Investments Trade Log

[C40]

Does anyone know of a good alternative to Value Line Reports? I'm not looking for something to use instead of them, but rather something to use for companies that Value Line does not make these reports for. I'm struggling with research on REITS in particular, as they don't make reports for many of the REITs. I've actually been struggling with this for years

The important things I'm looking at are yearly history of per-share values for things like FFO, Dividends, NAV (going back 10 or 15 years), and current values for Sales, book value (though NAV would be great), debt...

I've been looking at websites and some reports from other analysis companies and have not yet found anything showing these. If I can find a source for these that is easy to look through, I can do my research much faster (and usually see back more years) than looking at the companies financial reports. [or.... is the reality that I just need to get used to finding and digging through financial reports?]

Here is an example of the Value Line Report


If anyone wants to use the Value Line reports, a subscription is expensive, but you can get access through membership at some libraries. If your library does not have access, it's often possible to get a card at other libraries without actually living in that area.

[George the original one]

Does anyone know of a good alternative to Value Line Reports?

Value Line is certainly good quality. Ameritrade accounts offer free reports and they used to carry Value Line or very similar, but I haven't checked in a few years what is on offer these days.

[arcyallen]

Interesting that Buffet did zero buying during this pullback.

Well, he DID buy some airline stock...right before he sold it. I'm a huge Buffet fan and I'm very intrigued by his non-buying. I mean, there's NOTHING that's a good value to him for years now? Even today? That tells me he thinks there will be something still down the road. I'm still shocked the market is this high still. I think it's a good time to own BRK as it's underperformed for a long time, and you know he'll be picking up some deals by the end of all of this. If you can hold a contrarian view I think these all point to a resurgence in value investing.

[Seppia]

it's also interesting that more and more "has Buffet lost his touch?" articles are popping up, which is usually a great sign.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres ... 2020-05-12

jacob you did buy some BRK correct?

[jacob]

Yup, a painful experience---if only I had waited a month to pull the trigger. I'm still accumulating though. The only thing that bothered me was Buffett's lack of interest in buybacks given his previously stated position. The shares are the cheapest they've been in the last 30 years based on intrinsic value, but now his argument is that they're no cheaper than the market on a relative basis. I don't know what to make of that beyond maybe he's expecting to be able to use the cash later in the year as the rest of the market drops more than BRK.

I guess he must be holding off for the big one. It was to be expected there would be a break from the "new era" guys. It's getting less and less fun to be a value investor these days when large cap tech momentum has ruled the world for 10+ years. (In contrast, value did well in 2000-2010, while large cap tech momentum was shite). Unfortunately having big guys rotate out does provide some downward pressure on the share price for the time being.

[Seppia]

Thanks Jacob
I've been looking at BRK.B for a few weeks, but in a spectacular case of anchoring I still remember to this day when in 2014 or so I told a colleague of mine "you should load up on BRK.B at $111", yet did not buy any
This guy thanks me to this day because he doesn't know he would have made more money just buying an index but still.

[Generation-X]

Buffett will be 90 this year. Something to factor in.

[ertyu]

what i think will happen: he will die. brk will fall. when it does, load up, because the next thing that will happen is the new mgt will load up on shit growth so they can ride up then cash out. ride up with them. magically intuit the moment to cash out and/or buy puts. profit.

[Jason]

what i think will happen: he will die.

Predicting that a 90 year old man in 2020 is going to die? You sure you want to go out on that limb?

I bought my first ever baby share today. Considering what happened soon after I bought Boeing, I figure Warren's got until Friday.

[jacob]

Don't jinx it! I reckon there's a certain event risk which to put it morbidly is (%death of 90yo)x(%death of 95yo)). Perhaps this is what is being priced into premium over book value which is historically low. If nothing else, it's a cash-rich and cash-generating conglomerate that can practically be bought at book. Unlike the people selling out because they're not getting the growth they're looking for, I'm primarily in for the capital preservation (so appreciate the conservative comments) and personal laziness. I've been looking to get more passive over the past few years as I think I'm spending too much time on [investing] relative to how much it still holds my interest.

