Showing posts with label Video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Video. Show all posts

Monday, December 29, 2008

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

Sunday, December 21, 2008

21 (Movie by Columbia Pictures)


I've watched this movie yesterday morning after reading they synopsis. I got hooked to the synopsis that i can't wait to watch it with my wife. I had to drag her out from the bedroom because she enjoys sleeping in the morning, while i enjoy taking afternoon nap. :-)




The true story of the very brightest young minds in the country - and how they took Vegas for millions. Ben Campbell is a shy, brilliant M.I.T. student who -- needing to pay school tuition -- finds the answers in the cards. He is recruited to join a group of the school's most gifted students that heads to Vegas every weekend armed with fake identities and the know-how to turn the odds at blackjack in their favor. With unorthodox math professor and stats genius Micky Rosa leading the way, they've cracked the code. By counting cards and employing an intricate system of signals, the team can beat the casinos big time. Seduced by the money, the Vegas lifestyle, and by his smart and sexy teammate, Jill Taylor, Ben begins to push the limits. Though counting cards isn't illegal, the stakes are high, and the challenge becomes not only keeping the numbers straight, but staying one step ahead of the casinos' menacing enforcer: Cole Williams.

It's definitely one of my favourite movies because:
  1. This movie is inspired by a True Story
  2. It's about brightest minds of students combining their knowledge to beat the Casino
  3. Their system of beating the casino deals with Odds and Probability, which is my favourite subject back in the school days.
  4. Unlike majority who "Gambles" in casino, they "Invest". Over a long term, they can't lose.
  5. They use their Talent to make money.

Download the movie in Tvfreeload.com's Forum
(need a free registration before being able to view the links)

Read more about Card Counting in Blackjack : http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-count-cards (it's written by a math teacher)



Will i try to do Card Counting (In Blackjack) to beat the Dealer?
I don't think so. I rather keep to Valuing Public Listed Companies and "trade" with anonymous people. At least, nobody knows the who they are trading with in Stocks.

I might write about the similarities of their system with Investing (in Common Stocks), if there is enough demand for it.

Friday, December 19, 2008

What Warren Buffett says about Diversification

This is one of the question asked by one of the student about Diversification to Warren Buffett. The entire video is available here : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6231308980849895261 . I strongly recommended to see the video!.




Says Buffett, "If you are not a professional investor, if your goal is not to manage money in such a way that you get a significantly better return than world, then I believe in extreme diversification. I believe that 98 or 99 percent — maybe more than 99 percent — of people who invest should extensively diversify and not trade. That leads them to an index fund with very low costs. All they’re going to do is own a part of America. They’ve made a decision that owning a part of America is worthwhile. I don’t quarrel with that at all — that is the way they should approach it."

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Video conference with Walter J Schloss on 12 Feb 2008

On 12 Feb 2008, Walter J Schloss gave a video conference on investing. The video conference is part of series of high profile Canadian and US value investor speeches organized by Dr. George Athanassakos, the holder of the Ben Graham Chair in Value Investing and the Director of the Ben Graham Centre of Value Investing, for the benefit of his students in his Value Investing courses at the Richard Ivey School of Business.

Walter Schloss is one of the Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville (Read more about his track record here: http://peterlim80.blogspot.com/2008/10/superinvestors-of-graham-and-doddsville_21.html ).

If there is one statement which is repeated a number of times by him, it is, “I don’t like to lose money.” I think that was the most used statement by him in the recording.

He seems to have very simple rules for investing:
1. Low Debt
2. Good History
3. Price
4. Management
5. Investor Characteristics





If you like this video, you can download it at : http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Resources/Video_Presentations/Walter_J_Schloss.wmv

A good writeup about Walter J Schloss : http://www.gurufocus.com/news_print.php?id=21786

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Whole Life or Buy Term Life and Invest the Difference?

Recently, i came across many of my clients asking me this question. So, instead of explaining one by one, i've decided to write this entry.

Look at what Suze Orman have to say in the video below. (Learn more about Suze Orman at: http://www.suzeorman.com/ )

Also, look at what Dave Ramsey have to say in his website here: http://www.daveramsey.com/the_truth_about/life_insurance_3481.html.cfm
(Learn more about Dave Ramsey at http://www.daveramsey.com/ )

He says:
Myth: Cash value life insurance, like whole life, will help me retire wealthy.
Truth: Cash value life insurance is one of the worst financial products available.

Another good explaination is at http://finance1o1.blogspot.com/2007/04/myths-about-cash-value-life-insurance.html .

A former insurance agent wrote a very good article here: http://www.epinions.com/finc-review-1C75-CFAC2FD-3926096C-prod3 .

She list 8 questions to ask the insurance agent, which is as below:
1. If I buy your whole life policy, when will it start building cash values?
2. If I want the money, do I have to borrow it?
3. If I borrow it, what happens if I don't pay it back?
4. If I pay it back, do I pay interest?
5. How much interest will I earn on this cash value?
6. If I die with an outstanding loan on the cash value, what happens to the face value?
7. When I die, do my beneficiaries get the face value and the cash value?
8. You say my premiums will be $25.00 per month. How much term insurance could I buy from you for the same amount of money?

By this time he will probably be packing his bag and getting ready to leave. My advice. Let him leave!

Is it the same in Malaysia? I might write more about it later, with some quotations and detailed explainations.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The Three "Bedrock" Ideas Behind Warren Buffett's Billions

In his European tour in May 2008, Warren Buffett was asked to name the most important lesson he learned from his mentor, Benjamin Graham.

Instead he listed three, using just 85 seconds to deftly describe the trio of "bedrock" ideas that have helped make him the world's richest man.

It all comes from this ....




Warren Buffett: The three most important lessons I learned were all from the same book, The Intelligent Investor. It was written first by (Benjamin) Graham in 1949. They appear in chapters 8 and chapters 20.

The first is, to look at stocks as pieces of businesses, not as little items on a chart that move around, not as ticker symbols, not as something that might split next week or next month or something of the sort. But, rather, to look at the business, value the business, divide by the shares outstanding, and decide whether you really want to own a piece of that business at that price.

The second one was his commentary about your attitude toward the stock market. That it is there to serve you rather than to instruct you, and he used the famous Mr. Market example of that. That attitude is fundamental to making money in stocks over time.

And the final item he talked about was margin of safety. When you buy a stock that you think is worth 10 dollars, you don't pay $9.95 for it, because you can't be that precise in estimating its value. So you leave a considerable margin of safety for both what you don't understand and for the vagaries of the future.

And those three ideas, which I learned when I was 19 years old, have been the bedrock of everything I've done since.

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/24839084/