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Ask Packer - No Seriously, Ask Him Anything (AHA)!


infinitee00

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In terms of comp ratios, I haven't run across a definitive guide but 5 Rules for Successful Stock Investing by Pat Dorsey and industry analyst reports can provide some guidance.  I think as you study an industry you can pick pretty quickly what metric is used as it used quite often by analysts and others in the industry.

 

As to size and outperformance, I think once get over a few billion for US equities it gets pretty hard.  There are some exceptions in some industries today like some autos and financials but for the most part I think the large and mid-cap space is pretty efficient in the US.  Look at firms like Longleaf and Sequoia (with great processes) and compare them to value indicies and you will see the outperformance if it exists is small.  I think a "lazy portfolio" of small value tilted securities will probably capture most of the premium offered by value types of stocks. 

 

Packer 

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Packer, my question is......... are you happy to see your team pummel the Vikings this evening? ;D  I'm in the MNPLS area and have the game on.  Your welcome for playing against Christian Ponder. ;)  Couldn't help myself seeing this thread.   

 

Best,

 

Ted

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Look at firms like Longleaf and Sequoia (with great processes) and compare them to value indicies and you will see the outperformance if it exists is small.

 

This probably has more to do with institutional constraints than market efficiency.

 

Sequoia has a 1% drag due to management fee too. That additional 1% is very difficult to overcome...

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Packer, earlier in this thread you said:

 

I don't read industry magazines but do track news associated with these firms and read in-depth industry and company specific research reports to put the valuations in a frame of reference.

 

I recently got access to more professional research data like CapitalIQ, Bloomberg, etc.  Is this where you get your industry research reports from?  Are those reports just the "Primers" that I've seen floating around the web?

 

Thanks in advance for your help!  I swear I'll stop asking all these questions one day ;D

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I don't have a rule per se other than seeing if for some reason the value has declined, which in this case it did not.  I bought too much at the higher prices so this at least reduced my cost basis.  In this case I bought about 33% of the original purchase price in value.

 

Packer

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Packer, do you categorize holdings or actively look for "work outs" or have you ever been in a "control situation". If not, is this something you might consider doing in the future? One further qs if I may, what methods, if any, have you found to reduce volatility in the down years, without compromising upside? Thank you in advance for any answers and thank you for this thread.

 

Joel

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Hi Packer,

 

Thanks again for taking the time to answer all of these questions! I met you in NYC a few months back and we were discussing your use of the Kelly Formula to choose a maximum on the size of a position. You said you always use 50/50 as your probabilities. I'm curious if you ever adjust those probabilities if your conviction goes up. For example, right now in my portfolio Fiat is approaching it's max based on a 50/50 probability with the Kelly formula -- Kelly tells me 20% at the current price/FV. But my conviction has gone up a bit, and if I adjust to 60/40, Kelly tells me to let it run up to 32%. Either way for tax purposes I'm going to keep all of my holdings in Fiat around for at least the next four months, but I'm curious what you do in situations like this.

 

Thanks,

investor-man

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I haven't invested in many workouts as I don't feel I have any particular advantage over others here.  I am planning on investing in NNN property funds to reduce my volatility going forward.  Today you get a 7% yield plus rent appreciation of 2% with another 1% for accretive purchases.

 

For the Kelly formula, I don't adjust the probabilities as I am looking for an objective percentage allocation.  I use this as a warning sign (a risk control tool) when my portfolio is getting too concentrated.  If you can withstand the volatility, you will be OK.  You may also want to see if there are other investments that have similar upside that you can purchase with a partial sale of the position.  I have done this within the past 12 months with AIQ and GNCMA when they have become larger parts of the portfolio.

 

Packer

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Packer, where do you generally get comparable transaction multiples from?

 

I recently got access to CapitalIQ and I've used it for finding some transaction multiples.  However, I've noticed it doesn't have everything.  For example, Versar (a company I'm invested in) recently bought the firm J.M. Waller.  All of the details for the transaction were very publicly disclosed.  However, it's not in the CapitalIQ database as far as I see.

 

Is there another (better?) resource you use to find these multiples?  If not, how do you compensate for CapitalIQs lack of complete information?  TIA.

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I use Cap IQ and Bloomberg as a starting point and confirm/correct add to the data with financial disclosures and press releases.  There can be implicit assumptions in Cap IQ data I have used in the past. 

 

Packer

 

Huh.  I didn't know Bloomberg had a way of looking at prior transactions.  Is there an easy, um... I think you call it a Bloomberg command to access this?  Or is it more complicated than that?

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Hi Packer,

 

I have been struggling with something for a long time and wondering if you could help me out.

 

I am assuming Sprint is going to be pushing pricing down heavily and fighting with a very cheap unlimited plan. My question is can Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile compete on the data side with their spectrum (understand the auction just took place and could change this).

 

I am still on Verizon because I always felt Sprint was crappy but to the extent they get their network in ok shape and offer a very cheap unlimited plan, that starts to be interesting. I think they have been pretty explicit in saying that they are going to compete on price/unlimited data but I can't wrap my head around if with their networks, the other guys could come down and fight them with a similar (maybe slightly more expensive plan given their better networks) plan but also unlimited data.

 

Seems like we are moving towards more and more data and therefore Verizon plans would just get more expensive..I know mine has.

 

Appreciate your thoughts in advance here.

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I am not sure if I can add  more than what you have already stated but when I switched from an unlimited data plan to a Verizon metered plan, I actually saved money.  I think it depends upon what you do with the phone.  I just surf the web so it doesn't take up to much bandwidth.  If you are streaming Netflix, it is a different story.  What may happen is the bandwidth heavy users go to Sprint and Verizon is left with low and moderate bandwidth folks.  I am not sure how many folks are low/moderate users like me vs. the heavy users and how that changes over time.  If the low/high ratio is low and stays low than Verizon should do well, however, if Sprint gets these cost conscience high bandwidth it may not be the best situation for them.  Sprint will have an advantage if there is spike in the high bandwidth users without a corresponding increase in bandwith which is the opposite of what has happened in the past, for most users bandwidth has always ran ahead of use.

 

Packer

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Hi Packer,

 

Apologies if you have already written about this topic (I haven't seen it). I was curious to know if you were looking at the upcoming tracking stock by Liberty Global for their Latin America assets? There aren't many details yet so it's too early to value, but I'm curious to know if you have an opinion on the cable industry in the area and whether it's a good environment to rerun the TCI playbook (for the third time) and consolidate the industry there.

 

Thank you.

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