Even the most astute investors can fall prey to emotions and behavioral biases, and in a recent interview value guru Whitney Tilson talks about how to keep those emotions and biases in check. “There is no sure-fire way to get rich quickly,” Tilson tells Steve Forbes. “In fact the pursuit of that usually leads to ruin. The best way I know to get rich long term is to invest prudently and conservatively and not try… Read More
Top manager Whitney Tilson says the environment has become tough for value investors, but adds that he’s still finding some bargains out there. “This is not an ideal environment for a value investor like me because to find wonderful bargains it helps to have some distress in the market — or at least some area of the market — but there’s very little of this today,” Tilson wrote in his latest quarterly letter (hat tip… Read More
In his annual letter to clients, top value investor Whitney Tilson says he is getting back to basics now that he is managing money on his own. “I truly believe that less is more,” writes Tilson in his first annual letter since he and former business partner Glenn Tongue parted ways. “Going forward, the funds I manage will be concentrated in my very best, carefully researched investment ideas, with approximately 15 meaningful positions on the… Read More
Top value investor Whitney Tilson recently gave an extensive presentation at the Value Investing Congress, saying he is “cautiously optimistic” that the U.S. economic recovery will continue and offering some of his top investing ideas. “I am cautiously optimistic that a tepid economic recovery will continue in the U.S.,” Tilson said, “but with the S&P 500 up more than 16% YTD, the markets have already had a good year so I don’t see much upside… Read More
While Chinese stocks have fallen in recent months, top value investor Whitney Tilson isn’t seeing value in the Asian giant. In fact, he says China is “uninvestable”. In an email to ValueWalk.com, Tilson explains how his father appears to have been scammed after recently buying a product from a Chinese website, “yet another case study that reinforces my belief that if you do business or invest in China or with Chinese companies, there’s an alarmingly… Read More
In his latest Nasdaq.com column, Validea CEO John Reese looks at some stocks that have been hit hard in the market’s recent downturn, and which now look like bargains. Reese talks about how top value investors like Whitney Tilson and Warren Buffett use downturns as opportunities to add to their favorite picks — not reason to flee the market. “In the dozen-plus years that I’ve been studying history’s most successful investors, I’ve found that far… Read More
Value fund manager Whitney Tilson, who has a solid long-term track record but has struggled over the past month, recently talked with CNBC about how to handle short-term losses. Tilson says that as long as he still has strong conviction in his picks, he’ll use short-term declines as opportunities to add to those positions, which he says he’s been doing recently. “A bumpy ride in the short term is fine for us as long as we make very… Read More
In a recent interview with CNBC, Whitney Tilson talked about why his firm likes to invest in firms that are the subject of “panicked headline investing”. Tilson says that “we love buying stocks when we think the sellers don’t care about price,” and cites BP as an example, saying that the oil giant had such negative publicity after its Gulf of Mexico spill that investors lost sight of value and sold the stock indiscriminately. He’s… Read More
Whitney Tilson is finding some of the best opportunities in the market in some of the market’s largest companies. “It’s one of the most attractive areas in the market,” he tells CNBC. “They’re incredible companies that are earning profits and trading at 10 to 12 times earnings with strong balance sheets and they’re returning cash to shareholders — they’re not exciting but if you’ve got a 5-10 year horizon and you want to earn better returns… Read More
How many stocks should an investor own in order to diversify away stock-specific risk? Some interesting data shows that it may be fewer than you think. The data comes from hedge fund guru Joel Greenblatt’s book, You Can Be A Stock Market Genius, and was highlighted by top value investor Whitney Tilson a few years back (and recently reprinted on The Motley Fool website). According to Greenblatt’s book, the risk-reduction benefits of adding more stocks to… Read More