn between...
Which future for Value-based Investment strategies? This is a translation of an article originally written in French...
Summer is there …a good opportunity to take a step back and have a closer look at the...
After the recent Remain-leaning polls and subsequent risk rally, the UK’s vote to leave is a nasty shock....
As the fateful date of June 23, date fixed for the referendum on UK membership of the EU,...
“It’s now time to go outside to meet investors and move up “ Only available in French.
Discussion with Léon Kirch and Allan Saustrup Jensen about the evolution of ECP, their current positioning in the...
“The undisputable growth and success of ETFs does not mean active managers are a dying species” by Léon...
Official launch of Luxembourg-based asset management boutique European Capital Partners and its first UCITS strategy Press Release...
While we are long-term investors and generally do not comment on short-term market moves, we however think it...
Article available written in German.
Press Release – Luxembourg 6 July, 2015 Luxembourg-based asset management boutique, European Capital Partners (ecp.lu), is proud to...
Renowned stock picker and value investor Léon Kirch joined European Capital Partners (ECP) in 2014 as Partner, Chief...
