George's story links

Zhao Danyang, the Chinese hedge fund manager who paid more than $2.11 million to lunch with Warren Buffett, shares what he discussed during the 3 1/2-hour meal. However, Danyang did not share Buffett's views on the U.S. dollar because he thought it was too contraversial.

Todd Sullivan about General Growth Properties (GGWPQ), Oil (USO), Gold (GLD), Natural Gas (UNG) and Red Sox/Yanks.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. doubled its municipal-bond holdings in nine months amid record swings in the value of the securities that the billionaire investor labeled "unthinkable."

Jason Zweig discusses the current rally in "garbage" stocks. The article includes advice from Jeremy Grantham and also discusses the opportunities in Japanese stocks selling below net current asset value.

The June 8, 2009 edition of the Festival of Stocks has links to last week's best stock related articles produced by bloggers.

This portfolio focused on buying wide moat companies at discount prices is starting regain some ground during the recent rally.

The year-to-date return for the Special Situations Real Money Portfolio is 18.25% and the annualized growth rate since inception in 2004 has now climbed to 26.43%! This month I review my positions in Wilshire Enterprises (WOC), Neuberger Berman closed-end funds, Heelys (HLYS), XTENT (XTNT), and Xedar Corp. (XDRC).

Lessons learned by looking at Charlie Munger's experience of not selling some of his assets to buy more shares of Belridge Oil in the late 1970s.

Todd Sullivan looks at Sears Holdings new concept of MyGofer, which provides conveniet retail order and pickup service.

This morning during the general session, Mr. Robert Rodriguez of First Pacific Advisors provided the keynote presentation where he discussed the buildup to the credit crisis.

Thursday featured another break out session attended which featured Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of GMO. This session was primarily about where we are heading economically.

A summary list of 58 companies targeted by 61 shareholder activists during April 2009.

This article looks at the clue the IPO market provides regarding market valuation. The number and value of IPOs in a given year may help indicate whether or not valuations are high enough to entice companies to issue public shares.

Sounds like my kind of value investor. This blogger details his investment strategy and current holdings.

In the final session of the day was a conversation with John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard. Don Phillips, Managing Director of Morningstar, was the moderator of the conversation. This was the highlight of the day.