About Gold

Is Gold a good investment?
It depends what's your definition of "good". When compared to cash, i think Gold is a better choice, since government have the legal license to keep printing money and thus diluting our cash while we're not compensated enough from interest earned from our cash. That is assuming you're not buying Gold at an overvalued price.

But i don't keep my surplus in "cash". I don't enjoy being "poor" slowly but surely.

To me, keeping Gold is like running on a treadmill. Yes, you're running, but you're going nowhere (after adjusted for inflation). On the other hand, keeping cash is even worse! That's like walking up slower than the escalator coming down, and thereby you're moving slower and slower down.

Question : Where do you think gold will be in five years and should that be a part of value investing?

Buffett : I have no views as to where it will be, but the one thing I can tell you is it won't do anything between now and then except look at you. Whereas, you know, Coca-Cola will be making money, and I think Wells Fargo will be making a lot of money and there will be a lot--and it's a lot--it's a lot better to have a goose that keeps laying eggs than a goose that just sits there and eats insurance and storage and a few things like that. The idea of digging something up out of the ground, you know, in South Africa or someplace and then transporting it to the United States and putting into the ground, you know, in the Federal Reserve of New York, does not strike me as a terrific asset.

Source: Ask Warren Buffett on CNBC's Squawk Box - Part 7 (9th March 2009)

Buffett also says "You could take all the gold that's ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that's worth at current gold prices, you could buy all -- not some -- all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take? Which is going to produce more value?"

Benjamin Graham in The Intelligent Investor also expresses his opposition to investing in gold.

Jeremy Siegel in Stocks for the Long Run writes how gold has barely beaten inflation over the past 200 years.

It is impossible to put an intrinsic value on gold. Companies or properties can be evaluated in numerous ways based on earnings, assets, growth etc. However, gold is just a metal which has no intrinsic value. Any time you are buying without establishing a margin of safety you are more likely speculating than you are investing.

If you buy gold at $1350 an ounce and it drops 50% there is no way to tell if it is trading above, at, or below its intrinsic value. That is why you will have no idea what do to if there is a sharp decline in gold prices. On the other hand, if you buy a property or stocks of a good company, you can check to see whether the earnings is affected as much as the drop in the price.

Take for instance, if you buy a property at RM 200,000 that gives you a Net annual rental of RM 20,000, giving you an annual rental return of 10%. If after 3 months and the property price drops to RM 100,000, we can check to see if the rental drops or not. If the rental did not drop, then we'll know that the property's intrinsic value did not drop. In fact, we can confidently buy more provided that the property price drop while rental remains. I don't know how we can say the same thing with Gold.

Owning a goose that lays eggs vs a goose that does nothing

From the green line of the graph above, it shows that Dow grows at a higher rate than Gold. Owning Equities represents ownership of companies and owning good companies is like owning a Goose that keeps on laying eggs.

Does Gold price keeps going up?

No! Infact, if you have bought at the "peak" in 1980, you have to wait 27 years to breakeven, and that's not including the depreciation of money over these 27 years. At this high price of gold currently, it's quite hard to justify recommending investing in gold.

Discrepancy in IOI Corp and IOI Properties Stock price

Today, i noticed a discrepancy in prices between those 2 shares. Since i can't take advantage of it, might as well i share it here in the hope that you'll learn a lesson or two, and take advantage of it, if the condition fits you.

Let me share some background info:

1. On 4th February 2009, IOI Corp issues a Voluntary Take-Over Offer to take over IOI Properties at:

• 0.6 shares of IOI Corp , and RM 0.33 CASH for every 1 share of IOI Properties.
  Full Details of the offer is here.

2. Then, on 30th March 2009, IOI Corp have already received (plus their own ownership in IOI Properties) in excess of 90% of the shares outstanding. Since they own more than 90%, the remaining shareholders of IOI Properties are "forced" to convert their shares to IOI Corp at above terms. Full Details of the 90% ownership of IOI Corp is here.

3. By 7th April 2009, IOI Properties would be delisted from Bursa Malaysia, and converted to IOI Corp shares at above terms.

So, the equation below must hold true.

1 IOI Properties share = 0.6 IOI Corp shares + RM 0.33 CASH

If the above equation differs by anything more than the brokerage fees involved (say, 1.5%), then arbitrage opportunity would arise.

As of this writing (4.30 pm on 31st March 2009), you can buy IOI Properties at RM 2.50 per share, and you can sell IOI Corp at RM 3.80 per share. Fitting it to the equation above:

Left Side : 1 IOI Properties share = RM 2.50

Right Side: 0.6 IOI Corp shares + RM 0.33 CASH = RM 2.61

That's a difference of 11 cents, or 4.4% !. Seeing this, I can buy 100,000 shares of IOI Properties at RM 2.50, and "sell" 60,000 shares of IOI Corp at the same time.

This way, i'm making a nearly risk free return of at least 3.4% in a week (that's the holding period for my IOI Properties shares to be converted to IOI Corp shares). After my IOI Properties shares is being converted to IOI Corp shares, i'll "return" the IOI Corp shares back to cover my short selling position.

Nice Arbitrage Opportunity? Too bad Short selling is not allowed in Malaysia since 1998. :-(.

