Part-Time Analyst

One of the best opportunities either to make (or lose) money while investing comes about via a stock dislocation. Whilst it has been often stated that the market is in fact efficient, I personally hold the view that the people who hold this view probably couldn't spot an elephant on an ice rink. Whilst the stock market is generally fairly efficient, there are times when either paranoia or exuberance take over - turning a well priced stock into a source of ridicule for all those able to see that the emperor does in fact have no clothes on.  What makes investing really interesting though, is that that there will also be times when those of us 'in the know' will point out that the emperor has no clothes, only to find that he is in fact dressed in his full royal regalia. The great thing about investing is that most of the time you are wrong. Stock Manias - e.g. Tesla? But manias do exist, and the more discussed examples come about through irrational exuberance - where the posit...

When I look at Tesla one thing that stands out to me is how big it's vision is. This is admirable - we do all like ambitious companies after all - but what subsequently puzzles me about Tesla is it's approach to that ambition. More specifically, the amount it allocates to be spent on research and development. To explain my point, let's have a meander through the car world to gather up some rough financial comparisons between manufacturers. At the base of the tree you have your upstart luxury car manufacturers like Aston Martin - and Aston Martin spend a plucky $450-550m a year on R&D in their bid to play a role in the luxury part of the market. The cars that result are pretty, but only serve part of a small part of the wider market. And even within the luxury car segment there are levels - and the top spot within that segment is held by The Daddy of the luxury car market - Ferrari. With a market cap of $76b and an R&D spend of about $1bn, Ferrari have always reaped ...