Links

"My definition of value is figure out what the business is worth and pay a lot less. It is not low price-to-book, low price-to-sales investing.... As Warren Buffett would say, value and growth are tied at the hip. Growth is part of value.... The reason I’m a value investor, according to our definition, is stocks are actually ownership shares of businesses that you value and try to buy at a discount, they’re not pieces of paper the bounce around that you put Sharpe ratios and Sortina ratios and use computer simulations to balance your portfolios or whatever it is. Basically, they are ownership shares of business that you value and try to buy at a discount. So it’s certainly possible that the market does not reward my valuations even if I’m right over the next two years, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop doing what we’re doing. That’s what stocks are: ownership shares of businesses, and that’s very fundamental to the way we look at everything." --Joel Greenblatt

Joel Greenblatt on the Masters in Business podcast (audio and transcript) (LINK)

Buffett's Edge [H/T Abnormal Returns] (LINK)

The Most Valuable Investment Skill - by Sean Iddings (LINK)

How Hedge Funds Hide [H/T Will] (LINK)

Seth Klarman’s Baupost Group buys distressed debt and goes to great lengths to hide it. Here’s why — and how — hedge funds such as his fight to keep secrets. Part 1 of a two-part series.

Mark Leonard's annual letter to Constellation Software shareholders (LINK)

Negative Equity, Veiled Value, and the Erosion of Price-to-Book - by Travis Fairchild (LINK)

Baseball & Waiting for the Fat Pitch - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

Hugh Hendry’s Life After Hedge Funds [H/T value and opportunity] (LINK)

The Investors Podcast: The Culture Code w/ Daniel Coyle (LINK)

a16z Podcast: Principles and Algorithms for Work and Life (Ray Dalio) (LINK)

Investing and Business Lessons from Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures) - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

When the Twitter Mob Came for Me ($) (LINK)

Recently hired by the Atlantic and then promptly fired, the conservative writer Kevin D. Williamson discusses the social-media outrage that made the celebrated magazine retreat

Beyond Black Box Management - by Cal Newport (LINK)

Links

"What could cause a market decline? A drop in investor confidence -- perhaps the commodity that's most freely available today -- would likely be the key, but the reason is hard to foresee. "We're not expecting any surprises," people say, and that has become our new favorite oxymoron. Surprises are never expected -- by definition -- and yet they're what move the market. (If they were expected, their effects would already be priced into the market, rendering a price reaction unnecessary.) The next surprise might be geo-political (oil embargo, war in Korea), economic (tight money, slowing profit growth) or internal to the market (competition from bonds at higher interest rates, discovery of a fraud), but it's most likely to be something that no one has anticipated -- including us." - Howard Marks, September 1997 ("Are You An Investor or a Speculator?")

Jamie Dimon on CNBC (LINK)

The Arrogance and Conceit of a Well-Formed Argument | Hugh Hendry Outtake | Real Vision Video [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

The Break Up Of Big Tech (Scott Galloway, L2) | DLD 18 (video) (LINK)

Uber’s Next Chapter (Tanit Koch, Bild & Dra Khosrowshahi, Uber) | DLD 18 (video) (LINK)

A Tectonic Shift In The Platform Business (P. Kochikar, C. Schläffer, M. Bishop) | DLD 18 (video) (LINK)

Blockchain & Crypto-Killing Venture Capital (M. Demirors, A. Wenger, O. Bussmann) | DLD 18 (video) (LINK)

How Alibaba’s “New Retail” Disrupts JD’s World  (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

Overconfidence: The mother of all biases. [H/T Daniel] (LINK)

Baby macaques are the first primates to be cloned like Dolly the Sheep (LINK)

When Your Eyes Move, So Do Your Eardrums - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Carl Sagan’s “The Pale Blue Dot” Animated (LINK)

Related previous post: Inspiration from the universe...

