Catching Up On Some More Links

Farnam Street-The World Is Much More Interesting Than Any One Discipline.

Wexboy-Tetragon Ready To Be A Star.

Sahara Investing-The Luxury Goods Market.

Oddball Stocks-Thoughts On Quantative Value Investing.

Valueinvestingblog.net-Investing In Japan: Late To The Party.

Valuewalk-Insurance Companies, Where Buybacks Are Key: Travelers.

Farnam Street-Mastery.

OTC Adventures-Value Investing Strategy And Unlisted Securities Part 1.

Whopper Investments-The Best Values Are Over The Counter Stocks So Is $OTCM A Great Value Too?

Ragnar Is A Pirate-Changing 13D’s At Trinity Place Holdings.

The Aleph Blog-On Insurance Investing Part 2.

Quotations Page-Persistence Quotes, my favorite is the Calvin Coolidge One:

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Absoutely love that quote.

Mises.org-Cartman Shrugged: The Invisible Gnomes and The Invisible Hand In South Park.

CSInvesting-The Secret To Investing Success (Munger Tip).

Valueconferences.com-Adib Motiwala: Your Instructor At Small Cap Investing Summit 2013, hour long interview.

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Updates, Looking For Anyone Who Might Want To Write A Guest Value Investing Article or Articles, And “Becoming So Good That You Cannot Be Ignored”

As you know over the past couple weeks I have been doing in depth research on a company and written an article that I planned to post on Monday.  I have several other companies I want to research and since in my personal account I am unfortunately fully invested at the moment, I need to make the best possible buy decision of the companies I am looking into before deciding which one(s) to buy into and came up with an idea today.

When I first started my blog and posting articles on Seeking Alpha I did a series of posts on Dole, Chiquita, and Fresh Del Monte comparing them and figuring out which one was the best buy at the time.  I have wanted to do another series of posts like that for a while now and decided that this is a perfect opportunity to do that.  Up to this point I have completely finished up one article, done a lot of research and probably will start to write an article on the next company next week some time, and have at least one for sure and maybe another company I want to do research on and write full articles on after that before I make my final buy decision(s).

As you might expect with the amount of research I do this process and my posting of articles may take a while so this is where I ask for some help from you.  While I am researching and writing my articles I am still going to keep posting links, but would like good content to keep flowing at least somewhat regularly on the blog while I am concentrating on researching and writing.

I am looking for anyone who would want to contribute an article, or articles, to be posted as guest posts on this blog.  I will give you full credit for the entire article and write an introduction introducing you a little bit to get you some recognition.  You will retain full ownership of the article and can post it anywhere else that you like.  I would really like to have newer investors who may want to start a blog some day but for some reason haven’t, to submit any write ups you might have to get you some recognition and some feedback on your articles so you can learn faster.  I wish I would have started writing my ideas down in depth a lot sooner because as I have talked about before I am shocked by how much better I have gotten just since last June when I stated this blog. I will consider any articles as long as it is a VALUE based investment idea, if it is of good quality, if it is your original written and researched idea, and you do not already have a blog.  Sorry value bloggers but I want to help new investors or people who do not have a blog already get better and get some recognition.

I do not care if you have just started out investing (Would actually prefer newer investors to get you some recognition and to help you learn faster) or have been doing this for years and may not have a blog but you would like to post something here to get a taste for blogging.  As long as I think the article is of good quality, you show some passion, and want to get better as an investor I will consider any article submitted.  The article does not have to be as in depth or as long as my articles either.  If you have multiple articles you would like to submit you are more than welcome to submit as many as you like.  I know that I am a bit weird in welcoming public criticism of my articles but it helps me learn faster.  To alleviate some of this concern I will also help you out by reading the article before posting it on this site and sending you an email with any thoughts, feedback, or advice I might have and keep them private just between us since I know a lot of people are afraid of public criticism, especially beginners.

