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Glug!

This was posted in r/SecurityAnalysis on reddit, and I'm surprised it hasn't been cross-posted here yet (most of the more interesting posts are). Anyway, I guess I'll do the honors:

I think this might be it: http://cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/index.php?topic=8436.0 I found it by searching website using Google, as described above, plus "see differences tool".

Glenn, There are a few threads on this website that discuss this. To find them better, use Google instead of the search bar on top. Do a query like: site:cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca filing differences tool Here are two threads on seeing differences. There was a better, more recent one, but I can't find it. If you search through my comment posts it should be there: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/easily-see-sec-footnote-changes-(free-app)/ http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/diff-ing-10-ks-versus-10-kas-(or-any-other-docs-for-that-matter)/

I love the Internet. Thanks for posting!

That's part of the goal :D Unfortunately/fortunately I've got the database in raw format (versus using one of Compustat's good-to-go applications), so parsing it and understanding it is a little challenging. Once I "get it", backtesting (including the Magic Formula) should be pretty easy to do.

Whoops. I dug through my giant pile of books and found my copy. You're right. He starts in 1988. I should have double-checked that date before I posted. For some reason I had 1982 in my head. Thanks for catching that!

I finally got access to the actual Compustat Point-in-Time database, not just the normal Compustat database, which I've had access to for about a month and a half now. Interestingly the "point-in-time" feature only goes back to 1987: https://www.capitaliq.com/home/what-we-offer/information-you-need/financials-valuation/compustat-point-in-time.aspx In his Magic Formula book, Greenblatt says they went back to 1982 (if I remember correctly). If this is the case, they may have used the normal Compustat database, which has lots of restated items in it, to come up with their results in the book. Hrm...

To "quantify" what happened with me "speed reading"-wise (so that people who like data and hate anecdotes (like myself!) can be satisfied) when I first started reading Breakthrough Rapid Reading, I read at an average rate of 215 wpm (words per minute) when it came to 10-Ks. Yes, I was slow. By the end of the first half of the book (the second half probably isn't worth reading for most people and they clearly mention the difference between the two halves in the book), I was able to read most 10-K text at 800 wpm if I was working at it. For fluff material, like most news articles, I could go as high as 1800 wpm if I was *really* forcing myself and I didn't want to enjoy the reading process at all. About a year later, I'd say I'm at 400-500 wpm on average when reading most material. So I go double the speed that I used to go. And my comprehension is much better. (The book also does a good job of teaching you how to think about text organization to comprehend things faster.) The book also emphasizes that you need to read with intent. For example, you're not going to, say, go through a 10-K and learn everything at the first go. You should go fast the first time through, find the points that a relevant to your current intent, and discard the ones that aren't. You can revisit the 10-K, going through it fast again, if you need to. Also, for textbooks, doing the exercises and then reading the book as you get stuck on the exercises is going to help you learn the material a lot faster than if you just try to absorb all of the material in one long reading. For new-to-me material that's somewhat complicated I still go pretty slow. Luckily there's not too much more out there, investing-wise, that's new to me! :D

You're welcome! It's hard work though. Be prepared to spend ~2 hours every day for about a month on it if you want to get the most out of it. And, this being said, you do not need to be able to read 500 pages a day in order to be a "good enough" investor...

I tried to learn speed reading last year. I recommend the book Breakthrough Rapid Reading. I was greatly able to speed up how fast I could read things and my reading comprehension with it. (I was *very* slow going into it though.) *However*, I do think speed reading, with high comprehension, is mostly BS. Breakthrough Rapid Reading even mentions this and uses it's own definition of speed reading throughout the book. Still, if you have the time to do the exercises, I highly recommend the book, at least the first half which works on reading fast (but not "speed reading") with high comprehension. But still expect fast reading with high comprehension to be exhausting work going forward.

And... It's gone. Apparently I don't check this board obsessively enough ;D

Actually, the train from NYC to Philadelphia is a sweet 2 hour trip on a very nice double-decker train. My brother and I quite enjoyed it! But two hours is a long daily commute. More likely Mdhousa would have to go to Philly early Monday morning, and then come back home late Thursday night, enjoying Friday, Saturday and Sunday at home. But how would the missus feel about being the only caregiver to the kids three nights in the week? Tough choices! But as they say, "Happy wife, makes for happy life!" Cheers! For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure it would be seppuku-o'clock for me if I had to do a two four hour commute every day. So I wasn't suggesting that at all! I was more saying the relatives could hop on the train and visit easily. It would be even easier for them if mhdousa had a place for them to stay. *edit: two -> four

As a guy with no wife and no kids, it's easy for me to say what I'm about to say, but... Philadelphia and NYC look like they're really close to each other (via Google maps). And I hear there's decent, if not good, public transit between them. In the midwest, Texas, the west coast, etc., one can only dream of getting in a car (let alone public transit) and visiting relatives in less than two hours. If your in-laws are near retirement age and don't mind spending time in Philly, you could also consider getting a house that's big enough where they could stay for an extended period of time. Or a house with an "in-law". In Philadelphia I'm guessing you could probably afford it.

