Hottest links for Tuesday 3rd December, the late edition (see Monday’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. With indices hitting all-time highs, it’s no surprise that there’s bubble talk, a theme that permeates many of today’s links. We’ve also got some great articles about companies keeping poison pills in their back pocket (and, coincidentally, hostile takeovers being at a 9-year low), and the striking similarities between the portfolios of billionaire big-boy investors and Joe Investor. Be sure to read all the way through, because there’s a link at the bottom that you’ll have to see to believe.
Hottest Links: Stories
Value Investing
Seth Klarman, Micron Technologies, and Risk Targeting
When Seth Klarman invests, people pay close attention. As the founder of the Baupost Group, which reportedly manages $28 billion, he has earned his reputation as as an elite value investor. People are paying attention to his investment in Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), a semiconductor manufacturer .[David Foulke, Trubkey Analyst]
ROIC and other imperfect measures
This turned out to be a rather long post. Initially I intended to write a few lines about the drawbacks of looking blindly at a simplified measure such as ROIC. Unfortunately I rambled on a bit and it turned out to be a general post regarding some popular value investing ratios and their application. [Otakuinvest]
The New House of Money
Steve Drobny, author of the great books Inside the House of Money: Top Hedge Fund Traders on Profiting in the Global Markets and The Invisible Hands: Top Hedge Fund Traders on Bubbles, Crashes, and Real Money just put out a new one: The New House of Money. [Mebane Faber]
Behind the Scenes With Buffett’s Biographer, Alice Schroeder
Miguel, thanks for inviting me to do the interview. This is the first time I’ve ever talked to anyone at length about Warren Buffett, The Snowball, why I wrote the book, and the lessons learned. Miguel: Start by explaining what was special about your experience with The Snowball. [Miguel Barbosa, Seeking Alpha]
Pulse Seismic Follow-Up
My method was the do the analysis on a $/km, $/km2 basis and apply this ratio to Pulse’s current library size. I must confess this method is a bit confusing, so let’s look at in a more straightforward fashion by working up pro-forma financials to include Divestco Inc. (CVE:DVT) (OTCMKTS:DSVTF)’s historic library sales: [Mackie, Moatology]
Funds
Dark Pools: Volume, Volatility and Disclosure
The new Celent report on dark pools cites data that trading off the exchanges (a wider category than ”dark pool trading” specifically) has corresponded, at least in the U.S., with periods of low volatility in the lit markets. [Christopher Faille, AllAboutAlpha.com]
Dear Tudor Tensor Investors
Tensor is now 15% below high watermark, in red for a 3rd consecutive year (maybe female traders are to blame?)…There was an exodus of people in January, just after bonuses (or the lack of them) were paid. [Bess Levin, DealBreaker]
Special Report: What is India, and what is its Future?
One of the things that, in compiling this special report on India for Inside Investing, one of the things that we heard first from Pradip Shah was that, in his opinion, the Indian Central Bank seems to view its role as protecting the purchasing power of currency now. [William Ortel, CFA Institute, ValueWalk]
India’s Importance Abroad: The Rise of the Indian Diaspora
One cannot consider India without thinking about the massive impact that its language and culture have had abroad. Many common English words — among them, “thug”, “shampoo”, and “pundit”— have their origins in languages from the subcontinent. [William Ortel, CFA Institute, ValueWalk]
The Investment Zen Of Sam Zell
When Sam Zell heard that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos was splashing out $250 million for the Washington Post Co., he laughed out loud, he says. “He probably thinks he’s buying it, but he’s just renting,” says Zell, who knows a thing or two about real estate–and a few things about the media business, too. [Morgan Brennan, Forbes]
Wall Street Still Hates Stocks…just not as much
Savita Subramanian (BofA Merrill Quant Strategy) is out with her latest look at the Sell Side Indicator, which is a measure of how bullish or bearish Wall Street firms are on the stock market. [Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker]
A Quantitative Value ETF?
On Nov. 26, a new firm based in Broomall, Pa., and headed by a Drexel University professor submitted paperwork with the SEC seeking permission to begin issuing actively managed ETFs. [Wesley R. Gray, Turnkey Analyst]
Many Signs That Values Are Too High
Experts ranging from economist Robert Shiller, who famously called both the dot-com and housing excesses, and the mega fund managers Bill Gross of Pimco and Larry Fink of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) have applied the “b” word to the stock market. [Yves Smith, The Nyew York Times]
Surprise! Analysts are bearish on gold
The PHLX Gold/Silver Sector (INDEXNASDAQ:XAU) and the NYSE ARCA GOLD BUGS INDEX (INDEXNYSEGIS:HUI) indexes have each lost more than half their value year-to-date, while the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEARCA:GDX) has dropped 55% this year and is trading at its lowest level in five years. [Myra Saefong, The Tell]
Misc
Companies Keep Poison Pills in Reserve
One of the mainstays of corporate defenses against hostile takeovers has fallen to at least a nine-year low in popularity. Just 5.26% of all shareholder rights plans, or so-called poison pills, adopted by U.S. companies this year have been aimed at fending off unwanted takeover offers, instead of other goals, such as holding off activist investors. [Vipal Monga, MoneyBeat]
Billionaire Portfolios: They’re Just Like Ours!
Some of the data I was able to pull about YTD dollar and percentage gains in billionaire net worth tells an interesting story about what’s worked this year (tech and activism) and what has not (emerging markets and commodities). It’s amazing how this mirrors what’s worked and not worked in a typical investor’s portfolio. [Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker]
Perma-Bears (excerpt)
A few investment strategists have recently started to argue that stocks are significantly overvalued relative to “normalized” earnings. Their self-evident truth is that normalized earnings are lower than actual earnings so stocks are especially overpriced and vulnerable to a big fall from their current prices. [Dr. Ed Yardeni]
Ingersoll-Rand Completes Allegion Spinoff
Ingersoll-Rand PLC (NYSE:IR) completed the spinoff of its commercial and residential security business, Allegion PLC (NYSE:ALLE*). The new company started trading today on the NYSE and IR shareholders should have received 1 share of ALLE for every 3 shares of IR owned. [Spin Doctor, Stocks Spinoffs]
Hottest Links: Not The Onion
Man jailed for having sex with goat
Katana Kitsao Gona, 28, last week admitted sexually abusing the animal in the Kenyan town of Malindi. The female goat watched quietly in the corner of the court room as her attacker was jailed for bestiality. [Metro]
