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S. Klarman Latest Investor Letter


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I like how everyone gets trolled by ScottHall.

 

Yeah guys, ScottHall is completely serious! Nobody can criticize the zommander in Chief, least of all some kind of puritan roundhead from beantown! Arrest him immediately and force him to disgorge his tax returns investor letters! Throw him across the wall and make him pay for it by reprinting his book!

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I'm sorry LC, but anyone who criticizes the President of the United States to his business partners and then doesn't want the public to get wind of it is a coward who is unfit to be called an American citizen, in my opinion.

 

So this is what happens to investors when patriotism wins over rationality.

 

Being fully honest to your business partners while avoiding to take unnecessary consequences for those opinions is a smart thing to do.

But if your opinion is that it is unamerican to be smart, well no objections here  ;D

 

By this logic, Trump should have been deemed a traitor for questioning the birth certificate of the last commander in chief...

 

Oh ya, karma burns but this pres is very sensitive to criticism and will go after media, judicial branch, etc for hurting his feelings.

 

Baupost has always kept their letters secret, long before Trump. Klarman has not exactly been secretive about opposition to Trump though, as he went public last year as written in the NYT article. Based on Klarman's investing strategy (small special situations), being secretive makes sense and is hardly cowardly (or to paraphrase Trump, "makes him very very smart").

 

It's interesting to see so much enthusiasm for trump in this forum when so many value gods (Buffett, Munger, Klarman, etc) have spoken against him.

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Sanjeev - This is why (in my opinion) we need a dedicated Trump/Politics thread. Of course it will get crazy in that thread, it's politics after all. But the alternative is the discussion will still take place when it spills over into other threads.

 

Re: Klarman - yes it has always been hard to find his letters. That's the charm. He has nothing to lose by artificially restricting the distribution. It creates a shroud of secrecy around him that further emboldens his current clients and creates desire in outsiders. Again, good marketing. Find a way to "sell" anything you can. He is aware of his brand and how he positions his fund competitively vs other managers.

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You're kind of a pussy if you don't want your thoughts read publicly.

Or a great marketer.

 

This.  I saw a video where the interviewer asked why he didn't re-release his book and make it available.  He said he liked that it was selling at a premium, it showed it's value.

 

Another perspective.  I heard someone say if his book was $20 it would be considered a run of the mill investing book not worth seeking out.  But since it is so rare and expensive people think it's special.

 

Bottom line, the guy understands marketing better than most.

 

But one can easily get it in electronic form for free :)

 

Was curious about this, took a good 5 minutes though.  :)

 

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This is not okay guys to be posting these. These are private letters. I really value this message board and the space of integrity it holds.

 

According to POTUS, "integrity" is an alt fact for losers. I for one fully support Wikileaks on Boston financiers. People above are doing god's Trump's libertarian work.

 

The person who put this online is violating an agreement they made and that is wrong.  But once it is online already, reading it doesn't violate any agreement, because if you are already an investor you have already read it, and if you are not you have made no secrecy agreement with anyone.

 

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This is not okay guys to be posting these. These are private letters. I really value this message board and the space of integrity it holds.

 

According to POTUS, "integrity" is an alt fact for losers. I for one fully support Wikileaks on Boston financiers. People above are doing god's Trump's libertarian work.

 

The person who put this online is violating an agreement they made and that is wrong.  But once it is online already, reading it doesn't violate any agreement, because if you are already an investor you have already read it, and if you are not you have made no secrecy agreement with anyone.

 

By posting a link to copyrighted material, are you exposing the owner of this board to a claim of contributory copyright infringement? 

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This is not okay guys to be posting these. These are private letters. I really value this message board and the space of integrity it holds.

 

According to POTUS, "integrity" is an alt fact for losers. I for one fully support Wikileaks on Boston financiers. People above are doing god's Trump's libertarian work.

 

The person who put this online is violating an agreement they made and that is wrong.  But once it is online already, reading it doesn't violate any agreement, because if you are already an investor you have already read it, and if you are not you have made no secrecy agreement with anyone.

 

By posting a link to copyrighted material, are you exposing the owner of this board to a claim of contributory copyright infringement?

No.

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I'm not aware of decisions holding that a link to infringing material cannot constitute contributory infringement as a matter of law, even where the website owner knows about the link to the infringing material.  Do you have any cites or links to other sources on which you are relying?

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I don't understand why guys like Klarman care if their annual letter gets out in the public.  I've read several of his past letters and its not as if he was disclosing the firm's secret formula.  I'd be flattered if my content was in high demand.  For all the time and money these guys spend trying to monitoring their letters they'd be better off just posting them publicly like Buffett and Howard Marks. 

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I'm not aware of decisions holding that a link to infringing material cannot constitute contributory infringement as a matter of law, even where the website owner knows about the link to the infringing material.  Do you have any cites or links to other sources on which you are relying?

 

Seems like this would fall under the same rules google has to abide by--receive a takedown notice and then comply with it.

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What a load of useless non-information his letter is. Same bullshit every year.

Disagree - thought it was good summary of macro stuff and explanation of his edge.

His returns maybe another matter - but he writes well imo.

 

His book was the most understandable for me out of all the value investment tomes. His letters are always too macro/political to me (top down). I always likes Sequoia's or Berkshire's because they focus on individual companies and expand from there (bottom up).

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Surprised no one brought up his points on passive funds flowing into ETFs leading to wider market inefficiency.

 

Not my original thought, but one can argue that more passive money is better for market efficiency since it leaves more of the price-seeking function to active managers, or so called "smart money," in the long run. In the short-run however, is I agree.

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It's good to remember that Baupost's annual letter comes in three parts, the first which is written solely by Klarman and tends to focus more on the macro/political/psychology, the second focuses on the public investments portfolio and the third which focuses on the private investments portfolio. The latter two are a lot more in depth and go into specific positions and returns.

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