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the superinvestors of graham and doddsville

Investment philosophy

How the Superinvestors did it

January 24, 2015

Time: May 17, 1984. Legendary investor Warren Buffett was making a speech at a seminar at Columbia Business School to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd’s Security Analysis. A blurb in the article, The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville (By Warren E. Buffett), based on the speech by Warren Buffett,…

Warren Buffett's thoughts

Who’s Walter Schloss?

January 14, 2015

American investor Walter Schloss (August 28, 1916 – February 19, 2012) was another famous disciple of the Benjamin Graham school of investing. The noted value investor died in 2012 of leukemia. Walter Schloss was another great example that disproved the notion that the market was efficient. Talking of market efficiency, here’s a notable quote from legendary investor Warren…

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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