TIL creativity is a necessary requirement for investing, but mine died the day I went to college.

Hey all. I'm analyzing a company that has a decent chunk (but still less than 25%) of its Accounts Receivable in "Pledged Deposits". In other words, it has cash that it holds as security for letters of guarantee. The thing I'm trying to figure out is: Should I treat this cash as Accounts Receivable, like it's classified? Technically they own it and its cash, so probably not. But I'm not sure. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this. TIA! PS- For what it's worth, for the enterprise value calculation I'm leaving this cash out of calculation. They can't touch it, so I'm treating it like operating cash. If you think I'm wrong about this, let me know!

No kidding! One of my best friends bought Tony's tapes and made me and his Dad go to a seminar (sales job) with one of his franchisees. I am immune to Tony's BS, but my buddy has always been a seeker. I have heard from friends that Robbins is one of the best public speakers in existence. The reviews on the book on amazon seem pretty good. It should hit my office at Chapters any day now, for a free review. Reviews can be manipulated. And marketing types aren't above doing this. At least while the hype is first starting to build. That being said, I'm not immediately discounting Robbins's books or his work. Even Guy Spier said Robbins has had a big effect on him. I'm sure there are some solid nuggets of wisdom in all the fluff.

You can also set up alerts using the RSS feed for the company on sec.gov.

Yahoo finance has a nice price alert tool that's free. That's pretty much the only reason why I have a login account with yahoo at this point. On surprise filings, I'll let you know one of my secrets: Google Alerts + the search term "site:www.your-company-name-here.com filetype:pdf" Enjoy!

Bummer. It doesn't look like I can watch it without subscribing to their premium service. They seem to have a lot of old stuff for free. I wonder if it goes "non-premium" if you give it a few months.

Thanks for posting! I'll have to check it out once I'm at a proper computer. I've got a *lot* of respect for the guy, but (just guessing) does he spend a lot of time promoting his new-ish funds?

I'm confused, but I'd like to understand what you're trying to say. Why was my back test poorly constructed? If there's something wrong about it, I'd like understand why it's wrong so I can avoid making the same mistake in the future. On taxes, and all other talk about the "conclusions" from this "study" (in quotes because calling what I did a study is a bit of stretch): I am merely posting data here! I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Any conclusions from the data are left to the reader to make! :)

I missed this post. From everything I've seen, using a normalized EBITDA value underperforms using a TTM value. However, I'm still in denial about this fact since it just doesn't make any sense to me. So, until I collect more data, I'm just going to assume nothing about EV/TTM EBITDA versus EV/Normalized EBITDA :)

This adjustment makes good sense. Do you have a reference for it (Damodaran?). Even if the "bad data" stocks were included in the cohort, maybe there aren't enough of these bad apples to spoil the whole bag, and the final results might not be too different? The key might be wide diversification, and the bag has to be big enough. So if you have any spare time (!), you could run the screen on Compustat unadjusted data to see how sensitive the results would be if one "erroneously" included the false positives. On the adjustment, yes, that's Damodaran's technique. On the bad data screen, you are correct on my spare time :). I'm about two weeks backlogged with stuff to do, and then I'll be visiting relatives for Thanksgiving. So maybe at the beginning of December? PM about this around then and I'll see what I can do ;)

It is always the cheapest 10/30/50. Net-nets should be in the cheap EV/EBITDA list as long as they qualify by that metric. However, negative EV companies *were* dropped since at the time I was sure how to code them in the sort. This should be fixed. Why don't I set up a website? Setting up a website means dealing with customers. I subscribe to oddballstocks notion that unless they're paying me big bucks, I'd just prefer not to deal with customers. Plus, I'd have to figure out the whole licensing the data thing. On whether there's a website that does this: I hear screener.co licenses compustat, but I haven't verified this. I tied the free trial a while ago, and I was very unwhelmed by its lack of flexibility. However, for a dumb, current EV/EBITDA sort it might work fine? The last time I check it gave a free 20 day or so trial if you want to check it out.