The Value of Scuttlebutt
Phil Fisher is known for a number of things, but perhaps the most famous concept he is known for is the concept of ‘Scuttlebutt’. The chapter about the topic (which means rumour or gossip) in his book “Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits” is just a few pages long, but it has had am huge impact on many thankful investors.
The concept of using scuttlebutt is very simple. It’s pretty much any research you do on a company (whether you’re investing in stocks or bonds) that’s not actually presented by the company in Annual reports, quarterly updates, or analyst write-ups. It’s all the information you gather for yourself from customers, suppliers, employees, that give you an edge when trying to understand a company. The key word here is “edge” because if you’re basing your investment decision just on the information that everyone else can access (such as regulatory filings), you really don’t have much of a competitive advantage in the investing arena. We’re constantly shocked by how many people make large investing decisions just based on the company’s 10K (which is nowadays mostly written by lawyers) or worse, just by an analyst report. In Phil Fisher’s day, we could almost understand why most investors would do this, because scuttlebutt required a lot of travel, knocking on doors, and doing a lot of heavy lifting. However, these days, a lot of scuttlebutt research can be done right from home with the power of networks and social media. What do we mean? Here are some examples from our circle.
A US based fund-manager we know along with his intern contacted dozens of car-dealership on LinkedIn to find out if they were using a particular service, and then when they found an overwhelming majority were, they invested in the company that provided that service.
A Singapore-based investor we know noticed that a husband-wife couple who ran a public company were having relationship issues when they stopped posting about each other on Instagram.
When researching the buy-now-pay-later space, we interviewed (via our network) several current and potential retailers who told us that the product had been a raving success and had already seen their basket sizes increase by 30-40%.
A European investor we follow who when researching a QSR chain insists on speaking to the manager of any of the chain’s location he is in to get a sense of the company culture.
Now these might sound a bit silly, but each of these data points gives a unique insight about the company that can weigh heavily on a buy or sell decision. They give you conviction to take action in a way that a ‘hot tip’ or a ‘buy’ report just cannot. John Harris of Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb put this best when he said “There is an advantage to gathering your own information and making decisions based on facts that you have gathered yourself. Investing is more of an emotional than intellectual exercise, and it becomes very hard to stay on an even keel and to make rational, unbiased judgments if you’re making them based on someone else’s information.”[1]
Some might argue that this is bordering on insider information, but nothing could be further from the truth. This information is out there, for anyone to discover it just takes effort and insight. Below we take you through ways of doing this research and finding this information which is not readily given to us by the companies. We have found that carrying out scuttlebutt is easier with B2C companies than B2B companies, but here are processes that can be carried out regardless of company type.
When researching B2C Companies:
Use the product or at least talk extensively to people who have. Why do they use it? What purpose does it serve? Could they live without it?
Follow fan groups on social media – it gives you great sense of what customers like about the company or like better about their competitors.
Web/App traffic – there are plenty of sites that show you how web traffic has been, where it’s coming from , and where it’s going. Also App Annie rankings are always useful when researching app-based companies (sometimes high traffic numbers or increase in rankings can give you a sense of what next quarter’s earnings will be like).
Following founders/employees on social media can derive unique insights (see examples above).
When researching B2B Companies:
Try speaking to friends in companies who use your targets product – ask them why they use it, how they like it, and what sets it apart from its competitors.
Look at job offerings on LinkedIn to see where they are hiring, if it’s in a vertical where they are expanding, this could be a good sign.
Use LinkedIn to reach out to former employees who might be more willing to talk to you about the company than current ones.
Read the 10Ks of their suppliers, it will help you understand if your target is a big part of their business or not.
Engage services like Tegus to access or host interviews with experts in the industry or ex-employees of the company/competitor.
It’s been surprising to us, as we’ve grown as investors, how the key aspects of our research process aren’t usually what we read in the annual reports or in any model we build, but more in the unique insights we gather as we go through our “extra-curricular” research.
Scuttlebutt may not come naturally to you, but doing a little bit on each company you decide to invest in will help you start to get used to it. As you do more of it you will find creative ways to come up with your unique insights. While reading the book “The Sleuth Investor” by Avner Mandelmann we found two particularly interesting examples that we thought we would highlight:
An investor friend of Mandelmann knew that during a blow-out quarter a company’s sales team would have an end of the month party, and they would buy kegs of champagne (which were filled via bottles of champagne) from a local wine retailer. The investor told the retailer that he was in the market for empty bottles of Champagne, and would buy them for a high price – so every time he got a call from the retailer for a large order of bottles, he knew the company had a blow-out quarter and would instantly buy call-options.
Another analyst he knew started to get suspicious about a platinum mining companies’ claim that their key mine was in fact in production. The analyst took a few days off work, traveled to the mine (which was on another continent) and found out via observations/casual conversations with miners that mine didn’t actually contain significant amounts of platinum. He ended up buying put-options on the company and made enough money to retire early. We believe this story is based on the Bre-X scandal - look it up, it’s fascinating.
Now we’re not at this level of scuttlebutt, but maybe one day we will be, and while these methods may be extreme, you cannot fault their efficacy. We hope the above gives you a few ideas of how to enhance your research process. Happy investing – and with a second wave of Covid-19 breaking across the world, stay safe!