Dear Reader,
Attached is our latest list of apparently cheap stocks generated from basic value screens (low p/e, ev/ebitda, debt/equity, etc.), which don’t meet our investment standards - and our reasoning.
This may help you avoid a few ‘value traps’ or stocks that aren’t sufficiently attractive compared to the opportunities available today.
For reports of stock ideas that pass our quantitative and qualitative standards, join at the link below:
Benjamin Franklin Autobiography
We finally got around to reading this 232-year-old classic cover to cover though it lay around our study for several years.
A lot of it is now ingrained common sense in the West but there’s something magical reading it in Franklin’s own words – as if he’s talking directly to you; the humanness of this legendary figure. And there is no substitute to reading it yourself – anecdotes will strike each reader differently.
His methodical attempt at moral perfection is probably best known. He focused on developing 13 virtues by concentrating on one a week - and discovered he had to break bad habits and establish good ones before he could attain his goal. (Reminds us of Buffett's pre-talk 'sermons'.) Self-control truly is mastery.
His key character trait that echoed to us is diligence. With level-headedness and industry, he accomplished much.
Being well-read when most weren’t, and engaged in the printing business running the best newspaper in town turned him into a wealthy and influential man from relative obscurity.
One section sums up his mindset: “… I was not discouraged by the seeming magnitude of the undertaking, as I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, make the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.”
Echoes Buffett and Gates attributing their success to "Focus" – applies to any endeavor, particularly active investing.
Poor Richard's Almanack
