Getting started... where to begin?

[Buckeye]

Hi Undervalued:

 

Check out the link below.  This may also be useful for the poster who started this thread.  I just found it yesterday but it seems to have a good mix of the "biggest hits" pertaining to investing.

 

http://www.gurufocus.com/news/251391/if-i-ran-a-value-investing-business-school

[alwaysinvert]

This is where I am at as of now. I do micro and small cap investing in Scandinavian markets, because I can read in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish and go through interviews, media, message boards etc. And often I can get a feel for how the company is perceived and all that. That is a lot harder in other markets, so when it comes to the US and all other countries I have thus far only coattailed in large caps. If you throw me the name of a Scandi company with a decent track record, I'm fairly certain that I know something about it and can relate to it in some way. These hunting grounds are skewed in my favour - it's often too small for the big institutions, but more than enough for me. However, the prices - in aggregate - just aren't that attractive in the Nordic small cap space now so I have had to branch out a bit more.

 

I had no industry expertise when I started doing this, so my view is a bit different than "start from what you know". I would say, start from where you can get a structural edge - but with an eye on what the most fertile hunting grounds are at any one moment. Now, this may be big financials or old tech right now, I'm not sure, and there you obviously have a lower edge (probably the only one being time horizon). But I think time is too scarce to start with trying to analyze cloud businesses or social media when these are priced for perfection, even if you know something about the inner workings of those industries.

 

That might be a foolishly academic approach (more security analyst than business analyst), but I don't know how I could keep myself motivated trying to learn about stuff that's not obviously cheap and could stay too dear for years and years.  52 week lows and quant screeners are great for identifying out of favour sectors or jurisdictions.