Links

"The virtue of a person is measured not by his outstanding efforts, but by his everyday behavior." -Blaise Pascal

Private-Equity for Cheapskates Like You - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

In China, tech giants take the retail battle to convenience stores (LINK)

Why Bonobos thought selling to Walmart was better than going public (LINK)

Exponent podcast: Episode 124 — The Watch, The Phone, The Beatles (LINK)

Hugh Hendry on Bloomberg discussing his decision to close his flagship hedge fund (video) (LINK)

Hugh Hendry's parting commentary to investors (LINK)

Hugh Hendry on the Adventures in Finance podcast (LINK)

Hugh Hendry on the Macro Voices podcast (LINK)

Review | Yes, America, PBS’s ‘The Vietnam War’ is required viewing — all 18 hours of it (LINK)

Sam Harris speaks with Ken Burns and Lynn Novick about their latest film, The Vietnam War (podcast) (LINK)

Gary Taubes on Calories vs. Carbs, The Case Against Sugar, and More (LINK)

Related book: The Case Against Sugar

Cassini Spacecraft: Top Discoveries (LINK)

Good night, Saturn (LINK)

Links

Jeff Bezos shares his management style and philosophy (video) (LINK) ["The people who really excel combine gifts and hard work, and the hard work part is a choice. You get to decide that."]

Why Investors Must Be Contrarians to Outperform The Market - by Tren Griffin (LINK)

Aswath Damodaran talks with Barry Ritholtz on the Masters in Business podcast (LINK)

David Einhorn's Q3 Letter (LINK)

Bill Miller: Closet Indexers Are Killing Active Investing (LINK)

Hugh Hendry on the Macro Voices podcast [Hendry enters around the 11-minute mark.] (LINK)

Links

If you have Netflix, I highly recommend the BBC's Life Story series, narrated by the great David Attenborough. It looks like you can also buy the DVDs HERE.

Berkshire's Blemishes: Lessons for Buffett's Successors, Peers, and Policy - by Lawrence A. Cunningham (LINK)

Buffett’s Investment in Dempster Mill–A Cigar Butt (LINK)

Michael Mauboussin on Creating a Checklist (LINK)

Related book: Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition

Alex Tapscott: "Blockchain Revolution" | Talks at Google [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

Related book: Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World

Lessons learned from Theranos’ fall (LINK)

Hugh Hendry: How We Learned To Sop Worrying And Love "the Brexit bomb" (LINK)

Amidst today’s hysteria concerning the drop in sterling, people forget that the pound dropped 36% in the wake of the collapse of Northern Rock in 2007 and by 15% in 2014 on fears of a triple dip recession, and the world didn’t come to an end. Again, plus ça change…it appears that the prevailing glut of global liquidity seems to act as a shock absorber; the money simply has to go somewhere, typically sovereign bonds and bond like equity proxies.

A Brief History of Trial by Combat (LINK)

The Loudest Sound In The World Would Kill You On The Spot (LINK)

99% Invisible podcast, Episode 195: Best Enjoyed By (LINK)

Date labels (e.g. “use-by”, “sell-by”, “best-by”, “best if used by,” “expires on”, etc.) are on a lot of products. Forty-one states require a date label on at least some food product, but there are huge inconsistencies, not just in the wording, but in the meaning of these labels. Some states require them only on dairy, some on shellfish, some on any perishable foods. It’s become complicated to decipher these dates, or to know how to act on them, for large retailers and individual consumers alike. And despite what many people assume, they are not about food safety, and were actually never meant to be. 

Links

The Earnings, My Friend, Are Blowin’ in the Wind - by Jason Zweig (LINK)

David Sokol's PowerPoint slides from his presentation at The Ben Graham Centre for Value Investing (LINK)

Don’t Kick The Can Down The Road - by Fred Wilson (LINK)

Why the Unicorn Financing Market Just Became Dangerous…For All Involved - by Bill Gurley (LINK)

Remember Your Micro to Avoid Investing Mistakes - By Lewis Johnson (LINK)

Hugh Hendry on Japanese Equities, Interest Rates, Top Picks (video) [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

Anders Ericsson on the James Altucher podcast (LINK)

Related book: Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

Fighting Climate Change With Innovation [H/T @BillGates] (LINK)

TED Talk - Juan Enriquez: We can reprogram life. How to do it wisely (LINK)

Related book: Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth

Monkey teeth tell tale of ancient migration (LINK)

Links

The Munger Operating System: How to Live a Life That Really Works (LINK)

Related previous post: Charlie Munger - USC Law School Commencement - May 13, 2007 [The full speech was then added to the Third Edition of Poor Charlie's Almanack.]

