Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The investing world loses a legend..

Legendary investor Walter Schloss, one of the Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville passed away due to leukemia on 19/02/2012. He was 95 years young.


R.I.P. Walter Schloss (28/08/1916 - 19/02/2012)

12 comments:

KulMan said...

May his soul rest in peace.
There's so much to learn from such greats.

Fundoo_Pupil said...

HI Neeraj,

Sesa- Sterlite Merger. Swap ratio is 3:5.
I can buy 5 sterlite at Rs 590, sell 3 sesa in futures at Rs 687.. and make Rs 97 in the process..

Am I missing something??
What are risks other than event & time risk?
Please suggest.

Ankur Jain said...

Beauty of great and successful people are that they break up complex "unsolvable" problems into a series of small "solvable" steps and stay away from big mistakes. Mr Schloss was one of them.

I admire the basic paramaters he set up for avoiding mistakes in investing. He mentioned that if the stock satisfies the following 4criterion, it merits a place in the portfolio.

1. Zero or very low amounts of leverage
2. Promoter holding should be high so that his interests are aligned with that of the minority shareholders.
3. Dividend yield of atleast 3%
4. Purchase price below book value

One doesn't need to be a genious to follow the above checklist.

Neeraj Marathe said...

Hi JK,
I have not looked at it in detail and i dont think i will too. So cant comment much on it. The risks that you yourself have mentioned are extremely pertinent. Also, the risk of Sesa hitting the futures limit or taken off F&O is there too..
cheers!
Neeraj

Neeraj Marathe said...

Hi Ankur,
Absolutely agree..thanks for the points that you mentioned. what i think about great people like Mr.Schloss is that their methods and thoughts are extremely easy to understand, but bloody difficult to implement. The discipline that they had to just stick to their rules and ideals, to resist temptation, to not venture out of the circle they have created for themselves is quite extra-ordinary and very very difficult to implement..thats why there are so few like Mr.Schloss i guess.
Nice to hear from you..
cheers!
Neeraj

sameer said...

Hi,
though of sharing intresting data
Normally ppl say diversification can;t beat index.
But I had created VIRTUAL portfolio of 42 stocks on 1 Jan 2012. From 1 Jan 2012 Nifty has moved by 18%. But my portfolio of 42 stocks has moved 28%.
Common characteristic all 42 stock shares is they are all possible delisting candidates



Regards

Neeraj Marathe said...

You found 42 delisting candidates! cool! but thats interesting data..tells me to be even more careful about the delisting theme!
Cheers!
Neeraj

Raja said...

Hi Neeraj,

Today DISA announced a dividend of Rs. 200/- for this year. Am positively surprised but dividend more than EPS ?

Any news ?

Neeraj Marathe said...

Lol.. ya I saw. Interesting! ;-)
Cheers!
Neeraj

Anonymous said...

Hi Mr.Marathe,
BTW its happened to be name of one of our professor to whome we regards the most..... :)

I tried to find every information about Provogue on the internet but not succeeded....

During the time i bought the 700 shares of provogue @ 15.1 on avg(3500 @ 14.7 and 3500 @ 15.50)....

I have gone through its financial data....few things i found very lucrative P/B ratio... its beta....and yoy growth....One thing i missed is its cash flow...and which is very -ve.... by the time i come to cash flow i already bought the shares.....Thinking that it is rock bottom price.....irrespective of whether FDI will come or not....
Only reason was to buy margin of safety.....But its cash flow data start making me more skeptical about the stock....
And even afte reading your blog it made me start thinking..
Though i have gain 4% in 4-5 trading days....
What you think should i hold the stock @ this point of time or should take short position by selling it...

Anonymous said...

Hi Mr.Marathe,
BTW its happened to be name of one of our professor to whome we regards the most..... :)

I tried to find every information about Provogue on the internet but not succeeded....

During the time i bought the 700 shares of provogue @ 15.1 on avg(3500 @ 14.7 and 3500 @ 15.50)....

I have gone through its financial data....few things i found very lucrative P/B ratio... its beta....and yoy growth....One thing i missed is its cash flow...and which is very -ve.... by the time i come to cash flow i already bought the shares.....Thinking that it is rock bottom price.....irrespective of whether FDI will come or not....
Only reason was to buy margin of safety.....But its cash flow data start making me more skeptical about the stock....
And even afte reading your blog it made me start thinking..
Though i have gain 4% in 4-5 trading days....
What you think should i hold the stock @ this point of time or should take short position by selling it...

Anonymous said...

Hi Mr.Marathe,
BTW its happened to be name of one of our professor to whome we regards the most..... :)

I tried to find every information about Provogue on the internet but not succeeded....

During the time i bought the 700 shares of provogue @ 15.1 on avg(3500 @ 14.7 and 3500 @ 15.50)....

I have gone through its financial data....few things i found very lucrative P/B ratio... its beta....and yoy growth....One thing i missed is its cash flow...and which is very -ve.... by the time i come to cash flow i already bought the shares.....Thinking that it is rock bottom price.....irrespective of whether FDI will come or not....
Only reason was to buy margin of safety.....But its cash flow data start making me more skeptical about the stock....
And even afte reading your blog it made me start thinking..
Though i have gain 4% in 4-5 trading days....
What you think should i hold the stock @ this point of time or should take short position by selling it...