Saturday, February 28, 2009

Warren Buffett's Letter to Shareholders for 2008...

...is available here [link].

Berkshire Hathaway's annual report is available too [link].

The two documents are a must read for anyone, aspiring or seasoned investors.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Adv hindsight: Peter Schiff got it bang on in 2006...

...on the US economy and the then still upcoming debt crisis. If the video is for real, then one must give the guy huge credit for being able to see what many of his peers could not even comprehend!



...also have a look at the contemptuousness of the other "experts"... and i thought "dissent" was an ugly word only in this part of the world!

source for the link:
http://www.contrarianvalueinvesting.com/2009/02/03/why-wall-street-will-never-get-it-right/

Sunday, February 08, 2009

P&G's official reply...

...to Rohan Shah's letter has been posted on capitalideasonline.com. Click here to access the letter from P&G's Indian representatives and here to read a previous mention of this letter on this blog.

The message implicit in the response is quite simple:

We will do as we please, but nevertheless thanks for taking the pains to write a letter to us.

We appreciate your effort, but you can take a walk.

Heads - I am bruised, Tails - I am crushed...

...where Heads means a company reported numbers that were "either in-line with the street estimates" or were "better than expected", and where Tails means a company reported poor numbers for the just concluded quarter ended Dec 2008.

Further, where "I am bruised" means that the stock witnessed a small decline in price or remained unchanged (more or less!), and where "I am crushed" means the stock is sharply down since the current earnings season began.

Some of the companies drawing Heads include Oriental Bank of Commerce, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Wyeth Ltd. etc...where each of these companies reported healthy growth in profits given the current business environment and yet each of them is down by anywhere between 7-20% since the beginning of the year.

Companies drawing Tails include Divis, Reliance Capital, Zee, etc...where each of these companies fared poorly (it wasn't a disaster though!) only to lose a third of their market value in a little more than a months time!

It seems as though stock prices have just one desire - to keep losing value; little by little every week! Looks a lot like 2001-02 and early 2003, isnt it?

Ofcourse, we all know what followed then, dont we? :)