Hottest Links: Market Tops, Cheat Sheets, And Magic Calculators

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Hottest links for Thursday, March 13th, the late edition. Get our free daily newsletter 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 stories for your Thursday afternoon viewing pleasure, including a piece on the Hook Model, more on the ongoing Fannie Mae saga, and 11 key questions to ask a potential financial advisor.

Hottest Links: Stories

Value Investing

Memortation, or One Way to Put What You Learn to Practical Use

I first learned about the concept of a memory palace (aka the Method of loci) in depth from the book Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer. [Joe Koster, Value Investing World]

Howard Marks’ Book: Chapter 16

Continuation of portfolio management highlights from Howard Marks’ book, The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor, Chapter 16 “The Most Important Thing Is…Appreciating the Role of Luck.” [PMJar]

What Do Mike White and Bill Erbey Have In Common

I recently came across this old Fortune article on Indra Nooyi, who has been under a lot of pressure lately from Nelson Peltz to break Frito-Lay away from PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP). [Stevenoops, ValueVenture]

Hooked — How Companies Create Habit Forming Products

The result of this effort is his book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and the creation of the Hook Model: a four-phase process that companies use to form habits. [Shane Parrish, Farnam Street]

Funds

Buffett: Hedging His Hedging?

No sooner do I note here the other day that Warren Buffett seems to be lining up with climate skeptics and saying nice things about the Keystone pipeline, than I find this very revealing chart from OpenSecrets.org about the rather conspicuous ramp-up of lobbying by Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B): [Steven Hayward, PowerLine]

HLS 8 Hottest Links

Here’s Who Owns Plug Power

It was a blackout kind of day for Plug Power Inc (NASDAQ:PLUG), which fell about 40% after Citron Research panned the company, comparing the stock to a casino bet. [Brendan Conway, Focus On Funds]

HLS 5 Hottest Links

DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV)

So we really have to drill down and focus on what they own, right?  That’s a totally rational thing to do.  I’ve already looked at DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc (NYSE:DVA) and really like it. Let’s take a look again at Berkshire Hathaway’s large stock holdings from the recent annual report: [KK, Brooklyn Investor]

HLS 9 Hottest Links

Emerging markets part 3: JSFC SISTEMA (OTCMKTS:JSFCF) – Is a Russian company investible (1)?

I have a compiled a short table, comparing performance (10 year, 5 Year, 3 Year, 1 Year) and valuation of different Emerging markets: [Memyself andi, Value And Opportunity]

10 5 3 1 P/E P/B
MICEX 8,26% 18,09% -10,24% -18,12% 5,4 0,7
SENSEX 11,09% 14,26% -3,10% -5,02% 17,1 2,6
IBOV 9,33% 2,89% -20,78% -34,32% 17,1 1,1
SHCOMP 6,54% 2,38% -6,62% -14,04% 10,3 1,4
Turkey 8,92% 15,92% -7,31% -37,75% 8,8 1,3
Indonesia 17,87% 30,67% 2,43% -22,43% 21,3 2,6
Philipines 21,00% 32,37% 21,75% -15,48% 19,0 2,8

Paulson & Co Boosts Enzymotec Stake

John Paulson’s hedge fund firm Paulson & Co has filed an amended 13G with the SEC and updated their stake in Enzymotec (ENZY).  Per the filing, Paulson now owns 19.24% of the company with over 4.1 million shares. [Market Folly]

Stanley Black & Decker values synergy

Once upon a time, we used to keep a list of all the crazy names we’ve come across in the filings. On Tuesday, when Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. (NYSE:SWK) filed its proxy statement, we learned about a new one: the synergy bonus. [footnoted]

Fannie Mae Investors May Be Using Magic Calculators

Fannie Mae / Federal National Mortgage Assctn Fnni Me (OTCBB:FNMA) investors may be using magic calculators. As the latest overhaul blueprint takes shape in the Senate, hedge funds like Fairholme Capital Management have urged Washington to revitalize Fannie, the mortgage finance giant, which along with Freddie Mac / Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (OTCBB:FMCC) was kept alive with nearly $190 billion of taxpayer cash in the aftermath of the financial crisis. [Daniel Indivigilio and Richard Beales, Deal Book]

A man and his signals

Once upon a time there was an egotistical man who sold subscriptions to a stock market research product based on the premise that his “signals” could tell people when to buy and sell. [Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker]

The Cheat Sheet from Years of Wizardly Advice

Jack D. Schwager, the man behind the successful “wizards” books, has now summarized the essence of all that wizardly advice in a new book of about 43,000 words. [Christopher Faille, AllAboutAlpha.com]

How Market Tops Get Made

With all the bubble chatter and talks of over-valued stock markets, I thought it was time to have a discussion with someone expert on the subject. In this case, that person would be Paul Desmond, chief strategist and president of Lowry’s Research. [Barry Ritholtz, Bloomberg]

11 Questions To Ask A Potential Advisor

Six years after the worst economic downturn the U.S. has seen since the Great Depression, the U.S. and other developed markets remain volatile, interest rates are at historic lows and emerging markets are as challenging as ever.[Cinthia Murphy, ETF.com]

Hottest Links: Not The Onion

US warns Russia ‘this is not Rocky IV’ as Putin puts fighter jets on combat alert

Fighter jets along Russia’s western borders have reportedly been placed on combat alert amid continuing unrest in the Crimea region of Ukraine. The exercise came a day after US secretary of state John Kerry warned Russian President Vladimir Putin to remember that the escalating crisis “is not Rocky IV”. [Heather Saul, The Times of India]

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