Thursday, May 28, 2020

Value Investing World Announcement

After 13+ years of running this blog, I’ve decided to turn Value Investing World into a fee-based newsletter. There will still be free editions of the newsletter, but the majority of the material will be for subscribers. Further details are below.

But first, let me thank everyone for reading this blog over the years. Thank you! I’ve met many of you in person and appreciate you coming here as a way to help you filter through all the great content there is to read out there.

Going forward…

The new landing page for Value Investing World is: valueinvestingworld.substack.com



By signing up, you'll be added to the free distribution list, and will then have the option of subscribing to the paid version to get all of the content going forward.

The newsletter will be just like this blog. For those of you that already subscribe via email, I will try and move you over to the free version. You can then upgrade if you’d like to subscribe to the paid version. I don’t know if I’ll be able to transfer all of the email addresses over, so if you don’t receive an email over the next day or two, you may just need to use the new landing page above to sign up once again.

The first (and free) 'Links' post for today has just been posted to the new page

I’m going to experiment with the free version a bit. Assuming a normal week of 3-5 posts, the free version will either include 1 of those posts, or possibly a short weekly summary as an alternative.

For the paid version, the price will be set at $7 per month. My hope is that the time I’m able to save readers through curation, and uncovering articles or investment ideas that they may not have found on their own, that price will pay for itself many times over. For now, I'm just going to offer a monthly subscription option in case I change my mind. If I decide to make everything free again, it is easier to go back when subscribers are only paying monthly.

Another benefit to subscribers will be the comments section. I had to turn comments off on the blog a long time ago because too much spam was getting into them. But now, whether it’s an investment idea or article about something completely outside of the investing world, comments will be open to those that want to discuss things (for the subscriber-only posts).

There are also a couple of things that I hope to add over time. Given my day job and main focus is still managing client accounts at a registered investment adviser, I’m not sure how quickly or to what extent these will get implemented. So when deciding whether or not to subscribe, see this blog for an expectation of what you’ll be paying for, and not these additional items. But I do hope to add: 1) More discussion of potential investment ideas. Given the comments section for subscribers and a number of investors and other business people I expect will continue as subscribers, I hope we’ll be able to have some informed discussions for those with these interests; and 2) A podcast. Even when I do (eventually) add this, I expect it to be fairly infrequent and only when I think I (and any possible guests) have something really worth talking about.

Thank you again to everyone that has read and supported this blog over the years. And thank you to those that are continuing the journey.


Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Links

"It's one thing to have an opinion, and something very different to act as if it's right." --Howard Marks

The CFA Institute's Virtual Conference [Howard Marks, Peter Zeihan, and others] (LINK)

Platforms in an Aggregator World - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

All six parts of Matthew Ball's & Jacob Navok's primer on Epic Games (LINK)

The Rise of TikTok and Understanding Its Parent Company, ByteDance (LINK)

What Is Clubhouse, and Why Does Silicon Valley Care? (LINK)

The 'Don't Worry, Make Money' Strategy Trouncing The Stock Market By 30 Percentage Points (LINK)

Mortgage Credit Tightens, Creating Drag on Any Economic Recovery ($) (LINK)

Could the Pandemic of 2020 Redefine “Enough”? - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

Can Remote Work Be Fixed? - by Cal Newport (LINK)

Chapter 1 of Matt Ridley's new book, How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom (LINK)

Ian Cassel Talks MicroCaps and 100-Baggers on the Chain Reaction Podcast (LINK)

Rob Arnott on WealthTrack (video) (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Shishir Mehrotra – The Art and Science of the Bundle (LINK)

The Talk Show With John Gruber (podcast): 285: ‘Fahrenheit Truthers’, With Ben Thompson (LINK)

Recode Decode Podcast: Brian Chesky: These 9 weeks were the most stressful in Airbnb’s history (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: SpaceX (LINK)

Masters in Business Podcast: Michael Lewis on the Power of Intelligent Leadership (LINK)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): The Coach Effect (LINK)

