This is the letter we wrote to our clients in the first quarter of 2011. It discusses the importance of international investing and our purchase of a UK retailer, Halfords PLC. If you want to read a shorter version, I’ve turned it into an article that was published in the June issue of Institutional Investor, [...]
VALUEx Vail 2011 is over. I already miss these three days. I got the idea to put together VALUEx Vail after I attended VALUEx in Klosters (a little ski resort town in Switzerland, located on the other – the “value” – side of the mountain from Davos) in February this year. Since I live only [...]
While in Omaha attending the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting I had the pleasure of participating on a Value Investing Panel at Creighton University. Ben Claremon from Inoculated Investor blog took very good notes from the event, you can find them in the PDF below. Creighton Value Investing Panel(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = “http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js”; var [...]
Jeff Saut, Chief Market Strategist at Raymond James kindly mentioned my Cisco article in his weekly letter: Efficient Markets?! May 31, 2011 “Markets are efficient, or so we’ve been told. I am not here to put a rebuttal to this academic nonsense, but let me give you one of the core reasons why markets are [...]
I was on BNN (Canadian CNBC) with Jeff Saut (Chief Market Strategist with Raymond James) and Jeff Hirsch (editor of Stock Trader’s Almanac) discussing sideways markets. We did three segments, here are links to the segments one, two and three.
Markets are efficient, or so we’ve been told. I am not here to put a rebuttal to this academic nonsense, but let me give you one of the core reasons why markets are and will remain inefficient: because human beings are efficient. To function in everyday life, our brains are used to simplifying complex problems, [...]
I’d like to invite you to the first annual VALUEx Vail being held in Vail, Colorado, June 15th through 17th. VALUEx Vail is designed for serious PROFESSIONAL investors to share ideas, learn from one another experiences, all while enjoying each others company and fun activities in the beautiful Colorado mountains. We are only sending out this [...]
I am back! It was an amazing trip. It started with Warren Buffett’s Omaha. I flew into Omaha on Thursday morning, and a few hours later received a call from the CFA Society of Nebraska, asking me to give a talk to their members. Whitney Tilson and his partner Glen were supposed to do a [...]
When I wake up in the morning and check news for the companies I own, I worry. I don’t worry that my companies missed their quarterly guidance by a few pennies – running a business is an art, and things don’t usually work out in a precise, linear fashion. The companies that have a “deliver [...]
I’d like to share excerpts from our quarterly letter we send to our clients (this is Part 1; I’ll send out Part 2 in a few weeks). I’m not sharing the full letter for a simple reason: we are still accumulating shares in some stocks mentioned in the letter. Purchase of Big Lots Big Lots [...]
It is time again for the annual trip to Warren Buffett’s Omaha to Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. Warren Buffett over the years was turned into god. He is an incredible investor, brilliantly smart, full of worldly wisdom; but, like everyone else, he gets up in the morning and puts his pants on one leg at [...]
I was quoted in FT about David Sokol, CEO of a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, buying shares in Lubrizol a few months before Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought Lubrizol at a significant premium, which made Sokol 3 million dollars on his $10 million purchase. “Some investors expressed concerns about Mr Sokol’s actions. ‘Any time you buy stock [...]
I gave a presentation on China/Japan at the “Rethinking Seminar” at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. My presentation was videotaped; video (both streaming and download), audio, and even cliff notes may be found here (by the way, make sure to take a look at other presentations on their website). Also, I updated my slides [...]
I updated my presentation on China and Japan. – Enjoy China Japan Presentation – By Vitaliy Katsenelson – ContrarianEdge(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = “http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js”; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();
I am traveling this weekend to our nation’s capital with my almost-10-year-old son, Jonah. I’m giving a speech on Monday at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (the presentation will be across the street from the Pentagon; you can register here). The following weekend I am taking my wife to Kansas City, where we’ll [...]
Profit margins are a tick away from all-time highs and are creating the impression of cheap equity valuations. But that impression is a mirage, because today’s generous margins are destined to shrink. I first wrote about this in January 2008, and here is an update to that article. All I had to do was to [...]
The Ups and Downs of Flying I am a very nervous flyer. Whenever there is a little bit of turbulence, I look out the window, see shaking wings, and start to wonder whether they’ll keep holding the plane up. Then my rational self kicks in, and I tell myself that statistically it is safer flying [...]
My interview with Forbes’ John Dobosz on what value investing and Fiddler on the Roof have in common.
Earlier this week we saw reports that “Beijing authorities plan to build a “seven-star hotel” modelled after Dubai’s Burj Khalifa — the world’s tallest building — in a $1.3 billion joint project with Saudi Arabia.” Yes, the same building that symbolized Dubai’s $20-plus billion in malinvestments and required a bailout by Abu Dhabi. In Russian [...]
To paraphrase Nassim Taleb, “Giving interviews is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing.” With the new book out, I have the pleasure and the opportunity to perfect that art. My latest interview, with my friend Bob Huebscher of Adviser Perspectives, is below; and here are links to my interviews with John Mihalijevic of Manual of [...]
Here are my 10 most favorite/important articles from 2010, all of them are still relevant today. QE2: Beware the Perils of its Success Recommended Book List 2010 Poststeroid Economics Shadow over Asia Barron’s Is Wrong On Medtronic Japan: Land of the Rising Debt Chinese Quest for Shortcut to Greatness Even Capitalist Pigs Should Love Bank [...]
Manual of Ideas Interviews Vitaliy Katsenelson Vitaliy N. Katsenelson, CFA, is Chief Investment Officer at Investment Management Associates in Denver, Colo. He is the author of upcoming The Little Book of Sideways Markets (Wiley, December 2010). To receive Vitaliy’s future articles by email, click here.
I had a pleasure of being interviewed by Jim Puplava [click here to listen], it is a lengthy and in depth interview about The Little Book of Sideways Markets. I hope you enjoy it.
David Rosenberg, ex-Chief Economist with Merrill Lynch, now with Gluskin Sheff, kindly mentioned my book in his research on Monday. Vitaliy Katsenelson, a Denver-based money manager who recently wrote a bible of a book on investing (we had the honor of reading the manuscript) is featured on page 14 of Barron’s. He stated that he [...]
The Little Book of Sideways Markets is officially out. It was a fun and interesting project. I took Active Value Investing (my first book), completely rewrote the first half of the book, added three new chapters (“Born Again Value Investor” is my favorite one), updated it to reflect the post-Great Recession economic environment, added new examples, [...]
Know these names? The Way to Wealth, The Intelligent Investor, One up on Wall St, Stocks for the Long Run ? They’re all books that redefined investing for their time. But they may be headed for the history section. A new little book is threatening to turn all that sage advice on its head. We’re talking about Vitaliy Katsenelson’s “The [...]
After it’s property bubble burst, Japan embarked on a stimulus program Katsenelson describes simply as: “Lower taxes and borrow money to finance it,” which pretty much sounds like U.S. fiscal policy during the Bush years. Japan’s central bank has also employed quantitative easing repeatedly since the early 2000s; if their experience is any indication, Ben [...]
Of course, there are many critics of the Fed who say the second round of quantitative easing is wrong and even harmful. “The failure of QE2 doesn’t worry me. It’s the success that worries me,” says Vitaliy Katsenelson of Investment Management Associates. “I think it’s criminal,” he tells Aaron in the accompanying clip. “They’re forcing [...]