Welcome/About Me
Hi, my name is Steve Clapham and I am the former partner of two multi-billion hedge funds, one a Tiger Cub. I “retired” in 2018 from the hedge fund world and I now have 3 activities:
I write this Substack and publish a popular investing podcast
I run a forensic accounting course for institutional investors
I have an online school where you can learn how to be a serious equity investor
Why subscribe?
I started the newsletter in March, 2022 to share my knowledge, hopefully to inspire young people to try to get a job as an analyst, a profession I have loved (as well as being financially rewarding) and to improve my writing.
Expect a quite eclectic mix of articles on:
individual stocks (premium subscribers only)
investment research, including techniques I use which may help you improve your research and efficiency
commentary on accounting which will help you analyse company financials
general education about investment research
Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter. Please subscribe to the paid version (it encourages me to write and helps me devote more time) but I understand that not everyone can afford it. The free letter is pretty good too, albeit less regular. There is no risk to subscribing and you will then never miss an update.
Who is it for?
I have written this for two audiences.
the free letter should appeal to the serious private investor. You don’t need to have a lot of money, but you should be interested. I hope that many professional investors will also find some of the tips and tools of value.
for institutional investors, I attend several conferences like Sohn London in the year and report back. I will share the best stock tips from professional investors along with my assessment. You save the conference price (I spend several $1000 pa) and more importantly your time.
Both the paid and free tiers are popular with professional investors. You can see some of the institutional subscribers from a quick download we did in July, 2022, in the graphic below.
For all I know, these could be people in the back office. Or they could be front office people reading for amusement - hey, you will never guess what he wrote this week… But if you subscribe, you will understand why last week, the principal of one of the world’s most successful hedge funds signed up, and why this is a sample of readers at over 1000 asset managers, sell side boutiques, private equity firms, venture capital funds, family offices and other professional investors globally who subscribe.
Our open rates are consistently 45-50% for the free letter and 70-80% for the paid. Here is what one kind reader wrote in July, 2022:
As someone who has been a M&A banker, corporate finance banker, sell side analyst, buyside analyst and PM fixed income and equities for over 30 years I’ve been learning new things every week from your blog.
Why Paid?
I have produced a newsletter with a paid option, because frankly, I am lazy. Unless I have the incentive to write, I won’t do it consistently. And if people are paying me, then I will feel an obligation to produce an article almost every week. And one of the objectives of doing this is to improve my writing. Another is to get to know my customers better. I have an online school and a closer dialogue with the audience will help improve our content.
When I was a sell-side analyst, I always avoided doing a sector monthly, not just because I am an idle loafer, but because there isn’t always something to say. With a number of conferences on my annual schedule, comments on research, accounting topics and fun tales from my decades in markets, I shouldn't be short of material. I see this newsletter as a real ongoing challenge and fully expect to improve the quality of my writing and hopefully the quality of my thought process. Let’s see!
Stocks
When we look at a stock, we shall generally focus on the numbers more than the business model. There are loads of newsletters which talk about the latter, few look at the numbers. That’s our differentiation.
To be clear, I don’t want you to expect a detailed research report in your inbox each week. I don’t propose to provide a stock picking service for $20/mth. And where I do comment on a stock, it will often be on the back of a conference presentation by an institutional manager.
This service delivers real value - you cannot attend every conference, and this way you save the fees and I do the curation. But it’s not investment advice and please do your own research.
Difference between Paid and Free
On the free tier, you will get less, especially on individual stocks. But this is not an investment recommendations service. I will not be telling you to buy and sell stocks and assessing my performance monthly. I have been there, done that and collected a share of hedge fund fees. I amn’t going to do that for a few $100 pa.
On the paid tier, you will get all the great free content but you will also get additional content, possibly a deeper dive into a stock, or a spreadsheet you can use to help your analysis.
I want the paying subscribers to get a differentiated product which is worth paying for. Paying subscribers will also get additional “behind the scenes” content from my popular podcast (originally titled the Behind the Balance Sheet Podcast), discounts on courses, and more content.
Free subscribers will not receive an email each week. Paid subscribers mainly will.
We shall have additional tiers for keen enthusiasts who can pay more and get access to a community and quarterly group calls with me and special guests. Institutional investors can get additional benefits - info@behindthebalancesheet.com for more.
By subscribing to the paid letter, you are helping me deliver the content, and you will not miss any articles. The free articles used to be published weekly but will now be less frequent. To get the full service, it’s only $20/mth. Thanks for your support.
Advertisers
If you want to sell into the professional investor community or to access serious private investors, this is a serious alternative to sponsoring conferences, advertising in the financial press or expensive advertising on social media or search. Access 10-20k readers per week for a small fraction of the equivalent cost elsewhere. Email info@behindthebalancesheet.com for more.
Thanks for reading - don’t forget to sign up!