Tail risk of contagious diseases: a conversation between Nassim Taleb and Pasquale Cirillo (video) (LINK)

Freakonomics Radio (podcast): 419. 68 Ways to Be Better at Life [with Kevin Kelly] (LINK)

Friday, May 22, 2020

Links

"We had to decide what are the fundamental directions we're going in, and what makes sense and what doesn't. And there were a bunch of things that didn't. Micro-cosmically they might have made sense. Macro-cosmically they made no sense. When you think about focusing, you think 'Focusing is saying yes.' No. Focusing is about saying no." --Steve Jobs (1997 WWDC)

Netflix: Cooked? - by Stephen Clapham (LINK)

The Brooklyn Investor blog: Wow! (LINK)

Nassim Taleb in conversation with The Economic Times (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Hong Kong National security law; Mocking Trump; Two Sessions begin - by Bill Bishop (LINK)

Village Global's Venture Stories Podcast: The Bull and the Bear Case for the American Economy with Dan McMurtrie (LINK)

Odd Lots Podcast: What The Weak Recovery In Japan Can Teach Us About Re-Igniting The U.S. Economy (LINK)
Related link (subscription required): Professor Richard Werner joins Hugh Hendry for a chat on Real Vision
The James Altucher Show (podcast): 590 - How to THINK like an Innovator with Matt Ridley (LINK)
Related book: How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom
Elephants Really Can’t Hold Their Liquor (LINK)
Humans and other species have a gene mutation that lets them digest alcohol. In other species, it’s missing.

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Links

"...most investors think quality, as opposed to price, is the determinant of whether something’s risky. But high quality assets can be risky, and low quality assets can be safe. It’s just a matter of the price paid for them. . . . Elevated popular opinion, then, isn’t just the source of low return potential, but also of high risk." --Howard Marks

Peter Zeihan chats with Grant Williams (video) (LINK)
Related book: Disunited Nations
Epic Games Primer - by Matthew Ball & Jacob Navok (Part 1, Parts 2 & 3)

Millions of Americans Skip Credit-Card and Car Payments ($) (LINK)
About 15 million credit-card accounts and 3 million auto loans didn’t get paid in April as the coronavirus ravaged the economy, data show
America’s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further - by Ed Yong (LINK)
The coronavirus is coursing through different parts of the U.S. in different ways, making the crisis harder to predict, control, or understand.

Seth Klarman quote

From the October 2008 Graham & Dodd Breakfast (via Outstanding Investor Digest):
In terms of our firm, I tried so hard to learn the lessons of 1998 in particular, which were: Don’t be unprepared for something out of the blue that’s really bad. 
To some extent, we were prepared this time.  However, you can never be prepared enough.  We had a lot of macro protection in terms of credit default protection on bonds where we were just betting that credit spreads would widen. That’s been incredibly helpful.  But we’ve gotten really tired of buying market puts, or anything like that, because they inevitably are expensive and expire worthless. 
So as an investor, you have terrible trade-offs.  Do you overpay for insurance — or do you go uninsured? That’s just one of those dilemmas for which there are really no perfect answers.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Links

For those interested.... The 5th Annual Value Symposium is back on. Not in Toronto (as originally planned), but via video and scheduled for May 27, 2020. The event has several portfolio managers scheduled to discuss their favorite ideas in a TED Talk format along with ample Q&A time for all attendees. You can buy your ticket ($29) for the virtual event HERE. For more information on the event and speakers, you can email info@YYXToronto.ca.

