Hidden Market Gems
Hidden Market Gems is an equity research lab that starts from the real world, not from tickers.
I do not open a screener and look for “cheap stocks”. I don’t enter some criteria, ratios and hope to find the next deep value play.
I start from a problem. A genuine one, for example:
Data centers running into physical, thermal and grid limits.
Grey data choking AI systems.
Critical chips exposed to heat, shocks and radiation.
Farms urged to produce more with less water and less stability.
Grids, minerals, water, infrastructure, all the boring machinery the digital world sits on.
From that starting point I map how the system works, where the bottlenecks really are, and which kinds of companies sit in the right spots.
Then I go hunting for one or two under followed names that actually solve something important, usually long before the market fully cares about the very problem.
Also I explain to you why this problem is really important.
Hidden Market Gems is where this process is written down and shared.
How the research is built: problem first, stock second
The core method is simple to state and hard to execute.
Start from a concrete bottleneck
A physical, technical or economic constraint.
How do you cool high density compute.
How do you clean and structure unstructured data.
How do you protect sensitive electronics in hostile environments.
How do you move energy and materials through old grids and fragile logistics.Map the system
Who are the actors.
How money flows.
Where regulation bites.
Where the physics or the process create real limits.Look for the hidden position in the value chain
The company that sits at the pinch point, or that owns a process, a technology, a footprint that fits the problem unusually well.Do the work on that company
Products, customers, contracts, economics, balance sheet, management, capital allocation, downside. 360 audit.Turn it into a thesis
One story, one bottleneck, one company, with scenarios and a clear explanation of what you are betting on.
This is the backbone of Hidden Market Gems.
It is slow, sometimes messy, but it forces discipline. The stock comes at the end, not at the beginning.
The main formats inside Hidden Market Gems
As a reader, you will mostly see four types of work.
1. Problem centric investment theses
This is the heart of the publication.
Each piece starts from a question like:
How do we keep pushing data center density without breaking grids and cooling.
How do we turn grey, unstructured data into something AI systems can actually use.
How do you protect sensitive chips and sensors in defense, aerospace or harsh industrial environments.
The article then walks through:
What the problem really is, beyond buzzwords.
Who is trying to fix it and why most approaches have hard limits.
The company that, in my view, holds a strong piece of the solution.
Its moat, economics, risks and valuation.
If you only read one category, read this one.
These are the “hidden gems” in the most literal sense.
2. Sector Playbooks
Because more than tactics, strategy matters.
Some topics deserve more than one company and one article.
For these, I write Strategic Article. They are long form guides on a theme or an industry that matters for the next decade. For example:
The digitisation of agriculture.
Rare and critical minerals for electrification.
The heavy side of AI: power systems, cooling, specialised infrastructure.
Water, waste, grids and environmental services.
A Sector Playbook usually includes:
A map of the value chain.
The economics and capital cycles.
Key constraints and tailwinds.
Types of companies that should do well, with several names on a watchlist.
You can treat these pieces as reference material.
You can come back to them every time you see a new stock in that space and ask: “where does this one sit on the map”.
Or…Simple Equity Stories
Not every idea needs a full systems essay.
Sometimes a business has a clean story:
clear product
clear customer
visible path to profitability and cash
a valuation that starts to make sense after a heavy correction
When a case is simpler but still interesting, it goes here.
Same level of honesty and detail, fewer moving parts.
These pieces are useful when you want something investable that does not require a full mental overhaul of a sector.
4. Portfolio and pipeline Updates
Hidden Market Gems is not a theoretical exercise. I invest my own money using the same logic.
Inside The Vault you will find:
The portfolio built from HMG ideas, with sizes and roles.
The watchlist: companies and problems I am currently studying.
Moves: adds, trims, exits, and the reasons behind them.
Short updates on past theses when facts change.
This is where you see how research translates into actual decisions.
You also see when a thesis is weaker, when a stock has run too far for the risk, or when the problem we picked is not resolving the way we expected.
How Hidden Market Gems relates to Future Cognitive Capital
You might also know my other publication, Future Cognitive Capital, which focuses on data compounders.
The split is simple:
Future Cognitive Capital looks at the cognitive layer of the economy: cloud, data platforms, networks, autonomous systems.
Hidden Market Gems looks at the real world layer beneath and around it: metals, grids, hardware, components, infrastructure, niche industrial and service businesses, plus a few more straightforward equity cases.
Tangible Layer ⏤ Intangible Layer
The two projects share the same mindset: structured thinking, long time horizons, a clear framework.
HMG stays closer to steel, dirt, wires, pumps, fabs, fields and factories.
You can follow one without the other.
If you enjoy seeing how software, energy, materials and infrastructure interact, both together make a complete picture.
Who this is for
Hidden Market Gems is for investors who:
Are curious about how things really work behind narratives, from mines to cables to chips to ports.
Are comfortable spending time on small and mid caps that nobody talks about on social media.
Prefer a handful of well understood positions to a long list of half baked tickers.
Think in years, accept drawdowns and understand that execution plus time are what create value.
If you mainly want daily trade ideas, memes and “next 10x by Friday”, this will feel slow and heavy.
If you want to sharpen the way you connect real world bottlenecks to listed equities, this is probably a good fit.
What you get when you subscribe
As a paying subscriber, you unlock:
The full archive of problem centric investment theses.
All Sector Playbooks and future long form guides.
Access to Updates: portfolio, moves, watchlist and ongoing updates.
All new posts as they come, with the stock, the numbers and the scenarios fully laid out.
Free readers see the “world” part of the story: the problem, the system, the map.
Paying subscribers see the company, the mechanics, the valuation, the risk and the follow up.
The goal is that the value of the work over a year feels far higher than the price of the subscription, in clarity, time saved and mistakes avoided.
How to start if you are new
If you just arrived, here is a simple path.
Pick one problem centric thesis.
Read it from the top and linger on the world building: the problem, the physics, the incentives. Do not hurry to the stock.Then pick one Sector Playbook that matches your interests.
Agriculture, energy, minerals, security, choose what speaks to you. Keep the map in mind.Only after that, dive into the company parts.
The moat, the numbers, the valuation. You will see them with a different lens once the system is clear.Finish with An Update.
Look at how ideas turned into positions, what stayed on the watchlist, what was rejected.
You do not need to agree with every conclusion.
The aim is that each piece trains your thinking a bit more, and that over time you build your own ability to spot hidden problems and hidden companies.
What I commit to
I cannot promise performance on a fixed schedule. Nobody can.
Here is what I do commit to:
Writing as if my own capital depended on the work, because it does.
Focusing on real problems and real businesses, not narratives built backwards from a chart.
Being explicit about what I know, what I do not know and what would make me change my mind.
Admitting mistakes and revisiting theses in public.
Keeping the publication useful for serious, long term investors, not optimised for clicks.
If this sounds like the way you want to think about the markets and the world, you are welcome inside.
Disclaimer
This newsletter is for information and reflection, not financial advice. Do your own work, stay critical, and protect your capital. I can be wrong. That’s part of the game.
