This Is Your Captain Speaking - Buckle Up - Ep 293
Release Date: 06/09/2026
This Is Your Captain Speaking - Buckle Up - Ep 293
The Intellectual Investor
I am on the flight from Denver to San Francisco with my twelve-year-old daughter when I write this letter to IMA clients about the craziness I am seeing in the markets. The turbulence on the flight gave me the pilot analogy. The rest came from what I see in valuations. This market is starting to feel incredibly bubbly, approaching circa 1999. The similarities are eerie. Intel and Corning, darlings of 1999, are at multidecade highs at nosebleed valuations. Walmart is trading at 50 times earnings again, the same multiple that produced no returns for shareholders from 1999 to 2014. And Nvidia,...
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Fiddler on the Roof and Value Investing - Ep 292
The Intellectual Investor
It was 2006, my fifth year teaching a graduate investment class at the University of Colorado at Denver, and I had stopped preparing for lectures. One day I opened the syllabus and found discounted cash flow analysis on the menu. I started with: "Imagine you are a farmer about to buy a cow. How much would you pay for that cow?" A few days later, on a Saturday morning, I was sitting in my basement working on the valuation chapter of my first book, Active Value Investing. I was stuck. Valuation can be a very dry and boring topic. After staring at a blank screen for hours, I started listening to...
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What to Do When a Stock Drops 25% - Ep 291
The Intellectual Investor
A client emails me: stock XYZ has declined 25%, is the thesis broken? It's a fair question, and the honest answer is one I want to walk through carefully, because the same client letter brought a second question wearing different clothes: how do you tell the difference between patience and stubbornness when a position isn't working? Both questions get at something I think about constantly: how to hold a position through doubt without either flinching at noise or hardening into ego. Daily liquidity in the stock market is both a feature and a bug, and most of the job of being a long-term...
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Greg Abel Takes Over Berkshire Hathaway: My Thoughts After Omaha 2026 - Ep 290
The Intellectual Investor
📩 Join 100,000+ readers on my FREE weekly email newsletter: Adam Anderson's interview - AI-generated summary: The Intellectual Investor Breakfast 2027 signup form: 📚 Get my books: Soul in the Game - The Little Book of Sideways Markets - Active Value Investing - WHO AM I: Vitaliy Katsenelson is the CEO of Investment Management Associates () in 2012. Forbes Magazine called him "The New Benjamin Graham." He's written for publications including Financial Times, Barron's, Institutional Investor, and Foreign Policy.
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What the Iran War Reveals About the Dollar, Gold, and the End of US Exceptionalism - Ep 289
The Intellectual Investor
The US dollar accounts for 58% of foreign currency reserves today, down from 70% two decades ago. The US government's freezing of roughly $300 billion of Russian central bank reserves turned the dollar into a political weapon and undermined the comfort countries (even adversaries) had in it. Central banks are now accumulating gold as if preparing for an Indian wedding. The Iran war, an unraveling of post-WWII alliances, and a US borrowing 6% more than it earns are all reacting to the same underlying shift: the assumptions behind US exceptionalism are quietly being rewritten. I walk through...
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Q&A Series: On Firing Clients, Sizing Positions, and Ignoring Book Value - Ep 288
The Intellectual Investor
📩 Join 100,000+ readers on my FREE weekly email newsletter: 📚 Get my books: Soul in the Game - The Little Book of Sideways Markets - Active Value Investing - WHO AM I: Vitaliy Katsenelson is the CEO of Investment Management Associates () in 2012. Forbes Magazine called him "The New Benjamin Graham." He's written for publications including Financial Times, Barron's, Institutional Investor, and Foreign Policy.
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Q&A: The Antifragile Investor: Balancing Geopolitics, Identity, and the Cost of Growth - Episode 287
The Intellectual Investor
📩 Join 100,000+ readers on my FREE weekly email newsletter: 📚 Get my books: Soul in the Game - The Little Book of Sideways Markets - Active Value Investing - WHO AM I: Vitaliy Katsenelson is the CEO of Investment Management Associates () in 2012. Forbes Magazine called him "The New Benjamin Graham." He's written for publications including Financial Times, Barron's, Institutional Investor, and Foreign Policy.
