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NormR

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Everything posted by NormR

  1. Very common with papers / magazines / phone / other subscriptions. The best prices go to those who are only marginally attached to their subscriptions. The worst to loyal customers. Drives me bonkers.
  2. This one is sort of hilarious. Good fun, but it's basically about how to get almost-insider info without breaking the law. Call it SAC lite. Just finished The Value Investors by Ronald Chan which was worth it for the Schloss interview. Mind you I'm a fan. I liked Tobi's Quantitative Value which I read earlier in the year. I'm slowing getting through Howard Mark's book but it's been slow going. I have What's Behind the Numbers? and The Art of Value Investing on order.
  3. There aren't many people who don't like upside volatility. I like Marty Whitman's idea that risk should always be qualified with an adjective. The search for one unifying risk measure is likely futile and perhaps dangerous if it stops people thinking about the different risks they face.
  4. I wonder what to odds are of FFH winning. Someone should be held responsible for the short attack shenanigans. But I fear they won't.
  5. I'm more sympathetic to screens/quants than most on this board. But I acknowledge that they aren't without their issues. The O'Shaugnessy US Value fund seems to have had some success using a relative value/momentum method. I think the upside for most such methods is a few percentage points above the market. You're not likely to get Buffett like numbers from them, but they're a good place for beginning value investors to start. (Mind you, Net Nets are probably best pursued by more knowledgeable people.)
  6. I thought this was based more on an extension of his defensive method?
  7. Far too short a period to come to conclusions regarding the method, IMHO. Most good methods suffer from long periods of underperformance - often many years in length.
  8. Ya, but wasn't that in mid-large stocks? The -ve earnings finding threw me for a loop and has me questioning other factors when it comes to Net Nets. Btw, the March/April FAJ has an interesting article on M-Scores (fraud checks) which also seems to help quite a bit.
  9. I used a Bloomberg terminal which is a little $$$ for most investors. Also, even Bloomberg isn't perfect when it comes to very small stocks - particularly in Canada. Do you have a study that shows F-Score works for Net Nets? If -ve earnings helps (still trying to get my head around this one) then F-Score might hurt. Oh, if you've links to Net-Net studies, please share :) Btw, I've been following Graham's Simple Way for years. It is a high volatility method. So high, I'm not sure many would be able to follow it. Oh, and the value premium seems to persist for ~5 years at least but I've not seen a study on it for Net Nets. I'd also opt for an equal weighting method (at least approximately). Ideally, lots of small bets.
  10. NormR

    CFA Exam

    I found the ethics questions to be entertainingly tricky, but not too hard for those who read the material. Many CFA questions have some tricks in them. The ones that packed several questions into one and inverted the answer were lovely brain benders on a timed test. Good skill/luck to all who are writing it!
  11. NormR

    CFA Exam

    Humm, I may have left the wrong impression. I think it's perfectly ok for the CFA to teach, shall we say, standard theory first and then add to it later on. IIRC, the level 3 exam had a section on some of the more advanced performance metrics, but it's been some time since I wrote it. On the other hand, I suspect that most value investors don't pay much attention to volatility as a risk factor. If anything, they may look for low volatility stocks which seem to do quite well over the long term.
  12. Well, I just ran a Net Net screen and there aren't many of these beasties these days. You've got to get down in the weeds to find them or go internationally. Take care with backtests in the field because the quality of data tends to be poor on the micro-cap end of many databases. I was interested to run across a study that suggested that Net Nets with negative earnings had outperformed those with positive earnings. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. (See prior comment.) It is an interesting area of patient investors with small amounts of capital to deploy. But be ready for a bumpy ride.
  13. We certainly want to accommodate the great guests! I thought the Railcar might have been a bit too small, but I'd like to hear what other attendees thought. (Mind you, it was also very convenient.)
  14. Doh, I'd rather it was a week later, but such is life. I expect the Ben Graham Dinner will be held the day before the FFH Dinner. Also, light drinks just before the FFH Dinner will occur again. I'm open to naming suggestions for the drinks event.
  15. You also might be earning $500k from your labors, but if you neighbor "earns" $500k from passive income while hiking the National Parks that is an entirely different meaning of rich. Eric, Excellent observation. It is what I live for.. freedom! Thankfully freedom can be had for much less. 8)
  16. NormR

    CFA Exam

    While I'm sympathetic with what you're trying to say, it's a bit of an overstatement, at least mathematically speaking. On the other hand, volatility has become a rather mushy word with many meanings.
  17. NormR

    CFA Exam

    What other notion of market risk is there? It's pretty standard that risk is defined as a dispersion of returns. Various factor based approaches where beta, size, book/price, momentum, etc all become risk measures. The interpretation is largely a bunch of poppycock but not uncommon in academia. Also, there are other measures like volatility. Semi-variance, etc. And combos like the Sharpe ratio. Good luck / skill to everyone on the exam this year. I'm glad I don't have to write exams these days. ;D
  18. I've used a similar argument and you can have all sorts of fun with it. Not that I believe the markets are efficient. ;D
  19. http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2013/06/steve-cohen-insider-trading-case
  20. Yes, Prem said they would be posted.
  21. If so, stocks shouldn't have a long-term risk premium according to Eric Falkenstein ;)
  22. Not as of Tuesday when I asked him :)
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