***

Gabelli's Omaha (Virtual) Research Conference | Berkshire Hathaway Valuation | May 2, 2020 [with Chris Bloomstran] (video) (LINK)

Lollapalooza Time (LINK)

The Song Remains the Same (LINK)
Related book: Where Are the Customers' Yachts?
Princes of the Yen: Central Bank Truth Documentary (video) [H/T @hendry_hugh] (LINK)
Related book: Princes of the Yen: Japan's Central Bankers and the Transformation of the Economy
Bill Gates' summer reading list (LINK)
The books: 1) The Choice - by Dr. Edith Eva Eger; 2) Cloud Atlas - by David Mitchell; 3) The Ride of a Lifetime - by Bob Iger; 4) The Great Influenza - by John M. Barry; 5) Good Economics for Hard Times - by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo
Not even wrong: ways to predict tech - by Benedict Evans (LINK)

Chips and Geopolitics - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Facebook Launches Shopping Platform for Small Businesses ($) (LINK)

Spotify Strikes $100 Million-Plus Podcast Deal With Rogan ($) (LINK)

Be Careful Handling White-Hot Moderna Stock ($) (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Hamilton Helmer – Power + Business (LINK)
Related book: 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy
The Meb Faber Show (podcast): #221 - Chris Davis, Davis Advisors (LINK)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): The Coach in Your Head (LINK)

Hope, Through History Podcast: 5 | The 1918 Influenza Pandemic (LINK)

The Three Sides of Risk - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Monday, May 18, 2020

Links

“Instead of a discussion of risk (which is both predictive and sissy) I advocate the notion of fragility, which is not predictive—and, unlike risk, has an interesting word that can describe its functional opposite, the nonsissy concept of antifragility.” --Nassim Taleb (Antifragile)

The Acquirers Podcast: Tulip Mania: Chris Bloomstran on Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway (LINK)
Oaktree’s Howard Marks Says Fed Support Isn’t Forever, Distress Coming (video) (LINK)

Apollo Asia Fund: the manager's report for 1Q20 (LINK)

When Failure Is an Option: A Trading Strategy Soaks Investors - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

To Hedge or Not to Hedge - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

Media, Regulators, and Big Tech; Indulgences and Injunctions; Better Approaches - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: 185 — Open, Free, and Spotify (LINK)

Strategy under uncertainty - by Jerry Neumann (LINK)

Covid-19: Big shifts in the entertainment industry - by Sangeet Paul Choudary (LINK)

Innovation Can’t Be Forced, but It Can Be Quashed - by Matt Ridley (LINK)
Related book (released tomorrow): How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom
Fed Chair Jerome Powell on "60 Minutes" (video) (LINK)

The Pomp Podcast: 294: Cullen Roche Explains The Ultimate Breakdown Of The Federal Reserve (LINK)

Hidden Forces Podcast: How the Wealth Gap Drives Imbalances in Global Trade & Finance | Michael Pettis (LINK)

The Grant Williams Podcast: Super Terrific Happy Hour Ep. 2 - Inflation/Deflation (LINK)

The Daily Stoic Podcast: Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Historian Andrew Roberts Talk Leadership, Character and How One Person Can Change The World (LINK)

Recode Decode Podcast: Jon Meacham: America’s history can teach us how to hope for our future (LINK)

The Twilight of the Iranian Revolution - by Dexter Filkins (LINK)

Some Zoos, and Some of Their Animals, May Not Survive the Pandemic (LINK)

What's Different About the Coronavirus in Kids - by Sarah Zhang (LINK)

Mental Models For a Pandemic (LINK)

A review of The Great Mental Models, Volume 2 (LINK)

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Links

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves." --Lao Tzu 

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold a substantial amount of U.S. Bancorp stock this week (LINK)

A good post via the Berkshire Hathaway message board at The Motley Fool [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Full video of Stanley Druckenmiller at The Economic Club of New York (LINK)

Full video of David Tepper's CNBC call-in yesterday (LINK)

A Viral Market Update VIII: A Crisis Test - Value vs Growth, Active vs Passive, Small Cap vs Large! - by Aswath Damodaran (LINK)

Acceptable Flaws - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast): #432: Books I’ve Loved — Kevin Kelly (LINK)

Freakonomics Radio (podcast): 418. What Will College Look Like in the Fall (and Beyond)? (LINK)

Matt Ridley: 23 of Your AMA Questions, Answered (LINK)

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Links

Amid the Coronavirus Crisis, a Regimen for Reëntry - by Atul Gawande (LINK)

