When we introduced the concept of “You Make The Call”, we explained our motivation like this. In case you missed that email here’s what these events are all about.

This event format is on an experimental basis, but we thought it’d be a good idea to bring in management teams from speculatively-viewed companies eager to present their business plans to us. While we recognized that the success rate for these kinds of ventures may not be high, we believed it would be valuable to hear potentially innovative ideas that may have a chance to bear fruit for investors.

There’s only so much money to go around in the market, and now, some of that money that was finding its way to low-quality companies during the easy money days is going to continue to make its way into the higher-quality microcap universe that we play in (a trend that began in 2022). 

For well-managed, undervalued microcaps with great fundamentals and a clear path to growth, the current environment could allow them to shine as capital becomes more selective. We also think the environment is fantastic for high-probability turnaround situations, where balance sheet restructurings or small tweaks in business plans put a company back on track for growth.

The $CRWD disaster had me looking for stocks in Geoinvesting’s microcap coverage universe that might have competitive offerings or offerings that could work with Crowdstrike to prevent future similar disasters. That’s when I realized that we had already written a short Reasons for Tracking (RFT) on $CSPI on September 28, 2023. stock is actually up 73% since we published the RFT. At the time we published the RFT, we noticed that the company had launched a proprietary cybersecurity software platform to help jumpstart growth and complement its unexciting, yet profitable, legacy business offering third-party hardware and software IT solutions.

Ben Claremon, the host of Compounders Podcast, which has a regular spot on Bobby Kraft’s channel on YouTube, Planet Microcap, picked Maj’s brain on the challenges of being a microcap investor in recent years, the things that go into assessing management teams through interview, portfolio construction, microcap misconceptions, and opportunities in other markets such as those in Canada and little-followed sectors.

If you are immediately wondering what baseball has to do with investing, don’t worry, I’ll get to my “growing as an investor” teachable moment in a second. First, let’s talk about sports as an analogy that bleeds into that moment.

Have you ever heard of Oscar Gamble?

In 2014, Bill James wrote an article covering his analysis of the best ever players coming off the bench in baseball. If you are not a sports fanatic, the bench consists of the players that back up the starting player lineup.

Bill concluded that Oscar Gamble’s “coming off the bench’ performance” in 1979 was the best of all time (as of 2014). Oscar was an outfielder and designated hitter while in the major leagues between 1969 and 1985, a span during which he played for seven different teams.