Hottest Links: Value Investing Ebook, Net-Nets, S. Korea, Bill Miller

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Hottest links for Monday November 18th, 2013 the very late edition (see weekend’s edition of hottest links). Get our free daily newsletter (which HAS BEEN RECENTLY UPDATED) and never miss a single linkfest. Also, now if you sign up you will get our new e-book on value investing.

Top stories for today are included below. Some great value articles from today, including some net-net articles; Does Peter Lynch’s GARP work anymore; What you can learn from Bill Miller and Mohnish Pabrai; Value Investors scout South Korea and much much more.

Hottest Links

Value Investing

Coventry Group: A High-Quality Net-Net?

The Coventry Group Ltd. (ASX:CYG) is a distributor of industrial products domiciled in Australia. The group trades at a discount to its current assets less all liabilities, qualifying it as a “net-net.” [Mackie, Moatology]

Two Dozen Things I’ve Learned from Bill Miller and Mohnish Pabrai

Pairing a post about Bill Miller with a post about Mohnish Pabrai is useful since it contrasts the investment thesis of Miller with someone else who is a self-professed “cloner” of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.  In other words, how Bill Miller’s investing thesis differs from the value investing orthodoxy is useful to consider. [Tren Griffin, 25iq]

Valuation Myths: Young Companies Cannot Be Valued

Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is now officially a publicly traded company, and I am glad that we no longer have to debate the IPO price and what will happen in the aftermath. While the opening may have veered a little off script, to the extent the price popped a little more than “desirable.” [Aswath Damodaran]

Three Steps to Effective Decision Making

Making an important decision is never easy, but making the right decision is even more challenging. In this video, Michael Mauboussin, Credit Suisse Group AG (ADR) (NYSE:CS)’s Head of Financial Strategies, lays out three steps that can help focus a decision-maker’s thinking. [Shane Parrish, Farnam Street]

In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World

Ignoring the advice, Hawking included E = mc² even ‘when cutting it out would have sold another 10 millions copies.” This captures our aversion to equations well. Yet, mathematician Ian Stewart argues in his book In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World, “[e]quations are too important to be hidden away.” [Shane Parrish, Farnam Street]

Is Peter Lynch’s GARP Investing Dead?

Depending on how you look at it, Peter Lynch fits into either idea with his GARP investing model. This last Thursday Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) the open market. It’s microblogging platform is growing quickly, but the lack of any real profits as of yet would seem to make it an ideal candidate. Companies like Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) currently have price multiples that Benjamin Graham would most likely consider a joke and scare off all but the most ardent believers in their growth. [Joel Anderson, Equities]

Funds

Playing To The Cheap Seats

Retail investors may be unprepared for a move into more aggressive strategies by hedge funds. [Stephen Foley, FT]

Bullish Investors Look To Southern Europe In Fresh Buyout Fund Rush

The private equity industry is gearing up for a fundraising surge in Italy and Spain in a dramatic reversal of fortunes for investment across the region. [Alec Macfarlane, Financial News]

NYC Hedge Funds Crack Fracking Titan

A pair of New York-based hedge funds outmaneuvered new-age oil and gas titan Tom Ward, head of SandRidge Energy Inc. (NYSE:SD), according to a new book centered on the epic fortunes of a group of natural-gas wildcatters. [Mark DeCambre, New York Post]

NCSE Data: Alternatives Falling Out of Fashion

The study describes this fall as a “pause in the long run trend” of increased allocations by such institutions.  “Alternatives,” for the purposes of this survey, included hedge funds, private equity, international private equity, private equity real estate, and distressed debt. [Christopher Faille, All About Alpha]

Activist Investors Get More Respect Amid Strong Returns

Take Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook, for instance. He had dinner in October at the New York home of long-time corporate agitator Carl Icahn, who has been publicly pressuring the cash-rich iPhone and iPad manufacturer to share its wealth with investors by buying back $150 billion worth of shares. [Svea Herbst-Bayliss, Reuters]

Value Investor Likes South Korean Banks

As of last week, KB Financial Group, Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:KB) (KRX:105560) is up 28.5% from its mid-September low, Shinhan Financial Group Co., Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE:SHG) (KRX:055550) since late June, and Hana Financial Group Inc (KRX:086790) (OTCMKTS:HNFGF) has risen 27% since early July—and they have all outpaced the KOSPI Composite Index (INDEXKRX:KOSPI)’s 13% advance since end-June. [Kanga Kong, MoneyBeat]

Picking the Best

Choice is good, but when it comes to investing, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. The field of exchange-traded funds these days offers plenty of choice — to the point that investors are faced with … [Brendan Conway, Barron’s]

Misc

Larry Summers’ And Paul Krugman’s Economic Insight

Summers’ recommendation is simple: boost inflation (presumably through NGDP targeting, the same thing we said back in September would happen soon, which would unanchor 2% inflationary expectations as money literally dropped from the sky), and encourage a cashless society allowing the Fed to punish all deposit account holders through negative rates (or outright confiscation) forcing massive spending. [Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge]

Debt Holdouts Put Argentina On Spot

For the last two centuries or more, creditors have often resorted to desperate measures when countries refused to pay up… [Benedict Mander, FT]

The World’s Cheapest and Most Expensive Stock Markets

The U.S. stock market is one of the most expensive in the world by some measures. Here is how it and other countries stack up; a low number indicates that a market is cheap. Select the column headers to sort the table. [Weekend Investor, The Wall Street Journal]

Location
*Value
Greece
4.03
Argentina
6.91
Ireland
6.94
Russia
7.11
Jordan
8.64
Italy
8.72
Austria
9.16
Hungary
9.46
Croatia
9.81
Lebanon
9.97
Israel
9.98
Pakistan
10.01
Portugal
10.16
Spain
10.38
Czech Republic
10.81
Brazil
11.30
Singapore
12.14
Belgium
12.19
Estonia
12.28
Slovenia
12.63
Finland
12.79
Netherlands
13.07
Poland
13.08
Norway
13.13
China
13.45
Egypt
13.54
Turkey
13.60
United Kingdom
13.64
France
13.98
New Zealand
14.73
Nigeria
14.96
Taiwan
15.15
Germany
15.58
South Korea
15.68
Australia
15.69
Sweden
16.23
Hong Kong
16.77
Thailand
17.35
Mauritius
17.50
Chile
17.91
India
18.28
Canada
18.77
Mexico
18.81
Switzerland
19.00
Japan
19.56
South Africa
19.60
Malaysia
20.44
Kenya
20.74
Peru
21.24
Indonesia
21.64
Denmark
23.54
U.S.
24.35
Philippines
25.44
Colombia
26.80
Sri Lanka
28.87

Chinese Reverse Mergers Performed Better Than Their Reputation Suggested

That boom in Chinese reverse mergers, in which privately-held Chinese companies went public in the United States by merging with U.S. publicly-traded shell companies, was initially fueled by the difficulties of going public in China. But a series of financial scandals in 2011 abruptly turned the boom into a bust. [Edmund L. Andrews, Stanford Business]

Hottest Links: Not The Onion

Rob Ford on Fox News: ‘I want to run for prime minister’

After Sun News Network announced it would begin airing Ford Nation — a weekly one-hour program to be hosted by Rob and brother Doug Ford — the mayor also made an appearance on Fox News on Sunday to defend himself against his growing list of critics and announce his interest in running for prime minister one day. [Ishmael N. Daro, O Canada.com]

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