2016 is drawing to a close and it is an opportune time for me to reflect on my blog for this year. Regular readers of my blog would know that my blog posts this year have tilted towards understanding the business of the industry/ company. This is most clearly manifested in the series of 14 Oil & Gas posts and a couple of sporadic posts in banks and Global Logistic Properties (GLP). This tilt towards business analysis is also reflected in my investments, with selective positioning along the O&G industry chain and a big investment in GLP.

This shift towards business analysis as opposed to financial analysis has yielded advantages. Previously, being trained as a value investor, most of my investments were solely based on analysis of the financial statements, i.e. the company must have good earnings, low debts, strong cashflows, etc. However, the issue with financial statements is ...