{"id":165,"date":"2011-08-30T09:00:55","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T09:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valueinvestorasia.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2015-08-29T22:28:41","modified_gmt":"2015-08-29T22:28:41","slug":"may-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.valueinvest.com\/hongkong\/may-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"May 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>May 2011     Issue 3<\/h4>\n<h4><strong><span style=\"color: #993366;\">A framework for investment success, Seth Klarman<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/pragcap.com\/a-framework-for-investment-success\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/pragcap.com\/a-framework-for-investment-success<\/a><a title=\"http:\/\/metmailer.com\/t\/O75-F9US-3NMNUX-5X1ZJ-1\/c.aspx\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gurufocus.com\/news.php?id=127275\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/span>If you read only one article from this issue of the Digest, read this one.    Seth Klarman is an outstanding investor.  We featured his preface to Security Analysis in the last issue.  Here, we are providing you a link to an extract from his Annual Investor Letter, in which he sets out a framework for long-term investment success, essentially by not following the herd and maintaining a focus on price and value.<\/p>\n<h4><strong><span style=\"color: #993366;\">The Berkshire Shareholders Meeting<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/metropoliscapital.co.uk.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/A-weekend-in-Omaha-2011.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.metropoliscapital.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/A-weekend-in-Omaha-2011.pdf<br \/>\n<\/a><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a title=\"http:\/\/metmailer.com\/t\/O75-F9US-3NMNUX-5X1ZK-1\/c.aspx\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/54483729\/2011-Berkshire-Annual-Meeting-Notes\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/54483729\/2011-Berkshire-Annual-Meeting-Notes<br \/>\n<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000;\">J<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">ona<\/span>than and I attended the annual shareholders meeting in Omaha.  This year was always going to be interesting, coming so soon after the abrupt departure of David Sokol, who had been widely tipped as the successor to the operational management role of Berkshire.   The event lived up to expectations with a set of high quality questions and the usual lively, witty and insightful responses from the Chairman and Vice Chairman.  I am providing a link here to my own summary of the event.  There is a more detailed transcript of each question in the second link.<\/p>\n<h4><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><span style=\"color: #993366;\">Vitaliy Katsenelson\u2019s on margin shrinkage<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><a style=\"font-weight: normal;\" title=\"http:\/\/metmailer.com\/t\/O75-F9US-3NMNUX-5X1ZL-1\/c.aspx\" href=\"http:\/\/contrarianedge.com\/2011\/03\/16\/margin-shrinkage-%E2%80%93-it-can-happen-to-you\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/contrarianedge.com\/2011\/03\/16\/margin-shrinkage-%E2%80%93-it-can-happen-to-you\/<br \/>\n<\/a>I caught up with Vitaliy in Omaha.  This is a particularly high quality article from this journalist \/ author \/ investor.   Looking at the US market\u2019s current PE, stocks do not seem to be that expensive.  Vitaliy\u2019s point is that we have to be very wary about the long-term sustainability of the \u201cE\u201d.<\/p>\n<h4><strong><span style=\"color: #993366;\">Pat Dorsey on how to identify an economic moat.<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\"><a title=\"http:\/\/metmailer.com\/t\/O75-F9US-3NMNUX-5X1ZM-1\/c.aspx\" href=\"http:\/\/www.morningstar.com\/Cover\/videoCenter.aspx?id=349487\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.morningstar.com\/Cover\/videoCenter.aspx?id=349487<br \/>\n<\/a><a title=\"http:\/\/metmailer.com\/t\/O75-F9US-3NMNUX-5X1ZN-1\/c.aspx\" href=\"http:\/\/www.morningstar.co.uk\/uk\/news\/article.aspx?articleid=80694&amp;categoryid=465\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.morningstar.co.uk\/uk\/news\/article.aspx?articleid=80694&amp;categoryid=465<br \/>\n<\/a><\/span>Warren Buffett first coined the phrase \u201can economic moat\u201d, by which he meant the factors that enable some businesses to sustain and protect above average profits for a long period of time.   In this Video, Pat Dorsey, the author of \u2018The little book that builds wealth\u2019 sets out his 4 categories of an economic moat.  I have included a second link, which covers the same content in an article rather than a video.<\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #993366;\">The value of focus: \u201cUnconventional Wisdom\u201d<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fbr.com\/services\/asset-management\/%7E\/media\/FBR\/Misc\/FBRFunds\/2010\/FBR%20FFund%20whtpr%209%2014%2010%20CV.ashx\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.fbr.com\/services\/asset-management\/~\/media\/FBR\/Misc\/FBRFunds\/2010\/<br \/>\nFBR%20FFund%20whtpr%209%2014%2010%20CV.ashx<br \/>\n<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lse.ac.uk\/collections\/paulWoolleyCentre\/WorkingPapers\/dp624PWC3.pdf\">http:\/\/www.lse.ac.uk\/collections\/paulWoolleyCentre\/WorkingPapers\/dp624PWC3.pdf<\/a><br \/>\n<\/span>The first link takes you straight to a PDF download.  The article provides an overview of some empirical evidence (which is set out in the second link) that, contrary to general perception, concentrated portfolios can not only out perform but also reduce risk.  There is an excellent quote in here from Warren Buffett:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cCharlie and I decided long ago that in an investment lifetime it\u2019s just too hard to make hundreds of smart decisions\u2026Therefore, we adopted a strategy that required our being smart \u2013and not too smart at that\u2014only a very few times. Indeed, we\u2019ll now settle for one good idea a year\u2026 The strategy we\u2019ve adopted precludes our following standard diversification dogma. We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>May 2011 Issue 3 A framework for investment success, Seth Klarman http:\/\/pragcap.com\/a-framework-for-investment-success If you read only one article from this issue of the Digest, read this one. Seth Klarman is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valueinvest.com\/hongkong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valueinvest.com\/hongkong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valueinvest.com\/hongkong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valueinvest.com\/hongkong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valueinvest.com\/hongkong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.valueinvest.com\/hongkong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valueinvest.com\/hongkong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valueinvest.com\/hongkong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valueinvest.com\/hongkong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}