Author/Editor
Chris Mayer
Publisher
Agora Financial
Description
Edited by Chris Mayer, a stock picking newsletter that looks for undervalued and “hidden” stocks. Ceased publishing when Mayer left to write a couple new letters for Bonner & Partners.
Overall Rating
Rating: 3.2/5. From 5 votes.
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3.3
Rating from 26 votes
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Investment Performance
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Rating: 3.3/5. From 7 votes.
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Quality Of Writing/Analysis
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Rating: 4.0/5. From 8 votes.
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Value For Price
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Rating: 2.7/5. From 6 votes.
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Rating: 3.2/5. From 5 votes.
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Chris does write very well, and does very thorough research. His view of most of his picks tends to be conservative.
He is lacking in money management skills. I watched him ride APL from $45 to $5 before he finally let go of it. He even identified the biggest problem in the company’s financials as a strength, it wasn’t.
I believe he will find some good companies, but DD can not be stressed strongly enough, and if things go wrong be wary of his poor money management.
HI
I have his book – the detailed method must be effective – but requires much to much time and ability for me. I have Capital and Crisis for several years – currently is up on all but 2 out of 21 in the listing. But I have only one – it is well up. A year or two ago he paniced on some problem with Atlas pipe and sold and recommended sale, so I sold also – shortly later it went back up a LOT – too bad.He is a buy and hold investor, but lately has sold 4 or 5 names. Indeed once AGORA has your address you will get a deluge of over- hyped copy – I think they subscribe to Bonner’s philosophy shown in his books – most people are part of a dumb mob.
Chris is a nice man, a fine speaker, but his stock picks at times leave much to be desired. When APL was recommended, it was sent out as a conservative play. Later he said it was highly leveraged and a mistake. Stock sold for a ridiculous loss. The problem is that Chris rides stocks into the ground, so if you do happen to play the wrong ones, you are screwed. Another disaster was LMC which was sold for a little over a buck and recommended at 9+. I also have special situations, and if you happen to have joined in 2011 like me, you have a laundry list of disasters
I subacribe at 2 years, and so, it is excelent.
I have subscribed to C&C for over 7 years. Chris Meyer follows a consistent method for identifying value in long term core portfolio holdings, with particular empasis on “Skin in the game”. Good for buy and hold stocks. They are not supposed to be exciting. It’s a good paper, interesting to read and fair value. Most of the recommendations have done well. For more adventurous picks Chris published Meyer’s Special Situations, which complement the core holdings quite well.
Overall, a very interesting and informative letter. Chris tells his opinions on certain sectors for each issue, even if he’s not going to recommend a stock in that area. He looks for long term values vs short term gains, so many of his theses take a while to bear out. Or the market may change and the thesis gone. Long term, though, his picks frequently accumulate 50-100% gains. Good for value focused investors with patience.
Chris Mayer is one of the few analysts I trust, partly because he writes with humility, versus bombastic hyperbole. I have held several of his recommendations for 3-4 years; several have done quite well, several are fair-to-middlin’ (but good companies, so I will stay with them). Biggest issue: Agora Financial. They have mixed my accounts, charged me multiple times for a “life-time” subscription (that hasn’t produced recommendations in over 2 years), and closed down two subscriptions, each time shuffling my remaining time to another, that also quit publishing. I will no longer subscribe to Agora paid content. They lost my trust.
Found Chris’ work to be honest, forthright and clear. He admitted his “misses” but had a number of nice “hits” (esp Howard Hughes Co)