By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — If you Google “Ben Graham”, you will see that his name is synonymous with the value investing philosophy, and rightfully so. His book, Security Analysis, which was published in 1934 during the heart of the Great Depression, kicked off the era of classic value investing — that is, buying stocks that look cheap based on their assets or earnings. Graham’s investing philosophy was greatly influenced by the excesses seen… Read More
By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — In 2005, Joel Greenblatt, a successful hedge fund manager, published an incredibly simple book on disciplined value investing. The book, The Little Book that Beats the Market, went on to be a best seller. In the book, Greenblatt developed a method that sought to combine Ben Graham’s deep value stock selection approach with that of Warren Buffett, who is mostly known for buying high quality and profitable companies at… Read More
By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — There is no shortage of evidence showing value investing works over time. From the actual track records of great investors like Warren Buffett, Mario Gabelli, Bill Ruane and Tom Knapp, who were inspired by value investing techniques developed by Ben Graham and David Dodd, to numerous tests and academic studies that have been conducted, value investing has proven itself over time. However, that doesn’t mean that growth stocks should… Read More
By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — Ok, just to be clear there are no real hidden secrets in Warren Buffett’s Annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter (download the full letter here). You won’t find a map, like the in the movie “The Goonies”, leading you to Berkshire’s $116 billion cash hoard aboard some pirate ship. You won’t even find any hint on who Buffett is going to pick as a successor. Sorry to disappoint you. But… Read More
By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — “I do not like debt and do not like to invest in companies that have too much debt, particularly long-term debt. With long-term debt, increases in interest rates can drastically affect company profits and make future cash flows less predictable.” — Warren Buffett Of the twelve quantitative models we run publicly on Validea, nine of them look at a company’s level of debt in their assessment of a firm’s… Read More
By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — Sometimes someone says something that hits you like a ton of bricks. Well, in early January Warren Buffett was on CNBC and one of the topics he was discussing was tax reform and its impact on the value of stocks (see full video here, pick it up at the 17 min mark). In classic Buffett fashion, he makes a few very salient points that are worth digging into. Buffett… Read More
By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — Imagine you’re presented with two investment models. Both hold a concentrated basket of 10 stocks, both are rebalanced monthly and both are built on factor-based investing methods. One of the strategies, let’s call is Model A, is up 58.1% for the year compared to a gain of 20% for the broader market. Ok, that 38% outperformance is pretty impressive. What about the other strategy, Model B, you ask? Well,… Read More
By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — Cash may be one of the most boring things to talk about when discussing a company and its investment prospects. Things like a company’s business model, its stock price, its future growth forecast, its yield, and its valuation are far more exciting. But cash is an asset that gives companies many options both in terms of pursuing growth opportunities and other forms of capital allocation like buying back shares,… Read More
By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — Jeff Bezos is now the richest man in the world. He’s achieved this vaunted status is because of the price of the stock and the corresponding value investors are assigning to the company he founded, Amazon, in the public markets, not because of Amazon’s profitability, or the income being generated by the company, is flowing directly in Bezos’ pockets. A company’s market capitalization, also sometimes referred to as “market… Read More
By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — In our book, “The Guru Investor: How to Beat the Market Using History’s Best Investment Strategies”, we called Benjamin Graham the “Granddaddy of the Gurus” given his track record and influence on other value investors, including Warren Buffett, Mario Gabelli and many others. If Graham was the Granddaddy of the Gurus then I think the Price-to-Earnings ratio (or P/E for short), a ratio utilized by Graham, is probably the… Read More