However, if you own IOI Corp shares, you can sell those shares, and buy IOI Properties shares (with the above proportion). 1 week later, you'll have back the same number of IOI shares, and make at least 3.4% profit (assuming total brokerage fee is 1% both sides).

I know i would do that if i manage a portfolio of a few hundred Millions like a mutual fund. :-).

Would i just buy IOI Properties (without short selling IOI Corp at the same time), in the hope that i can sell IOI Corp shares at that above price 1 week later to make 3.4% profit?.
No, i won't. That involves risk, and possibly i might lose money. To me, this way is Speculation (and not Investing). Read the difference between Investing and Speculating here.

Introduction to Value Investing by Whitney Tilson

Whitney Tilson gave a good speech about Value Investing in 2008's Value Investing Conference. Although most of his ideas came from Warren Buffett, nevertheless, it's a good introduction to those who reads little of Warren Buffett's article.

His slides can be downloaded here:

Introduction
Mental Mistakes
Slides for Wednesday's Workshop
T2 Partners Presentation
Valuing Companies

The entire Video recordings of Value Investing Congress 2008

The entire conference presentation of Value Investing Congress 2008

The Intelligent Investor - "By far the best book on investing ever written." - Warren E. Buffett

This comic describes how Warren Buffett feels when he first read the book "The Intelligent Investor" back then when he was 19 years old. This is his various quotes about the book.

“I went the whole gamut. I collected charts and I read all the technical stuff. I listened to tips. And then I picked up Graham’s The Intelligent Investor . That was like seeing the light .”
(Adam Smith, Supermoney (New York: Random House, 1972),p. 181.)

“I don’t want to sound like a religious fanatic or anything, but it really did get me. ”
(Source: L. J. Davis, “Buffett Takes Stock,” New York Times Magazine ,April 1, 1990, p. 16.)

“Prior to that, I had been investing with my glands instead of my head. ”
(Source: Warren Buffett correspondence to Benjamin Graham, July 17, 1970.)

Here's the Preface written by Warren Buffett on The Intelligent Investor.
I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.

To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What’s needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions
and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. This book precisely and clearly prescribes the proper framework. You must supply the emotional discipline.

If you follow the behavioral and business principles that Graham advocates—and if you pay special attention to the invaluable advice in Chapters 8 and 20—you will not get a poor result from your investments. (That represents more of an accomplishment than you might think.) Whether you achieve outstanding results will depend on the effort and intellect you apply to your investments, as well as on the amplitudes of stock-market folly that prevail during your investing career. The sillier the market’s behavior, the greater the opportunity for the business-like investor. Follow Graham and you will profit from folly rather than participate in it.

To me, Ben Graham was far more than an author or a teacher. More than any other man except my father, he influenced my life. Shortly after Ben’s death in 1976, I wrote the following short
remembrance about him in the Financial Analysts Journal. As you read the book, I believe you’ll perceive some of the qualities I mentioned in this tribute.

Warren Buffett recommended this book (The Intelligent Investor) so many times, and it's quoted below:

1966 Letters to his Partners in Buffett Partnership
The availability of a quotation for your business interest (stock) should always be an asset to be utilized if desired. If it gets silly enough in either direction, you take advantage of it. Its availability should never be turned into a liability whereby its periodic aberrations in turn formulate your judgments. A marvelous articulation of this idea is contained in chapter two (The Investor and Stock Market Fluctuations) of Benjamin Graham’s "The Intelligent Investor". In my opinion, this chapter has more investment importance than anything else that has been written.

1984 Letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
(In what I think is by far the best book on investing ever written - “The Intelligent Investor”, by Ben Graham - the last section of the last chapter begins with, “Investment is most intelligent when it is most businesslike.” This section is called “A Final Word”, and it is appropriately titled.)

1990 Letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
In the final chapter of The Intelligent Investor Ben Graham forcefully rejected the dagger thesis: "Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety." Forty-two years after reading that, I still think those are the right three words.

1993 Letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
In fact, the true investor welcomes volatility. Ben Graham explained why in Chapter 8 of The Intelligent Investor.

2003 Letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
Jason Zweig last year did a first-class job in revising The Intelligent Investor, my favorite book on investing.

2004 Letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
Some people may look at this table and view it as a list of stocks to be bought and sold based upon chart patterns, brokers’ opinions, or estimates of near-term earnings. Charlie and I ignore such distractions and instead view our holdings as fractional ownerships in businesses. This is an important distinction. Indeed, this thinking has been the cornerstone of my investment behavior since I was 19. At that time I read Ben Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, and the scales fell from my eyes. (Previously, I had been entranced by the stock market, but didn’t have a clue about how to invest.)

Read the book online (FREE !)

Alternatively, you can view each page individually, seperated by Chapters here. If it's too much, the 3 most important Chapters are as below:

1. Chapter 1 : Investment vs. Speculation : results to be expected by the Intelligent Investor
2. Chapter 8 : The Investor and market fluctuations
3. Chapter 20: Margin of safety as the Central Concept

The 3 Bedrock Ideas above are the cornerstone of Warren Buffett's Billions. Watch the Video from my previous post.

Or if you prefer to own the book, you can get from Amazon from the links below.