First the link: Francis Chou
The article brings up an interesting point, a good amount of value investors are lagging the market. The first person that comes to mind is Bill Miller and I believe he is down 19%. Ouch. According to their first quarter shareholder letter, Dodge and Cox is down almost 12% (S&P 500 was down a little over 9%). There are various other value firms who are under performing the market. Have they lost their touch or is it a sign of the times? I believe it’s the latter. One thing about contrarian-value investors is we are usually early to the party and leave early as well. We hate crowds.Just about every “guru” underestimated the magnitude of the housing/credit crisis and their performance reflects it. Mohnish Pabrai and Bill Miller come to mind.

Value investing is a proven strategy that will continue to work in the future. Unfortunately, many of the value investors missed the commodity train and are lagging. In the 90’s, most value investors avoided technology and lagged behind growth and technology funds. Now, not only did they miss the commodity boom, but were early in financials. A double whammy. So what now? Start cherry picking bargains. As the article states, just about every retail business is undervalued. As a matter of fact, Chou mentions Office Depot. Sounds familiar? Not to brag but…… I I wrote about Office Depot wayyyy back on February 24. Anyone reading this blog at the time could have researched the company, watch the stock plummet 20% after “worst than expected earnings”, and buy the stock at $10.xx. The stock is still a bargain and any positive comment made about the economy will push the stock higher.

A particular quote by Chou caught my attention in which he states:

“Look at our long-term record. We have always bounced back.”

Value Investing always bounces back. America always bounces back. It is a matter of being patient and ignoring the current headlines. Andrewc left an interesting comment on a recent post (Gurus Loading Up On Healthcare Stocks) in which he states:

I like seeing how the “gurus” picks are completely different than what the media is buzzing about. All last summer the funds managers were guying natural gas when the talking heads said that was dead money. Now, with gas prices going through the roof and TV programs talking constantly about rising oil prices, you see very few new positions in the energy. They don’t follow the momentum- they already had there positions and are enjoying big profits. And while CNBC and others hype up CHK and others, the gurus quietly move to others areas of value, like Healthcare. Watching when the experts enter and exit positions keep me from getting caught in the herd.

In summary, that’s what contrarian-value investing is all about.
1. Go against the crowd.
2. Wait for crowd to realize they made a mistake
3. Sell to crowd at a significantly higher price

As stated in my response, years from now CNBC will be flashing headlines dealing with financials and retailers. As usual, here is a classic Ben Graham quote that helps out when the headlines news is causing doubt in security analyses

“You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.”

Below are the weeks top value investing news.

• Vitaliy Katsenelson Interview with Active Trader Magazine
  The question comes to mind – what do I know about trading? Absolutely nothing! This is exactly what I told David Bukey, the editor of the magazine, when he asked me for an interview. He assured me that he read my book and thought my (investing) message was very important to his readers. How can you say no to that?
• Buffett tips off MU crowd-Billionaire investor Warren Buffett takes part in a question-and-answer session with business college students during the “Emerging Issues and Trends in Real Estate” forum and educational conference yesterday at the Trulaske College of Business at the University of Missouri.
• Right Price Checklist: Business-Detailed checklist for evaluating the business then apply it to Best Buy.
• Warren Buffett Named ‘Manager’ of 2008 Boardroom All-Star Team-Warren Buffett ranks number one on Directorship magazine’s new list of the most admired board directors. Its Annual Survey of Exceptional Directors is compiled using “data from proxy firms, reader polls and governance experts.”
• Prof. Bruce Greenwald’s Talk on Value Investing-The talk, titled, “Value Investing Frameworks and Business Analytics” was delivered by Prof. Greenwald to an audience of 220 guests from the Indian investment community at Hotel Taj President in Mumbai On January 8.