peter1234

I don't keep up with the industry like I used to but I do know that it's a brutal, brutal place to invest. Look at all publicly (or formally) traded companies in the field. Off the top of my head: Majesco Midway EA Nintendo Konami Activision Eidos Take Two The only one that I think has beaten the market over the past decade is AVTI. Some of the other ones (Midway, Majesco) you would have gotten crushed. Heck, look at TTWO - even with GTA it still would've been a poor investment over the past decade (decent over 15 years). Thank you, this is a good list. :)

He's beaten it by about .75% annually over the past decade (which is top 9% of his peers according to morningstar). That includes terrible years like 2011 and this year. Since inception, his fund has destroyed the S&P 500. A $10,000 invest in FAIRX at inception would now be almost $49,000 vs about $17,300 for the S&P 500. I think the 10-year ranking speaks more towards the general poor quality of most mutual funds and the difficulty for funds in the Large Value category (which is where morningstar places FAIRX) to distinguish themselves. Most of Fairholme's outperformance came in its earlier years when it was much smaller and Berkowitz wasn't a media whore. See the attached 5-year rolling returns. Since rolling periods starting around 2007, it has been worse than the index. Thanks for sharing, very interesting. Howard Marks in one of his memos talked about starting and ending points for performance calculations and the big difference they can make. It sure looks like Fairholme has become much less nimble. With like 45% in AIG, it is also hard to compare to more prudently concentrated funds. ;)

Agreed. I think it is very rare to hear 'cheap' or 'expensive' from him. In the interview he talks about stock market value/GDP (similar to price/sales) and from that you can infer that he realizes that currently the market is not cheap. On the other hand, at the Daily Journal meeting Munger talked about guaranteed regulated 8-10% returns being great in a very low interest environment. So I think as long as they still find areas to put money in, he will call it 'reasonable'. ;)

This must be his favorite conference. :)

Thanks for sharing! Lots of great stuff. :)

Thanks, great table. Shows you that this award is similar to the 5 star rating. Not predictive about good future returns. Maybe they get the award after their strategy has been popular and then mean reverts. Money weighted results usually look even worse. ;)

not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. (Attributed to Einstein) ;)

Many Congratulations !! Maybe you could gift him the 'Intelligent Investor' Audio since he cannot read yet? ;)

Compare this mindset to Buffetts of constantly buying good lasting businesses. ;)

Yes, he is a Perma bear. He is wrong. Still helpful to think about scenarios. The future is always uncertain so it is unlikely that an exact outcome can be predicted other than by chance. ;)

I thought he only needed a new car. Now he buys the dealership... ;D

Thanks. He is hilarious knowing the forward PE better in his head than the moderators misreading from the Bloomberg terminals. ;D

If it keeps going up, I would hold on to it. ;D On a more serious note, it depends at which rate it will grow earnings.

He's been saying this for many years now. Eventually, he will be right... ;)

He might save his comments until he sees an upward trajectory. Or he can't really talk about it due to what is going on with St. Joe and ESL. ;)

Thanks, this is a great summary! :)

Wow, reading the Snowball in one day! Do you have a speed reading secret that you can tell us? :)

Wow... Why does he want/need/take another job? He's got a phenomenal track record to retire. Hard to see bond yield decreasing another 30 years. ???

You guys made my day! ;D

I think the main driver will be fracking for gas. If you believe gas fracking will turn out to be unsustainable and gas becoming more expensive again, coal looks better. If you believe that the status quo will go on, it does not look good for coal. Also, if you think EPA will move back toward pollution, coal looks better than the other way around. Now, we only need to figure out how to handicap these 2 drivers. ;)

I am waiting for the value investing rat. ;D

Will be interesting to see where he ends up. ;)

Agreed, would be great to unearth a bit more about him. He is definitely very smart. Unfortunately, he seems quite reclusive. He does not seem comfortable in the limelight. His thoughts are sometimes a bit cryptic. For me, he was the first to talk about Korean Preferreds, but could not explain it. So the audience did not get it. He did talk in Greenwald's class and was on some panels. He also was in Graham & Doddsville Spring 2013. ;)

Thank you and welcome! Great first post! :)

First of all thanks for being a cheerleader and posting these great Japanese bargains! I think there is a justified discount to many Japanese businesses since many are not truly capitalistic profit maximizing enterprises. That being said, discounts are probably too high and cheap wins out in the end. ;)