Mohnish Pabrai blog

[Guest notorious546]

https://anonymoosenotes.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/the-global-view-with-mohnish-pabrai-and-guy-spier

[stahleyp]

why did he change the blog address/name? I do like that he's no longer alluding to his returns being 26%.

[CorpRaider]

B/c Chai with Pabrai is an awesome name?

[InspireByReason]

I think he realizes that open and approachable is simply better marketing.  :)

[DooDiligence]

I think he realizes that open and approachable is simply better marketing.  :)

 

+

 

You can buy clicks but you can't buy relationships...

[Parsad]

I thought I would just push this thread back up a bit...one of the best contrary indicators is this board itself.

 

Pabrai is up well over 50% roughly since this thread was started.  He's creeping back up to his high watermark.  Cheers!

[nafregnum]

Congrats to Pabrai!  The Dhando Investor got me interested in investing again after a decade of hard work (distraction) at a startup.  I had enjoyed The Intelligent Investor in 2004, and tried a little investing, but my results were mixed and I became disinterested as work became more interesting.  But in 2013 or 2014 I read Pabrai's book and learning about 13-Fs set my brain on fire.  When I saw Buffett, Einhorn, Pabrai, and Spiers all agreed on GM, I took up a position.  BAC too. 

 

I recently read his Pi digits random fund cloning algorithm, and wished I could get my hands on an entire 13F dataset + stock market quotations dataset, because I have a hunch that you're even better off if you try to be a cloner only when more than one "super investor" is buying something.  I lost big on OUTR which I had cloned from Arlington, but Mecham was alone in buying OUTR.  ZINC was one of Pabrai's own ideas (ie, he was basically alone there, if you don't count his good friend Guy Spiers) 

[investmd]

Congrats to Pabrai!  The Dhando Investor got me interested in investing again after a decade of hard work (distraction) at a startup.  I had enjoyed The Intelligent Investor in 2004, and tried a little investing, but my results were mixed and I became disinterested as work became more interesting.  But in 2013 or 2014 I read Pabrai's book and learning about 13-Fs set my brain on fire.  When I saw Buffett, Einhorn, Pabrai, and Spiers all agreed on GM, I took up a position.  BAC too. 

 

I recently read his Pi digits random fund cloning algorithm, and wished I could get my hands on an entire 13F dataset + stock market quotations dataset, because I have a hunch that you're even better off if you try to be a cloner only when more than one "super investor" is buying something.  I lost big on OUTR which I had cloned from Arlington, but Mecham was alone in buying OUTR.  ZINC was one of Pabrai's own ideas (ie, he was basically alone there, if you don't count his good friend Guy Spiers)

 

Good point about more than one super-investor and ZINC being a "sole" super investor. ZINC caused a big time hurt - ouch! If you want to clone more than one super investor, a very easy way to do it is to buy Pabrai's new ETF called Dhandho Junoon. The stock ticker is : JUNE - no minimum buy in -. Based on algorithm of 1)cloning super investors 2)share buybacks/cannibals  3)spinoffs

[investmd]

I thought I would just push this thread back up a bit...one of the best contrary indicators is this board itself.

 

Pabrai is up well over 50% roughly since this thread was started.  He's creeping back up to his high watermark.  Cheers!

 

Parsad, thanks for bringing this back up  :)

[investor-man]

I thought I would just push this thread back up a bit...one of the best contrary indicators is this board itself.

 

Pabrai is up well over 50% roughly since this thread was started.  He's creeping back up to his high watermark.  Cheers!

 

I'm not one to pass up an opportunity to gloat.

 

Guys/Girls - we've all made mistakes. We don't know the future. This is why we hold multiple positions. This is why Pabrai holds multiple positions. Get off your high horse.

 

Thank you

[JayGatsby]

Does anyone know of a way to subscribe to blogs (like this one) that don't have a built in subscription features? Seems like Google or someone must know when the page is updated so they'd be able to send out an alert? The RSS feature here doesn't seem to work

[ERICOPOLY]

For the amount of time people argue about performance and whatnot... I totally get that.  The only point of hiring an active manager is to make relatively more money than just by passive indexing.

 

I'm actually interested in this idea of whether or not some value managers are making their money from buying below intrinsic value, or skillful trading.

