Michael Taylor

Nitro Gains Capital

PLEASE DO *NOT* COLD EMAIL SELLING SERVICES - I DON'T NEED ANY.

Nitro Gains Capital is a family office that looks after HNWIs.

We are a long/short UK equities fund seeking asymmetric risk/reward.

Managing Director

Financial Times

Freelance writer for Financial Times & Investors' Chronicle

Franklin Fitch

Recruitment Consultant

APT - Luxury Cruising & Touring

Guest Speaker

Vodafone Global Enterprise

Commercial Manager

I help busy professionals make money trading UK stocks💡

I got rejected for every single trading job I applied for.

I didn’t have the right qualifications and I didn’t know where to start.

In fact, people laughed when I said I wanted to become an investor because at the time I was a broke graduate.

However, I took a risk and signed up for a trading seminar in London. I got the overnight bus from Cologne.

The seminar was basic but it taught me two key concepts:

1. Those who are disciplined make money
2. Trading is scalable and gains are exponential

It got me started on my path. I realised that the opportunity to trade for a living was there if I worked for it. 

That week, I cashed out my small tracker fund and maxed out the biggest loan I could from Deutsche Bank. 

It went straight into my trading account.

And since December 13th 2016, I’ve been trading the markets for a living. 

I love learning about new companies and technologies, finding out why stocks move, and how to extract profits from financial markets.

My goal is to trade full time and have investments in a number of businesses.

My results:

→ I'm an investor in a VC fund, investing quarterly into early stage potential 100 baggers. 
→ I've achieved four consecutive years of 6-figure annual net profits. 
→ I advise trading businesses on client acquisition and retention.
→ I help retail traders scale and grow. 

Then in 2020, I realised that there was no online course dedicated to taking new and beginner traders to annual 6-figure profits traders.

So I built The UK Stock Trading Course:

→ 400+ students in The UK Stock Trading Course
→ 11,000+ subscribers to my weekly email
→ 100% student satisfaction 
→ 1 product
 
If you want to learn more about how to create and scale your trading account, you can join The UK Stock Trading Course, or sign up to my free weekly newsletter which comes with my books How To Make 6 Figures In Stocks, and The UK Stock Trading Handbook. 
 
THE UK STOCK TRADING COURSE
 
In this 8+ hour course, you'll learn how to navigate the UK stock market to your advantage, as well as how to use the tools available to exploit opportunities.
 
→ GO HERE: https://www.shiftingshares.com/online-stock-trading-course/
 
Twitter: @shiftingshares

HOW TO MAKE SIX FIGURES IN STOCKS

“The book explains in detail how you can build your wealth, towards the goal of financial independence, by investing in the stock market. An admirable goal that ShareSoc exists to support.”

Mark Bentley, Director ShareSoc
www.sharesoc.org

PLEASE DO *NOT* COLD EMAIL SELLING SERVICES - I DON'T NEED ANY.

Patratoris Capital is a family office that looks after HNWIs.

We are a long/short UK equities fund seeking asymmetric risk/reward.

Are you an analyst or investor determined to go one step beyond and truly master investment research? Do you want to master financial statements, uncover unique insights, and make investment decisions with unparalleled confidence? I'm here to show you how.

I was a ranked sell-side equity analyst, then a Partner and Head of Research at two multi-billion dollar hedge funds (one a Tiger Cub). I spotted that many investment professionals struggle to read between the lines of financial statements and create a real investment edge. My mission is to bridge that gap for you.

Through my specialised online courses, I distill decades of top-tier investment experience into practical, actionable training designed to transform your skills. You'll learn to: 

•	Go beyond the numbers: Interrogate financial statements and spot accounting red flags.
•	Master valuation: Develop robust models and frameworks for accurate company assessment.
•	Gain a competitive edge: Accelerate your career with critical thinking and analytical rigour.

Ready to elevate your investment analysis? Explore my key resources:

•	Forensic Accounting Course: My flagship program for professional investors. Master financial deception and truly understand business health. Learn the advanced techniques I use to identify critical accounting red flags. Many top-tier hedge funds and some of the world's largest institutions are my clients. 
➡️ Master Forensic Accounting: https://behindthebalancesheet.com/forensic-course/
•	Analyst Academy: My comprehensive online course provides hands-on training in accounting, valuation, and advanced investment analysis. It’s the closest you’ll get to working alongside a hedge fund partner, perfect for aspiring and early-career analysts, as well as serious private investors.
➡️ Enrol & Learn More Here: https://behindthebalancesheet.com/product/analyst-academy/
•	Behind the Balance Sheet Newsletter: Join thousands of keen investors and analysts who receive my weekly insights  direct to their inbox. Free!
➡️ Subscribe here: https://behindthebalancesheet.substack.com/
•	Behind the Balance Sheet Podcast: Prefer to listen? The Behind the Balance Sheet podcast features in-depth conversations with leading investors. Tune in for real-world perspectives you won't find anywhere else.
➡️ Listen to the latest episode: https://behindthebalancesheet.com/podcasts/

I have decades as a top-ranked equity analyst and am the author of Amazon #1 Investing bestseller 'The Smart Money Method'. You are in safe hands.

