Investment Philosophy
"Games are won by players who focus on the playing field – not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard." - Warren Buffett
This Substack is not a portfolio, it is a research process. I’m not managing capital on behalf of others, and I’m not publishing positions or trade ideas in real time. The goal is not to make decisions for you, but to improve how those decisions are made—to understand businesses, what they earn over time, what drives their outcomes, and how that compares to the price the market is asking today.
The output is a set of frameworks, analyses, and perspectives that can be used within your own investment decision. What you do with that work (e.g. portfolio construction, timing, position sizing) is left to the individual.
A Long-Term Lens
“In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.”- Benjamin Graham
Markets are noisy in the short term. Prices move on sentiment, positioning, and information that often has little to do with the long-term trajectory of a business.
Over shorter time horizons, outcomes are frequently shaped by speed and access—advantages that are difficult to replicate as an individual investor. Trying to compete on that axis tends to turn analysis into reaction.
Instead, the work here is grounded in a longer horizon:
What does this business look like in five or ten years?
What are the structural drivers of growth?
What will determine whether it succeeds or fails?
This perspective forces a focus on fundamentals rather than headlines and creates a clearer link between business performance and valuation over time.
The Core Question
Each write-up is built around a simple question: What is this business, and how does it make money over time?
That requires breaking the company down into its underlying components—how it generates revenue, how it allocates capital, and how those decisions translate into long-term earning power.
Quarterly results matter, but only to the extent that they inform the direction of the underlying business. The focus is not on whether a company beat expectations, but on whether the engine itself is strengthening or weakening.
Defining Quality
Not all growth is valuable. Not all businesses are worth owning.
The companies that tend to warrant deeper attention often exhibit a combination of:
Durable competitive advantages that support excess returns
The ability to reinvest capital at attractive rates
Exposure to markets with structural tailwinds
Management teams that allocate capital rationally over time
These are often described as “high-quality” businesses, but that label only matters if it can be grounded in financial reality. A key part of the work is translating qualitative strengths into measurable outcomes.
At the same time, not every write-up will be about a business that meets this standard. Understanding lower-quality or more uncertain businesses is often just as valuable—both for comparison and for recognizing when a thesis begins to change.
Valuation: Framing the Debate
What you’ll notice in these write-ups is a focus on isolating the core drivers of long-term value creation, rather than trying to out-forecast near-term earnings with precision. The objective isn’t to predict next year’s EPS better than the Street, but to build a grounded view of what a business can earn on a normalized, per-share basis over time, and then compare that to the valuation implied today.
While I do provide an estimated price, the focus is less on precision and more on understanding the assumptions required to justify the current valuation.
A constant check in that process is avoiding false precision. Models can create the illusion of certainty, but if the conclusions are driven more by the mechanics than by the underlying business, the analysis loses its value. And importantly, even the highest-quality business is not necessarily a good investment. The difference ultimately comes down to valuation.
The approach here is centered on estimating the long-term earning power of a business and comparing that to the price implied by the market. But the goal is not precision for its own sake.
Valuation is used to frame three questions:
What assumptions are embedded in the current price?
What needs to go right—or wrong—from here?
Is there a meaningful gap between price and intrinsic value?
One important shift in my thinking has been recognizing the role of upside in great businesses. When a company has a long runway and can compound capital at attractive rates, the distribution of outcomes is often skewed. Walking away on valuation alone can mean foregoing that asymmetry.
In that sense, valuation is not a rigid decision rule. It is a way of understanding risk, opportunity, and the range of possible outcomes.
Independent Thinking
Consensus is often comfortable. It is also frequently wrong at the margins that matter.
The purpose of this research is not to echo prevailing narratives, but to test them. That requires a willingness to diverge from market expectations when the underlying analysis supports it.
Sometimes that leads to agreement with the market. Sometimes it doesn’t. Both outcomes are acceptable. The goal is not differentiation for its own sake, but intellectual honesty.
Closing Thought
At its core, this work is about narrowing the gap between perception and reality.
The market sets the price. The task is determining whether that price reflects the underlying business. When that gap can be identified consistently—and approached with discipline over time—the results tend to follow.
NOTE - This is not investment advice. Do your own due diligence.
I make no representation, warranty, or undertaking, express or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability, completeness, or reasonableness of the information presented in this report. Assumptions, opinions, and estimates expressed in this report constitute my judgment as of the date thereof and are subject to change without notice. Projections are based on a number of assumptions, and there is no guarantee that they will be achieved. K9 Investment Research is not acting as your advisor or in any fiduciary capacity.
K9 Investment Research
Healthcare consultant by trade and investor focused on long-term value creation. I write fundamental deep dives on business quality, unit economics, and valuation.