Friday, October 30, 2015

Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor

If you know a company's future growth rate (good luck with that), and can calculate it's Beta (say what?) along with its weighted average cost of capital (to 2 decimal places, because you wouldn't want to be imprecise), you can figure out what a company is worth exactly...at least that's what gets taught to finance students around the world. One of the most successful investors in the world, however, knows differently. In Tren Griffin's book about Charlie Munger, the reader gets a different point of view of what makes for a successful investor.

Monday, October 26, 2015

The Great Illusion

Whereas for most of human history, conquest has led to material gains for the victor, this is no longer the case, says Norman Angell in his book The Great Illusion, a Peter Thiel recommendation.

Friday, October 23, 2015

Decmil Group

Decmil (ASX:DCG) offers design, construction and accommodation services to mining and government sectors. The share price has been absolutely hammered (down 50% in the last year, 70% in the last 3 years) because of the mining pullback in Australia. However, the company remains profitable and has managed to diversify away from mining into building bridges, schools and other infrastructure.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

The Science of Parenting

On pretty much every subject, there's a lot of crap out there. Some people are better at marketing what they know than at figuring out if what they know is right, and this leads to a lot of misinformation. Parenting is no exception, as you can find "experts" on opposite sides of almost any topic. In The Science of Parenting, Margot Sunderland aims to cut through the crap by giving parents advice based on science instead of conjecture.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Ashley Services

I have recently been buying shares of Ashley Services Group (ASH) in Australia. This is yet another Australian company that has seen its share price pummeled since the commodity plunge. However, its relationship with commodities is pretty loose.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Anglo American

In general, I hate mining companies. They burn cash when times are good, and they burn cash when times are bad. They always seem to forget that they are in a cyclical industry, so when times are bad they are totally unprepared.

I generally avoid investing in mining companies, but there is an exception to every rule, and my exception is Anglo American (AAL,AAUKY).

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

The Discoverers

A great deal of discoveries in human history have led to the incredible standard of living we enjoy today. In The Discoverers, Daniel Boorstin explores (the who, what, where, when etc) a great number of these.

Friday, October 2, 2015

Karsan Value Funds: 2015 Q3 Results

Karsan Value Funds (KVF) is a value-oriented fund, as described here. Due to securities regulations, the fund is not open to the public at this time. Should that change in the future, there will be an announcement on this site.