Deep Value - Tobias Carlisle

[Kraven]

The good:

 

It's very well written and Carlisle has the ability to explain things in a sophisticated, yet easy to understand way.  I agree with some of the prior posters who appreciated the investment stories mixed in with some of the quant research.  It's interesting and I think people would enjoy it.

 

The topic is one I have great interest in.  In a nutshell the thrust is that value outperforms growth (glamour stocks), but that this is primarily due to reversion to the mean.  Interestingly, he notes that reversion to the mean applies both to stock prices (what goes up comes down and vice versa) but also underlying business performance.  Further, even within value stocks he breaks it down into ones performing badly and those performing better.  The ones that had performed badly outperform the "better" value stocks.

 

The bad:

 

It's pricey at about $65 for around 200 pages.  There is a decent amount of filler in it too.  Each chapter has a theme or discussion point and many of the chapters are principally derived from books many on the board would have already read.  For example, there is a chapter on Graham that comes from Security Analysis and some of Graham's other writings.  There is a chapter on Buffett which comes from Snowball.  Much of the quant stuff is very similar to Carlisle's previous book, Quantitative Value.

 

I would estimate that at least half the book I could have done without.  But the other half is extremely interesting and kept my attention throughout and I thought was worth the price of admission.

 

Overall, recommended.

[Guest ajc]

 

Tobias Carlisle - Talks At Google