Through my hobby of seeking to understand listed companies better, I have discovered something truly fucked up: The real disaster companies give very little indication that anything is wrong via their announcements and annual reports. You have to almost read between the lines.

There's this Australian biotech company I looked at that was trying to develop an HIV drug. After spending (wasting) some $160m, they needed some extra cash to continue.

What did they do?

They decided to buy a coal mine.

You heard me.

Can you guess what happened?

The coal mine was mothballed due to it being uneconomical. They had to write off the entire "investment".

The crazy saga was just a minor line item in their annual report. Blink and you'd miss it.

What are they doing now?

They "acquired" a company that is developing an app to help kids who have ADHD.

Reality: The app company was looking for a cheap entrance onto the stockmarket.

There is so much information asymmetry between the insiders and the outsiders for these types of companies.

They put out extremely limited information via announcements and annual reports. Every failure is either downplayed, obfuscated or spun into a positive story of progress.