This webcast is from CFA Institute. In this webcast, Jason Zweig discusses the following:
This webcast comprises a 51-minute presentation and an 11-minute question-and-answer session.
Webcast Link.
"Conversation with a Money Master" - Bill Miller , CFA with Fred H. Speece Jr., CFA from Global Perspectives on Investment Management 2006.
"On Value Investing" John B. Neff, CFA with Fred H. Speece, Jr., CFA from From the 2006 Financial Analysts Seminar.
This webcast link is from CFA Institute. In this webcast, Michael J. Mauboussin discusses the following:
This webcast comprises a 51-minute presentation and a 9-minute question-and-answer session.
This podcast link is from CFA Institute. In this podcast, James Grant discusses the following:
2007 Thought Leader Forum on Sep. 26-27, 2007 :
Whitney Tilson on housing, Fox Biz News, 12/18/07.
Video Link - Whitney Tilson on housing or watch directly below.
Thomas Jefferson once said that banks are more dangerous than standing armies. Certainly with Chairman Alan Greenspan at the helm of the Federal Reserve this was the case. Under his leadership the Fed was instrumental in creating two bubbles. The dot-com bubble of 1995--99 was followed by a grand loosening of credit that resulted in a second bubble, the housing mania of 2001--05. Still, when a bubble implodes there are always good opportunities for folks who have the courage to take risks.
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For all my recommendations in this column, I advise acquiring positions gradually. Who knows how close we are to the bottom of this very jumpy market? Still, those who buy bank stocks should be well rewarded over the next couple of years.
David Winters appeared on Bloomberg TV on Dec. 3, 2007. He talked about U.S. and Asian economies, his investment strategy and recommendation of Swire Pacific Ltd.
Video Link - David Winters on Bloomberg.
Bill Nygren's update on Oakmark Select Fund:
I wish I had better news to report, but The Oakmark Select Fund’s investment losses have continued since I last corresponded with you in September. Given this weak performance, I thought that reviewing why we own what we own might be helpful since many of you use year end as a time to re-evaluate your investments.
Investment News editors talked to Bruce Berkowitz about his outlook for the economy, stock selection criteria, portfolio construction formula, favorite stocks and more on December 11, 2007.
Bruce Berkowitz is president of Fairholme Capital Management LLC and manager of the $4.6 billion Fairholme Fund. He has recently been named a contender to win the Morningstar Mutual Fund Manager of the Year award in the Domestic-Stock Manager category.
Here is audio link or you can listen directly below.
Michael Mauboussin's latest article about "Fat Tails and Nonlinearity : Diversity Breakdowns and Invisible Vulnerability".
Diversity Breakdowns and Invisible Vulnerability. For he who is acquainted with the paths of nature, will more readily observe her deviations; and, vice versa, he who has learned her deviations will be able more …
Century Management's 2007 Client Update was held on November 10, 2007. Here is Arnold Van Den Berg's presentation :
A rare look inside the mind of one of this nation's most storied investors, with CNBC's Erin Burnett. He talked about capital infusion, MBIA, RDN etc.
Video Link - Marty Whitman's Big Bets.
Here are CNBC Warren Buffett Watch's "Eight for '08" .. and beyond.
Great digest from From Poor Charlie's Almanack:
Mark Sellers's latest article on FT's Inside Curve column. Here are a few more things Mr. Sellers have learnt about the stock market.
Michael Mauboussin's article about "ROIC Patterns: Luck, Persistence, and What to Do About It".
Michael Price, the billionaire value fund manager, raised his Sallie Mae stake after the company cut its profit forecast and said another buyer may emerge now that private-equity firm J.C. Flowers & Co. has ruled out a new bid.
"I remember that the effects can take some time to work their way through, but when they do, they act like a cancer - starting in one area and then slowly spreading to others. I would expect the contagion to seep into most stock markets."
