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Reading: What Would Warren or Charlie Do? WWWoCD


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I was just thinking about what both Charlie and Warren said about reading, basically you have to read the Wall Street Journal and Fortune Magazine, as a business person and investor. 

 

Additionally, you need to read the AR's of your potential investment, as well as that of the competitors and the industry trade publications, but what about new media and note taking s/w?

 

Specifically, what would they be doing if they were 30 or 60 years younger?  For me, my Twitter feed has loads of investors, but it is way too time consuming to diligently go through all the tweets from even the best investors.  (Also, who is in your twitter feed?)

 

(Note, there was one notable investor, the guy who ran Windsor, who used to be in Barron's Investor Roundtable, who would stack up a weeks worth of the Wall Street Journal and finish reading it on the weekend.)

 

I don't know how they take notes, how often they re-read, etc.  And obviously you have to do what is most suitable for you.

 

I spend about 10% of my reading time re-reading and I use Evernote for stuff on the web, but not for books. 

 

 

 

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Sorry for possible OT.

 

We subscribed to Fortune recently. I think it's mostly crap. IMHO, most of it is Wired level infoporn. There's usually maybe 1 serious article and even that usually referenced on CoBF or other place and available through online. So, IMHO, don't waste time trying to read Fortune.

 

I subscribe to Barron's and IMHO it's worth reading, though I do skip through some of it and I find Tom Donlan's editorials to be crap.

 

I don't read WSJ except for few articles posted/referred here. Not enough time.

 

Love Economist, but not enough time to read it either, so stopped subscribing.

 

Edit: I think the time would be better spent reading ARs, 10Ks, 10Qs and really working numbers and understanding the businesses. However, it is easier to read infoporn (even "informative" infoporn like CoBF - sorry guys ;) , Barron's, Economist) than to DD 10Ks/10Qs.

 

With all the encouragement to read, I think that doing stuff is much more worthwhile than reading stuff. But doing stuff is much higher cognitive load (IMHO), so back to infoporn...  :'(  I think I'd be a wreck at the end of the day if I tried to spend the time I spend on CoBF/Barron's/BRKvideos/etc. on doing heavy accounting or heavy programming instead. ;)

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I agree with the magical fox.  WSJ is now like >50% stuff I don't care about or find offensive that they would presume to opine to me upon.  Honestly, I would probably sign up for some of their promotional rates, but they make it difficult to cancel if I'm not feeling like I am getting good value. 

 

I still take Barron's although often times I just scan through it.  Fortune has an article that interests me about once every 3 months.  I get Bloomberg BusinessWeek as well, but generally just peruse it.  Sometimes it has awesome articles but I've usually already read them online.  FT doesn't deliver paper where I live and not sure I would pay that much unless it was like superb U.S. coverage with a lite version of their excellent intl coverage.

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WSJ is now like >50% stuff I don't care about or find offensive that they would presume to opine to me upon.  Honestly, I would probably sign up for some of their promotional rates, but they make it difficult to cancel if I'm not feeling like I am getting good value. 

 

Get WSJ for miles. Then you don't have to cancel. ;)

 

I'm getting Barron's, Fortune, previously Economist for leftover miles that I would not have used otherwise. I have accounts of 4 people who don't travel enough for miles to be used elsewhere, so that helps.

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I've tried to pattern my reading routine in the theme of "WWWoCD" along with some other investors I admire. Its a mix of newspapers, business magazines, and trade journals:

 

Newspapers (daily): WSJ, NYT, and Financial Times. Takes about 2 hours each day. I've had a chance to ask some investors what they read each day, and Ted Weschler said he reads 6 newspapers a day (takes him ~3 hours) and Seth Klarman said he reads 5 a day. Of course Warren and Charlie are each around 5 a day. Personally I think 3 is fine, because there are so many other sources of information now.

 

Business Magazines (weekly/monthly): Fortune, Forbes, Businessweek, Barron's, The Economist, local business journal

 

Trade Magazines (weekly/monthly): American Banker, Insurance Journal, Modern Distribution Management, Automotive News, Advertising Age, Womens Wear Daily, Aviation Week, Multichannel News, Internet Retailer, Nation's Restaurant News, Restaurant Finance Monitor, BevNet, Franchise Times

 

Investing reading: Manual of Ideas, a bunch of blogs, CoBFF, investing-focused twitter

 

Company specific: I print out all filings and transcripts of companies in my portfolio, it kills your printer but I get more out of it than reading off my computer screen. I do the same for about ~20 other companies that are on a watch list, and then I have about 80 companies that I follow just through 8Ks.

 

I try to get everything hard copy and avoid time on the computer which can be distracting. Most days I try not to even switch my computer on.

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Read anything and everything you can get your hands on. You never know when something might be usefull for later

 

No. There is not enough time to "read anything and everything", even if you wanted to.

 

Even cleonard12's set is about full time job every day.

 

 

 

 

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Read anything and everything you can get your hands on. You never know when something might be usefull for later

 

No. There is not enough time to "read anything and everything", even if you wanted to.

 

Even cleonard12's set is about full time job every day.

 

I once skimmed though the us army manual on mortars...couldn't pass a test on it,wouldn't know how to fire one off but it was pretty interesting. Amazing how much thought is devoted to such a piece of machinery.

 

Edit: http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/DR_pubs/dr_a/pdf/fm3_22x90.pdf

Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

 

 

 

One of the cool things about having a smart phone is you can always bring something to read on the off chance you are waiting for someone or there's a delay in a start time or something. I'm never bothered by waiting.

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How do you guys and or Warren and Charlie (if they have commented) set up for all your marathon reading?  My neck kills me.  Do you have one of those reclining zero gravity programmer chairs or something?

 

I use a standing desk all day, with the desk at the tallest possible setting. Plus I set up my computer out of the way, sort of like how Guy Spier described it in his book.

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How do you guys and or Warren and Charlie (if they have commented) set up for all your marathon reading?  My neck kills me.  Do you have one of those reclining zero gravity programmer chairs or something?

 

Not to play doctor here, but it sounds as if you are bending your neck too much while you are reading. Assuming that your neck doesn't hurt when you looking straight ahead, you should somehow adjust your neck angle accordingly.  Smartphone reading seems to be the worst for bad neck angles. 

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Guest notorious546

I tend to read quite a few investor letters as the come out over the quarter. After re-reading the title to this thread i realized i'm not too sure that warren or charlie would do the same.

 

what do you guys think?

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