 

I'm not going to call myself a "value investor", one because I'm more of a speculator than an investor, and two because I'm not temperamentally suited to investing, but rather to speculating.

 

In my experience, I have made a ton of money speculating on swings.  Had I held MBI instead of selling it, well... my returns would have suffered!  Did I make money because it rose to intrinsic value?  Probably not.

 

I once made money on WaMu call options on a day when the stock dropped!!!  I'm not fucking kidding either... I bought the calls a day or so before the drop, and sold them the day of the drop.  Volatility exploded so I somehow made money even though the underlying fell in value.

 

What is a value investor if not someone who buys below intrinsic value?  So to separate out performance/returns from valuation ability/skills, we should be asking some of these longer-term portfolio managers to produce a measure of what their returns would be if they had held each investment they ever bought until the present.  But nobody does that.  It is actually my "burning question".

[Green King]

For the amount of time people argue about performance and whatnot... I totally get that.  The only point of hiring an active manager is to make relatively more money than just by passive indexing.

 

I'm actually interested in this idea of whether or not some value managers are making their money from buying below intrinsic value, or skillful trading.

 

I'm not going to call myself a "value investor", one because I'm more of a speculator than an investor, and two because I'm not temperamentally suited to investing, but rather to speculating.

 

In my experience, I have made a ton of money speculating on swings.  Had I held MBI instead of selling it, well... my returns would have suffered!  Did I make money because it rose to intrinsic value?  Probably not.

 

I once made money on WaMu call options on a day when the stock dropped!!!  I'm not fucking kidding either... I bought the calls a day or so before the drop, and sold them the day of the drop.  Volatility exploded so I somehow made money even though the underlying fell in value.

 

What is a value investor if not someone who buys below intrinsic value?  So to separate out performance/returns from valuation ability/skills, we should be asking some of these longer-term portfolio managers to produce a measure of what their returns would be if they had held each investment they ever bought until the present.  But nobody does that.  It is actually my "burning question".

 

Do you mind sharing the details of that event? Been looking into something like it the past few weeks.

[Cigarbutt]

Investment vs speculation/trading/timing.

Skill vs luck?

Ben Graham used to distinguish between the two. Perhaps a meshed issue.

Funny, a lot of people I hear/read who use luck to explain favorable outcomes tend to be people who seem to "deserve" their luck.

When you "give" your money to a third party for management such as Mr Pabrai, you would tend to try to understand, at least to some degree, how they will make the funds grow faster than the index. But there is always an element of confidence. Character.

 

True long term value net investment outperformance is an absolute rarity. Large positive deviations = six sigma events.

One of the problems is that it may take a very long term to find out. And then size matters.

 

As individuals, I like what LC said on this thread last October:

"I think people need to develop their own investing philosophy, because only then will they truly understand it and be able to apply it most effectively. If that philosophy happens to coincide with graham/buffett, so be it, but you have to develop it yourself."

Then, over the long run, you can compare returns.

 

Perhaps value investing that is most business-like and a long term view help separating wheat from chaff.

[ERICOPOLY]

For the amount of time people argue about performance and whatnot... I totally get that.  The only point of hiring an active manager is to make relatively more money than just by passive indexing.

 

I'm actually interested in this idea of whether or not some value managers are making their money from buying below intrinsic value, or skillful trading.

 

I'm not going to call myself a "value investor", one because I'm more of a speculator than an investor, and two because I'm not temperamentally suited to investing, but rather to speculating.

 

In my experience, I have made a ton of money speculating on swings.  Had I held MBI instead of selling it, well... my returns would have suffered!  Did I make money because it rose to intrinsic value?  Probably not.

 

I once made money on WaMu call options on a day when the stock dropped!!!  I'm not fucking kidding either... I bought the calls a day or so before the drop, and sold them the day of the drop.  Volatility exploded so I somehow made money even though the underlying fell in value.

 

What is a value investor if not someone who buys below intrinsic value?  So to separate out performance/returns from valuation ability/skills, we should be asking some of these longer-term portfolio managers to produce a measure of what their returns would be if they had held each investment they ever bought until the present.  But nobody does that.  It is actually my "burning question".

 

Do you mind sharing the details of that event? Been looking into something like it the past few weeks.

