LC

about 15% at the moment but I wish I was fully invested...it's a function of having no good ideas

This makes no sense, and is not at all how Buffett or Munger invests. I think it does make sense, why do you disagree? Also it is in fact how Munger invests given he has a portion fo his wealth being managed by Li Lu.

There is buy or there is sell, there is no hold -Yoda (or Li Lu?) Following this advice, if you aren't willing to buy at today's prices, you should sell.

Apologies if this has been posted, just saw it and thought the board would enjoy: http://www.fpafunds.com/docs/special-commentaries/2014-10-cfa-society-of-reno-speech.pdf?sfvrsn=2 My favorite part: "The stock market has been a fabulous place to be, particularly the past two years. However, approximately 60% of the market’s total return for this period has been a function of PE expansion. Profit margins have only improved slightly while top line revenue growth for the S&P500 has averaged between 2.5% and 3%. In contrast, earnings’ per share growth, benefitting from aggressive corporate share buybacks, has been above 5%. I warn you that share buy backs should be viewed skeptically since corporations have a long history of implementing them at stock market peaks while they are then terminated at troughs. "

awesome, thanks for posting! i'd love to look thru the raw data if you dont mind posting.

If by WSB you are referring to his license plate which says GMWSB it is a reference to his second biggest position - GM's B warrants. Judging from a review of his last 8 13Fs, and his reference to "stock tips", it looks like Fiat could be a new position for Dalal Street since the September 30, 2014 holding date. I think Mohnish has held Fiat for a while now, probably about a year if my memory serves. Although it has been undisclosed to date, which should change by next Q's 13-Fs. For LC, karthikpm, or others on the forum. In the spirit of learning consistent with this forum, how would you guys know that Mohnish held Fiat for so long if he wasn't filing a 13-F on it, and why wouldn't he have to file on it? I am a newbie and obviously not going to his annual meeting nor have I seen any of his "ads". I believe it was at his annual meeting last year (which I didn't attend but fellow boardmembers posted pictures here) where he was photographed in front of a Fiat/Maserati/Ferrari (I forget which brand) with something of a thumbs-up/smile. It was soon after the Fiat thread was started here, and he had given talks around the same time which were on Youtube where he referenced this board as a place to generate/discuss ideas. So nobody knew for sure but it wasn't a big leap to say he owned Fiat. Then when the re-listing to NYSE occured, Fiat released a shareholder list which had Pabrai's funds as owning around 10m shares. So it was confirmed then to an outsider like myself.

Never thought of that, thanks west!

If by WSB you are referring to his license plate which says GMWSB it is a reference to his second biggest position - GM's B warrants. Judging from a review of his last 8 13Fs, and his reference to "stock tips", it looks like Fiat could be a new position for Dalal Street since the September 30, 2014 holding date. I think Mohnish has held Fiat for a while now, probably about a year if my memory serves. Although it has been undisclosed to date, which should change by next Q's 13-Fs.

Fantastic! I look forward to it.

How long until the announcement that Berkshire has hired 3G to comb over Duracell?

Check their recent IR presentation, they've made some moves recently and are trying to transition into higher margin product. I actually think it looks interesting, the valuation seems amenable, and it showed up on Clipper's 13F recently.

Ah yes I remember now seeing the shareholder list a few months back. I can confirm the ~14m shares. Not sure how much Mohnish controls in total, but his latest 13F was about $330m, obviously not including the foreign shares he owns. Maybe $750m, Fiat representing about a 20% stake. Buy a few Maseratis, Mohnish! :)

JK Bank does look interesting, thanks for bringing it up. Will suggest to some of my Indian friends.

No ideas, I haven't heard anything mentioned. But next Q it will be interesting to see what % of the portfolio is Fiat.

Hey congrats! I love reading your posts and am glad to have you as a forum member.

Picture so everyone can see what having too much money looks like: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZAiNulZzM8U/Tnf0ZssIj8I/AAAAAAAAANQ/b04-BvDhMIE/s1600/Alberto%2BGiacometti%252C%2BThe%2BChariot%252C%2B1950.JPG

LC, I started An Elegant Universe today. If you like popular books on physics, one of my favorites is In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by John Gribbin. Excellent, thanks for the recommendation.

Boilermaker, I wholeheartedly recommend an elegant universe. Fascinating and easy-to-understand storyline on major breakthroughs in physics. As a science nerd with no formal science education post university, it was great to read.

