“Value investing is about praying on the emotions of the seller,” McElvaine said, noting that he loves to be a buyer of un-loved securities when their owners need out at any cost.
McElvaine pointed to a Globe and Mail headline about beat-up mining stocks being great tax-loss sale candidates this past December. He bought up shares in Sprott Resource Corp and Anglo American recently for trading at considerable discounts to NAV (more info at chat.ceo.ca/mcelvaine).
Six years into the global bull-market and McElvaine’s funds are about 25% in cash to provide an opportunity to buy assets if prices return to Tim’s liking.
Is the US bull-market over? McElvaine talked about what could go right in the United States, and suggested that a great way to stimulate the US Economy would be to wipe out student loan debt, which is $1 trillion of $1.3 trillion owned by the US Government, according to McElvaine. That move could put $1 trillion back in the hands of the most aggressive consumers.
There was a brief moment before Tim’s speech that my dad and I got to share a word with him, and I asked how do they know if a cheaply priced security represents a value gap, meaning it’s undervalued and going higher, or is it a value-trap, as so often cheap stocks get cheaper.
“You don’t know,” Dad and McElvaine agreed, which reminded me of something Tim taught me 6-7 years ago:
“You’ve got to kiss a lot of toads in this business to find your prince.”
Take the time to read his annual reports and transcripts, then go the extra mile and look at the annual reports of the companies he mentions–do you see what he sees? For example, in the chat of his presentation for 2014 (see bold index and then the link) he mentions that Sprott Resource Corp is trading for about $1.00 Cdn while its NAV is above $3.00 or “It’s not pretty but its cheap.” Can you learn from his approach and analysis? What would you do differently? You have to be a contrarian with a calculator to buy what is hated.
Some reports below:
Buying dollar bills for fifty cents Recent talk on his investments.
2014-Transcript-of-May14-Annual-meeting
2013-Annual-Report and 2013-Partners-Confererence-Transcript
2012-Annual-Report and 2012-Transcript-Partners-Conference-website-version
Go deeper: http://mcelvaine.com/reports/
Tomorrow: I will post a reader’s list of great annual reports.
