Newsletter - April 27th, 2024

Dear Reader,

Attached is our latest list of stocks passing value screens (below net current asset value, tangible equity, etc.), which don’t meet our investment criteria - and our reasoning.

This may help you avoid some ‘value traps’, and stocks that aren’t sufficiently attractive compared to opportunities available today.

For reports of stocks that pass our quantitative and qualitative standards:

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Pabrai: YPO March 2024

Some notes below:

3:30 Behavioral change

"Take a simple idea, and take it seriously."

People have a hard time changing their behavior to adopt successful habits (even though they understand it intellectually) - but if you can, cloning a successful investing strategy is the simplest way to go.

Pabrai gives examples of Microsoft, Walmart and Costco cloning business strategies.

11:15 Franklin

Benjamin Franklin aimed first for financial independence, which enabled him to accomplish everything else he did.

We've covered Franklin's autobiography in our January 14th 2023 newsletter: https://www.analyzingbargainstocks.com/post/newsletter-january-13th-2024

We recommend the ongoing Franklin television series on Apple TV.

15:30 Newton

Isaac Newton was a genius of his era - yet, he lost his fortune in the speculative craze of the South Sea bubble (https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/South-Sea-Bubble/).

Greed and fear are hard to tame. Though temperament is largely inbuilt, if you can control your behavior in investing, you've won half the battle.

Focus on value received for your money - rather than price movements.

17:30 Downside Protection

The Ben Graham approach (which we try to stick to) is to limit downside risk, and avoid permanent (not quotational) loss of capital.

This strategy works best for relatively small sums of capital (<~$100mn).

20:15 Costco

Costco views itself as a buying agent for its customers - this attitude has been an important source of its competitive advantage.

27:15 Quick "No"

Aim to say a quick "No" to any investment proposal. Filter out bad ideas quickly. Drill down till an idea withstands your tests of safety.

On Pabrai's Turkish Coca-Cola bottler investment, Munger's evaluation honed in on how he could lose money there.

You are not penalized for passing up ideas - you just have to be right on the ones you invest in.

35:45 Ethics

You don't have to be ruthless in business to succeed.

40:00 Bookies

Buffett is highly skilled in evaluating probabilities. Investing is similar to gambling with respect to handicapping/evaluating the odds of propositions. After all, investing also depends on the future for its results.

The beauty of Ben Graham's margin-of-safety approach (which we are committed to) is to acquire shares when prices are low enough to provide a significant cushion against past earnings/asset values - to withstand adverse future developments.

This has worked in bond investing and Graham's genius was to apply it to common-stock investing, which results in greater rewards - because the margin-of-safety itself can be realized as a profit (unlike bond investing).

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Wish you an excellent week ahead.