Whitney Tilson On LL; The Little Book That Still Beats The Market

Updated on

Whitney Tilson summarizes his articles on Lumber Liquidators and recommends The Little Book That Still Beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt.

Whitney Tilson on Lumber Liquidators

Since my last email, I’ve published two more articles on Lumber Liquidators, which makes a total of eight in the month since the 60 Minutes segment aired. Attached is file with all of them, which is also posted at: www.tilsonfunds.com/LLTilsonarticles.pdf

(Boy, have I not kept my promise to try to spend less time on this! (To quote Mae West: “I used to be Snow White but I drifted.” ;-) Too much interesting stuff going on – and bad information and analysis out there. At least I’ve kept my promise to stay out of the media – no quotes in articles or TV appearances.)

Here’s a summary of last week’s article, entitled: Why the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Conference Call Portends a Double Whammy for Lumber Liquidators:

  • The Consumer Product Safety Commission, coordinating with five other federal agencies, is investigating Lumber Liquidators.
  • CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye appears to be thoughtful, fair-minded, determined to get to the truth, and very strong willed.
  • The fact that the CPSC testing won’t use “deconstruction” doesn’t support the company’s claim that the testing methodology used by 60 Minutes, myself, and others is invalid.
  • Rather, the CPSC’s use of “exposure scenario” tests means that Lumber Liquidators faces liability from two different types of tests – a double whammy.

Here’s the summary of yesterday’s, entitled: Answering Questions About Lumber Liquidators:

  • I have no connection to Sunshine Park, Larson/GCM or Drury.
  • Tom Sullivan is grasping at straws in trying to link me to Barry Minkow.
  • Regulators appear to be moving quickly, but it will still likely take months before any take action.
  • A response to Lumber Liquidators’ highly misleading and disingenuous statements on testing.
  • Regulatory action won’t drive the stock to zero immediately; if that happens, it will likely happen over time due to lawsuits.
  • How to analyze the tests 60 Minutes did.

Whitney Tilson: The Little Book That Still Beats the Market

If you’re looking for a book to explain investing to a beginner, I recommend The Little Book That Still Beats the Market (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470624159/tilsoncapitalpar) by Joel Greenblatt. And for a 44-min video, I recommend this one by Bill Ackman, entitled Everything You Need to Know About Finance and Investing in Under an Hour (https://youtu.be/WEDIj9JBTC8), in which he uses the example of setting up a lemonade stand. It has 766,466 views on YouTube.

Leave a Comment