Emil Lee: How does your firm go about researching an investment idea?Mark Sellers: The first thing we do is figure out what the problem is. Ninety percent of making money in stocks is not losing money, which has to do with knowing what the problem is and how it can be solved. Every company we buy has a problem with it, otherwise it wouldn't be cheap.
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Lee: Do you have any other advice on how to judge a management team?
Sellers: If a company puts out a press release saying "Company XYZ Beats Guidance," then that company may be too promotional and too focused on "beating" earnings estimates. If another company puts out a press release saying, "XYZ Reports Third-Quarter Earnings," they're not being too promotional. You can tell a lot from just observing and reading.
Markets may be in a turmoil, but hedge fund veteran Leon Cooperman still thinks equities are a buy, and shares some of his best picks.
In the days leading up to the August credit crunch, stock prices fell and prognosticators said the bull market had run its course. But Leon Cooperman wrote in an article for Fortune: "I view this market drop as a long overdue correction rather than the end of the bull market."
John Keeley Jr. of Chicago's Keeley Asset Management and Bob Olstein of Olstein Funds were on this Roundtable.
"We like to look under rocks — where no one else is looking," says Keeley, whose three sons help him run $6 billion in four funds.
Warren Buffett In San Francisco - video clips & transcripts :
Hear perspectives on some of the most timely issues facing the industry from our leading global investment managers.
Two up-and-coming investment stars talk about their unusual routes to money management. Bridgeway Funds founder John Montgomery explains his quant approach and unusual corporate culture and value investor Whitney Tilson of the Tilson Funds discusses following Warren Buffett's style.
Whitney Tilson's latest article on FT's Inside Curve column.
- To say that in the current environment shares of companies in the financial sector are “oversold” or “already discounting a recession” or “poised to fall much further” is a simplistic view that doesn’t reflect the diversity of businesses, companies and risks present among financial firms.
- In times of uncertainty, the less discriminating the market is of such differences, the more opportunity for smart investors to take advantage.
- “I’m not Warren Buffett and neither are you,” Lisa Rapuanosaid. “You have to think for yourself, be original, use your particular talents and learn.”
Christopher Browne traces his investing approach directly back to Warren Buffett's guru, Ben Graham. Guess what? It still works.
...Graham's buy-cheap discipline kept value funds, including Tweedy Browne's, out of tech stocks during the dotcom bubble; and while value funds have lagged lately, they still have the best five-year return of the major investing styles.
In a recent chat with managing editor Eric Schurenberg, Browne explained why.
Two unconventional thinkers help us to become better investors. Consuelo Mack talks to Nassim Taleb, author of the bestseller, The Black Swan, a must-read among Wall Streeters; and Jason Zweig, author of Your Money and Your Brain about the new field of neuroeconomics.
I consolidate some valuable links about the 3rd Annual New York Value Investing Congress on November 28 & 29, 2007.
The Weitz Funds Conference Call Transcript - November 14, 2007.
This is Wally. I'm here with Brad Hinton and Tom Carney, and we welcome you to the call. I hear there are 48 people at this point. It's been a while since we did one of these calls. I think we felt like we got to the point where we didn't have much to say a year or two ago and now there does seem to be more to talk about and we invited questions. We got quite a few and the three of us will spend, we haven't timed this, but maybe 15 minutes or so talking about the things that seem to be of most interest. Strangely enough there is one stock that seemed to dominate the questions and most of them were politely worded.
At any rate, we're going to start right in with Countrywide Financial (CFC). I wrote some about it in the third quarter letter to shareholders. Things change daily in the mortgage world these days though, so here is a summary of where we are and how we got where we are and what we plan to do going forward.
Eddie Lampert's Letter to Sears Associates :
November 30, 2007
To our Associates:
Yesterday, Sears Holdings announced our results for the third quarter of 2007. While we were not pleased with these results, much of the commentary in the media and on Wall Street following the results ignores the strength of our company and the progress that we have made. In fact, over the past several years, we are one of the few retail companies that have actually reduced our overall debt levels, while at the same time investing over $1 billion on capital expenditures, making investments in inventory for our customers, contributing significantly to our pension plans for our past and future retirees and repurchasing over $3 billion of our shares.