Scanning for answers to a pandemic - by Bill Gates (LINK)

David Tepper says this is the second-most overvalued stock market he’s ever seen, behind only ’99 (LINK)

Druckenmiller Says Risk-Reward in Stocks Is Worst He’s Seen (LINK)

Daniel Yergin at The Economic Club of New York (video) (LINK)
Related book (September release): The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
BIS paper: US dollar funding markets during the Covid-19 crisis - the money market fund turmoil (LINK)

BIS paper: US dollar funding markets during the Covid-19 crisis - the international dimension (LINK)

Dithering and Open Versus Free - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Steven Kiel interviews Harris Kupperman as well as Calvin Froedge about the opportunity in tankers.

Steve Vafier with the investment case for Stitch Fix (video) (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Tobi Lutke – Building a Modern Business (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: Adapting Episode 3: Intel (LINK)

TC's Chartcast Podcast: #25: Josh Wolfe (LINK)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): Don’t Be Good – Be Great (LINK)

Hope, Through History Podcast: 4 | The Cuban Missile Crisis (LINK)

Eat Rat, Make New Body: Easy Stuff for Pythons - by Carl Zimmer (LINK)


Monday, May 11, 2020

Howard Marks Memo: Uncertainty

Link to Memo: Uncertainty
In investing, uncertainty is a given – how we deal with it will be critical. Read Howard Marks’s latest memo, in which he discusses the value of understanding the limitations of our foresight and “investing scared.”

Links

"Security analysis does not seek to determine exactly what is the intrinsic value of a given security. It needs only to establish either that the value is adequate—e.g., to protect a bond or to justify a stock purchase—or else that the value is considerably higher or considerably lower than the market price. For such purposes an indefinite and approximate measure of the intrinsic value may be sufficient. To use a homely simile, it is quite possible to decide by inspection that a woman is old enough to vote without knowing her age or that a man is heavier than he should be without knowing his exact weight." --Benjamin Graham and David Dodd (Security Analysis)

The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast): #431: Howard Marks on the US Dollar, Three Ways to Add Defense, and Good Questions (LINK)

Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan Health-Care Venture Looking for New CEO [H/T Linc] ($) (LINK)
Atul Gawande is in advanced discussions to step down as chief executive and take on a less operational role as chairman of Haven, the health-care venture backed by Amazon.com Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to people with knowledge of the matter. 
Dr. Gawande, a prominent surgeon and professor at Harvard University, wants to move away from day-to-day management of Haven and focus more on policy and advocacy work, particularly related to the current coronavirus pandemic, the people said.
Oil Crash Busted Broker’s Computers and Inflicted Big Losses (LINK)

Value Hive Podcast: 24: More Than Shipping Stocks w/ Harris Kupperman, Praetorian Capital (LINK)

What's Next for Oil? MacroVoices #218 Postgame (video/podcast) (LINK)

Peter Zeihan Explains The Geopolitical Landscape (video/podcast) (LINK)

Odd Lots Podcast: Richard Koo Explains Why The Recovery Will Be So Difficult (LINK)

We know everything – and nothing – about Covid - by Matt Ridley (LINK)

Friday, May 8, 2020

Links

"In terms of generally advancing within organizations, I think you’d be surprised at how little competition you really  have if you start thinking like you would if you were an owner of the place, and working like you would if you were an owner of the place, and pretty soon you may be running something." --Warren Buffett (2010)

Armed With Swabs, Covid Hunters Stalk Their Prey - by Michael Lewis (LINK)

Michael Lewis in Conversation with Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg (podcast) (LINK)

Bronte Capital's Q1 Letter [H/T Linc] (LINK)

[There's another great collection of Q1 letters HERE.]

