CantEatValue

Next (LON:NXT) are a company most people in the UK will be familiar with as they are a large clothes retailer with over 500 stores and a FTSE 100 constituent. Perhaps what most people won't be aware of though is the phenomenal success of the shares over the past two decades. Since 1999 (as far back as I can see on Google Finance) the shares…

I've recently been thinking about my sources of investment ideas and how that's changed over time. Given I'm not a full-time investor time is a big constraint when it comes to finding good ideas given a lot of my time goes in to researching existing positions and checking and re-checking my current thesis. When I first started, I got essentially 100% of my ideas from…

Now I'm not expecting to do frequent portfolio updates as I don't trade very often and most short-term market movements are just noise anyway but quite a lot has happened to my portfolio in the past month and a half so I thought I'd better get my thoughts together. Yesterday, my largest position - All Leisure (LON:ALLG) - announced their 2012 results. It's risen quite…

There's a number of parallels between the twin worlds of investment and gambling. It's no surprise that many hedge fund managers also enjoy playing poker (Like David Einhorn) and both Buffett and Munger have used the analogy of the pari-mutuel system to describe investing. To quote Munger from this talk (italics are my emphasis): The model I like—to sort of simplify the notion of what…

OK, so the title isn't winning any awards for the terrible pun but hopefully the rest of the post will compensate. I'm a fan of London Capital Hldg (LON:LCG) as I believe it's a business that is fundamentally very attractive and is suffering from a number of headaches in the short term which don't really impair the long term value anywhere near as significantly as…

Hi Francis, I still hold CLIG and have added a bit more recently. I think the price here is pretty daft given the inherent characteristics of asset management companies - high margins and returns on invested capital - normally mean they trade at premium multiples because any growth requires so little invested capital to achieve (and can hence be distributed to shareholders or used for…

I think the key point here is that it changes the incentive structure in a subtle way that alters the end results. Imagine you're the manager of a company and you know you only need to report in five years time on how well you've done - you'll think and act long term, with an eye always on the big goal in the distance. You'll…

On the other side though, it takes less stocks to achieve a decent level of diversification than most people expect. Obviously 4 is silly unless you're a Buffett, but around 20 is a lot better than many would guess at. However you need to be careful with being over-exposed to specific risks (i.e. not owning 10 miners out of your 20, etc):

"Of course that presented some spectacular bargains when the TMT frenzy was at its peak, but the point I'm making is that when the market is looking for growth stories, then value shares can just languish for a very long time, so they're not necessarily good things to be in during a bull market, unless they pay a good dividend." True Paul, put probably only…

I did a write up on the AGM yesterday here: http://boards.fool.co.uk/yesterday-i-attended-the-lcg-agm-together-with-12794610.aspx