Saturday, January 30, 2010

Blog It As It Is - BIAS

These days when I blog, there's this nagging self censorship that stops me from finishing my blog article, or from publishing it. It's this new-found sensibility to others that I find it irritating. If this goes on further, I'll have nothing more to write!

To remedy this situation, I will follow dream's blog and do my own "dream's speak", a special feature where I get to say anything I like with scant regards to others. This will keep my mind free from the annoying self censorship that kills off my articles at its infancy.

So here it goes, my very first "Blog It As it iS" or "BIAS"...


** "BIAS" is a special feature in my blog where I get to say whatever I want with scant regards for your feelings. I'm not politically correct in this feature, so go ahead, judge me."


There are some people, after reading some books on investing, especially books on Buffett, then declare themselves value investors. I would say that books on Buffett do more harm on people than good. Why? Most of them are simplistic one liner like "Hold for the long term". Yea right, in the long term, we're all dead.

I therefore cringe whenever I hear the word 'long-term' being uttered. A shiver of uneasiness will creep up my spine. Here are some thoughts regarding the B man:


1. Buffett is a good investor and businessman. He buys in such a big amount to be able to sit in the board and do some major changes, possibly for his own interests. He did that for Salomon brothers and came out unscathed. Are you able to do the same? When he means ownership of company, he really means it! What are you? Are you able to buy 30% of the floating shares to influence the management?


2. Buffett has some glaring contradictions. First he said derivatives are instruments of mass destruction, but he also bought it. Then he said charts are for ninnies, but his dad is a stock broker and he might have learnt a trick or two from him. I dunno. He said splitting shares has no value add and he had shown great dislike for companies doing that. In the end, he did the same for his B-shares to buy some toy train.

Win liao loh, everything also he said one.


3. Buffett is a man of great influence. When he says buy, people will believe him. That's why whatever company he fancies buying, the stock price will rise up. How can one lose money like that? If I say digiland is good buy, people will just ignore me. Not so for B man. If I can influence people to that level, of course there's no need to read charts. For that matter, there's no need to read the statements too.


4. Last for now, all the books written about the world's greatest investor are not written by him. It can be his ex-daughter-in-law who adopted the same surname as him, it can be some other unknown people who happened to meet him drinking cherry coke and snapped a picture with him. How did B man do his valuation? Nobody knows...we can only speculate how he did it.


If there's anything to learn from B man, it's how he changes his opinion accordingly to times. He studied under Graham but found that it's a bit outdated, so he mixed with Fisher and combine powers to create his own way. That's unique. If you can't evolve and adapt like Buffett, forget about using his methods. For one thing, that method you're using might not even be his method.

11 comments :

Createwealth8888 said...

http://createwealth8888.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-i-hate-warren-buffett.html

Warren changed his mind after he came to my blog to read this post because he doesn't want people to hate him. LOL

AK71 said...

Hi LP.

I blogged about the STI's direction earlier this month and made a reference to Warren Buffet. I said:

"A saying from Warren Buffet now rings clear in my mind: Be fearful when others are greedy! That is a generalisation like many of his sayings. It serves to inform and not to instruct. That's where many would be Buffets got it wrong. They think his sayings are instructions."

http://singaporeanstocksinvestor.blogspot.com/2010/01/sti-up-or-down.html

Createwealth8888 said...

http://createwealth8888.blogspot.com/2010/01/conversation-with-benjamin-graham.html

I am no longer an advocate of elaborate techniques of security analysis in order to find superior value opportunities - Benjamin Graham

Cheng said...

Excellent article! :)

What I learn't from Buffett is how he adapted to the changing markets. He is not a pure value type like Graham, he looks at management like Fisher. For derivatives, he looks at the Black-Scholes model. Graham likes undervalued stocks w.r.t. NTA minus debts, but Buffett listens to Charlie on paying a little bit more than fair value for a good company.

Intrinsic value itself is subjective, and opinions will change with time. If fundamentals or the charts change their opinion, so must the investor. It's all about making money in the market.

Cheers! :)

Createwealth8888 said...

Warren also like to talk up the market after he has bought and talk down the market when he is ready to buy.

Anonymous said...

Buffett was once a small investor as well.

Createwealth8888 said...

http://createwealth8888.blogspot.com/2010/01/trouble-with-warren-buffetts-methods.html

Small investors fail because they do not have Warren Buffett’s genes. Buffett is an unparalleled genius who has thought deeply about investment for decades.

Although he talks modestly and in homely tones to the public, he is an extremely clever and competitive man with an enormous capacity to memorize numbers and facts and apply them in financial calculations and in due diligence.

He has developed an immense array of strategies and tactics to keep his wealth increasing, irrespective of market conditions.

You should no more think you might emulate Warren Buffett after reading a few books than you should believe that by studying physics for a few months in your spare time, you might emulate Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton.

Createwealth8888 said...

Warren began trading in stocks at the tender age of 11 years.
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What were you doing when you are 11years old? Some of us probably were waiting for papa or mama to take us home from school

Cheng said...

It is almost not possible to emulate Buffett's success to accumulate the amount of wealth he has now. He has access to very cheap capital past and present.

One can try to beat his investment % returns. However, your investment performance will not steer off a lot from the market returns over time by more than 10%. Not many can do that consistently for 10-20yrs. Last year alone, how many had more than 70% returns on their portfolio? The general market averaged 60% returns.

In terms of % returns, I know of only one trader who had beat Buffett hands down over a period of more than 10yrs. Ed Seykota. :)

Thien Rong said...

3. Buffett is a man of great influence. When he says buy, people will believe him. That's why whatever company he fancies buying, the stock price will rise up. How can one lose money like that? If I say digiland is good buy, people will just ignore me. Not so for B man. If I can influence people to that level, of course there's no need to read charts. For that matter, there's no need to read the statements too.

Sometimes, I think that is why he is so successfully too. However, I think if you openly try influence people to influence the stock price, it will be illegal.

la papillion said...

Hi all,

I think I don't want to comment too much on my BIAS articles unless the info used in the article is wrong :) Hope you all like this feature.

It's very liberating to me, after dunno how many articles that are canned off in its infancy and never made it to public.