schin

+1

Ben Graham essentially focused on mis-informed, bad management in his value investing approach (aka the cigar butt)... He and Buffett had to get control of the board or influence somehow to unlock value. I always thought they were activist investors before it was a thing. Buffett mentioned many CEOs and management teams are really bad capital allocators. So, you're lucky if they hoard cash.... otherwise like Salomon Bros, the management use it as a piggy bank to enriching themselves. The Directors are sadly in on it too. Directors are suppose to represent the shareholders..but, that's in theory.... It's like many hedge funds and mutual funds are actually asset gathers and closet-indexers.

@John Hjorth Are there any segments that were removed in the latest editions or only present/discussed in the early editions?

If professional sports are good reference points, nobody is sacred. The portfolio will be touched and redeployed. Look at DJCO, I mean.... Wells Fargo and Bank of America is being reduced nonetheless. Whether it's Lou Simpson, Sir John Templeton, Teledyne under Henry Singleton, the position will be touched sadly.

When Warren passes, I would expect there will be selling of his prized holdings too.

How different is this from Jeff Bezos and Amazon? Or Steve Jobs wanting small, technical teams of creatives?

True, once the business has negative earnings... the overpriced shares bought earlier becomes an anchor.

The beauty behind this is they have positive earnings, so the game is not necessarily over. Trading at a P/E of 9, it can catch up.

Does anyone have any examples of cannibals that didn't eventually increase in value? CAR has the possibility to be like Long-Term Capital. Good strategy until a Black Swan event takes them out. I also like companies that address corporate debt first before buy backs. Little or no debt gives companies a lot of flexility in good and bad times.. I rather than build the ark waiting for the thousand year flood. Otherwise, it's like picking nickels in front of a bull dozer.

@ValueArb - What is that number? Is there a fund does net-nets anymore? Even microcaps?

Man -- those that graduated last year.. is kicking themselves... Free tuition going forward... I need to try to get my kids admitted there now! LOL

I think the disrupting the compounding is a huge dagger. I do not know of many people who have kept 1-2 holdings static for 10+ years and allow Amazon, Google, BRK to compound for years on years. I have 1 share of BRK.B to get his annual letters sent to me. But, I remember back when BRK.B were introduced he specifically said he didn't believe they were a good value. Warren talked it down. Also, through the years, he talked about how his universe has shrunk and he would marginally outperform the S&P, if he was lucky. He's results have been good, but not great. I would love to have the early Buffett partnership returns.. but, the last 10-20 years have been good, but not great.. but, again, if you invested him in the 70s or 80s... it's been 30-40 years of compounding by him.. that's not something most people do nowadays. I would love to see a poll of everyone's longest held position... But, the average is probably 1-2 years, if I tender a guess.

He says BNSF will be around forever... So, we're in a down cycle. It'll be okay. He didn't talk about his World Book investments or Dexter or newspaper investments.... Some industries will run it courses. I guess he's just sad that BSNF, BHE, and GEICO has needed re-investments lately. All have needed some TLC lately. Industry wise, technology wise, and personnel wise. He doesn't have shiny Iscar or Precision CastPart or Lukizol to rave about.

@LearningMachine - Everyone of his businesses have risk. That's the whole point of margin of safety. That's part of your calculation. Whether you own 30% or 100% -- the risk is there...

@sleepydragon - I'm going to do the reverse Leonard DiCarpo and date 50-60 year olds that have bad hearts, but a lot of money...

@Spekulatius @Xerxes - If he is wiling to invest 20%+ percent, why wouldn't he buy the whole thing? He did that for BNSF, See's, etc. I mean.... if he is buying on the open market, why not open up the possibility of buying it? I know he didn't want to buy all of Washington Post and be seen as aggressive to Katherine Graham... But, other than SEC reporting requirements... if OXY being the same company it is today, but trades at a P/E of 1-2.... and he can take it private at that price... he should do it.... I don't know why he has to be so vocal about it....

@Gamecock-YT - Fascinating, thanks. I've been lead to European bank stocks, but I might be a lone wolf there.

@Gamecock-YT I like your answers. M&A activity can be gotten from Dealogic. Where you do get a screen for dividend cuts and bankruptcies? There's a lot of oil mergers lately (OXY being widely discussed). Dividends and bankruptcies don't appear to be an issue. Are there certain industries you are looking into now?

@Gamecock-YT - Have their concepts impacted your investing style? I know Howard Marks talks about super cycle too. So, I do like their writing on cycles, but don't trade in and out of cycles. (sector rotation). I generally use it to analyze an industry in down cycles that should revive -- like European banking.... or banking in America circa 2010. I know shipping and oil are super cyclical, but they are commodities.

I listened to this podcast. It's weird how through some crazy association with Patrick O'Shaughnessy -> Colossus -> that has exposure to Founder's Podcast and others, they have a meeting with Charlie Munger. Somehow, they got to have a dinner with Charlie with their larger crew. Would Charlie associate with anyone that disreputable? Or waste his time? So, I looked at Tiny and don't get how he can be a billionaire if Tiny only has a 322M market cap. In Annie Duke's Quit book, Andrew has a reference where he had a Asana competitor product, but Asana out-marketed, out-developed, out-spent him... and he lost 11M in cash.... So, I don't know where he gets his alpha?

He is a good communicator.... but I would not put him in the same vain as Ray Dalio or Jim Cramer. I like Howard Marks. But, he's a bond investor, so his equity analysis is not his wheelhouse.... or what made him famous.

I read this and also, saw it in stores. Just don't know how to "play" this in financial instruments.

@Spekulatius - Understood. So, when you hear the estimates and comments from Citigroup and PBR-A --- do you put any weight to them? One is in financial and one is in oil.... You have something, and you pray they are right.. but, how accurate can Jane Frazier be -- considering there are capital market events that she cannot control in 2024 and 2025 that can help or hurt her earnings. Can she accurately forecast what the Fed will allow her in buybacks and dividends without a bureaucrat being pissed that they told them what they should do.. versus the Fed telling what they can do. I know roughly what I am going to make this year, but I actually don't know how good my stock portfolio will generate.... But, then again, I don't have shareholders or wall street analyst to predict...

@Spekulatius - I would say the zombie-ish companies are the banks in Germany. Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank have fixed themselves up. But, there should be more consolidation in Germany for one. It is overbanked. The locally-government controlled savings bank - Spareassen-Finanzgruppe. Pricing is being held down by the weakness offerers like oil producers. It's just not rational. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Cooperative_Financial_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_in_Germany Many don't have scale and without government support, would be dissolvent. https://www.bankingsupervision.europa.eu/press/speeches/date/2017/html/ssm.sp170927.en.html In Italy, I would say Monte die Paschi -- which they want Unicredit to take over.. but, they passed. Let it die.

@Gamecock-YT Is it only in your industry (finance)? Or can your forecasting work with oil companies, which can be at the whelm of spot prices? Or one just has to look at hedges in the disclosure to see how risky a company is trying to be.