William Green: "Lessons From the Great Minds of Investing" | Talks at Google (video) (LINK)

Related book: The Great Minds of Investing

Ajit Jain, Seen as Possible Buffett Successor, Gets Bigger Role (LINK)

Jeff Bezos: What the commercial space industry can learn from the Internet revolution (LINK)

Kyle Bass: No Lehman Moment On China (LINK)

Hugh Hendry's 2016 macro outlook (video from earlier this year) (LINK)

The Anomaly of Barbarism - By John Gray [H/T The Browser] (LINK)

Stephen Hawking wants to send tiny space probes to the stars [H/T Will] (LINK)

Birds on Islands Are Losing the Ability to Fly (LINK)

Book of the day (released yesterday): Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two - by Jim Koch (and with Audible's current sale, just $10.49 for the audio version as well, HERE.)

Links

Howard Marks' CFA Institute Conference Presentation (video) (LINK)

Merryn Somerset Webb interviews Hugh Hendry (Part 3) (LINK) [The complete transcript is also available HERE.)

When Stock Buybacks Are Not a Waste of Money (LINK)

Related link: Warren Buffett on Share Repurchases

Related book: The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success

The Difference Between an Investment Firm and a Marketing Firm (LINK)

a16z Podcast: The End of Ownership [Interesting discussion on the trend towards access instead of ownership.] (LINK)

a16z Podcast: The Next Phase of 3D Printing (LINK)

Three books I bought or added to my wish list after reading Jeremy Grantham's latest letter (1 new, 2 old):

1. The End of Normal: The Great Crisis and the Future of Growth
2. Economics As a Science
3. The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society

Links

Merryn Somerset Webb interviews Hugh Hendry (Part 2) (LINK)

John Malone Talks At Liberty Investor Conference [VIDEOS] (LINK)

Evan Osnos wins the non-fiction National Book Award for his book Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China (LINK) [The MP3 CD also comes out in a couple of weeks and is currently priced at just $12.33.]

Related previous post: Evan Osnos on Charlie Rose

Behavioral market failures (LINK)

Rick Bookstaber: On Death with Dignity (LINK)

Christensen Institute: What else should KIPP be doing with blended learning? (LINK)

Related book: Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools

Farnam Street: How Do People Get New Ideas? (LINK)

Related quote: "I have been speculating...what makes a man a discoverer of undiscovered things, and a most perplexing problem it is. Many men who are very clever, -- much cleverer than the discoverers -- never originate anything. As far as I can conjecture, the art consists in habitually searching for the causes and meaning of everything which occurs. This implies sharp observation and requires as much knowledge as possible of the subject investigated." -Charles Darwin

Links

Merryn Somerset Webb interviews Hugh Hendry (Part 1) (LINK)

Bob Rodriguez's speech to CFA Society of Reno [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)

Steve Keen: Launching Kingston University's Rethinking Economics group (video) (LINK)

Related book: Debunking Economics

He had good timing calling bubble tops with his first two editions, and now a third edition of Robert Shiller's Irrational Exuberance will be coming early next year (LINK)

Scott Adams on A Life Well-lived (LINK)

“Please Don’t Abandon Me” - By ASHIQ MASIH (LINK)

Note: Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani woman, was sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam in 2010. The year before, while picking fruit with Muslim women, she took a sip of water from the local well. She was immediately accused of making the water impure by ​the other workers, ​who told her that they could no longer use the well. A​ccording to her husband, Ashiq Masih, and others, men and women started beating her and accusing her of making derogatory remarks against the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a charge she denies. Asia is currently in prison waiting to be hanged after losing an appeal ​on ​Oct. 16. She has told her story in a memoir, Blasphemy: A Memoir: Sentenced to Death over a Cup of Water, written with French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet. 

Hugh Hendry's December 2013 Commentary

Found via ValueWalk.

Link to: The Eclectica Fund: Manager Commentary, December 2013

Hugh Hendry quote

“The best trade of any color is when you don’t fear the consequences of being wrong.”  (Source)

Hugh Hendry quote

Found via The Big Picture. 

“I have resigned from the professional undertaking of coin flipping. I am not here to tell you where gold's gonna be. I have no idea. That’s my existentialism. I am a student of uncertainty. I have no idea where the stock market is going to be. So when I am creating trades in my portfolio for my clients, I am agnostic. I just want to enhance the probability that I make money come what may . . . ” -Hugh Hendry, of Eclectica Asset Management

....................

Related previous post: Hugh Hendry and David Einhorn at The Buttonwood Gathering 2012