Warren Buffett Going Global Series - video clips & transcripts :
Justin Fuller of Morningstar met with the CIO of the Matrix Advisors Value Fund, David Katz, to discuss some of his stock picks, spin-offs, thesis on the nation's three large money center banks, and one large-cap name etc.
Video Links :
On November 15 in Manhattan, the editor of Grant's spoke before the Center for Jewish History on the topic, "My Hero, Benjamin Grossbaum." Following is the edited text of his remarks.
It is a pleasure to be here this evening. I am under strict instructions from the rector of Grace Church, Brooklyn, not to let down the Episcopal side. Uphold the highest standards of the Episcopalian intellectual tradition, he told me. What that tradition might be, he couldn't say, and neither can I. But I'll do my level best.
My subject is Benjamin Graham: his life, his investment philosophy, his writings and his Jewishness. About his love life, I will say little, as my time this evening is limited—just three hours, I believe. Some years ago, Fortune Magazine, in a squib it published on the occasion of Graham's induction into the U.S. Business Hall of Fame, said that the thrice-married father of value investing "leaped from blonde to blonde like an Alpine goat springing from peak to peak."
I am a frankly worshipful admirer of Graham's. I love him for his heart as much as for his head. Between 1929 and 1932, his investment partnership lost 70% of its value. Not until 1936 did it recoup all it relinquished since the Crash. Yet Graham persevered and, along with his partner, Jerry Newman, went on to achieve a brilliant long-term investment record—not excluding those three disastrous years. We have all heard the platitude, "The first rule of investing is not to lose money and the second rule is not to forget the first." Very helpful. Well, Graham shows that a debilitating loss is no reason to give up. . . . Never quit.
The odds of beating the S&P 500 Index for 15 years running has been pegged 2.3 million to one. Bill Miller is the one.
NEVER, EVER TELL BILL MILLER HE'S a legend of Wall Street. He doesn't want to hear the word, think about it, or talk about it. "I am well aware, having been in the business a long time, that those sorts of labels can change very rapidly-from 'legend' to 'has-been,'" he says.
Mark Sellers's articles on FT Inside Curve Column :
Mark Sellers's latest article on FT's Inside Curve column.
After a brutal three-year bear market to begin the 21st century, US stock markets have done well for four consecutive years. Despite this fact, stocks (especially large-caps) remain a great buy.
David Einhorn's Speech Excerpt on 2006 Ira W. Sohn Investment Research Conference.
Direct Link - David Einhorn's Speech Excerpt.
This is Francis Chou's Speech to Value Investing Classes on August 1, 2007. His approach is to “find bargains and maintain discipline; if you can not find bargains stay in cash”.
Video Link - Francis Chou's Speech at The Ben Graham Centre - 8/1/07.
There is a terrific piece by Centaur Capital's Zeke Ashton on finding value in the sub-prime rubble that you can read right now! Zeke Ashton is the managing partner of Centaur Capital Partners, a Dallas area investment advisor that specializes in value-based strategies.
Direct Link - Digging for Value in the Real Estate Rubble.
What more can the Federal Reserve do to limit the economic damage from subprime related bombshells? We'll ask PIMCO's Fed watcher and bond maven Paul McCulley. Plus find out where BlackRock's global investment star, Dennis Stattman is putting his money, and why value investing legend David Dreman believes some beaten down financials are becoming bargains.
Video clip and transcript of Warren Buffett's opening statement before the Senate Finance Committee holding a hearing on estate taxes.
Graham and Doddsville Newsletter is an investment newsletter from the students of Columbia Business School.
First Eagle Funds Update Call featuring Jean-Marie Eveillard.
Here is Mark Sellers's speech to Harvard MBA students - "So you want to be the next Warren Buffett? How's your writing?"
7 traits of great investors
Valuable investment insights from Charlie Munger :
Whitney Tilson's latest article on FT's Inside Curve column.
