Sidd Mehta Thomas

This is an excellent talk by Sidd Mehta Thomas - covering asian investment.

Bruce Greenwald - Value Investor

This is a really good interview with Bruce Greenwald. One of the things that he covers is risk and cites Nestle as being a low risk investment and compares it with the risk of investing in treasury bonds. At the end of the day Nestle is resistant to inflation, government bonds will suffer - he (the video was published last October) reckons on a 10% yield from Nestle. It is an interesting thought. For my part I have toyed with the thought that whatever happens people will still chug coke. If the US economy goes into some kind of meltdown - people all over the world and in the US will still drink it. In that respect it seems particularly low risk.

Also Bruce seems to have lost a little weight ;-)

James Pan Value Investor II

This is a really excellent talk by James Pan. It is a loose-format Q&A and it is fascinating. He covers many things and there is a lot to take away from it. The video is long (an hour and a half) but I recommend that you watch it all. Amongst other things he does some "instant" valuations of a few companies - these are off the cuff valuations that I guess you would use as a basic metric for (presumably) a more detailed look.

Of a huge bag of things he covers here are few snacks:

Value Investing is a time arbitrage and reversion to the mean. I have thought this myself (or maybe I came across the thought somewhere before). As a value investor you are looking for a price anomaly that will correct in time.

Value investors have a longer time horizon than the rest of the market - typically you are judged against the index every quarter. As a value investor you look for a longer timeframe than this - possibly years. James Pan has the particular advantage that he is managing his families money so he really is a ways away from this.

He stresses the importance of what he calls "strong money". This is something that when you think about it is self evident. Five years, or so, ago our boiler broke and needed replacing. My wife, a believer in strong money, had the £1500 in the bank and we bought a new one when we needed it. No fuss, no loans, and we were able to negotiate with the plumber. A business without strong money has little room for maneuver.

The market is like water and will find your weaknesses - feels a little Wing Chun to me. ;-)

Kent Russell on Value Investing

This is an excellent presentation by Kent Russell - who explains, amongst other things, the difficulty of being a professional value investor.

Jim Chanos

This is a video of Jim Chanos speaking about China the bubble. It is very interesting and insightful.

Hersh Cohen - Value Investor

It has been a while since I posted anything. This happens - other parts of my life are, to be fair, more important. Returning a little to my hobby I spot a new Video of Hersh Cohen. I really like Hersh, I like his style and his philosophy.

Here is the video - complete with respect for Bernanke. There is another part (part II) and a Q&A. Enjoy

Hersh Cohen - Value Investor

Here is a video of Hersh Cohen that is a part of Consuelo Mac's excellent Wealthtrack series. This video, which I watched a little while ago, is the first time that I came across Hersh. Hersh has an investment attitude that I really like:

"Not one of my companies cut their dividend today."

Hersh invests for the long term and looks at todays problems in the context of history. We have obvious problems today but previously there have also been obvious problems. Hersh cites the oil crisis, Nixon's resignation, and the US being torn apart by the Vietnam war. The point being that yes there was a huge crisis but it is now history, it was survived and the market recovered and people became far more prosperous. This is a line of reasoning and a sentiment that I agree with.

The way that I, personally, differ slightly from Hersh is that I fear the big tectonic shifts of economic power in the world and a debt chris where the whole of the financial system is interlinked both in debt and by derivatives. My worry is that this time it might really be different. But yes, that said, is he right? Will the sun rise tomorrow? well yes, Will 1.6 billion servings of coke still be sold? I would guess so. Will this number grow in the future? Look at the shift in the tectonics, look at China and India. There is only one company in the world that makes Coke.

Hersh articulates something that I had thought of myself a few times that is that investing is a time arbitrage. It is a way of looking at investments that feels right.

I really like his interview.

The full list of Hersh Cohen's, stolen from here appears below. Enjoy!

“The One Investment...” First rate companies with great balances sheets and attractive dividend yields Stock Symbol Dividend Yield a/o 7/21/10 Abbot Labs (ABT) 3.5% AT&T (T) 6.7% (a/o 7/20) ExxonMobil (XOM) 2.9% Heinz (HNZ) 3.8% Home Depot (HD) 3.4% IBM (IBM) 1.8% (a/o 7/20) Intel (INTC) 2.8% (a/o 7/20) Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 3.5% Kimberly-Clark Corporation (KMB) 4.0% McDonald’s (MCD) 3.1% Microsoft (MSFT) 2.1% Procter & Gamble (PG) 3.0% The Traveler’s Companies (TRV) 2.7% United Parcel Service (UPS) 3.1% Verizon (VZ) 7.2% Walmart (WMT) 2.3% 3M Company (MMM) 2.5%

Abbot Labs (ABT) 3.5%


AT&T (T) 6.7%


ExxonMobil (XOM) 2.9%


Heinz (HNZ) 3.8%


Home Depot (HD) 3.4%


IBM (IBM) 1.8%


Intel (INTC) 2.8%



Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 3.5%


Kimberly-Clark Corporation (KMB) 4.0%


McDonald’s (MCD) 3.1%


Procter & Gamble (PG) 3.0%


The Traveler’s Companies (TRV) 2.7%


United Parcel Service (UPS) 3.1%


Verizon (VZ) 7.2%


Walmart (WMT) 2.3%


3M Company (MMM) 2.5%