Hottest Links: Prem And BBRY, Dalio, Jobs Act, Bob Rodriguez

Hottest links for Monday September 23rd, 2013 (see prior edition of hottest links here). Top stories for today include; Lots of Ray Dalio news including a new whitepaper from Bridgewater Associates, and if you do not read english you can also listen to the video in Russian (we are not joking), although we have no clue why Dalio decided to make a seperate video in Russian; Forbes has a great in-depth look at how Mohnish Pabrai has crushed the markets over the past 11 years or so; A look at value investing styles, Charlie Munger versus Warren Buffett versus Walter Schloss; Good notes on a recent interview with Bob Rodriguez; MarketFolly has great notes on a recent hedge fund conference; Hedge funds can now advertise, and well self pitch, if any are interested they can check out our superb demographics on the advertise page; The value case for this small cap bank, that and much more in today’s hottest links.

Stay tuned for this week’s irregular schedule, followed by a normal schedule again going forward from next week. We have some breaking news on the value and tech front….BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) to be bought by Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial for $9/share for total of about $4.7 billion

Hottest Links:Stories

Culture and Anticipation Helped Ray Dalio

Ray Dalio and Bridgewater were spot-on. The global banking industry lost more than $500 billion in 2008. Bridgewater, meanwhile, prospered. [Michael Peltz, Institutional Investor]

Bridgewater New White Paper and Video

A new whitepaper and video from Bridgewater Associates on how the economic machine works. [ValueWalk]

Value Opportunity? :69% off 52 week high, 82% off 5 year high

JAKKS Pacific, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAKK) was in the top 10 of ~ 8,000 companies reviewed. Most of the top ten were not investable for multiple of reasons. Now to make it more interesting JAKK has aggressively reduced their outstanding share count. [ShadowStocks]

Buffett vs Munger vs Schloss

I thought it would be fun to display the results of three of the greatest of all time. Munger was a franchise, high ROC type investor. Schloss was exactly the opposite. He owned cheap stocks. Buffett had elements of both, and it was around this time that he was transitioning from the latter to the former. Here are the three head to head during the time they were all running outside capital (Buffett’s results are his partnership results until 1969, and the book value growth of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) thereafter). [John Huber, Base Hit Investing]

Bob Rodriguez’s Diversification Experiment

Some portfolio management highlights from a recent interview (July 2013) with Bob Rodriguez and Dennis Bryan of First Pacific Advisors in Value Investor Insight. [Bob Rodriguez, PM Jar]

Alpha Hedge West Conference Notes 2013

We’re posting up notes from the 2013 Alpha Hedge West Conference that just took place in San Francisco. There were numerous panels discussing various topics and summaries are available. [Market Folly]

How Pension Deficits Could Boost Your Portfolio

A publically listed company with a huge pension deficit should be avoided by investors at all costs, right? Not always, analysts at Goldman Sachs Asset Management have said. The performance of these 50 companies in the ISHARES STOXX 600 (EPA:SXP) has closely followed the rise in German bond yields, which had been rising steadily since May. [Elizabeth Pfeuti, aiCIO]

My investment disaster: First Bank of Delaware

The downside seemed somewhat limited as well, at 50% of book value what could possibly go wrong? What sort of event could destroy this investment? I was initially worried about a bad loan book, but then First Bank of Delaware sold their entire loan book to Bryn Mawr Bank Corp. (NASDAQ:BMTC) at a 3% discount to book value. My biggest concern had been cleared up, investors were now set to double their money right? [Nate Tobik, Oddball Stocks]

Nothing SOx-y About SEC’s JPMorgan “Whale” Settlement

The Wall Street Journal’s Deborah Solomon contends “Sarbanes-Oxley Harpoons The Whale”. Solomon is talking about JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) and the recent settlement between the bank and several regulators, including the SEC, over a 2012 whale of a loss from credit derivatives trades gone very, very sideways. [Francine McKenna, re: The Auditors]

Risk-Free Returns for Everybody!

Investment professionals too often forget that a dollar saved in costs or fees is actually worth more than a dollar earned from investment returns (thanks to taxes). In addition, investing in cost and fee reduction can provide far greater returns per unit of risk than anything else an investment organization can do. [Ashby Monk, Institutional Investor]

Cloud-Based Discounted-Cash-Flow Analysis Tool

On the prediction that “Fees for financial data services will be cut in half (watch out Capital IQ, FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS), and Bloomberg)” I present a new tool produced by Greg Ugwi. Greg is a Princeton graduate and worked at the Vampire Squid (Also known as Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS)). He’s developed an unbelievable tool for fundamental investors called ThinkNum.com. [Wesley R. Gray, Turnkey Analyst]

What is Good Research? Interview With Tom Brakke

We were privileged to have Tom Brakke, CFA, stop by our offices in New York City a few weeks ago. After a multi-hour meeting where many of us talked about all sorts of things, I managed to wrangle Tom into a quick interview. [William Ortel, CFA Institute]

The Numbers that Prove Lehman was Deal of the Century for Barclays

It has been five years since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc Plan Trust (OTCMKTS:LEHMQ) went bankrupt and five years since Barclays PLC (ADR) (NYSE:BCS) (LON:BARC) picked up the US business for just $250 million. It was a steal, and one that has changed the trajectory of the domestically heavy retail bank and DCM house to that of a global financial institution. There are few happy stories to be had from the financial crisis, but Barclays, at present, seems to be one. [Helen Avery. EUROMONEY]

Apple’s 9 million weekend

If any of the dozens of Wall Street analysts who follow Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) predicted that the company would sell more than 9 million new iPhones over their first three-day weekend, we didn’t get the memo. [Philip Elmer-DeWitt, CNNMoney]

Hedge Funds Are About to Unleash the Ad Men

That’s an overstatement — most hedge funds don’t need the guy watching the Super Bowl. But Monday marks a milestone of sorts. It’s the first day firms covered under the Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups Act are allowed to solicit the general public in their fundraising efforts. It is expected that the changes will prompt large houses with well-heeled marketing departments and large stables of investment products, such as BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK), Franklin Templeton Limited Duration Income Trust Common Shares of Beneficial Interest (NYSEMKT:FTF), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) and Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management, to engage in aggressive advertising campaigns to widen their audiences. [Brendan Conway, Barron’s]

Why the Commercial Real Estate Crash Never Came

Hilton Worldwide recently announced plans to return to the public market, after The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX) took the hotel giant private in 2007. Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE:H), the chain controlled by Chicago’s Pritzker family, raised $1.09 billion in an IPO in 2009; it rose 12% on its first day of trading. Since the IPO, shares have gained 77%. Caesars Entertainment Corp (NASDAQ:CZR), the casino chain that also operates hotels, sold shares to the public last year, after private-equity owners Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO) and TPG Capital took the company private about four years ago. Since the IPO, shares have risen 81%. [Nin-Hai Tseng, CNNMoney]

How Mohnish Pabrai Crushed The Market

Mohnish Pabrai’s long-only equity fund has returned a cumulative 517% net to investors vs. 43% for the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) index since inception in 2000. That’s outperformance of 474 percentage points or 1103 percent. [Phil DeMuth, Forbes]