Disclosure
My name is Roddy Boyd and I run The Financial Investigator.com. The mission here is simple: The utter collapse of the mainstream media business model has led to a concurrent collapse in critical investigative reporting on the financial and operational prospects of publicly-traded corporations.
FI.com seeks to fill this vacuum.
The investigative reporting here is document-driven and longer-form because I hope to flesh out some of the complexities and nuance that lies at the core of every good story. Also, I like to do this sort of reporting.
I seek to be fair. The corporations I report on have been given every chance to participate in the story and respond to the questions I pose including being directed to the documents that piqued my curiosity. No one is being sandbagged.
The investigations are launched in an unscientific manner. If I think it is interesting, I’ll look into it and that’s that. More likely than not, I’ll drop it. I don’t have any criteria for investigation, other than a potential subject being A) Something that can be supported by a document, and B)Something that, information-wise, is not really “out there” in the market yet, but (C) is important for investors to know.
I have complete editorial control of this site. I have no partners, colleagues or advisers. No one sees or gets tipped to the stories prior to publication, save for a lawyer (if necessary.) I won’t take donations or advertising. I use GoDaddy’s web-hosting services and the template and software were all publicly available. Still, perhaps the sense of what FI.com is about is now more apparent: This is a modest operation. I bear the costs of running the site.
I do not have any sort of investments in the securities of any company I write about, nor for that matter, in anything at all (save for my house.) My father manages a hedge fund. While I think the world of the guy, he has never yet helped me on a story nor have I asked him to. There is a reason for this. He trades some combination of convertible securities, Treasuries, futures, options et al., based primarily on his view of rates and volatility. Perhaps I should be even more direct: He doesn’t do fundamental long-short equity trading and after more than 40-years in the business, does not appear ready to start. In brief, none of what he or his colleagues do is conducive to helping me uncover the things I write about. I’m very happy to keep it that way.
Sources may or may not have short- or long-positions in the companies they tip me to. Frankly, I’m guessing they will, since this is Wall Street and everyone has an angle or agenda. It matters little. A tip is either supported by facts (read: documents) or it is not.
Here’s my bias, if for some reason the above wasn’t clear: Much of my reporting is designed to uncover things that are frankly unflattering or critical of a company. To do this, I may speak to the likes of short-sellers, forensic accountants, regulators, rivals, suppliers and both current and former employees. Mostly though, it will be based on my analysis of publicly-available documents and discussions (if possible) with management.
I am doing this work because outside of about two other reporters, no one else is doing it on a regular basis and it is obvious to me that a lot of very good stories are going uncovered. I also do it because in spite of everything thrown at me, it’s fun. Hopefully, I’ll be sticking to this line in a year’s time.