As you know if you have been following the blog for any length of time one of my other passions is bettering education and helping others out as much as possible because of all the advice and help I have received from others online.  I have been thinking about this for a while and have finally decided that this is a good time to start this program and I hope a lot of you submit articles.  This is also going to become a regular thing so if you come up with an idea a month or months from now that you would like to submit for publishing please feel free to submit it.  Again, I would highly encourage especially newer investors and investors without blogs to submit articles not only for the recognition, but the sooner you start writing your investment ideas down the faster you will get better.

For any questions or if you would like to submit an article email me at my email address provided in the Contact Me page above and I hope to hear from many of you very soon.

Another quick update is that last week I received an email from the Value Investor’s Club about my application and that I had been rejected for admission to VIC again.  Once again this just serves as further motivation (As if I didn’t have enough already) to keep learning and getting better. On a side note Whopper Investments posted on Twitter that he has been accepted into the Value Investors Club so a big shout out and congratulations to a fellow value blogger for this impressive accomplishment.  I have heard that VIC accepts fewer than 10% of all applications received, I know most of the people on VIC are professionals, and I know of at least a couple individuals who have had their funds seeded by Joel Greenblatt (The founder of VIC and world renowned value investor) so getting accepted into VIC is a huge goal for a lot of us value investing bloggers and it is extremely impressive to get accepted.

I have always been the type of extremely competitive and self motivated person where I always pushed myself so hard (sometimes too hard and I have occasionally paid for it with health problems) to get better at whatever I was doing.  A couple examples are that 1) I remember when I was a teenager mowing the lawn and that I would time myself just to see if I could mow the lawn more efficiently and faster.  Not so I could go play sports, hang out with friends or a girlfriend, or do whatever else I was doing at the time, but just to get better at it. 2) When I worked at Burger King in high school, even if I was just washing dishes I always tried to figure out ways to get faster and better at it, even timing myself doing this as well.  This is how driven, some would say crazy including probably my wife, lol, I am about everything I do and when I saw this quote from Steve Martin it really resonated with me. Emphasis is mine.

“Nobody ever takes note of [my advice], because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear,” Martin said. “What they want to hear is ‘Here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script,’ . . . but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’ “

The article is from Lifehacker and you can click here to read the whole article about becoming a “craftsman” and how Mr. Martin went about becoming a comedic craftsman.  So my new favorite quote and goal as it pertains to me getting a job in the investment world, opening my own firm, learning Mandarin, or whatever else I do is to become so good at it that I cannot be ignored.

I will post some more links over the coming days as I have gotten way behind in sharing some of the sites I have been learning from and think that you could possibly learn from, and I hope in the mean time to see that a lot of you have submitted articles to be posted on the blog.

Some Links For The Week

Motley Fool-Monish Pabrai’s Lunch With Buffett and Munger.

Value Investing Blog-Alpha Pro Tech And The Value Of Optionality.

Cant Eat Value-Why You’re Undervaluing Good Capital Allocation.

Student Of Value-Investment Analysis Of Quality Products $QPDC The Mysterious.

Zero Hedge-Guest Post: A Short Lesson In Bad Decision Making.

The Daily Beast-Don’t Go To Business School!

Wexboy-The Great Irish Share Valuation Project (Part 1).

Oddball Stocks-CIBL is Undervalued Again, Is The Valuation Gap Enough?

Business Insider-Vitaliy Katsenelson Presentation On Why The Market Will Move Sideways For Another Decade.

Distressed Debt Investing-The High Yield Market “Is Completely Out Of Control”.

Philip Beeching-Why Companies Fail–The Rise And Fall of HMV.

Value Walk-Charlie Munger And The Art Of Stock Picking.

Sahara Investing-The Hour Glass.

OTC Adventures-Great Lakes Aviation Is Not Your Typical Airline $GLUX.

Grizzly Rock Capital-Why Selling Methodology Differs For Average Versus Great Companies.

Seraphin Group-When Do I Sell Stocks? Drawing Wisdom From Buffett To Zuckerberg.

CS Investing-Reading On Moats And Competitive Advantages.

Whopper Investments-Why Is Buying A Rising Stock So Hard?

