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I've had a little look at this stockmarket, and this is what I found so far: It has done well, but is obviously very volatile. The index did the classic thing where it ran up in anticipation of moving from being a Frontier market to an EM market, and then dropped after that. The political situation in 2017 (where the PM was removed) wasn't helpful. I don't know what to expect from Imran Khan - he's a relative political outsider. Corporate Governance is a minefield, but there appear to be certain companies which pass a reasonable bar. It's probably worth looking at companies who have JVs with companies with established corporate governance from other countries. Things are pretty cheap at the moment. There could be some ugly arguments with China over the Belt & Road investments, especially with the deep port in Baluchistan. I haven't invested there - I have no edge - but it's always fascinating to take a dip in countries like this. Oh, and the food's great, from domestic experience with Pakistani curry houses!

Good to see there are other people here who like David Webb, though not surprising I suppose. For those who are interested, there are some other good features on him, especially about the history of his 'Christmas tips'. I've never quite managed to understand the companies he invests in. It often seems to be things where the founder boss in is in his 90s, and they have a bunch of land marked at cost price from 40 years ago, and you wait for them to realise the value and sell it. So fairly classic deep value, but I feel that without being on the ground, I don't know how to get a sense of when the catalyst will be realised (though I know not everyone is bothered about the 'when'). However it's probably not a bad time to coat-tail him, given the 2018 HK performance.

I struggle to understand all the businesses in detail, but believe in the long-term India story, and hope that Fairfax should be in place to benefit. Asian Airports can be fine businesses (Shanghai International is a case in point at the moment), but I don't know enough about the Bengaluru management to feel confident about how how well they'll execute the expansion. I'm sure I just need to sit down and research more. The Finechem chemicals business had a decent reputation (so I heard, but not from primary research) before Fairfax got involved. Stock exchanges are great businesses I think if you believe in long-term capitalism. I need to do a lot more work, but overall the sectors they've gone into look very appealing. Having said that, don't forget there are a heap load of well-run family companies in India to choose from - it's not tricky to create a small basket, or find a fund manager who knows what they're doing.

I'd have thought one of the best ways to begin is reading Annual Reports (and Quarterly ones) from the various closed-end funds specialising in Healthcare and Biotech. There are a number in the UK and Switzerland. Orbimed (US-based) and BB (Swiss) are the two big names, and their listed funds have a lot of commentary and resources. This is on my reading pile, though I have no relevant background, so I'm sure you'll get much more out of it. There is also the more early-stage stuff, where again you can find some UK permanent capital vehicles with literature. Woodford Patient Capital Trust - it hasn't done well so far, but I think there are definitely some interesting companies in the portfolio (e.g. Autolus). And the big UK universities are also supporting this sort of stuff through vehicles like IP Group. I hope that's some help. Let me know if you make any interesting findings!

Awesome - many thanks for sharing this - I find he often has something to interesting to say, but I didn't feel strongly enough to pay for it.

I've just been dipping in so far, but it hasn't grabbed me in the same way as 'The Most Important Thing'. It feels like that a fair bit of it is an expansion on a general Marks theme of 'where are we in the cycle', and so if you've read the first book, and the Memos since, it's not as enlightening as before. That said, maybe I read to sit down and read it properly to get more out of it. There's certainly some good stuff in there, and it's also a very important theme that he covers. I'm also delighted that he features an investment hero of mine, Nick Train of Lindsell Train, and I hope it exposes him to a broader US audience.

This is the sort of thing that makes me nervous - when we're all conditioned that things can't go wrong because there's a permanenet safety net (see also: the Fed will print more money etc.). However, totally agree about sleeping well at night with the right portfolio, as long as one doesn't get over-confident about it.

Good point on questioning the source & context. I saw it on Bloomberg, but this gives a bit more context. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/10/federal-reserve-chair-jerome-powell-ignoring-trump/572110/ This makes it sound better i.e. he was reacting to a pithy question. I'll never forget Gordon Brown, then Chancellor in the UK, effectively saying that he had brought about the end of Boom and Bust in the 00s. Some hubris there...

“There’s really no reason to think that this cycle can’t continue for quite some time, effectively indefinitely,” Powell said Wednesday at an event in Washington hosted by The Atlantic magazine and the Aspen Institute. Well, this sounds to me like a Chuck Prince line if ever I heard one (and so makes me think about selling things).

