Giles Capital is going paid soon, and I want it shaped by the people who read it. This edition you’re reading now, the midweek Reads, will stay free and improve over time and will start including selected company reports as a taste of the deeper work to come.
What would move to paid is the Monday email, either fully or partially: the depth, the summaries, and increasingly my own analysis and real conviction on the best ideas. Exactly where that line falls is one of the things I’m still working out, and your answers below help shape it. Going paid is what lets me put more time into it and make it better. Before I set the details, or the price, I’d really value your views. Please do share them below, it would be greatly appreciated and genuinely shapes what I build and what it costs. Thank you in advance.
Victor Haghani was a partner at Long-Term Capital Management when it collapsed in 1998. He rebuilt by giving up leverage entirely. The Situational Awareness fund did not take the lesson. The One to save finds the original warning, from Jesse Livermore in 1930s Palm Beach.
A returns-on-capital framework tests which AI buildouts actually earn their capex, naming the hyperscalers that genuinely create value and the ones that quietly destroy it.
Banking’s Next Interface Isn’t an App breaks down how AI agents are reshaping financial infrastructure, with concrete governance patterns and strategic implications for institutions of every size.
A century of bond data from Wharton settles why credit risk premiums exceed actual default losses: the gap is real, economically significant, and predictive of future returns.
Investing is a Game of Survival uses the Situational Awareness fund’s blowup to show how 5x leverage turns a normal drawdown into forced liquidation.
A vivid imagined dialogue between Jesse Livermore and Edward Bradley distils timeless principles of disciplined speculation: observation, emotional control, position sizing, and the discipline of cash reserves.
You Cannot Outsource Life connects the TV show Severance and Russ Roberts’s Wild Problems to argue that meaningful lives are forged by enduring difficulty, not by outsourcing pain.
Arjun Murti challenges his own peak-demand biases in this listen, finding New vs Old Europe the sharpest lens, with Poland and Turkey as an overlooked 250-million-person growth engine.
Bill Bishop’s Sinification curates Chinese establishment thinking on US competition, distilling a sober reassessment that Advantage Does Not Equal Victory and that material leverage does not guarantee durable influence.
A clever framework compares Big Macs vs iPad Minis to show why currency valuation measures diverge and what it implies for dollar strength and the RMB.
A former fund strategist makes the case for three UK investment trusts at deep discounts to their underlying asset values, with concrete return expectations over five years (EMEA).
A granular breakdown of Kyushu maps the island’s divergence: Fukuoka’s startup boom and TSMC-driven Kumamoto against Nagasaki and Kagoshima’s structural decline, with an investing thesis for the gap.
A structural analysis of why Mastercard and Visa’s duopoly has survived decades of disruption, grounded in network economics and the distinction between domestic and cross-border payments.
SK Hynix posted its first-ever single-session 30% gain in July after record Q2 results, yet one analyst argues the stock still trades at half its fair value.
Universal Music Group is growing revenue at 13.3% with stable 20% margins but trades at half the multiple of its peers, a gap the writeup traces to misread accounting and a misunderstood royalty model.
Victor Haghani rebuilt from Long-Term Capital Management’s collapse by adopting index discipline, and reflects in this listen on leverage, ruin, and resilience, and why long-term wealth requires backing away from outsized bets.
Management interviews are the most underdeveloped skill in investing, Ross O’Toole argues in this watch, covering concrete techniques including what versus why questioning, question sequencing, and self-recording for due diligence improvement.
Michel Del Buono of A16Z Perennial unpacks why direct investing without team quality is a wealth trap, with specific insights on tax-aware real estate and vintage diversification in this watch.
A panel of energy allocators debates power replacing oil as the strategic asset in this watch, with concrete theses on LNG, copper supply deficits, and the short side of US producers.
Paul Cerro is long $HIMS despite not trusting the CEO, arguing in this watch that the real moat is data and retention, with the host pressing hard on competitive threats.
A Bloomberg Intelligence analyst cuts through semiconductor panic on this listen, explaining why memory incumbents remain structurally insulated from Chinese competition via next-generation chip architecture and long-term supply contracts (APAC).
An imagined 1930s dialogue between the greatest stock speculator and the greatest gambler. Jesse Livermore and Edward Bradley: plunge only when the majority of factors align, keep cash in reserve, cut losses without brooding, and never assume the market offers a sure thing.
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Disclaimer: This newsletter is for informational purposes only and not investment advice. The intro reflects my views, while investment summaries are my interpretations of original authors' analyses. Information may not be fully verified and is subject to correction. Original authors' complete views may differ. Always do your own research before making investing decisions.
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