CASE STUDY: Atlas Engineered Products (APEUF)

December 11, 2022

Atlas Engineered Products operates in Canada’s truss, wall panels, and engineered wood products industry.  Atlas has acquired and improved 7 companies since going public in late 2017.

Atlas’s specialist design team uses cutting edge design and engineering technology to ensure that their clients get consistent, accurate, top-quality products.

Here is the company’s most recent investor presentation: https://www.atlasengineeredproducts.com/dist/assets/presentation/AEP_Investor_Deck_Aug_2022-min.pdf

Here is a good writeup on Value Investors Club: https://valueinvestorsclub.com/idea/ATLAS_ENGINEERED_PRODCTS_LTD/5737776840

The market for trusses, wall panels, and modular systems is local because it is too expensive to transport such large items over a long distance.  As a result, this market is extremely fragmented.  There are hundreds of small regional operators.  Many of these operators need succession planning.  Atlas thus has an opportunity to continue making acquisitions.

There are clear benefits for Atlas to consolidate this market.  These include operational efficiencies, technological advances, advantages of scale in procurement, and expanded product distribution.  (Many regional operators are not able to invest in technology and automation.)

Atlas focuses on the higher added value and most scalable products.  It quickly winds down or sells lower margin businesses.

Here are the current multiples:

    • EV/EBITDA = 2.00
    • P/E = 5.25
    • P/B = 1.15
    • P/CF = 2.69
    • P/S = 0.80

Insider ownership is 17.7%, which is good.  TL/TA (total liabilities/total assets) is 38.4%, which is also good.  ROE is 41.1%, which is excellent.

The Piotroski F_score is 8, which is very good.

Intrinsic value scenarios:

    • Low case: During a recession, the stock could fall 50% from $0.54 to $0.27.
    • Mid case: The current EV/EBITDA is 2.0, but in a normal environment it should be at least 6.0.  That would mean the stock is worth $1.62, which is 200% above today’s $0.54.
    • High case: Cash flow is likely to keep growing at 30% per year (or more).  In five years, cash flow will be 270% higher.  If price-to-cash flow doubles to 5.4, then the share price will reach $3.46, which is 540% higher than today’s $0.54.

Risks

The housing market is cyclical.  Economies are slowing down as interest rates rise.  There will likely be a recession (which would slow down organic growth but increase acquisitions).  But over the longer term, demographics are a tailwind.

 

BOOLE MICROCAP FUND

An equal weighted group of micro caps generally far outperforms an equal weighted (or cap-weighted) group of larger stocks over time.

This outperformance increases significantly by focusing on cheap micro caps.  Performance can be further boosted by isolating cheap microcap companies that show improving fundamentals.  We rank microcap stocks based on these and similar criteria.

There are roughly 10-20 positions in the portfolio.  The size of each position is determined by its rank.  Typically the largest position is 15-20% (at cost), while the average position is 8-10% (at cost).  Positions are held for 3 to 5 years unless a stock approaches intrinsic value sooner or an error has been discovered.

The mission of the Boole Fund is to outperform the S&P 500 Index by at least 5% per year (net of fees) over 5-year periods.  We also aim to outpace the Russell Microcap Index by at least 2% per year (net).  The Boole Fund has low fees.

 

If you are interested in finding out more, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

My e-mail: jb@boolefund.com

 

 

Disclosures: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. All investments contain risk and may lose value. This material is distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of Boole Capital, LLC.

The Education of a Value Investor

December 4, 2022

I have now read The Education of a Value Investor, by Guy Spier, several times.  It’s a very honest and insightful description of Guy Spier’s evolution from arrogant and envious youth to kind, ethical, humble, and successful value investor in the mold of his heroes—including the value investors Mohnish Pabrai, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger.

Spier recounts how, after graduating near the top of his class at Oxford and then getting an MBA at Harvard, he decided to take a job at D. H. Blair, an ethically challenged place.  Spier realized that part of his job was to dress up bad deals.  Being unable to admit that he had made a mistake, Spier ended up tarnishing his reputation badly by playing along instead of quitting.