Guru Focus-Geoff Gannon On How To Learn Everything You Need To Know About A Stock.

25iq.com-Charlie Munger On Investment Concentration Versus Diversification.

Weekend Reading Links

I have just finished up my latest article and only need to proofread a bit more and I plan on posting it on Monday.  Until then I hope you enjoy the links.

Oddball Stocks: Argo, an Undervalued Asset Manager With Potential Catalysts.

Wexboy: Another Assault on Fortress.

Theodor Tonca: Bank Analysis Template.

Whopper Investments: Do Bullish Bloggers Have Negative Consequences?

Wexboy: Heading Into 2013.

OTC Adventures: Quality Products Inc, QPDC.

Walrus Value: Lance Armstrong And Why Superior Corporate Results Deserve Skepticism.

Ragnar Is A Pirate: Where Food Comes From, WFCF.

Hardcore Value: Vintage Buffett On Mistakes.

Charlotte Observer: Charlotte Student Launches Hedge Fund.

Sahara Investing: Kingsmen Creatives.

The Globe and Mail: Scary Beats Safe In Realm of Cheap Stocks.

Motiwala Capital: Q4 2012 Letter to Clients.

Oddball Stocks: How I Passed On Costar.

OTC Adventures: Tropicana Entertainment Is The Cheapest US Casino Operator.

More Holiday Reading Links: Moats, Floats, Company Analysis, and Others

Gannon and Hoang On Investing-Unrepeatable Moats.

Csinvesting-A Reader’s Question On Niche Vs Moat and Greenwald Class Notes.  Make sure to read all the way to the comments as there is a very good discussion going on about moats there.

Fundoo Professor-Presentation on Moats and Floats.  Decided to post this again because it is so important.  Also read the comments section.

Fundoo Professor-All About Floats: Parts 1, 2, and 3.  Make sure to read the comments section as the discussion there goes quite deep into the inner workings of float.

Gannon and Hoang On Investing-Capital Allocation Discount.

ValueInvestingBlog.net-Audika Group: Can You Hear The Call Of Value.

Whopper Investments-$LAKE Update, The Bottom Has Fallen Out.

25iq.com-Charlie Munger On Moats (First Of The Four Essential Filters). Extremely valuable read for people learning about moats as I am right now.  Also contains a bunch of links to other Munger and moat information.

Gopal Gantayat-Evolving Competitive Advantages.

Psychology Today-Why Too Much Data Disables Your Decision Making.

Oddball Stocks-Thinking Like A Bond Investor.

Market Folly-Charlie Munger On The Psychology of Human Misjudgement.

Zenpenny-Here Is To The Downfall Of Micro Managing Portfolio Positions.

SMB Training-What A Star Portfolio Manager Can Teach Us About Improvement.

Happy Holidays, Thank You To Everyone, And Some Holiday Reading Links

Happy Holidays And Thank You To Everyone

I have just finished up my most recent article and plan to start buying the company’s shares on Monday.  Until I am able to buy the full allotment of shares that I want for my personal portfolio and the portfolios I manage, I am going to hold off on posting the article.

Over the next two weeks I am going to completely stop evaluating companies to take a break and concentrate on spending some time with family and catching up on some reading and learning that I have been meaning to do.  I plan to study floats, and competitive advantages/moats over that time.  I already have some books and a bunch of websites and articles that I plan to read on those subjects, and a bunch of other articles that I have been saving to read so I should be kept pretty busy and will continue to post links of things that I think contain some kind of valuable information.

I also plan to post an end of the year update on my overall progress so far this year, an update on how the companies I have bought into this year have fared since buying them, and an update on how the companies that I have written articles about, but have not bought, have done in the time since my articles were published.

I would also like to thank everyone who comes to this site for their interest and I hope you enjoy the journey thus far.  A very special thank you to the people who have commented on this site and to everyone else who have helped me become a much better thinker and investor over the last year.  I very much appreciate all of the help I have received since starting this journey four years ago and especially since last February when I actually dedicated myself to this.  Thank you all very much.