Interesting. Do you find that technique works well for business analysis? I can see it being very productive for more routine tasks (TPS reports) but am not sure well it does when trying to assimilate information from different fields. Curious as to your thoughts. As to me, I also do 2-2.5 hr chunks of work, then take 30-60 minutes to do an unrelated activity: cooking, playing a musical instrument, reading sci-fi/fantasy, etc. Then I usually either do some light follow up work, or spend time synthesizing/reflecting on the work done previously with a fresher mind. I guess in terms of activity...I would say do something you've always felt like accomplishing, not money related, just something "cool". I always wanted to learn violin (people can have vastly different opinions of cool!). So I practice 30 min daily. But the point I think is to do something which uses your brain differently so you come back refreshed. Heck, it could be daydreaming about a future in which solar panels and solar plants populate the landscape, we all drive Tesla's, clean energy causes re-design of pollution-soaked cities, or whatever.

ukvalueinvestment, I think it would be a shame. I've experienced university in the USA and Canada. The trend of education in the USA is definitely a downward one, and Canada seems to be following suit. The days of academic learning and then "getting out there" in the real world are mostly gone. Look at pricing at private US colleges: it's all very similar. It resembles an oligarchy and the ones getting screwed are students.

Is that part true? If it is, it really doesn't bode well for BRK post-Buffett. On the other hand, pardon me if I'm being sexist or something here, but hiring her straight out of school when he has turned down multiple super talents with far more experience (Pabrai comes to mind) who also offered to work for free/very little may not have been optimal either. http://nypost.com/2013/10/13/buffett-protege-caught-in-ceo-sex-mess/ Haha this is funny. A 29 year old exec hires her 36 year old friend's 61 year old husband. A marriage based on undying love, no doubt, and an executive hire based entirely on merit, I'm sure. Results: as expected.

Thanks for all the replies. For those interested, Punch card investing blog's recent post touches on roll-ups within the transportation industry: http://punchcardblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/c-h-robinson-and-two-sided-markets/

I have a few screens set up that I use. They've definitely become much more broad over time (thanks in part to your advice, Nate). Something like fat gross margins and low/no debt. Then I just go from there, see what looks interesting or companies that I haven't seen before. Do some reading etc. it opens the door. Even having stocks in your portfolio is somewhat of a screen. Owning BAC opens you up to competition from other TBTF banks. JPM, WFC, etc. You become invested in what they're doing, who is doing what better, etc. Then you compare those to community banks (Nate, you again) and see what offers the most compelling investment opportunity. So it's kind of stream-of-consciousness a bit, bumbling around between traditional stock screens, industries, business models, etc.

Sadly I am guilty of the same error. Your post made me think of this quote: "The term "value investing" is widely used to imply the purchase of stocks having attributes such as a low ratio of price to book value, a low price-earnings ratio, or a high dividend yield. Unfortunately, such characteristics...are far from determinative as to whether an investor is indeed buying something for what it is worth and is therefore truly operating on the principle of obtaining value in his investments. Correspondingly, opposite characteristics - a high ratio of price to book value, a high price-earnings ratio, and a low dividend yield - are in no way inconsistent with a "value" purchase.

One thing I have always had trouble with is valuing, or even having some mental models to draw upon when valuing, companies which are essentially fueled by acquisitions. Platform specialty products, Colfax, Valeant are some popular names right now but there are others of various size in different industries which exist and get lots of love from Wall Street. And through history, how many failures were there for every Teledyne? What was the distinguishing factor(s)? Obviously a great CEO but that is difficult to know ex-ante. How exactly does one look at these companies in terms of valuation? The hardest part in my opinion is due to lack of information on acquired companies pre vs. post acquisition. That causes difficulty in analysis. Also many of these companies use the model of acquiring these companies and changing the management and operating controls at these companies to "create value". What exactly that value is...this is usually only vaguely alluded to by management and not really detailed, making it harder to form an opinion on the true worth of their actions/system. It is rarely as simple as slashing unneeded expenses (although that is always the lowest hanging fruit it seems). With Valeant that seems to be the model but with other of these roll-up companies it may not be. The models I can think of are: -cutting redundant headcount to create more operating leverage. -leveraging sales channels, either to cross-sell current customers or expand regionally. -utilizing excess manuf. capacity and reducing fixed costs. -more "hazy" things such as leveraging R&D talent, patents, manuf. techniques etc. on larger scale. this seems difficult to measure. Any other random thoughts/references/information/examples is greatly appreciated. Thank you.