Whitney Tilson's recent video clips :
Legg Mason Value Trust's Releases 2007 Q3 Letter to Shareholders :
The stock market can close down for a while and it really doesn't matter all that much. The primary function of the stock market is not to finance company operations, it is to price assets. Companies go public once, and most come to the equity market for capital sporadically, and then typically to finance long-lived projects or acquisitions.
Credit markets are different. They are the source of liquidity to fund operations. If they are not functioning, the economy is threatened. That is why the problems that began in US subprime but which have spread to encompass a wide swath of the mortgage market, as well as the commercial paper market, are so serious and have galvanized central banks and government financial authorities to move swiftly to try to restore those markets to normalcy.
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We will likely reduce the weightings of many of our top 10 holdings. They will still be among our largest holdings, we will just have less of them. This is being done to reduce risk in the over-all portfolio, and to fund some of the new names we are buying.
This is the first time since 1990 we have had two calendar years behind the S&P 500. Perhaps not surprisingly, that was also a time of panic due to a housing market recession, soaring oil prices, banks and financials collapsing. We were able to take advantage of the values then offered to begin a pretty good period of excess returns.
While the past may not repeat itself, it does often rhyme, as Mark Twain once said. The chapters to come may be different, but the verses are likely to sound the same.
Whitney Tilson's recent video clips :
Weitz Fund released their 2007 Semi-Annual Report.
Over the years, our investors have gotten used to seeing our Funds zig while the market zagged. We write regularly, and with conviction, about our willingness to be "out of step" with the market. In the 3rd quarter of calendar 2007, we outdid ourselves.
- Errors of omission. Energy, industrials and commodities bound for China attracted lots of investor capital. The stocks did not meet our investment criteria and they went up without us;
- Errors of commission. Countrywide Financial was more vulnerable to a liquidity crisis than we had realized and it declined sharply;
- "Good ideas that have not worked yet." Many of our businesses met or exceeded our expectations but their stocks lagged due to investor apathy or short-term concerns that we do not share;
- Looking ahead, there are lots of things to worry about (there always are), but we feel very good about the prospects for the businesses we own and their stock prices.
Thomas Russo, of Gardner Russo & Gardner, talked on WealthTrack.
Taxes can take a big bite out of investment returns. We look for ways to turn the pain into gain with Vanguard tax specialist, Joel Dickson, plus we strategize with noted global value investor, Tom Russo and Morgan Stanley’s asset allocation guru David Darst.
Ron Muhlenkamp's review of events that impacted the markets during the past quarter.
The U.S. economy and the capital markets continue to work their way through the transition period which we’ve been discussing for nearly two years. We continue to believe that the economy will experience a “soft landing,” not a recession. Our mistake has been to believe that the markets would have a soft landing as well. That has been true for some industries but not for housing and financials, of which we’ve owned too much.Direct Link - Ron Muhlenkamp's 2007 Q4 Quarterly Letter.
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Bottom line: This transition has taken longer than we expected, but the pattern is familiar. We find it interesting that market participants alternate between despair and euphoria while the economy marches on and major market averages near all-time highs. We believe it’s a good time to put money to work.
Michael Mauboussin's article about market crash.
History shows crashes periodically arise from the market's inner workings. And crashes are not random--they tend to follow a distinct pattern, even if the assets or actors differ. However, psychology shows it is hard for investors to take advantage of the opportunities market crashes present. Awareness of these patterns and psychological pitfalls are the first step to succeeding in difficult markets.Direct Link - Anatomy Of A Market Crash.
The Tom Brokaw piece on NBC Nightly News Monday night highlighting Warren Buffett's call for a higher tax rate on very wealthy Americans includes an excerpt from a sit-down interview with Buffett.
I consolidate related links about Warren Buffett's trip to Asia :
VIN collects several chapters of Mohnish Pabrai's book, Mosaic: Perspectives on Investing. It's Poor Man's Mosaic !
