(W$J) Newspaper Circulations Slide More, by Emily Steel
This line made me laugh out loud:
“The weaker circulation numbers may fuel efforts by publishers to adjust their business model to put more emphasis on the Web.”
Beautiful Table of the Top 20 U.S. Newspapers, by Circulation
The irascible Jack Bogle on investor education (among other things):
“We are educating them with all the stupid things that make investing impossible. For example, that Peter Lynch thing — if you see something you like, buy the company that makes it. What could be more inane?”
I always liked the story of Lynch passing up buying shares in SuperCuts after he got a terrible haircut there… Lynch’s methods weren’t the least bit inane, but it all boils down to paying a good price for a great business — that’s the key.
Looks like the Republicans are going to lose control of the House but keep control of the Senate:
Good solid buying all day long. The US Real Estate ETF (IYR) once again hits an all-time high.
The Fat, Slow Pitch, by Jim Grant
David Winters is the best kind of opportunist. True to Graham and Dodd tenets, he believes that the future is a closed book and that nobody — at least not he — can forecast stock prices. From which it follows that the thing to do is to armor oneself with a margin of safety. The less you pay for an investment, the less you have to fear from the unfathomable future.
Grant goes on to write that Winters bought newspaper stocks last spring only to sell them later, presumably at a loss. “Armoring” yourself with a “margin of safety” is useless if you miscalculate.
- via Controlled Greed -
From the Dodge & Cox Stock Fund Third Quarter Review (PDF):
By early 2000, with equity valuations at all-time highs, investors had become unreasonably optimistic and had bid up stock prices of certain companies to levels which implicitly incorporated expectations for future growth that even the ablest of management teams would be unable to satisfy. Leading companies with excellent business franchises and good prospects for long-term growth turned out to be poor investments because of excessive valuations.
In Plain English:
By early 2000, investors started to pay stupid prices for certain companies. Buying a piece of even a good business will turn out to be a poor investment if you pay a stupid price.
More money returning to the Energies and Materials…
… and leaving the recently strong Health Care and Pharmaceuticals. Semiconductors still stinking up the joint and you may be interested to learn that the semis are trading around their October 2002 lows, relatively speaking. Yuck!
Just took the World’s Smallest Political Quiz … the result:
