According to CNBC (August 22, 2018) we are currently in the midst of the longest bull market in history, since World War II: The current bull market rally, which started March 9, 2009, became the longest one on record since World War II on Wednesday by avoiding a 20 percent … Read More
Mario Gabelli: There Are No Such Things As “Can’t Miss” Stocks. Habits evolve, Technologies Change, And Companies Mature. It’s A Cycle As Old As Capitalism Itself
Mario Gabelli recently released his Q2 2018 shareholder letter. Gabelli reported for the quarter ended June 30, 2018, the net asset value (“NAV”) per Class A Share of The Gabelli Value 25 Fund increased 3.2% compared with increases of 3.4% and 1.3% for the Standard & Poor’s (“S&P”) 500 Index and the … Read More
Mohnish Pabrai: Volatility Is The Friend Of A Long-Term Investor
Here’s a great recent interview with Mohnish Pabrai at The Economic Times. Pabrai discusses how he finds opportunities in todays bull market, portfolio concentration, his investing checklist, cloning, and why he’s shifted his stock-picking focus from the U.S to India saying: “One of the reasons it’s probably becoming harder is … Read More
Howard Marks: The Refusal To Catch A Falling Knife Is A Rationalization For Inaction. It’s Our Job To Catch Falling Knives. That’s How You Get Bargains!
Here’s a great interview (below) with Howard Marks at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (2018). Marks was asked his thoughts on distressed debt investing, margin of safety, and catching falling knives when evaluating prospective investments. Here’s his response: Marks: You know there’s only one intelligent form of … Read More
Steven Cohen: Investors Take Note! Model-Driven Companies Will Accelerate Away From The Pack Now That Software Has Become Ubiquitous
One of the investors we follow closely here at The Acquirer’s Multiple is Steven Cohen, founder and chairman at Point 72 Asset Management. According to their last reported 13F filing for Q2 2018, Point72 has $25.056 Billion in managed 13F securities. Cohen recently wrote a great article together with Matthew Granade, … Read More
Michael Burry: Risk Is Not Defined By Volatility, But Rather By Ill-Conceived Investment
One of the investors we like to follow closely here at The Acquirer’s Multiple is Michael Burry, founder of Scion Asset Management, a company he liquidated in 2008 to concentrate on his own investments. Burry’s shareholder letters are some of the most insightful for investors. One of the best is … Read More
Philip Carret: “If The Figures Look Right And The Management Knows What It Is Doing, Why Does One Need A 40-Page Report?”
One of our favorite investors here at The Acquirer’s Multiple is Philip Carret. Carret wrote one of the best books on investing called – A Money Mind at Ninety. There’s a great passage in the book, taken from his 1990 speech at Contrary Opinion Forum, in which he provides two … Read More
Warren Buffett (Age 21): The Security I Like Best (1951)
Here’s a great article written by the 21-year-old Warren Buffett for The Commercial and Financial Chronicle dated Thursday, December 6, 1951. The article is a great illustration of how a young Buffett analysed GEICO for potential investment saying: “At the present price of about eight times the earnings of 1950, … Read More
Walter Schloss: All Superinvestors Make Mistakes Of Omission
The Annual Ben Graham Conference was held earlier this year and the topic was – investing mistakes. The panel members were Edwin Schloss, son of Walter Schloss, Paul Lountzis – President Lountzis Management, and Michael Lipper – President Lipper Advisory Services. Edwin Schloss shared a couple of great anecdotes on … Read More
Jim Rogers: “Anytime That You Think You’ve Become A Financial Genius—It Is Time To Sit Back And Do Nothing For A While”
One of our favorite investing books here at The Acquirer’s Multiple is – A Gift to My Children: A Father’s Lessons for Life and Investing, by Jim Rogers. Rogers co-founded the successful Quantum Fund with George Soros back in 1973. There’s a great passage in the book in which Rogers provides … Read More
Warren Buffett: How to Minimize Investment Returns
In their Berkshire Hathaway 2005 shareholder letter Warren Buffett provided a great illustration of how shareholders continually sabotage their investment returns saying: “Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac’s talents didn’t extend to investing: He lost a … Read More
Alexander Roepers: Why Disciplined Investing Trumps Big Headlines
One of the activist investors we follow closely here at The Acquirer’s Multiple is Alexander Roepers. Earlier this year Roepers did a great interview with Forbes in which he discussed his investment strategy. He highlighted the importance of thinking like a private equity owner, and staying within your circle of … Read More
David Einhorn: “Right Now The Market Is Telling Us We Are Wrong, Wrong, Wrong About Nearly Everything”
David Einhorn recently released his Q2 2018 shareholder letter. It’s been another difficult quarter for Greenlight Capital losing an additional (5.4)%, and bringing the Greenlight Capital funds’ (the “Partnerships”) year-to-date loss to (18.3)%. In a quarter when the S&P 500 index returned 3.4%, bringing its year-to-date return to 2.6%. Despite the … Read More
Howard Marks: Very Few Investors Consistently Know When A Stock Price Is Wrong, And By How Much, And In Which Direction
Howard Marks provides a great reminder in his 2001 shareholder letter that it takes a lot more than hard work for active managers to be successful in investing. He added that increasing the number of analysts to their firm does little to add value to their analysis saying: “I was … Read More
Warren Buffett: “The Worst Deal That I’ve Made”
We’ve just been listening to a great podcast at NPR with Michael Batnick discussing his new book – Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments. During the conversation Batnick tells the story of Warren Buffett’s greatest mistake, the purchase of Dexter Shoes. Here’s how he describes it: “So what he … Read More
Horizon Kinetics: Great News For Active Investors – The History Of Passive Investing Over The Past 20 Years
One of the shareholder letters we really look forward to reading is the one from Horizon Kinetics. In their recently released Q2 2018 letter Horizon Kinetics provides some interesting research and commentary on the performance of passive investing over the past 20 years. The results may surprise many investors saying: … Read More
Dan Loeb: Growth Stocks Are Now Value Stocks
One of the investors we follow closely here at The Acquirer’s Multiple is Dan Loeb, CEO at Third Point Management. In his latest Q2 2018 shareholder letter Loeb makes the point that he’s now including ‘growth’ stocks into his portfolio in addition to ‘traditional’ value based stocks saying: “The value-based … Read More
Jesse Livermore: How I Once Missed A $1,000,000 Profit Through Impatience And Careless Timing
One of our favorite investing books here at The Acquirer’s Multiple is – How To Trade Stocks by Jesse Livermore. There’s one passage in particular in which Livermore recounts the story of how he missed out on a $1,000,000 profit through impatience and careless market timing. Here’s an excerpt from that … Read More
Prem Watsa: Even Great Investors Have To Understand Their Limitations
Here is a an example of what makes Prem Watsa a great investor. We were recently reading though the 1990 Fairfax Annual Report when we came across a couple of gems from Chairman Watsa. He is speaking about the mistake he made in the company’s investment banking business, and understanding … Read More
How Does Seth Klarman Implement His Value Investing Strategy Differently To Many Other Value Investors
Last week @NeckarValue tweeted a link to a great interview with Seth Klarman at Barron’s titled – “Value Hunter in a Sky-High Market”. The article provided a number of great value investing insights by Klarman and how he implements his value investing strategy differently to a lot of other value investors. Here’s … Read More