[Update on 4/13/2016: Thanks Mr. Spier for your reply and kind compliment on Twitter]
Spoiler alert: This is not a book review, instead this is more of notes for the most meaningful things (for myself) from Guy Spier’s book The Education of a Value Investor, thus it may contain details about the events described in the book.
I just finished reading this great book, following are a few sporadic things that made me thinking the most.
Disclosure: I established a long position in NXRT on 4/4/2016.
First of all, I want to thank following posts drew my attention to this name. It caught my eye first that Michael Burry held it as his biggest position.
Michael Burry’s SEC 13F filing
Clark Street Value post about NXRT
Value Investors Club post about NXRT
After I made my trade, I wanted to write something about it, however I noticed there are this Gurufocus article on 4/4/2016 and this Seeking Alpha article published on 4/5/2016 already did most of the job and shared some of my views. Thus, I will be brief on the upside as you will be able to get them from articles listed above, and will try to dig more into the downside.
Short pitch: NXRT is one of the few REITs using “value add” strategy on class B properties. The management is very determined to execute on this strategy and thinks the market didn’t get them (small cap, spun off a year ago, only 2 analysts from some boutique sell sides covering them). In my view, this firm is actually a flipper partnership under a REITs cover (to avoid corporate level tax), and their flipping strategy seems to be very lucrative (if it works out).
Following I will touch some of the red flags that people dislike the most (and I disliked initially):
For the past few years, I have been doing value investing practice on an ad hoc basis. I read news & investment message board, follow the ones I deem interesting, do some my own researches & make decisions on building positions. So far, overall I have more hits than misses and my personal investment fund’s performance has been in line with S&P 500, even though I usually keep 30-50% cash at hand due to lack of opportunities (except for 2013 during which year the index ran up 30% and the cash drag bit me badly). Clearly, the cash drag was my problem. I also know that it is mainly because of the ineffectiveness of sourcing potential opportunities, given that my spare time resources are limited. To solve this issue, I have to have a formal investment process.
Based on my current knowledge, a typical value investing process would look like this:
Before today, I never heard the name Brian Bares even though I follow value investing world closely. I came across this interview and thought it’s definitely worth sharing.
Brian Bares is the founder and CIO of Bares Capital Investment, a Austin based small/micro cap focused value money manager. He studied math and worked for a quantitative value investing shop before he started his own fund in 2000.
I’m impressed by his clear reasoning when addressing questions and the differentiating position he set for the firm by specializing in concentrated small/micro cap strategies.
You’ve heard “Internet Finance” is booming in China, but what exactly is it? It all began from the inception of Alibaba’s Yu’E Bao (literally means balance treasure) in 2013. Metaphorically speaking, it’s like your Paypal account balance which is as liquid as your checking account, but EBay is paying you 5% interest yearly. Wait, what?! I know what you are thinking, no, I did NOT miss a decimal point. Since I was away from the country for years, I haven’t really paid close attention to this business model until recently.
It was about two months ago, one family friend from China asked me about investing in real estate in US. A REIT name – Inland Real Estate Corporation [NYSE: IRC] looked very attractive to me then and I recommended it to him (see my older post here). The company then hit the 52 week low at around $8 with yield of 6~% and FFO multiple of 8, and seems to be oversold compared to its still solid property portfolio and operation. As we are speaking now, it was announced to be bought private by DRA Advisor in a $2.3 million deal, paying $10.6 per share. However, my friend decided to pass on this would-be 20+% in two months opportunity because he wasn’t interested in investing in a non-principal-guaranteed asset for 6% yield. “I’d better off put my money in my XX Bao, which gives me up to 10%.” he said. Well, that is very impressive, especially they “guarantee” principal, so basically making it a “risk free” investment. I then asked two question: who are they, and what type of asset they have to invest in to give you that return? “I don’t know, why do I care when they guarantee my principal?” replied my friend.
After some research, I think I find some clue.
[Latest update: 8/13/2019, please go to the bottom to see new additions]
Value Investors Club (VIC), founded by the legendary investor Joel Greenblatt, is an anonymous elite value investing club whose admission is said to be very selective. According to John Petry, the co-founder of the club, there’s “a lot of very well known money managers” and “very, very successful hedge fund managers” who all use the site. However, from traits left by these “anonymous” users, we may be able to tell these well known and successful investors. I firstly carried out some of these researches purely out of my curiosity, but later found identifying these great investors helps me focus on quality ideas and discussions. Sometime I cannot tell who exactly they are, but certainly can tell the ideas were from some greatest minds. By all means, these guys’ writings are great stuff to read regardless who’s behind.
Jeremy Siegel, best known as “Wizard of Wharton”, gave a presentation about his outlook for stock and bond return on 11/18/2015. You can see the full replay from following link:
http://livestream.com/livecfa/Siegel15
As a finance historian, Siegel’s predictions are sometimes “right on” based on his observation on long period of time. A famous ancient Chinese saying says “Take history as a mirror and you will know the rises and falls.“. A western equivalent is Victor Hugo famous quote: “What is history? An echo of the past in the future, a reflex from the future on the past.” For the respect of history, I listen to Siegel closely.
Mohamed El-Erian attended the CFA Society Chicago annual dinner yesterday as Keynote speaker. Following are some highlights of the interview which interested me and got me thinking the most.
So you wonder how much do finance people make in Chicago? CFA Society of Chicago conducted and published the 2015 version compensation survey recently. Check the pdf report out below.
Thanks to Dealbook Conference, we could listen to ideas of the most influential leaders in their own area about the theme this year “PLAYING FOR THE LONG TERM”. Guests include Al Gore, Peter Thiel, Reed Hastings, Gary Cohen, Larry Fink & James Gorman, etc. What attracts me the most are the interviews with legendary investors like Stan Drunkenmiller and Carl Icahn.
Tao of Value 