Spier’s story is about the journey “from that dark place toward the Nirvana where I now live.”

Besides the lesson that one should never do anything unethical, Spier also learned just how important the environment is:

We like to think that we change our environment, but the truth is that it changes us.  So we have to be extraordinarily careful to choose the right environment….

 

THE PERILS OF AN ELITE EDUCATION

Spier observes that having an education from a top university often does not prevent one from making foolish and immoral decisions, especially when money or power is involved:

Our top universities mold all these brilliant minds.  But these people—including me—still make foolish and often immoral choices.  This also goes for my countless peers who, despite their elite training, failed to walk away from nefarious situations in other investment banks, brokerages, credit-rating agencies, bond insurance companies, and mortgage lenders.

Having stumbled quite badly, Spier felt sufficiently humbled and humiliated that he was willing to reexamine everything he believed.  Thus, in the wake of the worst set of decisions of his life, Spier learned important lessons about Wall Street and about himself that he never could have learned at Oxford or Harvard.

For one thing, Spier learned that quite a few people are willing to distort the truth in order to further their “own narrow self-interest.”  But having discovered Warren Buffett, who is both highly ethical and arguably the best investor ever, Spier began to see that there is another way to succeed.  “This discovery changed my life.”

 

WHAT WOULD WARREN BUFFETT DO?  WHAT WOULD CHARLIE MUNGER DO?  WHAT WOULD MARCUS AURELIUS DO?

Spier argues that choosing the right heroes to emulate is very powerful:

There is a wisdom here that goes far beyond the narrow world of investing.  What I’m about to tell you may be the single most important secret I’ve discovered in all my decades of studying and stumbling.  If you truly apply this lesson, I’m certain that you will have a much better life, even if you ignore everything else I write…

Having found the right heroes, one can become more like them gradually if one not only studies them relentlessly, but also tries to model their behavior.  For example, it is effective to ask oneself:  “What would Warren Buffett do if he were in my shoes right now?  What would Charlie Munger do?  What would Marcus Aurelius do?”

This is a surprisingly powerful principle: modeling the right heroes.  It can work just as well with eminent dead people, as Munger has pointed out.  One can relentlessly study and then model Socrates or Jesus, Epictetus or Seneca, Washington or Lincoln.  With enough studying and enough effort to copy / model, one’s behavior will gradually improve to be more like that of one’s chosen heroes.

 

ENVIRONMENT TRUMPS INTELLECT

Our minds are not strong enough on their own to overcome the environment:

… I felt that my mind was in Omaha, and I believed that I could use the force of my intellect to rise above my environment.  But I was wrong: as I gradually discovered, our environment is much stronger than our intellect.  Remarkably few investors—either amateur or professional—truly understand this critical point.  Great investors like Warren Buffett (who left New York and returned to Omaha) and Sir John Templeton (who settled in the Bahamas) clearly grasped this idea, which took me much longer to learn.

For long-term value investors, the farther away from Wall Street one is, the easier it is to master the skills of patience, rationality, and independent thinking.

 

CAUSES OF MISJUDGMENT

Charlie Munger gave a talk in 1995 at Harvard on 24 causes of misjudgment.  At the time, as Spier writes, this worldly wisdom—combining powerful psychology with economics and business—was not available anywhere else.  Munger’s talk provides deep insight into human behavior.  Link to speech: http://www.rbcpa.com/mungerspeech_june_95.pdf

Decades of experiments by Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and others have shown that humans have two mental systems: an intuitive system that operates automatically (and subconsciously) and a reasoning system that requires conscious effort.  Through years of focused training involving timely feedback, some people can train themselves to regularly overcome their subconscious and automatic biases through the correct use of logic, math, or statistics.

But the biases never disappear.  Even Kahneman admits that, despite his deep knowledge of biases, he is still automatically “wildly overconfident” unless he makes the conscious effort to slow down and to use his reasoning system.

