| Preventing the greatest heist in history |
| 01/20/09 Tilson |
"The new Obama administration needs to understand that greatest heist in history is underway - at least $1 trillion is being transferred from taxpayers to debt holders of failed financial institutions - and take steps to stop it before taxpayers suffer further unnecessary losses."
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| Upside of the down dow |
| 11/12/08 Graham Tilson |
"The investor who permits himself to be stampeded or unduly worried by unjustified market declines in his holdings is perversely transforming his basic advantage into a basic disadvantage. That man would be better off if his stocks had no market quotation at all, for he would then be spared the mental anguish caused him by other persons' mistakes of judgment."
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| What we value |
| 06/30/08 Value Investing Montier Tilson |
"A final reason for the dearth of value investors is the human desire to be part of the crowd. If you didn't own Internet stocks during the late 1990s, not only did you suffer lousy returns, but you also felt excluded. As Montier points out, "Contrarian strategies are the investment equivalent of seeking out social pain." That's not easy to do."
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| Fixes for bad timing |
| 05/14/08 Value Investing Tilson |
"Investing too early is one of the more common sins of value investors. Watching as that well-researched idea you loved a few months ago falls 20% to 30% can be painful and nerve-racking. Bruce Berkowitz, of the highly successful Fairholme fund, calls it "premature accumulation." Getting your timing wrong is inevitable -- especially in today's market, in which stock prices continue to plumb new depths in a wide variety of industries."
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| Not-to-be-missed tips for value hunters |
| 05/23/07 Tilson |
"Given that the first step to successful investing is knowing which ponds to fish in, here are the 15 most common types of value opportunities I have been able to capitalise on in my investing career"
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| Tilson's top 5 value stocks |
| 07/20/06 Tilson |
"Tilson recommends BRKA, MCD, MSFT, WMT & WEN"
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| Blue-chip bargains |
| 09/08/05 Tilson |
"In fact, as the following chart from venerable investment manager GMO shows, higher quality companies -- which they define as those with "high profitability, stable profitability, and low debt" -- are at their lowest valuations ever relative to the overall market"
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| A cautious 2005 outlook |
| 01/30/05 Tilson |
"This year is off to a rocky start, with the major indexes already down 3% to 6%. Is this a bad omen for the rest of the year, or will the markets rally for a third consecutive year? I wish I knew. But like most value investors, I tend to worry a lot -- it helps to avoid losing money -- and these days I find plenty to worry about."
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| The scuttlebutt advantage |
| 12/17/04 Tilson |
"Investing legend Philip Fisher, in his classic book, first published in 1958, Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, wrote extensively about scuttlebutt and his techniques for collecting it"
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| Gaining an investment edge |
| 12/03/04 Tilson |
"There are only three ways to beat the market: better stock picking, better market timing, or more portfolio leverage. It seems obvious, to me at least, that the former is the best option. Market timing is a fool's errand -- I challenge you to show me anyone among the wealthiest Americans who made their fortune doing so -- and if you use much leverage, the market will eventually carry you out on a stretcher. But with so many smart people with so much money looking for bargains, even the traditional pockets of inefficiency such as distressed securities, spinoffs and micro caps are increasingly picked over. So how can one pick stocks that will outperform? Only by having an edge. If you don't -- if you're the proverbial sucker at the poker table -- you're going to get creamed."
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| The perfect business |
| 11/19/04 Tilson |
"Understanding the quality of a business is critical to being a successful investor, as it is a major determinant of what one should be willing to pay for a stock."
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| Don't stretch for performance |
| 11/05/04 Tilson |
"How tight are credit spreads today? Here's one example: An index of speculative B-rated credits -- which are well below investment grade, with long-term five-year default rates exceeding 25% -- last week was yielding a mere 6.85%, only 368 basis points above Treasuries, the lowest spread ever. For comparison, only two years ago, for the week ending Oct. 10, 2002, the spread for the same B-rated index was 1088 basis points, an all-time high."
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| Focus Investing |
| 10/23/04 Tilson |
"While there are a handful of exceptions such as Peter Lynch, the overwhelming majority of great investors that I'm aware of practice focus investing. They invest infrequently, only when they're highly confident that the odds are heavily in their favor, and then they bet big."
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| Blue-chip bargains? |
| 10/11/04 Tilson |
"I'm often asked how I generate stock ideas. There are many sources, but mostly, I read constantly, regularly talk to a lot of smart investors, and occasionally use stock screens. There are dozens of screening tools -- some free, others very expensive -- and countless criteria that one might use to filter stocks, but I've found that one of the best is to simply search for stocks trading at or near their 52-week lows. This makes sense since I'm looking for 50-cent dollars -- stocks trading for half or less of their intrinsic value -- and such bargains are likely to be severely out of favor."
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| Stock options hurt U.S. competitiveness |
| 09/30/04 Tilson |
"There are legitimate arguments and difficult issues related to how to go about expensing options. Which formulas or methods to use and how often to update the values are points for debate. There are no credible arguments, however, for ignoring these expenses and thus intentionally overstating the earnings and understating the P/Es of not only companies with large options programs but also the market in general."
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| The 80-cent dollar dilemma |
| 08/27/04 Tilson |
"Stocks trading at a 20% discount to intrinsic value will generally follow the market if it takes a tumble. But selling good companies trading at such a discount isn't an acceptable option either. What's an investor to do? Whitney Tilson shares his strategy."
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| The tech stock opportunity |
| 08/08/04 Tilson |
"Despite my reservations about the tech sector, I actually think that it is -- or at least should be -- fertile ground for value investors for the simple reason that most of the investors in the sector are irrational, momentum-driven speculators."
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| The tech stock discount |
| 07/17/04 Tilson |
"Whitney Tilson argues that tech stocks should trade at a discount, not a premium, to the earnings multiples of the market averages, and consequently, warns that tech stocks are valued at more than twice their fair value today."
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| The joy of cash |
| 07/02/04 Tilson |
"Value investor Whitney Tilson scours the investment universe regularly, but says he's found few juicy pitches. So he coolly bides his time and holds onto his cash. Should he worry? Not according to Warren Buffett and other superinvestors."
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| Investors as pecking pigeons |
| 06/18/04 Tilson |
"Whitney Tilson shares some lessons from his trip to Italy, plus two studies that provide insight into investor irrationality."
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| Bullish options strategies |
| 03/08/04 Tilson |
"I'm generally not a fan of options. In certain situations call options -- used sparingly -- can be a sensible investment. Here are four such situations."
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