Our 2023 Hedge Fund Analyst Christmas List
A list of the best free and paid resources for professional investors
The Bear Cave spent dozens of hours finding the best resources for professional investors. This list is based on our experience using the resources below and is sponsored by our favorite tool, TIKR, an all-in-one platform that allows investors to rapidly analyze 100,000+ equities across the globe. The Bear Cave uses TIKR to quickly find financial data on companies, access earnings calls and investor day transcripts, and screen for new ideas. Please check out their phenomenal platform here.
We hope you enjoy this list — The Bear Cave will be back with our regular newsletter this Sunday.
A+ Free Resources
“The Makings of a Multibagger” – Amazing Alta Fox Capital case study on 104 multi-bagger stocks. Alta Fox has other great presentations available on its site as well
SEC Full-Text Search — Search through 20 years of SEC filings for specific terms, people, or entities. The Bear Cave commonly uses this tool to see every instance where a person’s name was mentioned in an SEC filing
PCAOB Auditor Search — Find the auditor and specific audit partner for any company, as well as their track record. Use the search bar in the top right and click auditor search
Wayback Machine — A non-profit that regularly archives millions of the most visited sites. Use it to see how a site or specific webpage changed over time
IBorrowDesk — Website with borrow rates and short availability on any stock
SocialBlade — Track social media growth of a company or individual. Two other strong alternatives include HypeAuditor and ViewStats (YouTube only)
Glassdoor — Go reverse chronological and read through all reviews, pay extra attention to complaints about toxic work environment, sales culture, leadership, turnover, and fraud allegations. Also, look to see if reviews are evenly spaced or clustered around a day or week (a sign the reviews may be manipulated)
BBB — A non-profit consumer review and business accreditation site. Will often issue public alerts for particularly problematic businesses
SiteJabber — Wide collection of consumer reviews for online businesses
TrustPilot — Another good consumer review site
ReverseWHOIS — Shows you all websites registered to a particular company/email. For example, here is a list of ~12,000 public web domains owned by Apple
PACER — Find lawsuits against any company or individual
FTC Freedom of Information Act requests — The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allows any U.S. citizen to request records from government agencies and The Bear Cave frequently sends FOIA requests to the FTC (FOIA@FTC.gov) to obtain copies of consumer complaints. Here’s a template for inspiration in your own research process. Learn more about the Freedom of Information Act on FOIA.gov
(Sample FOIA Request from The Bear Cave to the FTC) CFPB Consumer Complaint Database — Searchable database of millions of consumer complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions FDD database — Find nearly any Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) for franchisors that do business in Wisconsin. For example, view McDonald’s FDD here (downloadable at the bottom of the page)
OpenCorporates — Quickly find the executives, board members, or state registration for private businesses. Go to the Department of State filing search for more information on any entity
10x EBITDA — A compilation of every hedge fund activist presentation
X/Twitter – Amazing platform for equity research. Search by ticker and limit the search to “people you follow” to find high-quality tweets. We have included a list of some of the best accounts for stock research and idea generation later in this post
SEC comment letters — On EDGAR, search for a company then “CORRESP” or “UPLOAD” in the document type search to find SEC comment letters, which are a type of informal correspondence between the SEC and public companies that bring up unique issues
Google Advanced Search — Use Google’s advanced search filters to find unique information. For example, filter by time for older results or search for: [Company name] filetype:pdf site:.gov to bring up interesting government records related to the company
Google Alerts — Set Google email alerts for news related to a specific company. For example, The Bear Cave has Google alerts set for when “Roblox” and “arrest” are used in the same news release
Reddit — Often will have surprisingly good content from industry experts or former employees
LinkedIn — See employees, their former workplaces, and how they know each other (e.g., red flags: CFO went to the University of Phoenix or bank loan officers previously worked for banks that failed)
A+ Paid Resources
TIKR — An institutional-grade investing platform for individuals. Discover & research 100,000+ global stocks with the highest-quality data and tools. The Bear Cave uses TIKR more than any other product on this list and we are in love. Here is what other investors are saying:
TIKR has great free product functionality and plans starting at $10/month. Check TIKR out here.
