Warren Buffett's Best Advice Ever

By Morgan Housel 

Turns out, it can. While Buffett had been dominating for decades, his talent wasn't truly apparent to the world until he gave a 1984 speech at Columbia University titled "The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville."

The lengthy speech can be found in its entirety here(opens PDF file), but I'll give you the Cliffs Notes version.

Dumb luck, pure skill, and flipping coins 
Buffett begins by imagining a nationwide coin-flipping contest. Everyone in the country participates and calls the flip of a coin. Call correctly and move on to the next round, guess wrong and you're out.

After 20 days, about 215 lucky flippers will have correctly called 20 consecutive flips. They gloat in success, yet the nature of coin-flipping tells us they're just lucky. It's a game of random chance.

But what if all 215 flippers lived in the same town? What if they all hailed from the same school? The same fraternity? Then we'd get excited. The laws of probability suggest 215 winners after 20 days. But those same laws tell us that if all 215 belonged to an associated group, that almost certainly wouldn't be the product of random chance. These 215 flippers clearly would know something we don't.

Meet nine "lucky" flippers 
The real flippers in Buffett speech are nine "superinvestors" -- himself included. All nine crushed the market averages over multiyear periods by between 8% and 22% per year.

In a world with millions of investors, such returns canoccur by sheer luck -- just like the 215 coin-flippers appeared at first glance. But all nine superinvestors hailed from the investment school of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd -- Columbia professors now known as the fathers of value investing. That meant something big. It meant that their success wasn't the product of luck. It almost had to be attributable to the only common link they shared: the investing philosophy learned from Graham and Dodd. The "intellectual origin," as Buffett put it.

What set Graham and Dodd's philosophy apart? That's where the title of this article comes in. Explaining it was simply the best advice Buffett ever gave.

Here it is 
Buffett states the superinvestors' core values quite succinctly:

The common intellectual theme of the investors from Graham-and-Doddsville is this: they search for discrepancies between the value of a business and the price of small pieces of that business in the market. Essentially, they exploit those discrepancies without the efficient market theorist's concern as to whether the stocks are bought on Monday or Thursday, or whether it is January or July, etc ...

It's very important to understand that this group has assumed far less risk than average ...While they differ greatly in style, these investors are, mentally, always buying the business, not buying the stock.

It's that simple 
Most investors aren't superinvestors. To them, there's little distinction between price and value. A cratering stock means risk, while a soaring stock somehow indicates strength and safety -- all with little regard to other, more deeply rooted factors. This is akin to assuming that all attractive people make great spouses.

But a more philosophical view shows how crazy this is. Risk appears when market value equals or exceeds the long-term value of a company's discounted cash flows -- its intrinsic value. It then diminishes in proportion to how far market price drops below intrinsic value. Really simple. The relationship between price and risk is often the opposite of what it's comfortable to assume.

Here's an example: Was Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)riskier in 2007, when optimism was on fire and shares exploded, or in late 2008, after shares crashed and bottomed out at around 12 times forward earnings? The answer is easy. Google was enormously risky in 2007, when the market assumed it was a surefire bet, and steadily approaching riskless territory in late 2008, when market volatility made investing look suicidal. Same goes for companies such as Alcoa (NYSE: AA) and Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW). Investing risk was lowest when the performance and volatility of their shares looked bleakest. That was when the gap between price and intrinsic value was widest. That's when you want to invest.

Date: January 27, 2010 7:15:30 PM EST

Subject: That catchy song in the fake iPad commercial

Source: Fuel/Friends Music Blog

Author: browneheather

Man, would Steve Jobs just go ahead and officially take over the universe already? I don’t even have an iPhone, my years-old iPod is so full it hasn’t been synced in months (sanc?), and mostly I just like to surreptitiously touch my friends’ i-devices that are cooler than mine.

With the announcement today of the iPad (which I find myself 

desperately wanting), a possibly fake YouTube advert also surfaced, with very real music provided by Los Angelenos Cola-Cola:

Catchy, right? But even better than the chimey gem used in the commercial is their song “Paper Bird,” which I keep restarting over and over on my player. This song offers an unadulterated slice of power-pop joy, like The Swimmers meeting Local Natives.

Paper Bird – Cola-Cola

Yum. I’m addicted.

Their Cola Cola EP is out now independently.

Read more…

Date: January 24, 2010 5:58:00 AM EST

Subject: The ubiquity of competition

Source: Seth's Blog

Author: Seth Godin

Sure, there are playoffs in football, but competition is everywhere, we just forget to notice it.

There are three hundred photographers looking for work in a particular specialty. One puts a creative commons license on his shots in Flickr and they start showing up in many places, from presentations to brochures. Which of the 300 photographers has won the competition for attention? Which one of the three hundred has shared his ideas enough to be noticed?

There are twenty towns you can choose for your family's new home. One invests in its schools, has a focus on inquiry, AP courses and community, while the others are muddling through, arguing about their future. Which one commands a higher premium for its houses?

There are a hundred new kinds of snacks and energy bars at the checkout of the supermarket. One is a little bigger, a little more exciting and a little closer to eye level. Which one of the hundred wins the battle for your impulse buy?

There are fifty people applying for a job. Forty nine have great credentials and beautifully standard layouts on their resumes. One resume was hand delivered to the CEO by his best friend, together with a glowing recommendation about a project the applicant did for the friend's non-profit.  Who gets the interview?

There are ten great jobs for the superstar programmer who is looking for a new challenge. One offers offices not cubes, free lunch, great customer support and the freedom to work on interesting projects. Where does she choose to apply?

There are 30 places that sell bumper stickers. One shows up first in the Google ads when I do a search. Which one gets my business?

There are seventy houses for sale in town. One of them is represented by a broker who is a pillar of the community, a friend of many and a role model for the industry. Which one gets more people to its open house?

There are eighty million blogs to choose from. Thanks for picking mine to read today.

You don't have to like competition in order to understand that it exists. Your fair share isn't going to be yours unless you give the public a reason to pick you.

   

Read more…

From: "M. Michelle Nadon" <nadon@mediaintelligence.ca>

Date: January 12, 2010 7:25:28 PM EST

To: "M. Michelle Nadon" <nadon@mediaintelligence.ca>

Subject: MI Executive Outreach

Dear LinkedIn Colleagues,

From time to time we tap our executive network in a given functional specialty, for referrals for senior, premium positions. We are currently accepting applications for Manager, Digital Media Services, TVOntario. 

If you know of any individuals who are currently out of work or facing downsizing, or, of any media assets management professionals have inquired about positions and you're not able to accommodate the talent at this time, your professional referrals are welcome.

Please forward as appropriate. If your referral results in a job offer for your friend/colleague, MI is pleased to provide a career management session as a reward, which can be transferable to mentorees, interns, etc.

Posting closes this Friday, January 15th, 2010.  The posting is enclosed below, and can also be viewed at: 

http://mediaintelligence.ca/jobpostings/index.php

Please don't hesitate to call me directly, if you have any questions. 

Kind regards,

_______________________

M. Michelle Nadon

President & CEO

V: www.videobio.com/mnadon

E: nadon@mediaintelligence.ca

W: www.mediaintelligence.ca

T: 416.533.6788

mediaINTELLIGENCE.ca Inc.:  Canada's leader in sector-specific recruitment and integrated career management services for media and entertainment professionals