Berkshire 2012 Letter

Another insightful thoughts from Warren Buffett in his last letter to Berkshire`s shareholders:

(i) he analyzes Berkshire performance in a rolling 5 year window against the S&P;
(ii) highlights the importance of brilliant people at management/board level;
(iii) little lesson on accounting of intangibles;
(iv) recent newspapers acquisitions rationale;
(v) the role of capital allocator and its options: reinvest, distribute dividends & share repurchases.

Charlie Munger on The Daily Journal Meeting

It`s proved that we only learn when we are able to make connections between things. Moreover, metaphors can help us out in order to understand what we could not comprehend at first sight. That said, Buffett`s partner is a intriguing mind. Charlie Munger has thought us how to be a fox, learning the basic principles from many relevant areas of study and developing our own mental models.

So here is the last speech available from Charlie Munger. Hope you learn from this brilliant mind.

Graham & Doddsville Newsletter

Columbia Business School recently released the new G&D Investment newsletter. Hope if you find good use with the interviews with JANA Partners & other relevant investors.

FPA`s Steve Romick & Bob Rodriguez 4Q 2012 Letters

Both letters have nice macro insights - speacially for those daily focused on bottom up analysis - and a cautious tone towards the investing environment. Even with equity risk premium at or near all time high, investors have a good amount of cash. But one may notice some portfolio managers are being pressured to be fully invested. I don`t want to sound like a perma-bear but we know this story ends.

We may find good business models with nice returns but the missing part of the mosaic is the right price - and we know that without the right price, one underperfoms and may lose capital permanently.

I will leave it up to you reading these two insightful letters.

FPA Capital - Bob Rodriguez

FPA Crescent - Steve Romick

Howard Marks - Ditto

In Howard Marks last piece he goes through cycles rationale, how history rhymes as time goes by and the propensity of humans toward risk taking. The latter naturally has to do with behaviorism and how it affects returns. Behaviorism and being a contrarian at right time is a path to success. Below follows some quotes from the document:

"It's not asset quality that determines investment risk. (...) But, all other things being equal, the price of an asset is the principal determinant of its riskiness.(...) Bottom line: No asset is so good that it can't be bid up to the point where it's overpriced and thus dangerous. And few assets are so bad that they can't become underpriced and thus safe (not to mention potentially lucrative). Since participants set security prices, it's their behavior that creates most of the risk in investing."

"Becoming more and less risk averse at the right time is a great way  to enhance nivestment performance."

"To be a successful contrarian, you have to be able to:

• see what most people are doing, 
• understand what's wrong about most people's behavior,
• possess a strong sense for intrinsic value, which most people ignore at the extremes,
• resist the psychological pressures that make most people err, and thus
• buy when most people are selling and sell when most people are buying."

""There are times for aggressiveness. I think this is a time for caution." Here as 2013 begins, I have only one word to add: ditto."