Hottest Links: Student Loan Cost/Benefit, Thirteen Virtues, And TGISVP

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Hottest links for Thursday, January 16th, the late edition (see Wednesday’s edition here). 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 fun and interesting links for you today, including Brown vs. Blodget, a cost-benefit analysis of student loans, and 175 things that affect the rate of inflation.

Hottest Links: Stories

Value Investing

How to become a better investor

Knowledge alone doesn’t make anyone faster; to become faster requires practice.  Ultimately speed is determined by a mix of practice and genetics. [Nate Tobik, Oddball Stocks]

Kopparbergs Bryggeri: The World’s Cheapest Craft Brewer?

Kopparbergs Bryggeri AB (KOBR-MTFB.ST, 67.00 SEK) is a Swedish brewing company famous for pioneering a sweeter version of alcoholic pear cider that has catapulted it to status of number one in the world for this niche product. Its flagship cider, along with Sweden’s best selling domestic beer brand, have given Kopparbergs all of the characteristics of established brewing companies. [Moatology]

The Brown vs Blodget Debate

You know where I stand. I’m not a big fan of hyperbole and hysterics as I believe it harms the investor class as they strive to grow their wealth for retirement way more than it helps. [Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker]

The Thirteen Virtues

In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, we find a list of thirteen virtues “all that at that time occurr’d to me as necessary or desirable.” [Shane Parish, Farnam Street]

TGISVP – 2013 Portfolio Performance

OK, a second year of The Great Irish Share Valuation Project is now complete – for reference, here’s my mid-year review, now it’s time for the real post-mortem! [Wexboy]

Funds

A Cost–Benefit Analysis of Student Loans

Rising post-secondary education costs and the additional debt burden they are putting on today’s young adults have become popular topics of discussion. [Matt Busigin, Inside Investing]

In a 16-Year Chart, Here’s Where the Fund Money Is

The folks at the top are, as usual, mutual funds. The group’s assets surged last year, which simply reflects the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX)s 32% gain. It has the group knocking on $6 trillion in assets for the first time. [Brendan Conway, Focus on Funds]

Here’s How 175 Various Items Affect The Rate Of Inflation

According to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the consumer price index was 1.2% higher from a year earlier in November. December data are released Thursday morning, and economists expect the headline annual inflation rate to jump to 1.5%. [Matthew Boesler, Business Insider]

CPI breakdown

When Will Corporate Profit Margins Contract?

There are few signs of impending doom that are more widely cited than record high profit margins and the inevitable mean reversion that always comes following such an environment.  [Cullen Roche, Pragmatic Capitalism]

margins2

Chart o’ the Day: Dismantling the “Hollywood Top”

Better than the magazine cover indicator, I’ll give you that. But here’s the problem – Wall Street 2 was ABOUT a market crash that was already in progress during the movie’s making. [Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker]

top

Olympic Entertainment Group Valuation

Olympic Entertainment Group (OEG) is a highly profitable casino operator. With a limited number of players in OEG’s industry and barriers to entry due to strict regulation, high returns and margins seem to be sustainable for the foreseeable future. [WertArt Capital]

Krawcheck: Financial Advice Needs Makeover

Sallie Krawcheck: Many young people have never met their parents’ advisors. You’ve probably seen the numbers, which show that when both parents pass away, the children of the parents stay with the existing financial advisor only a single-digit percent of the time.  [Cinthia Murphy, IndexUniverse]

2014 Investor Outlook

Which hedge fund strategies are positioned to succeed in 2014? Absolute Return asked some of the larget allocators to share their views for the year ahead about which hedge fund strategies will do best, which to avoid, and how their portfolios are positioned today. [Simone Foxman, Absolute Return]

Greenberg: Should Herbalife, Usana Worry in China?

Multi-level marketing is banned in China, where direct-selling licenses are required in all municipalities and provinces. Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:NUS) lays out the challenges in its10-K, with the kind of boilerplate the most investors gloss over:  [Herb Greenberg, Herb on TheStreet]

GMO Market Commentary: Ignore The “Common Sense”

By the time the Times Square ball landed, U.S. equity markets had closed the books on one of the best years in recent history. December’s further rise of 2.5% put the capstone on an amazing year for the S&P 500 Index, which finished 2013 up 32.4%. [Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge]

Ballsack Correspondent

Ballsack correspondent has aources around every corner [Bess Levin, Deal Breaker] Hottest Links: Student Loan Cost/Benefit, Thirteen Virtues, And TGISVP

Take A Seat! Analyst Suggests Johnson Controls Seating Spinoff

The WSJ had an article this past weekend discussing a possible spinoff of Johnson Controls Inc (NYSE:JCI) seating business. JCI operates three different business segments – building efficiency, auto supply and power supplies (batteries) – with auto supply, which includes seating, being the largest segment in terms of revenue. [Spin Doctor, Stocks Spinoffs]

Asset Price Bubbles

Larry Summers recently warned that advanced economies are facing structurally weak growth. The best that policy-makers can do is inflate an endless series of asset price bubbles to stimulate demand, rolling through the various asset markets in turn.  [Fathom Consulting, AlphaNow]

Remember Morgan Stanley’s Facebook Brouhaha?

If you remember way back to 2012 — I know, ancient history – Morgan Stanley ((NYSE:MS) was the lead underwriter in the Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) initial public offering. The offering was botched, resulting in millions of dollars in fines and lots of hand-wringing over the integrity of the market. [Brendan Conway, Focus on Funds]

Here’s Marissa Mayer’s De Castro Buh-Bye Memo to Yahoo Staff

Here it is, the internal memo to Yahoo staff about the sudden — though it was not sudden, by any means — leave-taking today of its COO, Henrique De Castro, courtesy of one of my 10,563 sources left at Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO). [Kara Swisher. Re/Code]

Hottest Links: Not The Onion

CSN airs anatomically-correct picture of Cubs mascot with penis on live TV [VIDEO]

CSN anchor Nicole read a description about Clark as viewers were treated to a shot of his family jewels. “He’s described as a young, friendly Cub who can’t wait to interact with the kids…” Darin said. “Uh … I think that is a gag photo. If we could switch to the next one.” [Evan Bleier, UPI]

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