Twitter At $19: No Longer A Stupid Investment
Somewhere along the line, it got assumed that value investing requires shunning the tech stocks that receive the overwhelming of media attention. This assumption might be true for the value investors...
View ArticleRoyal Dutch Shell May Return 100% In Dividends Within 10 Years
The calendar year 2016 is the most stressed relationship between Royal Dutch Shell’s dividend payout and current earnings that has existed since the oil crisis of 1986. That is something that catches...
View ArticleShould You Sell Reynolds American (RAI) Stock?
Hasn’t it been interesting to see how much insider selling has happened at Reynolds American since the announcement of the Lorillard merger? Martin Holton III, General Counsel, has sold shares. Murray...
View ArticleMedium-Term Investments In A Long-Term Investment Portfolio
In 2016, I have a special affection for Tiffany stock and Wal-Mart stock in the $60s, Hershey in the $80s, Diageo drifting towards $100, Coca-Cola at $41, Johnson & Johnson at $95, and Berkshire...
View ArticleKinder Morgan Stock At $13
You know what causes a 100% loss for investors of publicly held corporations? When the Board of Directors holds a vote to dissolve the corporation, gives advance notice to all creditors, files the...
View ArticleWhy Five Years Is Not Long-Term Investing
I had an old teacher send me all the research of John Russell Holmes that examined a century’s worth of investment data from 1871 to 1971. Isn’t that great? I love reading anything written in a...
View ArticleClassic Value Investing Right Now: American Express Stock at $55
Since June 2014, shareholders of American Express (AXP) have lost 33% of their initial investment (counting dividends). A fair chunk of those declines came today, when a weak earnings report for the...
View ArticleWarren Buffett’s Spending In His 20s
Nestled away on page 204 of Alice Schroeder’s excellent biography of Warren Buffett is the following passage: “[Buffett] had chosen an inviting gray two-story Tudor with picturesque half-beams, a big...
View ArticleGoldman Sachs’ Partnership Structure Inside A Public Corporation
It was recently reported that Goldman Sachs is taking measures to reduce the number of new partners for its 2020 class. The issue is that Godman’s profit pool, which was $400 million and divided among...
View ArticleWarren Buffett’s IBM Investment Through A British Lens
In November 2011, Warren Buffett revealed that he purchased $10.7 billion worth of IBM common stock to add to the ballast of publicly traded investments in the portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway. He has...
View ArticleWells Fargo Stock Long-Term Results
It is amazing to me how: (1) Wells Fargo has been through so many booms and busts and (2) still managed to deliver absolutely extraordinary results to shareholders over just about every long-term...
View ArticleChurch & Dwight Stock: Excellent Track Record, Tolerable Price
You want to know what you could have bought back in 1989 that would have gone on to perform better than Wells Fargo? The world’s largest sodium bicarbonate producer, Church & Dwight. While Wells...
View ArticleJohnson Controls Tax Inversion Merger With Tyco
One of the anachronistic components of the current United States tax law is the treatment of foreign profits generated by a firm that is domiciled in America. If Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta, generates...
View ArticleMandatory High-School Personal Finance Classes
Yesterday, the Missouri House Committee on Emerging Issues in Education began considering an initiative that would make high school personal finance classes a requirement for receiving a high school...
View ArticleeBay Stock Falls Hard After Earnings
This year, eBay is going to make somewhere near $2.10 per share in profit, which amounts to somewhere near the $2.5 billion mark. This takes earnings back to the 2011 level due to the Paypal spinoff...
View ArticleCurrent Stock Market Nonsense
“I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and I am a better businessman because I am an investor.” In addition to the charming chiasmus of this sentence, I greatly enjoy this Warren Buffett...
View ArticleA Quarter-Century Of Southern Company Dividends
Over the past twenty-five years, the Board of Directors of an electric utility company with operations in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi called “Southern Company” have grown the dividend...
View ArticleThe Ghosts of Lockheed and Boeing Visit Gilead Shareholders
Five years ago, Boeing and Lockheed Martin stock got unusually cheap in response to a threat of sequester in which many market participants interpreted congressional posturing about reducing the budget...
View ArticleWarren Buffett Investing Lessons From 1977 and 1991
On November 8th, 1991, Ron Suskind of the Wall Street Journal wrote an article titled “Legend Revisited: Warren Buffett’s Aura as Folksy Sage Masks Tough, Polished Man.” The article was one of the...
View ArticleWhat False Impression Do The Rich Create For The Aspiring Rich?
In his book “Coming Apart”, sociologist Charles Murray interviewed and collected data from America’s economic upper class, and noticed a strong discrepancy between what the modern rich practice and...
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