 

Which event?  Do you mean the WaMu calls?  It was in 2008 when general volatility was very... Volatile.  Volatility was more volatile than the stock on that day.  They were at-the-money calls where the volatility level was likely the greatest driving force given that there was no intrinsic value in the call valuation.

[Ballinvarosig Investors]

Pabrai back in favour, smashing the S&P this year.

 

http://www.valuewalk.com/2017/05/mohnish-pabrai/

 

Has anyone got the actual PDF? I really hate how Valuewalk is now trying to charge for other people's shareholder letters.

[jmp8822]

I really hate how Valuewalk is now trying to charge for other people's shareholder letters.

 

It's questionable to host someone else's letters on your site in the first place, but selling Pabrai's letters? It seems like Pabrai could own that website pretty quickly with the help of an attorney.

[indythinker85]

I really hate how Valuewalk is now trying to charge for other people's shareholder letters.

 

It's questionable to host someone else's letters on your site in the first place, but selling Pabrai's letters? It seems like Pabrai could own that website pretty quickly with the help of an attorney.

 

::)  ::) Its not selling PDF of course that would be illegal- You cannot post any third party PDF whether its "free or you charge" without permission. - it is analysis on the letter which would fall under fair use.  This is no different than FT or AbsoluteReturn for just two examples.

[KCLarkin]

fair use.

 

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic. But ValueWalk's use of shareholder letters is clearly not "fair use". Specifically, it would certainly fail the "The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken" test, since he quotes the letters verbatim.

 

And I'm doubtful that the "analysis" provided is sufficient to pass the "Transformative Factor" test either.

 

Either way, putting someone else's content behind a paywall is a jerk move.

[indythinker85]

fair use.

 

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic. But ValueWalk's use of shareholder letters is clearly not "fair use". Specifically, it would certainly fail the "The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken" test, since he quotes the letters verbatim.

 

And I'm doubtful that the "analysis" provided is sufficient to pass the "Transformative Factor" test either.

 

Either way, putting someone else's content behind a paywall is a jerk move.

 

Fair use has no precise definition per US law as any lawyer will tell you, but i am sure they consult with lawyers. Not sure "the Amount and Substantiality of the Portion taken"  is true, are you an IP attorney? And more so i believe in many cases there is permission.

Either way, putting someone else's content behind a paywall is a jerk move.

If so, then FT, HedgeFundIntelligence, WSJ and others are also jerks for the exact same thing.

 

I think it is more of a "jerk move" to publicly slander a small business with that quote especially without knowing all the facts.

 

FWIW - I have personally found it far better tactically and ethically to speak privately with people or small firms if you have issues with them, instead of publicly berating them.

[KCLarkin]

i believe in many cases there is permission.

 

This would obviously change the legality.

 

Either way, putting someone else's content behind a paywall is a jerk move.

If so, then FT, HedgeFundIntelligence, WSJ and others are also jerks for the exact same thing.

 

If WSJ actually did that, then it would be uncool. AFAIK, they don't. When quoting investor letters, the WSJ typically do significant more reporting than ValueWalk. And they quote significantly less of the letter. They are clearly in the realm of fair use.

 

I was criticizing the action not the person. So all this talk of slander is a bit absurd. Autoplay video ads are a jerk move. But I don't send a nice letter to every company who uses them. I just use an adblocker and avoid their websites, where possible.

[stahleyp]

anyone know why Pabrai doesn't allow the letter out in public? He seems fine writing blog posts, doing interviews, speeches, and getting his name out there.

[racemize]

It is illegal to do so.

[Guest longinvestor]

anyone know why Pabrai doesn't allow the letter out in public? He seems fine writing blog posts, doing interviews, speeches, and getting his name out there.

 

So that no one else copies his investments, I suppose. But wait, his investment m.o is to copy others, no?

[racemize]

anyone know why Pabrai doesn't allow the letter out in public? He seems fine writing blog posts, doing interviews, speeches, and getting his name out there.

 

So that no one else copies his investments, I suppose. But wait, his investment m.o is to copy others, no?

 

The letters don't include current investments generally.  And again, it is illegal.  No need to speculate on other reasons.

 

Also, 13-Fs already exist.