Value-Stock-Plus

The Video:
Just got hold of a wonderful Seth Klarman Video, dated 17th March, 2009 here.

More on Video:
The University of Western Ontario Ivey School of Business posted a videoconference with Seth Klarman. Klarman is the founder of The Baupost Group and a very successful value investor. The video which lasts just over an hour, was taped in March. Thanks go to the Ivey School for sharing such a valuable resource!
Source: CompoundingMachines

More on Klarman:
Mr. Klarman is President of The Baupost Group, L.L.C. Founded in 1982, Baupost discretionarily manages $15 billion for a number of institutional and wealthy individual investors. Baupost uses a value discipline with an event-driven bias to find global opportunities in such diverse areas as publicly-traded and private equities, bankrupt and financially-distressed debt, and real estate. Seth has managed Baupost’s investments from inception. Baupost’s largest partnership vehicle has achieved net annual return to investors of just over 20% and has experienced only one money-losing year since it was formed in 1983. Seth is a 1982 MBA graduate of Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He received his Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, in Economics from Cornell University in 1979. In 1991, he wrote a now out of print book entitled ”Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor”, which sells for $1,200 on Amazon and $2,000 on eBay and has been stolen from most libraries. Seth is also a world-class worrier.  In one letter, Mr. Klarman said, ”At Baupost,  we are big fans of fear, and in investing, it is clearly better to be scared than sorry.” In an earlier note, he wrote, ”Rather than ratchet up risk, our approach has been to hold cash in the absence of opportunity.”  Seth serves on several not-for-profit boards and lives in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts with his wife and three children.
Source: BenGrahamInvesting.ca

Compilation on Klarman:
I have created a resource on Klarman here.

by Ravi Nagarajan

I have been reading the updated sixth edition of Security Analysis from cover to cover and on more than one occasion, I have stopped to consider the major advantages modern day investors have compared to Graham and Dodd. Investors today have access to a wealth of information that Benjamin Graham lacked during his career. However, more widespread information also would theoretically lead to more market efficiency and reduce opportunities to find mispriced securities. Is it true that the market is more efficient due to the widespread dissemination of information made possible by the Internet and other technologies that have emerged in recent years?

If one considers the sources of information available to investors operating fifty years ago, it is obvious that there were many more hurdles standing between an investor and the knowledge required to make intelligent investment commitments. In fact, the situation was not all that different even 15 to 20 years ago before widespread access to the Internet. I remember spending hours in the library researching publications on microfiche, using card catalogs to find books, and sending out for annual reports when I first started to develop an interest in investing. This was not fifty years ago, but during the early 1990s.

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Frequent visitors to this blog must be aware that I am a big fan of Seth Klarman’s Writings. The man has an amazing clarity & focus in his writings. To make it more simpler Barel Karsan’s Value Investing blog is revisiting “Margin of Safety”  with a chapter-by-chapter run-down of the book.

Those who have more time in this recession, can “invest” the time in reading this wonderful book.

To download the complete “Margin of Safety” book, please go here.

For a complete compilation on Seth Klarman, go here.

… and how to avoid them!

Source: Fisher Investments

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One Foreign Institutional Investor (FII) client in a UK-India joint venture equity research firm based in Mumbai told the head of the firm that “if you see what I see in the promoters’ pledged shares market, you would think twice about investing in most Indian companies”. This FII client’s remarks were based on an analysis of the quantum of shares pledged by promoters of over 400 companies since February when the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) introduced these new disclosure requirements.

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Source: BW

The Letters written by Mr. Seth Klarman to his clients at The Baupost Group  from 1995 to 2001 is available here.

Courtesy: Noise-Free Investing

Baupost Fund Letters

Here is a super-long article on Financial Crisis Posted by Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs. A must read!

Link

All market experts have got a good sense of what will happen to this economy and to the stock market if the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) or the Third Front or the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) comes to power after May 16.

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Trader and Investor, sees the results of general elections 2009 coming in as a big surprise. According to Vallabh Bhansali, Chairman, Enam Securities, the Third Front will come third.

Jhunjhunwala said elections are important for markets, but at present global cues are of a greater importance. Bhansali also agrees that General Elections 2009 will not be a turning point for stock markets.

Ridham Desai, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley, said elections 2009 are very important. According to him, India’s relative performance compared to other world markets hinges around these election results because it comes at a point which is quite critical to our economic cycle.

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Direct link to video is here. (15mb .flv file)