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How Warren Buffett picks stocks

February 27, 2017

“Excellent business results by corporations will translate over the long term into correspondingly excellent market value and dividend results for owners, minority as well as majority,” Warren Buffett once said. How true this is even today although Mr Buffett said this as far back as 1978 in a letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders for FY1977….

Investment criteria

Warren Buffett’s Rip Van Winkle approach

December 17, 2014

In his letter (dated February 28, 1992 for FY1991) to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Warren Buffett gave an insight into his Rip Van Winkle approach to investing. Referring to a list of Berkshire Hathaway’s common stock holdings – comprising Capital Cities/ABC Inc, The Coca-Cola Company, Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp, GEICO Corp, The Gillette Company, Guinness PLC, The Washington…

Investment criteria

Warren Buffett goes for the long haul

December 3, 2014

Warren Buffett goes for the long haul when it comes to marketable equity securities. As far back as March 14, 1978, he said in his FY1977 letter to stockholders of Berkshire Hathaway: “When prices are appropriate, we are willing to take very large positions in selected companies, not with any intention of taking control and…

Investment criteria

How Warren Buffett picks marketable securities

October 5, 2014

Warren Buffett said in his letter to shareholders in the 1977 annual report that Berkshire Hathaway selected marketable equity securities in much the same way it would evaluate a business for acquisition in its entirety. Warren Buffett said then: “We want the business to be (1) one that we can understand, (2) with favorable long-term…

Data Update 2 for 2023: A Rocky Year for Equities! January 22, 2023
It is the nature of stocks that you have good years and bad ones, and much as we like to forget about the latter during market booms, they recur at regular intervals, if for no other reason than to remind us that risk is not an abstraction, and that stocks don't always win, even in […]
Data Update 1 for 2023: Setting the table! January 6, 2023
In my last post, I talked about the ritual that I go through every year ahead of my teaching each spring, and in this one, I will start on the first of a series of posts that I make at the start of each year, where I look at data, both macro and company-level. In […]
A Return to Teaching: The Spring 2023 Edition December 21, 2022
If, as you read this post, it feels like you have read it or a close variant before, it is because you have. Each year, ahead of teaching my classes at NYU's Stern School of Business in the spring, I invite readers to accompany me on my journey, and this year is no different. […]
META Lesson 3: Tell me a story! November 15, 2022
In my first two posts on Facebook, I noted that its most recent earnings report, and the market reaction to it, offers an opportunity for us to talk about bigger issues. I started by examining corporate governance, or its absence, and argued that some of the frustration that investors in Facebook feel about their views […]
META Lesson 2: Accounting Inconsistencies and Consequences November 10, 2022
In my last post, I used Facebook's recent troubles to talk about the importance of corporate governance, and how we, as investors, have abandoned the power to change management at many younger tech companies in return for being able to invest in young tech companies, with growth potential and well-regarded founders. In this post, I […]
META Lesson 1: Corporate Governance November 4, 2022
As we get deeper into earnings season for the third quarter of 2022, the biggest negative surprises are coming from technology companies, with the tech giants leading the way. Investors, used to a decade of better-than-expected earnings and rising stock prices at these companies, have been blindsided by unexpected bad news in earnings reports, and […]
Earnings and Cash Flows: A Primer on Free Cash Flow October 25, 2022
It is never pleasant to be in the midst of a market correction, but a market correction does operate as a cleanser for excesses that enter into even the most disciplined investors' playbooks in the good times. This correction has been no exception, as the threat of losing investment capital has focused the minds of […]
Reaping the Whirlwind: A September 2022 Inflation Update! September 26, 2022
In my early 2021 posts on inflation, I argued that while the higher inflation that we were just starting to see could be explained by COVID and supply chain issues, prudence on the part of policy makers required that it be taken as a long term threat and dealt with quickly. Not only did they […]
A Zomato 2022 Update: Value, Pricing and the Gap July 27, 2022
On July 21, 2021, I valued Zomato just ahead of its initial public offering at about ₹41 per share. The market clearly had a very different view, as the stock premiered at ₹74 per share and soared into the stratosphere, peaking at ₹169 per share in late 2021. The last few months have been rocky, as the price […]

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MORE than 1,100 km from Wall Street, the backup data centre of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Chicago is supposed to safeguard US markets, standing by at all hours in case disaster ever strikes the world’s largest venue for trading shares.
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