Tegus — An awesome database that lets you find dozens of expert network calls on any company in seconds. Great for rapidly learning about any new company/industry ($$$)
InsiderScore by Verity — Track and screen management changes, auditor changes, buybacks, and insider buying ($$)
Hudson Labs (formerly Bedrock AI) — Cool early-stage software that extracts hard-to-find red flags from SEC filings ($)
VisualPing — Get alerts for changes made to any website. For example, The Bear Cave occasionally uses VisualPing to see if a company changes executive bios or website disclosures ($)
Canary Data — An interesting new databased created by a former Tiger Cub short analyst that tracks millions of data points to evaluate investment risk and risk of illegal or unethical behavior by management ($$$)
Seeking Alpha Premium — The comment section on Seeking Alpha articles is still very active and often has sophisticated investors sharing worthwhile information. In our view, the comments, not the articles, are what makes Seeking Alpha worth paying for ($$)
Other honorable mentions include Doomberg for energy & finance commentary, Koyfin for charting and financial data, Insider Arbitrage for special situations and management trading, Special Situation Investments for small/mid-cap event-driven trades, MicroCapClub for microcap investing, Nat Stewart for small-cap value ideas, and our sister publication, Sunday’s Idea Brunch, for great interviews and idea pitches from off-the-beaten-path investors.
Charlie’s Corner
Five minutes of great Charlie Munger zingers available here
35-minute compilation of Charlie Munger’s answers to questions from the HBO Buffett documentary available here
1,200-page PDF of all Charlie Munger letters available here
“Charlie Munger’s Life Was About Way More Than Money” – Great WSJ obituary by Jason Zweig
Other Great Free Resources
SEC FOIA Logs — SEC’s monthly disclosures about FOIA requests the commission receives
SEC Press Releases — Press releases from the SEC on enforcement actions and other matters
Open Payments Data — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services database to search payments made by drug and medical device companies to physicians for speaking fees, consulting fees, and meal reimbursements
CMS Drug Spending — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services database to provide greater transparency on spending for drugs in the Medicare and Medicaid programs
Google Trends — Long-term trends in search volume for certain terms on Google
FTC Cases and Proceedings — Searchable database of ongoing or recently closed Federal Trade Commission actions
Blind — Anonymous professional network for tech company employees
Value Investors Club — Public platform to share stock write-ups
Savant Investors — A competitor to Value Investors Club
Listen Notes — Search all podcast transcripts for any word or phrase. Great for discovering industry-specific podcasts/experts
Zer0es TV — Interviews with great investors and short-sellers
JoinColossus — Investing focused podcast platform with many public company CEO interviews
PlotDigitizer — Upload any unlabeled chart and get an approximation for the data figures
Dataroma — List of top hedge fund holdings
Morningstar Ownership Tables — Free and easy way to see the major holders of any stock
A Beginners Guide to Microcap Investing — Presentation from great microcap investor Ian Cassel
Finviz Industry Charts — Random stock chart generator by sector, good for randomly finding new ideas
Other Great Free Newsletters
On The Street — Ideas from prolific financial journalist Herb Greenberg
Treasure Hunting — Awesome newsletter on very cheap equities, mainly overseas
Altay Capital — Japanese microcap write-ups
Bison Interests — Commentary on the oil and gas markets from investor Josh Young
Dirty Bubble Media — Fearless reporting on the crypto frauds
Generals and Workouts — Benjamin Graham style deep-value ideas
Investor Letter a Day — Cool newsletter sharing a letter a day for prominent investors and entrepreneurs
Raging Capital Ventures — Entrepreneurship, small-caps, activism, and more from investor Bill Martin
Investor Letters & Famous Presentations
“Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Responds to Whitney Tilson: Cover Your Short Position. Now.”
Nick Sleep Nomad Capital Shareholder Letters 2001 to 2014 all available here
François Rochon Giverny Capital investor letters from 2001 to 2021 available here
Michael Burry Scion Capital shareholder letters 2000 to 2006 available here
Bob Wilmers M&T Bank shareholder letters 1983 to 2016 available here
Benjamin Graham's Letters to Partners 1946 to 1958 available here
Peter Lynch news articles from the 1990s, scroll to the bottom of this page
Seven Sins of Portfolio Management, November 2005, 105-page PDF available here
Joel Greenblatt class notes, 312-page PDF, available here
The Walter Schloss Archive — writings from the late Walter Schloss available here
Blue Ridge Capital Reading List — Credit to John Zettler for sharing it publicly
“A Perspective on Leadership and Strategy” — Lecture from Andrew Clyde, CEO of Murphy USA (NYSE: MUSA), on capital allocation and business
“Confessions of a Capital Junkie” — A widely respected presentation by the late Sergio Marchionne on the automotive industry's value-destroying addiction to capital