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Uber and Self-Driving Cars: The Utilization Problem Nobody Talks About - Ep 286
The Intellectual Investor
📩 Join 100,000+ readers on my FREE weekly email newsletter: 📚 Get my books: Soul in the Game - The Little Book of Sideways Markets - Active Value Investing - WHO AM I: Vitaliy Katsenelson is the CEO of Investment Management Associates () in 2012. Forbes Magazine called him "The New Benjamin Graham." He's written for publications including Financial Times, Barron's, Institutional Investor, and Foreign Policy.
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What AI, Tariffs, and Global Uncertainty Mean for Your Portfolio - Ep 285
The Intellectual Investor
📩 Join 100,000+ readers on my FREE weekly email newsletter: 📚 Get my books: Soul in the Game - The Little Book of Sideways Markets - Active Value Investing - WHO AM I: Vitaliy Katsenelson is the CEO of Investment Management Associates () in 2012. Forbes Magazine called him "The New Benjamin Graham." He's written for publications including Financial Times, Barron's, Institutional Investor, and Foreign Policy.
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When to sell a stock: The Art and Psychology of Selling - Ep 284
The Intellectual Investor
📩 Join 100,000+ readers on my FREE weekly email newsletter: Register for Sunday Breakfast: Check out my Omaha weekend guide: 📚 Get my books: Soul in the Game - The Little Book of Sideways Markets - Active Value Investing - WHO AM I: Vitaliy Katsenelson is the CEO of Investment Management Associates () in 2012. Forbes Magazine called him "The New Benjamin Graham." He's written for publications including Financial Times, Barron's, Institutional Investor, and Foreign Policy.
info_outlineI am on the flight from Denver to San Francisco with my twelve-year-old daughter when I write this letter to IMA clients about the craziness I am seeing in the markets. The turbulence on the flight gave me the pilot analogy. The rest came from what I see in valuations.
This market is starting to feel incredibly bubbly, approaching circa 1999. The similarities are eerie. Intel and Corning, darlings of 1999, are at multidecade highs at nosebleed valuations. Walmart is trading at 50 times earnings again, the same multiple that produced no returns for shareholders from 1999 to 2014. And Nvidia, the most valuable company in the world, trades at 30 times 2026 earnings while SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI prepare to go public, all losing money, collectively throwing close to a trillion dollars at AI data centers.
I walk through why the capital cycle in semiconductors looks like the railroads in 1800s Britain and telecom in 1999, what it means that Meta and Google have gone from buying back their own stock to issuing it, and why three IPOs plus two secondary offerings may put a bow on this year's AI rally. I share why we have been trimming positions, buying smaller, and owning businesses that march to their own drummer. I quote a line from Jean-Marie Eveillard that has stayed with me since the late 90s. And I explain why our returns are likely to underperform the neighbors for the foreseeable future, and why we are not going to do anything about it.
Read the full letter at investor.fm.
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🔗 LINKS MENTIONED:
What AI, Tariffs, and Global Uncertainty Mean for Your Portfolio
https://investor.fm/what-ai-tariffs-and-global-uncertainty-mean-for-your-portfolio/
Charts:
https://investor.fm/this-is-your-captain-speaking-buckle-up/#stock-chart
Living and Investing with Intention
https://investor.fm/living-and-investing-with-intention/
Performance information
https://imausa.com/request-our-performance/
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The Little Book of Sideways Markets - https://amzn.to/3QWTlqZ Active Value Investing - https://amzn.to/3u8zn3A
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Website - https://investor.fm/
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WHO AM I: Vitaliy Katsenelson is the CEO of Investment Management Associates (IMA) and an award-winning writer. Forbes Magazine called him "The New Benjamin Graham." His work has appeared in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Fortune, Institutional Investor, and Foreign Policy. He is the author of three books, including Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life. _________________________________________________________
Please read the following important disclosure: https://investor.fm/disclosure/
View IMA's regulatory filings — including ADV Part 2A & 2B, Form CRS, firm brochure, conflicts of interest disclosures, sample quarterly letters, and privacy policy — at imausa.com.