Thoughts on Vitaly Katsenelson?

[fiby41]

He is a Russian immigrant Jew and falls in the active (as opposed to buy and hold) value investing camp.

Lots of content out on investor.fm and CEO of Investment Management Associates.

Your thoughts?

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Vitaly Katsenelson is a Russian born accountant who is now running a US wealth management corporation. His book is recommended by former US army general Stanley McChrystal, Lebanese "Black Swan" author Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Dutch "iceman" Wim Hof. What a world we live in

My experience with financial advisors and books recommended by celebrities is both bad. So my thoughts are that I will ignore Vitaly.

[chenda]

I read a few of his articles. One of them was riddled with exaggerations and inaccuracies. At one point he claims GDP per capita is the same as average incomes, which it clearly isn't and leads me to wonder what his credentials are. He may or may not be a successful investor but he seems to be engaged in a lot self-publicity, and like a lot of these investment guru's you have to wonder as to whether he makes more money talking about investing than by actually investing.

[CzechRetireeWannabe]

Vitaly Katsenelson is a Russian born accountant who is now running a US wealth management corporation. His book is recommended by former US army general Stanley McChrystal, Lebanese "Black Swan" author Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Dutch "iceman" Wim Hof.

That already tells me all I need to know to avoid it at all cost.

[fiby41]

Thanks for providing the perspective... if I was in US and if it weren't for this thread, I would have sent him some of my money to manage by now.lol

He has about a million dollars under management from each of his 500 investors and has 80-90k subscribers.

Here's his booklet on EVs and Tesla that gave me new ideas. Its shared by him so no copyright infringement https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lTLVlx ... cD4wP/view . Thesis is EVs are to cars what iPhone was to dumb phones. But as cars were to horses, you could short horses but you can't tell which EV manufacturer will win.

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But as cars were to horses, you could short horses but you can't tell which EV manufacturer will win.

By now I know several people who had both a Tesla and a Korean or German EV (always provided by their work.) They say Tesla has the better software, but the other manufacturers have higher build quality. Like a Tesla may have a leaking window, a door that doesn't open, and battery problems. The German car may have inconvenient updates to map software, an airco you can't control from the main display, and problems playing Spotify. Most prefer Tesla if they have a choice.

One guy who works in embedded software said Tesla can do more with their central computer than others. So for example the German car has many more custom chips. The software on these custom chips is harder to upgrade and so of lower quality.

If recent history is any guide the software people will "eat the world". So Vitaly's idea seems quite logical. The stock market seems to agree and has Tesla at a 182 P/E while BMW is trading at 6 P/E. That is already a steep difference, and shorting the competition is saying the difference is not yet large enough.

One problem with following financial advisors is that they're right until they are wrong. Then a fresh advisor becomes the new hotness. I think overall I'd be poorer if I had followed celebrity financial advise in the past.

[chenda]

I wouldn't trust anyone who can't get their facts right on their blog.

[zbigi]

One guy who works in embedded software said Tesla can do more with their central computer than others. So for example the German car has many more custom chips. The software on these custom chips is harder to upgrade and so of lower quality.

More single-purpose chips means more failure isolation, so, all other things being equal, I'd expect the German cars to be more reliable.