Dear Reader,Last week I got plowed on Build-a-Bear then made some back on Gap. Unfortunately I missed out on Abercrombie. In hindsight, given the staggered earnings schedule it would have made a lot of sense to rotate some money into Abercrombie; it wasn’t my favorite pick but that’s a key advantage of an earnings calendar — the awareness to rapidly recycle capital. Having already exited Gap, I will be looking for a spike in Build-a-Bear this week — as Michael Burry is now long and alerted his subscribers — to reduce exposure. By the way, I moved on from Alibaba last week. The earnings calendar is light this week. I will focus on a few names of particular interest:Wednesday:Ollie’s: Discount store with strong balance sheet and strong operating trends. Trading below the lowest street price target at ~15x 2027 earnings consensus. I’m interested in taking a modest position into earnings.Thursday:Campbell’s: It’s incredible how poorly-managed this company is. About half of their brands/products are dead-weight, the other half are pretty good. 2027 earnings consensus is down by 45% from 18 months ago. At ~12x forward earnings the main question is whether street estimates have finally bottomed out, which is certainly a possibility, but I’m not too interested. I would rather own Molson Coors, which I bought on Friday at ~8.5x forward earnings.Duluth: Underwear and other (cotton) apparel. Solid pullback in stock price recently. They dialed back capex. Down to ~$25mm of net debt. Management is targeting $30mm+ in free cash flow by 2028 Polyester-avoidance is a big societal trend. You know what? It’s not crazy to give this one a punt into earnings. Lululemon: This company has been severely mismanaged. I’ve traded it a few times and sold my shares for a small gain last week after noticing how expensive underwear on their website is. Kind of like Campbell’s, the key question here is where do operating results/estimates bottom out. At ~11x forward earnings with >10% net cash, I’m tempted to take a small shot into earnings, but it would be safer to see if it pukes first. ___________Korean Dividend ReformThere’s a decent amount of chatter on Twitter about investing in cheap Korean small caps as a result of a push for “Value-Up” reform by regulators aimed at unlocking minority shareholder value.I want to focus on a specific aspect of the reforms that I think is the most tangible/realistic: dividend taxation. I believe that this is the most productive area to focus on because it flows naturally from management’s self-interest and is more incremental, whereas I am still skeptical of deeper-value situations — such as net-nets — that demonstrate more entrenched management and probably will require a successful activist. Pre-reform, the following tax brackets applied to dividends. At the top tax bracket of only ~$725k USD, almost half was taxed away:Post-reform, the following tax brackets apply to “high dividend” qualified stocks. They are much more reasonable, allowing for a few million dollars of dividend income at only a 27.5% tax rate:In order to qualify for “high-dividend” tax brackets for investors, a company must publish an official Value-Up plan and either 1) pay out 40% of baseline year income as dividends, or 2) pay out at least 25% of baseline year income while increasing the dividend by at least 10% compared to the average of the last 3 years.For example, consider Cuckoo Holdings (KOSE:A192400), manufacturer / holding company of rice cookers and other home appliances. Though the current yield on the most recent dividend is already a sturdy 5.5%, the payout ratio is only around 25%. Insiders own 72.6% of the company. Given the company’s strong operating results and robust balance sheet, it would make a lot of sense for management to either go for the 40% payout ratio target or start following the 10% growth trajectory. An easy-to-understand business. No fights with activists required. Just cold, hard incentives that nudge management towards better alignment with minority shareholders.If we start seeing more examples of activist success, that’s when I would suggest focusing more on net-nets. The fact that they are net-nets in the first place is, in my opinion, generally a red flag.