DYOR

Many thanks for this. I love a family run company (well, when it's a decent family), and always happy to read more about them.

Thanks all - very interesting points about EM debt, which is something I'm ashamed to say I haven't been considering. I am a fan of EM, but do a lot of fund research to find the smartest people choosing the highest quality sustainable growth (non-tech) companies (this generally works best for me in the long-term). Of course this style doesn't generally come at bargain prices. So DocSnowball, if you want to drip in, that would be my suggestion. First State are my go-to organisation for this, though I don't know where you're based - I'm not sure what they're like for US investors (their funds tend to be Irish domiciled). They have excellent Indian and China funds, and some more general Asia-Pacific ones. They won't shoot out the lights in a roaring bull market, but will protect your capital better in a down-turn. There are some good smaller funds (usually Cayman-based) but these have a relatively high minimum. For me at the moment, I think India has a lot of quality, family-run (i.e long-term focused) companies, China A-Shares has some great stock-picking opportunities (but you need someone who can really spot the rare beasts with decent corporate governance), and Vietnam is very interesting for a number of reasons, though again not many people can navigate the corporate governance issues. The rest of EM is too tricky for me.

I wonder if Howard Marks' The Most Important Thing would fit the bill. From memory it's reasonably accessible, so is perhaps more theoretical. Lynch is a good call i.e. pretty straight up if you're starting out. The Berkshire Hathaway letters from 1977 downloaded off the website did it for me in my early days, but I think I knew a bit about the legend and so had bought into it.

Thanks for this, Writser. I like the Matt Levine quote. But just because I don't have sympathy for Bush (from one article I've read), it doesn't mean I have to agree with what Elliott does. I'm attaching the 2017 Fundsmith Annual letter, which has a pretty decent, no-bullshit, opinion on Activism (pages 10-16). Extract (the rest is more detailed/subtle than this): On the whole we are not fans of activism. Too often it seems to follow a playbook that has the following steps: 1. The activist ‘buys’ a stake in a company. I have put ‘buys’ in inverted commas because often much or all of the stake is held through derivative products which means that the activist can announce a seemingly large position in the company’s stock whilst risking and committing relatively little actual cash. This methodology also gives some clue as to the activist’s time horizon which may not coincide with ours, as derivatives have an expiry date whereas stocks don’t. 2. Engage in a public row with the target company and seek board representation, a spin-off of part of the business, a merger with or sale to a competitor, raise debt to execute a share buyback (the activist can helpfully tender stock to assist with this) etc. 3. If the company responds by following the activist’s demands they then sell their stake. 4. We and other long term shareholders are left with a company that has incurred fees and diverted time from running the business to respond to the activist and execute the changes, which is now potentially more fragmented, more highly leveraged and has had to install new management. 5. Rinse and repeat with another victim/investment. The whole 'shareholders are all that matters' is a subjective issue, but personally I believe it's appropriate to consider other stakeholders (e.g. treating employees right) as a) a positive contribution to our society, but also b) it makes everyone work better, which should make for better long-term profits. annual-letter-to-shareholders-2017.pdf

Update! Summary: Margin of Safety no longer on Kindle... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-10/baupost-says-copy-of-klarman-s-book-on-amazon-was-not-authorized

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-10/seth-klarman-book-that-sells-for-2-500-is-now-9-99-on-kindle I imagine most of you either got it from your library or downloaded a bad pdf of the internets, but just in case...

Yeah, it's some good stuff to start with, but lots of pitfalls. SBRCY is interesting - seems to be a great company and dirt cheap. However institutions seem to use it almost as a quasi-tracker i.e. if they have one stock in the country, it's that one, so the price can plunge if they all go off Russia. Of course, that also provides opportunity.

