value and opportunity

MUST SEE: 30 minute video with and from Ray Delio about the “economic machine”.

Damodaran with a 4 item checklist in order to identify potential value traps

The Brooklyn Investor explains, why one should concentrate on businesses, not on stock market levels, tapering etc.

A potential arbitrage opportunity with US “forever stamps” ahead of an announced price increase

Punchcradblog on Blackbaud, a software company with an interesting business model, which nevertheless is too expensive. Very nice write-up and way of analyzing a company.

Investor letter of a very good value fund: RV Capital including short summaries on all the holdings (among others Tonnellerie, Hornbach, Bechtle, Atoss etc.) as well a thoughts on value investing and technologies and circle of competence.

Always worth watching: Jim Chanos on Bloomberg TV. Looks at companies which do a lot of acquisitions

Interesting special situation analysis on Prime Office REIT AG

Nice NYT article about a 99-year-old investor, Phillipp L. Carret. He was even a broker client of Buffet’s father Howard.

Must read: Detecting accounting fraud in Asia

Cassandra about the difficulties of reinsurance companies run by hedge funds

Michael Lewis has a new big piece about the ex Goldman programmer who got 8 years in prison for stealing HFT code

Recommended: Jason Zweig (Co Author Intelligent investor) interview

Bad week for Bill Ackman: JC Penney drops, Soros has joined the ranks of the Herbalife “squeezers”. Ackman tries to fight back, but at the moment without any impact.

Interesting stock idea: Japan Airlines, bought by Jana Partner

China:

– Paul Krugman thinks it is game over for China
– China bear Jim Chanos in the meantime is short Caterpillar
– A similar trade from Andreas Halvorsen: Short Kone
– in the meantime China is building the tallest building in the world

Carson Block in the meantime is shorting American Towers

Book review “What’s behind the numbers” from Old School Value

A blogger looks at Kleeman Hellas

Mebane Fabers “shareholder yield” book is currently free on Amazon

Genius investor Eddie Lampert is still struggling with Sears

Home run investing via “on base” investing – Great interview with Zeke Ashton

Carson Block goes mainstream- warns on EM exposure of US companies

Good post about a column about private companies in the NYT (good blog by the way…)

If I would be 10-15 years younger, I would do ANYTHING to get this job at John Hempton’s Bronte

Nate from Oddball seems to become famous plus a new interesting “oddball” stock

Midyear performance review “Wexboy style”

Cassandra on the masters of financial destruction

Interesting analysis of CIR Spa, an Italian holding company

13 characteristics of value investors

Bronte on shorting frauds vs. valuation shorts

China Bull (Roach) vs. China Bear (Pettis).

A very comprehensive post from Prof. Damodaran about equity value, firm value and enterprise value

Very interesting: Buffet’s Berkshire is buying a Life Insurance company from Hartford

Interview with the boss of Apollo, Josh Harris, about opportunities in Europe and distressed investing.

Two great posts about book value and earnings power.

Must read: Jason Zweig’s 30 year anniversary of his “intelligent investor” column

Deep thoughts from Nate at Oddball about the virtues of patience

Must Read: Damodaran on equity risk premiums

Very good presentation from Zeke Ashton from the Las Vegas Value investor congress

Good post about Dart Group from a blog called Sahara Investing which I just recently discovered

Old School Value looks at Seagate and if one should join Jim Chanos on the short side of this stock.