[Mister Imperceptible]

If you look at the bad bets in recent years, you see what happens when a value investor is forced to buy when there is no value. Reading all the comments from other investors getting impatient with Buffett, you can see the sense of entitlement. “I deserve growth just because.” If he is not buying his shares at book it is because he expects the book value to go down. That scenario will be unfriendly to the entitled.

[Jason]

Apple post Jobs. Microsoft post Gates. Corleone post Vito. You could make the case all three did better since the founders died*. Charlie Munger is 96. You have to think anyone willing to sit in an barely air-conditioned Omaha office on a hot summer day and suffer through the farts emanating out of that ancient asshole is a dedicated soldier to the cause.

When I clicked "Buy" on that one BRKB share, I honestly felt I was punching Warren's ticket to the big value store in the sky. Godspeed, Warren. Jack Bogle is waiting, his broad index arms reaching out.

Edit: Bill Gates hasn't died. But he should be worried now that I wrote that.

[George the original one]

Feeling ignorant... what is the attraction of BRKB over the parent? It's not hard to find a brokerage that will let you buy partial shares these days if the price of a whole share would break the bank.

[Jason]

The BRK A is now $264,500.00K a share. I wasn't aware you could buy partial so that is my ignorance. The B's are around $176.00.

[fiby41]

Buffett has said he was criticised for buying too soon during 2008-9 maybe that's why the hesitance now.

If BRK.A can be bought partially and
BRK.A >= 1500×BRK.B always then
Who is footing the remaining 500 in Jason's example.

What's the point, for the reason the stock split in two classes exist, is to prevent formation of unit trusts

[Lemur]

This market makes no sense but I'm almost done having all my capital tied up....its very tech heavy and I don't mind that at all. Why diversify by industry if you think one industry is gonna kill it in the next 10 years.

[giskard]

Once again it's Monday and so of course I sold a bunch of weekly puts on gold stocks and miners. I got a lot or orders filled at decent prices since gold was falling today. But I've been doing this for the past month and a half and barely ever have I got assigned. So I'll just keep on riding gold and silver up with all the fed actions!

Last week I sold the last little bit of JP Morgan that I was hanging on to, and I feel good about that because it seems like there is starting to be a non-zero chance we get negative interest rates in the US.

[nomadscientist]

The Buffet operation has always intrigued me. The world isn't exactly full of conglomerates these days, which suggests it's sailing into a strong headwind. It also doesn't seem like the kind of place that has a big analytics department; at least, I work in an industry finance analytics recruits from and BRK is about the biggest beast I've never even heard anyone mention applying to. That means Buffet himself is brilliant. Or a moneylaunderer or something. Or both. Which makes it all the more strange people continue to buy given his actuarial life expectancy. The next Buffet didn't join a conglomerate as an employee and wait patiently for the main man to die; this is it.

Assuming there's more to it than age, my guess is he thinks monetary contraction is likely, and he will move to finance-acquire companies the Fed refused to bail out. He was inching up to buy the airlines, but backed off when it became clear the government was likely to bail everyone out on soft terms.

[slowtraveler]

My experiment is far more volatile than the vanilla index fund. This is expected from Siegel's paper but interesting to experience. I'm up 3% relative to the index now. The reverse was true last week. Got surprised by my cost basis changing for Abbvie upon a merger with AGN. Debating on whether to direct index the proceeds or dump them into the 2 new S&P 500 companies that both seem richly valued.

Also pondering on direct indexing international, how much, is it worth it, how many companies, which share classes to buy. Leaning towards 200- 250 developed companies as enough to cover it. Made a few changes to remove countries with know accounting fraud and add in some developed companies being counted as emerging like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

[Jason]

I own two bank stocks: GS and HLI, both purchased in 2019. GS is down approx. 11% and removed from the Buffet line. HLI up approx. 29%. The reason as I understand it, HLI specializes in corporate restructuring. I purchased some more anticipating a spate of activity in this area. Monetizing misfortune. Come to Papa.