Thanks, these comparisons are always interesting to see. There's a closed-end fund in the UK, which has no management fee, and a 15% performance fee over a 10% cumulative hurdle rate per annum. It launched a little over 3 years ago, and the NAV is 20% down from launch, so you've got a good lot of free performance if it turns itself around. Thanks also JRM for the Snowball explanation (I've forgotten most of it...). 6% seems not unreasonable to me though, as I believe it's the long-term expected real return rate from equities (from Siegel, or Dimson perhaps, I think). And obviously we've got some inflation. Ultimately though, the definition of reasonable charges is a very subjective thing.

https://sumzero.com/headlines/business_services/FCAU/411-pabrai-advice-for-value-investors In case you haven't seen this. Some interesting stuff, though anyone familiar with him won't find any surprises. The one thing that did make me raise my eyebrows a little is him saying that he takes a 33% performance fee above the 6% hurdle - I'd thought it was 20. I appreciate the zero management fee, but 33%, gosh. Anyway, this is not intended as another bout of Pabrai-bashing, I think he has a number of talents, but I'm just not sure I'd pay anybody that.

Writser - me too, then I went. It really is in the middle of nowhere! I'd love to say it was the best experience of my life... to be honest, the food WAS great, but when I was there, I found the place pretty vibe-less (an occasional danger at high-end places), though not because it was overly-formal, it was just a bit quiet, and the room's pretty plain. It was a few years ago, so there's probably stuff I've forgotten. I'm thrilled I've been, so I don't have to wonder, and for bragging rights (!) but as an overall experience it was not the best, you need more than just great food. Incidentally, presumably because it's such a compelling story, I'm coming across a few more restaurants that are doing the cooking over wood thing. Overall my feeling about favourite restaurants is what a body-art guy said when asked what their favourite tattoo was. The next one.

Yes, thank you, this is fascinating - you don't have to agree with all of it, but Druckenmiller usually has something interesting to say.

Spekulatius - completely agree. I think Munger's comments generally refer to companies he knows of through his investment with Li Lu (at Himalaya Capital). Most of these are unlikely to be the big foreign-listed names we know, but lesser-known A-shares (where there also isn't a 'shell holding company' issue). I've heard others say that the A-Shares market is one of the great stock-picking opportunities i.e. a ton of relatively under-analysed companies in a fast-growing country. Of course you have to be super cautious about corporate governance, but hey, it's not supposed to be easy!

For a stock, you could try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Hellenic_Bottling_Company A respectable Greek family have been in charge for a while, so it offers Eastern European exposure with quality corporate governance. Main listing is in the UK. For a similar, smaller company, take a look at Sarantis, which is listed in Greece, but sells its products around Eastern Europe. Most Funds are pretty rubbish and offer a bulk of Russian blue-chips and a handful of other oddities. I know a couple of boutique funds that might be of interest - drop me a PM or something.

Maybe this is going back to basics, but I think you need to consider what a fund does, in the first place, i.e. is it a pure Long Equity fund, does it do index/individual shorting, is it multi-asset, does it invest in blue-chips or micro-caps etc. etc. Then you can figure out what performance/outperformance you are looking for/expecting. So for instance with Akre, I'd probably be looking for him to outperform the S&P500 or Russell 3000. Whereas with Alluvial maybe I'd want DW to outperform the S&P600, though maybe it should be a more global small-cap index. I take the point made that a lot of people don't read the materials or listen much - I've heard this a fair bit from managers. Long/Short funds are interesting, as you have to work out if they're trying to reduce volatility with their shorts, or just create extra alpha. That said, 99% of people who short don't do it successfully over the long-term in my experience, so maybe it's not that relevant. To go back to the Original Post - I suppose that if your fund has a different approach, then that's a way of marketing it (as long as you find the minority of people who read enough to discover this). Without more info, I wouldn't know where to start with you, as I don't know how you've beaten the S&P500 since Jan 15, though generally speaking I'd guess it hasn't been easy for a Value investor. I always think it's good to state whether you are likely to outperform in a bull market and underperform in a bear market, or vice versa, as that gives people a sense of what to expect. For people doing US large-caps, I think any long-term outperformance of the S&P500 is damn good - I know a number of people on this forum have done it, but if you look at the institutions, it's a pretty rare thing. Unlike some others, it's a pretty efficient index. Anyway, I hope this makes sense , I'm chucking this off the top of my head...

Agreed on Morningstar slowness. But it's basically my only choice, as I need international stuff, and Rocket seems to be North America only. On the other hand, I'm trying to be glass-half-full, and think that I am spending less time looking at prices, which on balance is probably a good thing.