logo

What a difference five words make

Dawkins dates earth, says God created it…
Before I bashed the Efficient Markets Hypothesis again last week. I looked it up in what must surely be the ordinary investor’s efficient markets bible, Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street. The book is in its ninth edition, and my copy has ‘Over 1 Million Copies Sold’ [...]

Investing against the tide

In practice:
Huveaux (again)
Rupert Levy, Huveaux’s financial director, returned my call this morning. I rang him yesterday primarily to ask about some of the notes in the accounts.
A quick recap: Yesterday I said this publishing and events company was cheap, but I was doubtful about its financial strength…
Note 15 confirms the company believes the “value in [...]

The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham

This is going to be a long review, but considering many of the words will be quotations from the mouth, or pen, of an icon, perhaps you’ll forgive me.
The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham is a collection of articles and lectures written and given by Benjamin Graham, plus a few interviews with him. It gives insight into [...]

Financial Shenanigans

Uh oh. Analysts say Wells Fargo, a big American bank, is putting a positive sheen on its results by cutting its loan-loss reserve in the same quarter it booked a £1bn increase in non-performing loans.
Writing off non-performing loans against a reserve has no impact on profits, but reducing the reserve boosts them, allowing the bank [...]

The Subprime Solution

The boss told me I should review this book last Wednesday. On Friday, he dangled a copy over my shoulder and reiterated his suggestion. On Monday, the US Market fell further in one day than on any day since 1987 as the US Government failed to bail out banks that had overdosed on subprime mortgages.
His [...]

The Complete Turtle Trader

I’m going to start this review of The Complete Turtle Trader with a little mystery. Why does Bill Miller endorse the book on the jacket cover?
Bill Miller runs the legendary Legg Mason Value Trust. He describes himself as a long-term contrarian investor, which is about as far away as you can get from Turtle Trading. [...]

Finance books to mend your soul

Sometimes I find it helpful to take a step back from the day-to-day work of evaluating companies and markets and think about what I’m looking for and why. Regular readers know I find the reports of James Montier*1 at Societe Generale and his book Behavioural Investing (review) particularly useful.
Last week he sent around brief reviews [...]

A company and a book to cheer you up

If you thought my last post on Dairy Crest was a reluctant vote of confidence, you’re right.
Posting links to news stories like the ones in the right sidebar of this blog it’s hard not to let gloom seep into my stockpicking brain. Sadly hysteria is an occupational hazard, which explains why journalists don’t make good [...]

A bank holiday in the life of an investor

Six years after moving into our home, and six years after we started replacing the carpets with wooden flooring, I tackled the last remaining bastion of carpet yesterday - my daughter’s bedroom. But just to prove that this investor never completely downs tools, it was One up on Wall Street I was reading in my [...]

Supply and demand 60 years on…

Ultimately supply and demand moves share prices, and it’s always been that way.
This is true of private equity buyouts now. It’s one of the factors driving the market upwards:
…a positive reinvestment effect occurs when companies are taken over for cash or near cash and the proceeds are reinvested. This affect may apply to the market [...]

keep looking »