What Have We Learned Here? - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

The Psychology of Masks (LINK)

The Glut Drowning the Oil Market ($) (LINK)

Here’s What to Know If You Must Sign Up for Cobra Health Insurance ($) (LINK)

Cloud Gaming: Why It Matters And The Games It Will Create - by Matthew Ball & Jacob Navok (LINK)

Tom Colicchio’s Plan to Save Restaurants (LINK)

The Joe Rogan Experience (podcast): #1470 - Elon Musk (LINK)

Recode Media Podcast: Michael Jordan’s Last Dance, with director Jason Hehir (LINK)

A Much-Hyped COVID-19 Treatment Has a Weird Connection to Black-Market Cat Drugs - by Sarah Zhang (LINK)

The Problem With Stories About Dangerous Coronavirus Mutations - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Links

"Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. The measure of success attained by Wall Street, regarded as an institution of which the proper social purpose is to direct new investment into the most profitable channels in terms of future yield, cannot be claimed as one of the outstanding triumphs of laissez-faire capitalism which is not surprising, if I am right in thinking that the best brains of Wall Street have been in fact directed towards a different object." --John Maynard Keynes

Warren Buffett’s Optimistic? Pessimistic? No, Realistic - by Andrew Ross Sorkin (LINK)

Sam Zell on Market Valuations, Real Estate, Post-Virus Economy (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Spring 2020 issue of Graham & Doddsville (LINK)

Content, Cars, and Comparisons in the "Streaming Wars" - by Matthew Ball (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Ali Hamed – An Update on Private Credit (LINK)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): The Invisible Coach (LINK)

The Case for Deeply Negative Interest Rates - by Kenneth Rogoff (LINK)

MacroVoices Podcast #217 Dr. Lacy Hunt: The Road Through Deflation Toward Eventual Hyperinflation (LINK)

Hope, Through History Podcast: Episode 3 | The Polio Epidemic (LINK)

The Daily Stoic Podcast: Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Robert Greene Talk Plagues, Politics, and Polarization (LINK)

All You Need Are a Few Small Wins Every Day - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

Our message to the class of 2020 - by Bill and Melinda Gates (LINK)

It is time to take seriously the link between Vitamin D deficiency and more serious Covid-19 symptoms - by Matt Ridley (LINK)

Monday, May 4, 2020

Links

"As I've gotten older...I could not help but notice the effect on people of the stories they told about themselves. If you listen to people—if you just sit and listen—you'll find that there are patterns in the way they talk about themselves. There's the kind of person who's always the victim in any story that they tell—always on the receiving end of some injustice. There's the person who's always kind of the hero in every story they tell. The smart person—they deliver the clever put-down. There are lots of versions of this. And you gotta be very careful about how you tell these stories because it starts to become you. You are, in the way you craft your narrative, kind of crafting your character. And so, I did at some point decide: I am going to adopt self-consciously as my narrative that I'm the happiest person anybody knows. And it is amazing how happy-inducing it is." --Michael Lewis [Source]

The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast): #427: Michael Lewis on the Crafts of Writing, Friendship, Coaching, Happiness, and More (LINK)

Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting Transcript 2020 (LINK)

The Investor’s Podcast: TIP295: Mohnish Pabrai on Value Investing & Philanthropy (LINK)

Masters in Business Podcast: Jim Chanos on Financial Fraud (LINK)

Finding Your Balance in a Topsy-Turvy Market - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

Beyond coronavirus: The road ahead for the automotive aftermarke [H/T @chrispavese] (LINK)

How Greenwich Republicans Learned to Love Trump - by Evan Osnos (LINK)

The iconic brands that could disappear because of coronavirus (LINK)

Price Gouging Could Actually Fix Our Face Mask Shortage - by Russ Roberts (LINK)

Old Drugs May Find a New Purpose: Fighting the Coronavirus (LINK)

Why Weren’t We Ready for the Coronavirus? - by David Quammen (LINK)

Making Sense with Sam Harris (podcast): #201 [with Yuval Noah Harari] (LINK)

Hope, Through History Podcast: Episode 1 | FDR and The Great Depression (LINK)

Hope, Through History Podcast: Episode 2 | Winston Churchill and World War II (LINK)

The Man Who Thought Too Fast (LINK)

Book of the day (recommended by Michael Lewis): The Long Ships