Value Investing News - WMT - Comments

AAII Article

david — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:24:25 -0400

Vitaliy,
That was a nice article you wrote for the April issue of the AAII Journal under the magazine's Stack Strategies section titled The Role of Diversification in an Individual Stock Portfolio.

http://www.aaii.com/journal/

DAvid

Sears is finally starting to

George — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:51:13 -0500

Sears is finally starting to look a little more attractive to me. Now I just need to figure out how much it is worth. Anyone value Sears Holding recently?

You gotta love that title.

George — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:19:41 -0500

You gotta love that title. lol

You are welcome alexg. I

George — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:26:19 -0500

You are welcome alexg. I think much of what Pabrai shares is true. However, I don't think he has really been sticking to his teachings lately. I don't think some of his latest purchases had true sustainable competitive advantages. I think the desire to add small caps to a portfolio can lead one to compromise on the quality of a businesses' competitive advantage. That can lead to positive results in good times, but when industries or sectors are in upheavel, those without true sustainable competitive advantages get crushed.

thanks george for the link.

alexg — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:15:27 -0500

thanks george for the link. Although im not a big fan of pabrai, the fact that he shares his knowledge with the public is awesome. There are very few individuals with his "status" who share their knowledge with the public and really tries to give the public what they want.

I like Mohnish but would

billytickets — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 07:05:22 -0500

I like Mohnish but would love to his explanation of a pig like DFC got in his portfolio and also how many redemptions he thinks that will cause him

Re: Glad to see this article on

George — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:20:09 -0400

Yes, welcome to Value Investing News or VIN for short.

I really enjoyed your article Billy, so I bookmarked here on Value Investing News back in September. It looks like the article didn't quite make it to the front page due to the low vote count. The up and down arrows are used by members to move articles up to the front page or to keep it from being published. Any member can submit links to articles of interest to other value investors.

Welcome Billy

Nick — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:55:20 -0400

Welcome to VIN Billy I'm glad to see you here. Don't forget to vote (up/down) your favorite submissions.

Glad to see this article on

billytickets — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:00:13 -0400

Glad to see this article on here I just joined up today.email me at ticketbill@aol.com with any comments or questions

The original post was

Nick — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:24:59 -0400

The original post was littered with factual errors and the author even spelled "Buffett" incorrectly. I didn't dislike the article or point-of-view as much as I dislike the lack of fact checking prior to posting what was sure to be a controversial article.

I've been using

Jason — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 00:24:27 -0400

I've been using Morningstar's "Fair Value" estimates to help in analysis the last year or so, and so far, I don't know how impressed I am. Sometimes, I just get the feeling like, "where did they come up with these numbers?" I know they use a "proprietary" DCF valuation, but as a subscriber, I feel obligated to see numbers...

Regardless, good story.

Thanks, I wanted to mention

Nick — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 10:21:17 -0500

Thanks, I wanted to mention Lou Simpson, but for the life of me couldn't remember his name even though I was fortunate enough to meet him at the annual meeting once.

True

Geoff — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:02:08 -0500

While Berkshire's holdings are often reported as if they are all Buffett's decisions alone (which is unwarranted), there are some buys where it's pretty clear he's the one making the decisions – Berkshire's activities in USG and WFC would fall into this category of decisions clearly attributable to Buffett.

Lou Simpson is also a truly great investor – so Berkshire's activities are worth paying attention to regardless of who made the pick.

Additionally, Berkshire

Nick — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:03:37 -0500

Additionally, Berkshire filing also represent purchases made by Geico- those investments are not directed by Buffett. That said, they tend to be great investments as well.

Buffett and Small Holdings

Geoff — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:24:39 -0500

Also, it's always worth keeping in mind that Buffett has a real aversion to retaining small holdings. As he's admitted before, he's sometimes started to buy a stock only to sell it later because he didn't get enough of it.

In smaller stocks, he seems to be willing to have a relatively small position because that's all he can hope to get and he comes into it knowing that. For instance, he knows USG (USG) can't be a huge position relative to Berkshire's other holdings, but Berkshire can be a large holder of USG.

Although Berkshire will hold stocks for a very long time, some new (smaller) positions can disappear surprisingly fast. Sometimes I think that means Buffett would have kept buying if the stock had kept falling, but for whatever reason Berkshire didn't get as much as Buffett wanted (at the price he wanted) so he began to consider exiting the position. He really thinks differently than most portfolio managers on the issue of concentration. I don't think he likes owning just a "smidge" of Lowe's (LOW), UPS (UPS), etc.

The one purchase that stood out to me in the last year or so was ConocoPhillips (COP) since it was big enough to make it well into Berkshire's top dozen or so holdings.

Anyway, I just thought it was worth mentioning that we shouldn't assume that a relatively small position (both relative to Berkshire's other holdings and relative to the market cap of the stock being purchased) reflects Buffett's original intent. In the past, he has stopped buying or exited a stock after failing to acquire enough to make it one of Berkshire's top holdings – he has occasionally admitted to past instances of this himself (usually when saying he made a mistake by failing to continue buying shares in a good company even as its price rose). My guess is that this has happened a few times already and is likely to become an ever more frequent occurrence considering the size of Berkshire's cash hoard.