 

LUNCH WITH WARREN

Guy Spier and Mohnish Pabrai had the winning bid for lunch with Warren Buffett—the proceeds go to GLIDE, a charity.

One thing Spier learned—directly and indirectly—from lunch with Warren is that the more one genuinely tries to help others, the happier life becomes.  Writes Spier:

As I hope you can see from my experience, when your consciousness or mental attitude shifts, remarkable things begin to happen.  That shift is the ultimate business tool and life tool.

At the lunch, Warren repeated a crucial lesson:

It’s very important always to live your life by an inner scorecard, not an outer scorecard.

In other words, it is essential to live in accord with what one knows at one’s core to be right, and never be swayed by external forces such as peer pressure.  Buffett pointed out that too often people justify misguided or wrong actions by reassuring themselves that ‘everyone else is doing it.’

Moreover, Buffett said:

People will always stop you from doing the right thing if it’s unconventional.

Spier asked Buffett if it gets easier to do the right thing.  After pausing for a moment, Buffett said: ‘A little.’

Buffett also stressed the virtue of patience when it comes to investing:

If you’re even a slightly above average investor who spends less than you earn, over a lifetime you cannot help but get very wealthy—if you’re patient.

Spier realized that he could learn to copy many of the successful behaviors of Warren Buffett, but that he could never be Warren Buffett.  Spier observes that what he learned from Warren was to become the best and most authentic version of Guy Spier.

 

HANDLING ADVERSITY

One effective way Spier learned to deal with adversity was by:

…studying heroes of mine who had successfully handled adversity, then imagining that they were by my side so that I could model their attitudes and behavior.  One historical figure I used in this way was the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius.  At night, I read excerpts from his Meditations.  He wrote of the need to welcome adversity with gratitude as an opportunity to prove one’s courage, fortitude, and resilience.  I found this particularly helpful at a time when I couldn’t allow myself to become fearful.

Moreover, Spier writes about heroes who have overcome serious mistakes:

I also tried to imagine how Sir Ernest Shackleton would have felt in my shoes.  He had made grievous mistakes on his great expedition to Antarctica—for example, failing to land his ship, Endurance, when he could and then abandoning his first camp too soon.  Yet he succeeded in putting these errors behind him, and he ultimately saved the lives of everyone on his team.  This helped me to realize that my own mistakes were an acceptable part of the process.  Indeed, how could I possibly pilot the wealth of my friends and family without making mistakes or encountering the occasional storm?  Like Shackleton, I needed to see that all was not lost and to retain my belief that I would make it through to the other side.

 

CREATING THE IDEAL ENVIRONMENT

Overcoming our cognitive biases and irrational tendencies is not a matter of simply deciding to use one’s rational system.  Rather, it requires many years of training along with specific tools or procedures that help reduce the number of mistakes:

Through painful experience… I discovered that it’s critical to banish the false assumption that I am truly capable of rational thought.  Instead, I’ve found that one of my only advantages as an investor is the humble realization of just how flawed my brain really is.  Once I accepted this, I could design an array of practical work-arounds based on my awareness of the minefield within my mind. 

No human being is perfectly rational.  Every human being has at one time or another made an irrational decision.  We all have mental shortcomings:

…The truth is, all of us have mental shortcomings, though yours may be dramatically different from mine.  With this in mind, I began to realize just how critical it is for investors to structure their environment to counter their mental weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, and irrational tendencies.

Spier describes how hard he worked to create an ideal environment with the absolute minimum of factors that could negatively impact his ability to think rationally:

Following my move to Zurich, I focused tremendous energy on this task of creating the ideal environment in which to invest—one in which I’d be able to act slightly more rationally.  The goal isn’t to be smarter.  It’s to construct an environment in which my brain isn’t subjected to quite such an extreme barrage of distractions and disturbing forces that can exacerbate my irrationality.  For me, this has been a life-changing idea.  I hope that I can do it justice here because it’s radically improved my approach to investing, while also bringing me a happier and calmer life.