“Financial Fraud Throughout History: a Forensic Approach” — Jim Chanos’ Yale class syllabus
Accounting Guide for Annual reports — publicly uploaded here
X/Twitter Accounts
Our top 56 accounts exclusively for stock idea generation:
@irbezek — Latin American equities and publicly traded airports
@Citrini7 — Global macro and long/short equities
@rev_cap — Cyclicals investor
@PFoSF2 — Deep investigative work, currently on RILY
@orrdavid — Idiosyncratic long/short investor
@unemon1 — Long/short equities
@footnoted — World-class expert on SEC filings and oddities
@CorpusCol — Financials investor
@elkwood66 — Long/short equities
@stockgutter — Great, off-the-beaten-path short ideas
@laurenbalik — Investor, recently short KVYO
@forwardcap — Auto sector long/short investor
@natstewart5 — Great microcap investor
@Seawolfcap — Phenomenal long/short financials investor
@PhilTimyan — Another phenomenal long/short financials investor
@assouline99 — Short ideas
@pennycheck — Long/short equities
@stockspotify — Equities trader
@akramsrazor — Long/short tech investor
@guastywinds — Long/short equities
@WaltHudson — Long/short equities
@AltayCapital — Long/short equities and overseas investing
@WallStCynic — The OG
@PD13158196 — Independent short ideas
@winsteadscap — Super sharp long/short equities
@eliant_capital — Long/short equities and macro trader
@ParrotCapital — Deep due diligence into frauds and misconduct
@OddDiligence — Odd stock diligence
@BlueDuckCap — Long/short equities
@CowboyChir0 — Occasional healthcare shorts
@LogicalThesis — Long/short small-cap investor
@stockholder30 — Short ideas, primarily against SYM
@AureliusValue — Very smart independent short-seller
@PharmakoiBoy — Forensic accounting short-seller
@catechwilliams — Wildly underfollowed long/short equities
@VetTechTrader — Longtime tech investor
@AltaFoxCapital — Ideas from the phenomenal Connor Haley
@HedgeyeREITs — Long/short equities, primarily short MPW
@West4thCapital — Long/short equities
@HindenburgRes — Hindenburg Research
@AlderLaneEggs — Prolific short-seller Marc Cohodes
@EricTheUmpire — Long/short equities
@CulperResearch — Culper Research
@NealMcConnell — Short-seller
@ActAccordingly — Independent research providers
@RagingVentures — Long/short equities and more from Bill Martin
@DeepSailCapital — Long/short equities
@ClarkSquareCap — Global long/short equities
@FriendlyBearSA — The Friendly Bear short research
@NateHindenburg — Nate Anderson from Hindenburg, personal account
@BigRiverCapita1 — Long/short equities, longtime MPW skeptic
@maninapurpledr1 — Great small-cap short ideas
@ShortSightedCap — Long/short equities
@OverlookedAlpha — Long/short equities
@ecommerceshares — Global long/short equities
@Craig_McDermott — Long/short equities
The Bear Cave has also compiled a public list of activist short accounts available for public view here. And if you are looking for advice for starting and growing a following on X/Twitter please check out this great instructional video here.
Red Flag Checklist
High turnover in senior and middle management
A CEO who doesn’t live in the city where the company is located
Someone who treats his or her assistants and secretaries badly
A leader with a large corporate jet allowance disclosed in the proxy
Constant restructuring and layoffs, even in good times
Compensation that consistently appears egregious relative to the size of the company and the compensation of its peers
2 pages’ worth of related party transactions in the proxy
New lavish HQ
Big naming rights deals to stadiums
High amount of travel expense
Spends a lot of $$$ on consultants
The use of “serial entrepreneur” biographies by management
Located in region with weak criminal law penalties. Senior management who can make a run to their home country. Unknown accounting or law firms doing meaningful work.
Any company based in Ft. Lauderdale
Big Florida homes (homestead exemption from creditors’ claims). Abrupt trips to countries lacking extradition treaties. Dyed hair and veneers.
Managers/shareholders with margin loans. Low levels of pushback on corporate doc negotiation.
Hiring a bunch of college buddies.
Not showing organic growth ex M&A Changing/rearranging segments frequently
Frequent changes in accounting firms. “Strategic” changes in fiscal reporting periods.
Kissinger or similar luminaries on board.
Executives who do not speak freely & candidly but resort to legal boilerplate or drivel
CEOs who wear wigs
The majority of equity compensation is time-vesting without any performance requirements
Responding, “Will follow up offline” to detailed questions on conference call. And any reference to Street/consensus expectations.
Long-term guidance is non-GAAP / lots of adjustments in non-GAAP stuff
CEO is giving interviews promoting the stock
Number of senior executives that attend Davos every year
Marianne Jennings’ “Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse” checklist: Pressure to maintain numbers, Fear and silence, Young 'uns and a bigger-than-life CEO, A weak board, Conflicts (of interest), Innovation like no other, and goodness in some areas atoning for evil in others.
Our Favorite Short Ideas for 2024
Going into 2024, The Bear Cave’s three favorite potential short ideas are: