Archive for July, 2012

Far from the Madding Crowd

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July 26, 2012

Investing is full of paradoxes. For example, in this zero-sum game, everyday we walk a fine line between arrogance (conviction that we are right) and humility (possibility that we may be wrong). We’ve written in the past about the importance of self-awareness. Self-aware of our mental weakness(es). Self-aware of our (perceived) strengths. Self-aware of how […]

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Howard Marks’ Book: Chapter 3

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July 23, 2012

Below is a continuation of portfolio management highlights from Howard Marks’ recent book, The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor, Chapter 3 “The Most Important Thing Is…Value”: For anyone who has purchased a security too soon while the price continued to decline, I would highly recommend reading the last few pages of […]

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Buffett Partnership Letters: 1962 Part 3

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July 20, 2012

This is a continuation in a series on portfolio management and the Buffett Partnership Letters. Please see our previous articles for more details. A slightly off tangent and random fact, in 1962, Buffett into new office space stocked with – hold on to your knickers – “an ample supply of Pepsi on hand.”   Team […]

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Buffett Partnership Letters: 1962 Part 2

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July 16, 2012

This is a continuation in a series on portfolio management and the Buffett Partnership Letters. Please see our previous articles for more details. Slightly off tangent random fact: in 1962, Buffett into new office space stocked with – hold on to your knickers – “an ample supply of Pepsi on hand.”   Volatility “It should […]

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Compounding Outsourced

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July 11, 2012

“I’m a value investor, which says I want to buy 50-cent dollars, but given my firm’s predilection for serving the needs of taxable investors, I also want that dollar to tax-efficiently compound in value over long periods of time. That means the businesses must have great capacity to reinvest, which is not all that common…I […]

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Buffett Partnership Letters: 1962 Part 1

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July 8, 2012

This is a continuation in a series on portfolio management and the Buffett Partnership Letters. Please see our previous articles for more details. There are 3 separate letters detailing the occurrences of 1962: July 6, 1962 – interim (mid-year) letter December 24, 1962 – brief update with preliminary tax instructions January 18, 1963 – annual […]

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It’s Still A People Business

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July 5, 2012

I recently read an interview in Inc. Magazine on leadership and people management with Bob Sutton, a Stanford professor. Sutton’s audience is mainly corporations and other businesses, but his comments are directly applicable to the investment management business. After all, whether we like it or not, the investment management business is still a business that […]

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Wisdom from David E. Shaw: Part 2

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July 2, 2012

Here is Part 2 of our summary (focused on portfolio management tid bits, of course) of an interview with David E. Shaw in Peter J. Tanous’ book Investment Gurus. For additional background and context, please see Part 1.   Risk, Hedging “The purpose of a portfolio optimizer is to trade off risk and return in […]

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