Stephen Clapham

Terry Smith is under fire –is he the problem, or is it the market?

Fundsmith holders turned up to the AGM after five lean years, some effectively asking for his head. Instead of an apology, they got a tour of how strange today’s market has become: flows now move prices as much as fundamentals, with $1 dollar of inflow inflow shifting a company’s value by $5. 

Passive has overtaken active in the US, and the top 10 S&P 500 stocks are 34% of the index and have driven the bulk of returns.​

In my latest Substack I wrote about:
- Why this inelastic, passive‑heavy market makes a quality manager like Terry look worse than his portfolio (3.7% FCF yield vs 2.8% for the S&P, 30%+ returns on capital, 1.5x the index)​
- The real risks in firing him now versus sticking it out​
- Whether “Terry has lost it” or “the index has turned into a momentum fund”​.

I debate whether you should give up on Smith or managers in a similar position or believe that a distorted market will rectify itself in time. I will post later in the week the evidence on switching, also reviewed in my note. 

Link in comments.

Ex-Tiger Cub hedge fund partner | Forensic accounting & valuation training for professional and serious private investors | Founder, Behind the Balance Sheet

Remember Enron?

If an old‑economy company pushed billions of capex into an off‑balance‑sheet vehicle and guaranteed tens of billions more, value investors would be screaming.

Meta has done exactly that for a single US data centre: more than $4bn of capex in a VIE, with a backstop of an astonishing $46bn. The economics are worse than funding it itself, but the presentation of Meta’s capex and leverage looks better - and most of the market shrugs because it’s “AI infrastructure”.

In my latest note I break down how the VIE works, why it flatters Meta’s reported numbers, and how I’d adjust the analysis if you actually care about long‑term returns on capital. This is exactly the kind of balance‑sheet engineering that fundamental investors and analysts should be watching closely. The cash has to come from somewhere; burying it in a VIE doesn’t magic away the risk.

If you think accounting no longer matters, this is a useful reality check.

Link in comments:

Would you fire Terry Smith after five bad years?

At the Fundsmith meeting, some holders were literally baying for his blood after 5 years of underperformance and negligible returns last year. He called 2025 “poor” and added: “if we keep going like that, we will be poor.” 

He made no excuses, just pointed out that it’s his job to explain, and your job to decide whether to sell.​

The twist? He then showed data that the manager investors fire after a cold streak tends to outperform from that point, while the star manager they hire after a hot run then lags – a pattern that’s cost the average equity investor more than 2% a year over 30 years.​

In last week’s newsletter, I looked at the Terry question head‑on:
- What his own numbers say about sacking him now​
- How his “Performance so far” framing changes the decision​
- When selling Fundsmith is rational – and when it’s classic behaviour risk​

If you hold Fundsmith (or a “Terry equivalent”), this might be worth a read before you hit “sell”. Link in comments.

The Hyperscaler Capex Illusion 

Everyone says “don’t fight Big Tech.”

Fair enough - but if you follow the cash flows, you realise you’re no longer buying asset‑light platforms. Across the Big 4, capex has doubled as a % of sales, gross assets have exploded, and free cash flow has collapsed but is still overstated.

In this week’s Substack I walk through why the reported numbers understate the true investment and ask why the market is happy to pay >50x free cash flow for the group. Does the market really assume returns on capital will stay where they were?

I explain why I think the market is massively under‑pricing the risk that returns on this AI build‑out are lower than history.

Owning these stocks may still be right. Owning them blindly isn’t.

Stripe Annual Letter 2025

Stripe’s 2025 annual letter isn’t about payments. It’s about acceleration. The sorting machine, as they term it, is speeding up.

- AI-native companies are reaching $10m ARR in months. 
- Profit concentration is rising - see chart . 
- Winners are pulling away faster.
- Global is now default - new startups launch worldwide on day one.

And agentic commerce is coming. Stripe lays out five levels - from AI filling forms to AI buying on your behalf.

Stripe isn’t positioning as a payments company. It’s building infrastructure for an AI-native global economy.

An astonishing $1.9tn in volume (+34%) last year. Stablecoin payments doubled to ~$400bn and they see huge future.

This letter is well worth your time to read.

Jonathan Tepper was partly home-schooled before ending up at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar. 

He now runs Prevatt Capital, a concentrated long only fund.

In this month's podcast, we discuss his incredible journey, from the slums of Madrid to the offshore tax haven, the Bahamas. 

In this clip, he talks about how his father (who studied economics at Cambridge and has a Harvard MBA) taught him economics, drawing diagrams on the back of napkins at the dinner table.

The Lure of F1

On my walk to work yesterday, there were 2 F1 cars parked outside Visa’s office in Paddington. 

What’s interesting is how many busy commuters rushing to work stopped to look. F1 generates huge interest.

Looking at the sponsors, I reckon 2 won’t feature next year.

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Michael Taylor

Stephen Clapham

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Stephen Clapham's LinkedIn Performance

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