John Durkin

John is former Head of Operations for Equity Research at Baird Kailash and Knight Capital Group. He has been running the day-to-day operations at L2 Asset Management since 2014 and is currently head of Operations. He is also an integral part of the Equity Research team. John received his BA from Stonehill College and has passed his CFA level I. He has an overall experience of 13 years in the industry.

April 21, 2026

Excessive Extrapolation & Stock Based Compensation

June 20, 2024|

The researchers and portfolio managers who write KCR’s newsletter do their best to follow the data. We use sophisticated analytical tools to identify areas where we see significant market inefficiencies. Yet history does not repeat; it rhymes, which means we get things wrong. We write about that, too. Most recently,

KCR Micro Model Explained

June 6, 2024|

In our last missive, A Penchant for Pain, we highlighted that our Microcap Model Portfolio was lagging the Russell 2000 – one of its two principal benchmarks. We went on to note that some of our most timely highlights have been when we draw our readers’ attention to our worst performing products. Evidence based and systematic, we have been fortunate to see every period of pain followed, eventually, by outsized prosperity.

The Case for Cardinal Health, Inc. (CAH)

May 23, 2024|

Cardinal Health, Inc. (CAH) is primarily a pharmaceutical wholesaler that distributes the medicines drug manufacturers produce to pharmacies. CAH also manufactures and distributes CAH-branded medical, surgical, and laboratory products in the U.S. and Canada.

ARIS Water Solutions, Inc. (ARIS)

May 2, 2024|

ARIS is a uniquely positioned company: its water handling and recycling services seem likely to be in tremendous demand for the foreseeable future. In simple terms, the fracking process produces rapidly increasing quantities of water that must be disposed of or recycled.

OSG Ship Holding Group, Inc. (OSG)

April 25, 2024|

Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc. (OSG) operates a fleet of vessels that transport crude oil, petroleum, and transportation fuels primarily in the U.S. Flag trade. OSG operates a fleet of 21 vessels (13 owned and eight chartered) with aggregate carrying capacity of ~1.5 million deadweight tons (dwt). One dwt is 2,240 pounds.

Apple, Coke, Tesla, WorldCom & Warren Buffett: What Can We Learn?

April 11, 2024|

April. Busy month. Let’s use numbers and history to make a powerful point with simple pictures. The cranberry bars show Apple’s price to sales (P/S) ratio by year. You can see AAPL’s valuation ballooned from 3x sales in 2014 to 7x sales today. The navy-blue bars show Apple's market cap from 2014 through today.

“Number Go Up” & The Ouroboros-Like Asset Inflation of the Post GFC Era

March 27, 2024|

“Number Go Up” [is] one of the many memes that sprang up during a previous crypto surge, representing a similar vibe as “to the moon” or “hodl” – the idea that the faithful would keep buying in the belief that prices would continue to climb. … For active managers, the pressure is getting more intense by the day to ride the upward momentum across tech-powered indexes like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 …

A Quixotic Crusade for Common Sense?

March 4, 2024|

Yet after the world’s most valuable chipmaker smashed expectations with its blowout report Wednesday, the AI party is one nobody can afford to miss. Short interest is nearly nonexistent among tech behemoths. … For active managers, the pressure is getting more intense by the day to ride the upward momentum across tech-powered indexes like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 …

KCR’s Dividend Portfolio: An Evidence Based Approach

February 22, 2024|

Shortly after the trough of the Great Financial Crisis, this newsletter observed that Wall Street was selling “dividend investing” strategies to coax investors back into equities. In pieces ranging from The Dividend Deception to Rushing About: The Thirst for Yield, we pilloried what we felt were often deceptive marketing pitches that led investors into history’s biggest bubble in dividend stocks.

Diversifying with Dividends: Are Investors Ignoring a Free Lunch?

February 7, 2024|

“One of our clients is a married couple with about $5 million in liquid assets. They are both 80 years old. 90% of their money is in equities. Most in US large cap index funds and then they own large single positions in Nvidia, Eli Lilly, and Tesla. The husband wants to be 100% in these things. The wife wants it all in CDs. Trying to walk them back from so much risk would seem easy but

The Great Growth Run & a Peek at Forsaken Dividend Stocks

January 25, 2024|

Researchers in behavioral finance have documented the following three items: • Human beings have a nasty habit of extrapolating trends • Even worse, the longer a trend has been going on, the more likely we are to extrapolate it…. • …. which is terrible because the longer a trend has gone on, the more likely it is to revert!

Go to Top