ASTA

Great visual maps on how the world works/worked http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/12/40-maps-that-explain-the-world/?lines http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/01/13/40-more-maps-that-explain-the-world/

Any one else looking in to Wm. Morrison Supermarkets plc. as this has been the biggest purchase of Francisco Garcia Parames last year.

lol omg Kraven :o u are crazy ??? >:( :'(

I am happy for all people who had good results this year just amazing to see :D My returns where 32%. 30% in LRE and FFH combined and around 15% in cash all year so not to bad. Plus I don't use any kind of leverage.

Cool story about Farouk al-Kasim the man how showed up by foot at Norway’s Ministry of Industry and hired immediately. He wrote the law governing how Norway should control its oil fields. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2mmdHIC27 A very nice read :D

AZ_Value sorry if I did not mention it but of course everyone here will now that he sold the puts. + twacowfca that's what I meant :D If you want to play with options the hedging or leaps are the way too play. Of course if your asset pool is growing over time work cash flow selling puts might not be to bad.

If you think about it carefully you realize how costly the equity index puts were in the financial crisis. Berkshire got the float from them to invest, but its negotiations with the rating agencies meant that, at a time when markets were in turmoil, during the very crisis that Warren had been waiting for all those years to put the tens of billions of dollars to cash to work, he couldn’t do it. He was able to participate in the market crash only in a tepid way. That opportunity cost has to be offset against the expected profit from those equity index puts. They weren’t worth it. I think this quote is very good. As it once again reinforces my idea of put options being very dangerous and as I see it cash is always 90% better alternative. As one should just wait until an opportunity arises and then invest. Be it 10 years or not cash is just so much simpler then theses puts. Rather sleep tight and wait opportunity's always arises some times(hopefully not ten years ala Munger). Thanks for bringing it up LC

Why not hire some small hedge fund to run some money. For example Corner Market Capital Corporation. You only pay them if they preform and no pesky labor laws and stuff for staff managing family money. And the upside is that if they loose big they are whipped out as well. Not being mean here just saying like Munger says 95% of the population don't understand incentives enough. Off course family adviser might not like that idea :D

I think that this portfolio overall looks good very diverse set of stocks which should make this portfolio very stable time will tell but maybe we can start a COBF index investment company ala www.gothamassetmanagement.com. if I was starting a portfolio today this would be a very good start I think.

Another value investor working hard in South Africa :D If anyone have any more info please post. Allan Gray $8.5 billion Industry: Financial services Country Of Citizenship: South Africa Age: 75 Marital Status: Married This media-shy South African moneyman controls two investment companies that collectively manage over $50 billion in assets. After Gray received an MBA from Harvard, he worked for eight years at Fidelity Management and Research in Boston before returning to Cape Town in 1973, when he founded Allan Gray Limited, now the largest privately owned asset manager in South Africa. It is also the most successful with assets under management at approximately $30 billion. According to inside sources at the company, Allan Gray’s global mandate share portfolio has achieved an average annual return of 28 percent since 1974. Keys to success include rigorous research and the consistent application of Allan Gray’s ages-old and time-tested investment approach of buying heavily into companies whose share price is less than their intrinsic value. Gray is also the founder of Orbis, an asset manager in Bermuda, which he founded in 1989. Orbis has over $21 billion under management. Gray’s son, William, is President of Orbis and equally serves as portfolio manager of the Orbis Funds. Gray and his family are the controlling shareholders of Allan Gray Limited and Orbis. In 2007, Gray endowed his Allan Gray Orbis Foundation with $130 million, the single largest charity gift in Southern Africa at the time. The foundation funds scholarships for poor but promising South African high school students. http://www.ventures-africa.com/2013/10/richest-people-africa-2013/ http://www.allangray.co.za/

Have the audio-book already ;D Have read about half of the book but bought the audio-book too :D The only problem is I have been a slug in reading or listening to books lately I hope my reading/listening genie will come back soon.

Anyone looking in to Orkla ASA have been looking in to this name and some good fund manger owns it.

Jeast, I agree that Bogle have done allot more information on expense and Indexing. Bogel however never even talks about single stock selection. At least this book does go in to limited stock selection and behavioral investment and some history in the stock market regarding stock picking and concentration. Of course as anything else in life if one reads about specific topics one learns more. This is not targeted to Jeast a successful fund manger more towards Bob the collage graduate wanting to learn about (value) investing :D

I think that Copycat investment's are very good. I have done this for three years now and getting satisfactory results. However I think that concentration is the best way of doing it. And only invest when the "stars" line's up is also useful. Its super easy regarding large cap's just select a group of guru's on Gurufocus and watch that 52 week low list of your selected gurus. My best home run was more focused on the size of the portfolio manger had in a particular stock that was OSTK. So SIZE maters ;D If COBF, Morningstar, Gurufocus and magicformula lines up on one stock it has been a wise bet to bet on that stock (at one point of time maybe not today). Example MSFT and Apple.

I have two big mistakes excluding stocks of omission. Nokia As a swede I thought Nokia was a great buy at 9 euros. And just bought because of old memories. Now I try to stay away from my "home market Nordic countries" as much as possible. HPQ Second mistake was HPQ also just bought at $37 was thinking Glenn Greenberg had my back as he had a 4.5% stake. My lesson from that was I need more conformation then just one guy and wait until a opportunity presents it self. And only when the stars align up do I invest.

Thanks for the link. Liked the quote "I like things that travel" :)

Thanks jtvalue nice article did not know of post holdings.

Good article for anyone interested in this topic Mining: Gone to potash After making billions in rough-and-tumble sectors, Suleiman Kerimov may have met his match http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b59b0d0c-1eba-11e3-9636-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2erM5v3LJ

Thanks for the link. Well got to work hard so I also can have a pool with 8 women sunbathing :D

Thanks for the link. Well its not that strange as he mostly went into 2008 with higher cash balance and made so much on debt in 2008 that he needed to lighten up my guess :D

garychen17 Thanks for sharing your experience so far. I just have one question if you look back to your investing so far how much lower would your returns have been without leverage. Including the way up and down until today. Why I am asking is because maybe one should be less willing to leverage and only do if there is a paramount belief that one is right the proverbial 1 punch card out of 20. I think it would be a interesting self assessment :D of course I don't leverage much because I have no recurring cash flow so I have to be careful as I only have one shoot.

Great reporting, articles like these are great and sad. That for sure makes me not want to be poor.

Well the good thing is that value traps become opportunity's at certain prices CHK, DELL. Fell sorry for them but hey I would switch to there shoes any day so don't feel bad about cocktailing them at good price's. But do like there commentary and there picks are quite good and like Mohnish Pabrai says great to learn from there mistakes the last ten years.

They have a 59 min video on moi will watch it today and see what they say :D

I am still very young so I only have 2 half years of experience :D But started 2011 feb 14's not concentrated enough and was down 4%. But 2012 up 29% and this year up 23% so I don't have the expertise and track record of others here. But got so mad at myself that I only bought 3% bac at 5.6 that I evolved to more concentration to never miss that one again :D but I hope throughout my career that I will have more bac opportunities. And hope one day one might not feel so bad posting 20% up years :D some people are insane here. But I don't use leverage and only have one shoot of making it as I have no recurring cash flow.