Patvano

Julian Robertson Bets the Farm on Inflation

To all the people saying that sentiment is moving towards being short treasuries as opposed to long treasuries, I will go to Buffett, quoting Ben Graham (of course, this betrays that I take a LT view as opposed to a ST one): “You’re neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You’re right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right—and that’s the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don’t have to worry about anybody else.”

Yeah, And the iPod Wasn't a Threat to the Walkman, Either…

I think this author makes a great point. The problem seems to me not to be losing the dedicated gamers: that won't happen. The problem is going to be losing the casual gamers to something like the iPhone. Devices like the PSP will have a harder time achieving the kind of scale necessary to make developing games for their platforms worthwhile.

Second-Guessing Buffett's November Bottom Call

The very premise of the article belies an ignorance on behalf of the author of Warren Buffett in general and specifically Mr. Buffett's editorial. I am thankful that Paul Price posted the editorial in full above. As you can see, Buffett didn't call the bottom: he doesn't make speculative calls like that.

I think it would be helpful to highlight the "Grahamsian" distinction between investment and speculation: speculation is betting that an asset price will move up, regardless of value (think of the "greater fool" theory), while investment is buying something whose value will increase at a reasonable rate at a price that is fair, or, ideally, at a price where it is near;y impossible to lose one's capital. This is not to say Buffett cares nothing of price increases: as Graham says, in the short term the market is a voting machine, in the long term it's a weighing machine. The whole idea of value investing is that, eventually, price catches up with value.

Which gets us to the editorial. Buffett says, essentially, that the underlying assets of the stock market (American industry) is a better investment than cash at current prices. With regard to the direction of the market, he says "I have no idea what the market will do in the short term." Clearly, he was not calling the bottom. The idea is that, at today's prices, the market is offering an attractive long term return.

As to the macro-analysis: I am not saying it can't be done, but I will conclude with Peter Lynch: "Don't time the market. The real key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them." & "If you spend more than 13 minutes analyzing economic and market forecasts, you've wasted 10 minutes."

EOG Resources Inc. Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you for these transcriptions- they are a big help and normally very high quality. I just wanted to note that this transcript needs further attention with regard to editing. I find many typos, misprints, and poorly transcribed sentences. I don't know if it was done with a computer or something along those lines, but it needs some further editing. For example, the line: "So it's definitely not going to be in a hyper ramp up face". That last word should probably be "phase", and this type of error is throughout. Again, thank you for this great service, and you may want to have someone look over this particular one again.

Goodrich Petroleum Corporation Q1 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

I think that "Hazel Shale" should be changed to "Haynesville Shale". Thanks for the transcripts.