Graham And Doddsville

Professor Bruce Greenwald recently wrote a piece for the Columbia’s Ideas@Work publication.  You can read the article here.

Jean-Marie Eveillard protege and former manager with First Eagle Funds, Charles De Vaulx, recently spoke to Bloomberg about value investing.  Mr. De Vaulx recently opened a new fund called International Value Advisors.  The video of his interview can be found here.

The analysis of a company’s pension liability (or asset) and other PBOs can often be tricky.  One reason is that many assumptions are used in pension accounting and these assumptions are generally at the discretion of management.  The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on BT Group’s pension.  While you may not be interested in BT Group, the article makes one think about how to treat pension analysis given the current economic reality.

You can read the article here.

I have quickly come to realize that Charlie Rose has some of the best SuperInvestor interviews around.  Most recently, Charlie Rose interviewed hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital.  I was fortunate to meet Mr. Ackman several times as a student at Columbia.  While Warren Buffett says that an IQ of 125 is all that is necessary to succeed as an investor, Bill Ackman clearly surpasses that score.  His intelligence is complemented by his clarity, which is why I enjoy listening to what he has to say.

Check out the interview here.

Over the past few weeks, more than a few successful long-term investors have claimed that the stock market contains some of the best values they have seen in their careers. Among these SuperInvestors are Warren Buffett, Marty Whitman, Jean-Marie Eveillard, Bruce Berkowitz, and Bill Ackman to name just a few. Two quick thoughts:

First, I love to see stories like this one from Doug Kass. It seems to me that people beginning to wonder whether Warren Buffett has ‘lost his groove’ is a strong indicator that we are in the midst of a serious dislocation in the market. The last time I remember seeing such stories was in the late 1990’s during the internet bubble. I guess we won’t know whether Buffett has lost his touch until 5 or 10 years from now. However, Warren Buffett’s ability to sit back and filter out this noise is, in my opinion, one of his greatest attributes.

Second, if there are so many undervalued businesses out there, what should we be looking for? Professor Bruce Greenwald provides some insight to this question in his interview with US News and World Reports.  A great read from my favorite professor.

Two years ago, before I entered business school, I began this blog to track both my experience with the admission process and my journey to becoming a value investing junkie. I graduated from my first-choice, Columbia Business School, in May. As a member of the Value Investing Program, I spent 2 years focused on gaining the tools to become a successful long-term value-oriented investor. I learned more in 2 years at Columbia then I had at any other time in my life. I had the privilege of learning from some of the world’s greatest investors including: Bruce Greenwald, John Griffin, Warren Buffett, Bill Ackman, David Einhorn, Mohnish Pabrai, Robert Bruce, Michael Price, Mario Gabelli, Thomas Russo, Bill Nygren, Charles Brandes, Seth Klarman, Li Lu, Glen Greenberg, Chris Brown, and the list goes on. There is no other place where I could have gained access to such a list of luminaries.

Unfortunately, I graduated into the worst economy in close to 80 years. After turning down a summer internship in equity research with Bear Stearns, I ended up landing an internship with a legendary value manager. I took the job knowing that there wouldn’t be a full-time opportunity upon graduation, but the chance to learn from such a talented group of analysts could not be passed up. Indeed, it was a once in a lifetime experience.

My goal is to end up at a firm similar to the value shop I was fortunate enough to work with in the summer of 2007.   While I continue to search for a full-time analyst position, I have decided to re-launch this blog. Not only will it be a place to collect resources I find interesting and helpful, but I hope the blog will also act as a journal. I find myself sending various resources I find on the web to friends and family who have often asked for my advice. Instead of sending e-mails, I will post these items to this blog.

Welcome to Graham And Doddsville.