Holiday Reading Links

In case some of you get sick of spending too much time with family and friends over the holidays : ), below are some more links to keep you occupied.

Red over at The Red Corner Blog has been posting quite a bit lately and once again I would highly recommend reading his entire blog.

Gurufocus-Tweedy Browne Letter To Shareholders.

The Reformed Broker-Forget Fairness, Let’s Talk About Stupidity.

Unlistedstocks.net

Oddball Stocks-Announcement of Unlistedstocks.net.

Whopper Investments-Could a Red Flag for Excessive Executive Compensation Be An Opportunity In Disguise.

Gannon And Hoang On Investing-Relativity and Anchoring.

Greenbackd-Active Engagement With Companies To Improve Governance And Strategy Outperforms Passive Investment.

Epicurean Dealmaker-Goodwill Hunting.

Adventures In Capitalism-Gearing.

Aswath Damodaran’s Musings On Markets-Acquisition Hubris: Overconfident CEO’s and Compliant Boards.

New Blog, National Western Life Analysis, Stretching Yourself To Learn New Things, Notes From Meeting Value Investor Mohnish Pabrai, And CSInvesting News

After yesterdays detour and the help from your comments in the comments section, I will now get back to posting links.  A big thanks to all readers who helped out yesterday clarifying the situation, I really appreciate it.

The Red Corner Blog.  For those of you who might not know, Red has been very helpful to me in the past on Whopper Investments blog, and more recently on this site as well.  I recently found that he has his own blog where he analyzes and values companies.  His work is exceptional and I highly recommend that everyone visit his site, especially if you need help with the more technical aspect of evaluating companies, which is an area where I currently struggle.  He also answers a lot of questions from readers as well so make sure to read the comments on his writings as well.

Student of Value has come up with another great analysis piece, this time on National Western Life, as always highly recommended.

Stretching Yourself To Learn New Things is another great write up from Farnam Street.

Notes From Value Investor Mohnish Pabrai is from Perfect Research that contains Mr. Pabrai’s thoughts on a wide range of topics in investing.

I wanted to let everyone know who might be clicking on the CSinvesting links I have, that I got an email from John the other day after noticing that his site is down currently.  He said that he is currently in the process of moving his blog to a self hosted site, while also recovering from surgery.  Get well John, no need to rush back after major surgery.

I am still struggling to find another company to research and hope to find one soon.  I suspect that I am not alone in finding it hard to find companies to research since the market has been going up quite a bit?

@ValueFolio deliberate practice

Over at www.ValueFolio.com they are going to be valuing 50 stocks in 100 days and you have the chance to pick some of the companies.  Follow this link to see the page.  Should be pretty instructive as they put out some very good work.

Also make sure to follow them on Facebook, and Twitter @ValueFolio for updates if you like what they are offering.
Enjoy

Whopper Investments third weekly challenge, Altria, Greenlight Capital, and a Free Moat Webinar

Altria

Here is this weeks valuation and analysis challenge from Whopper Investments if anyone would like to try their hand.

This weeks challenge is McDonald’s from 2005 before Bill Ackman bought into them.  While I will be waiting to see what the readers post and see what I can learn from their analysis.  I will not be participating in the challenge this week.

Instead I will be researching, analyzing, and valuing Altria (MO) which I hold in my portfolio.

When I originally bought Altria I was not doing any type of valuation and I was not doing anywhere near the amount of research or analysis I am doing now.

I want to see:

  • A) What I would value them at to see if they are under or overvalued now.
  • B) I got a bit lucky as my position in them is now up about 30% since I originally bought, and I want to see if I would still buy them knowing what I know now.

I am interested to see how far I have come since then and hope to have my mini write up on the blog within a week.

Greenlight Capital

This is Greenlight Capital’s second quarter letter to shareholders.  They talk about Europe and some of its positions.

Free Moat Webinar

I cannot vouch for how good this free webinar on Moats from Morningstar is going to be since I have not watched it, but I thought I would put it on here for anyone who might be interested in it.

Enjoy