The Last Living Value Investor's Portfolio
Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance
My friend Mark Spiegel sometimes feels like the last living value investor in history.
I love talking to Mark because, in his mind, our markets and the laws of economics haven’t been coopted and usurped by the insanity of Modern Monetary Theory and money printing yet. Well, Mark understands those concepts drive markets nowadays, he has just not given in to the idea that they will forever.
In other words, Mark believes that markets will again revert back to historical averages and normalcy at some point. And while his fund has really had a difficult run the last year or two, Mark has started 2026 beating the S&P 500 by a couple percentage points and those gains could accelerate if markets once again return to the realistic lens with which he sees things.
Mark is one of those stubborn, “tethered-to-reality” types. To him, the idea that markets are trading at current levels is not merely questionable, it’s borderline absurd. And honestly? A large part of me is right there with him. In any rational vacuum, he’s not just right… he’s obviously right.
My main thesis for being bullish heading into 2026, as I see it, is simply: the rules don’t apply anymore and everything is broken, so the market will never again trade on historical fundamentals or with any semblance of sanity ever again.
So far, this is the case that has been winning out in markets over the last few years, thanks to caustic monetary policy and an unsophisticated retail investor base, layered on top of a passive bid that doesn’t care about P/E ratios or the like.
That’s why I value Mark’s perspective. It’s a view of markets I see less and less as I drift toward the idea that, because of QE, maybe we never revert to the mean. Mark is the counterbalance to that thinking. And deep down, I’m still a fundamental investor—far more so than many market participants today. I’ll always have more in common with Mark than with investors chugging Mountain Dew out of a two-liter bottle, playing The Sims with one hand and daytrading Fartcoin on Robinhood with the other.
Mark’s February letter is out, and in it he explains why he believes the market is overvalued. He also lays out several new long positions and the reasoning behind them. As always, it’s a great read—and a reminder of what reality used to look like before “finding deep value on selloffs” turned into Tom Lee enthusiastically pitching Ethereum on CNBC every single 0.5% drawdown in the S&P 500, regardless of rhyme, reason, or thesis. I wish I was being hyperbolic. I’m not.
So take a walk through the mind of what sometimes feels like the last living value investor alive—my buddy Mark Spiegel. This letter is dated February 27, 2026 and includes five of his “deep value” long positions, including 3 with dividends over 6%...(READ THIS FULL LETTER HERE).
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