As we shall see in a later chapter, I would also overhaul my basic habits and investment procedures to work around my irrationality.  My brain would still be hopelessly imperfect. But these changes would subtly tilt the playing field to my advantage.  To my mind, this is infinitely more helpful than focusing on things like analysts’ quarterly earnings reports, Tobin’s Q ratio, or pundits’ useless market predictions—the sort of noise that preoccupies most investors.

 

LEARNING TO TAP DANCE

Spier, like Pabrai, believes that mastering the game of bridge improves one’s ability to think probabilistically:

Indeed, as a preparation for investing, bridge is truly the ultimate game.  If I were putting together a curriculum on value investing, bridge would undoubtedly be a part of it…

For investors, the beauty of bridge lies in the fact that it involves elements of chance, probabilistic thinking, and asymmetric information.  When the cards are dealt, the only ones you can look at are your own.  But as the cards are played, the probabilistic and asymmetric nature of the game becomes exquisite…

With my bridge hat on, I’m always searching for the underlying truth, based on insufficient information.  The game has helped me to recognize that it’s simply not possible to have a complete understanding of anything.  We’re never truly going to get to the bottom of what’s going on inside a company, so we have to make probabilistic inferences.

Chess is another game that can improve one’s cognition in other areas.  Spier cites the lesson given by chess champion Edward Lasker:

When you see a good move, look for a better one.  

The lesson for investing:

When you see a good investment, look for a better investment.

Spier also learned, both from having fun at games such as bridge and chess, and from watching business people including Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett, that having a more playful attitude might help.  More importantly, whether via meditation or via other hobbies, if one could cultivate inner peace, that could make one a better investor.

The great investor Ray Dalio has often mentioned transcendental meditation as leading to a peaceful state of mind where rationality can be maximized and emotions minimized.  See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM-2hGA-k5E

Spier explains:

To give you an analogy, when you drop a stone in a calm pond, you see the ripples.  Likewise, in investing, if I want to see the big ideas, I need a peaceful and contented mind.

 

INVESTING TOOLS

Having written about various ways that he has made his environment as peaceful as possible—he also has a library full of great books (1/3 of which are unread), with no internet or phone—Spier next turns to ‘rules and routines that we can apply consistently.’

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, I worked hard to establish for myself this more structured approach to investing, thereby bringing more order and predictability to my behavior while also reducing the complexity of my decision-making process.  Simplifying everything makes sense, given the brain’s limited processing power…

Some of these rules are broadly applicable; others are more idiosyncratic and may work better for me than for you.  What’s more, this remains a work in progress—a game plan that I keep revising as I learn from experience what works best.  Still, I’m convinced that it will help you enormously if you start thinking about your own investment processes in this structured, systematic way.  Pilots internalize an explicit set of rules and procedures that guide their every action and ensure the safety of themselves and their passengers.  Investors who are serious about achieving good returns without undue risk should follow their example.

Here are Spier’s rules:

Rule #1—Stop Checking the Stock Price

A constantly moving stock price influences the brain—largely on a subconscious level—to want to take action.  But for the long-term value investor, the best thing is almost always to do nothing at all.  Thus, it is better only to check prices once per week, or even once per quarter or once per year:

Checking the stock price too frequently uses up my limited willpower since it requires me to expend unnecessary mental energy simply resisting these calls to action.  Given that my mental energy is a scarce resource, I want to direct it in more constructive ways.

We also know from behavioral finance research by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky that investors feel the pain of loss twice as acutely as the pleasure from gain.  So I need to protect my brain from the emotional storm that occurs when I see that my stocks—or the market—are down.  If there’s average volatility, the market is typically up in most years over a 20-year period.  But if I check it frequently, there’s a much higher probability that it will be down at that particular moment…. Why, then, put myself in a position where I may have a negative emotional reaction to this short-term drop, which sends all the wrong signals to my brain?

… After all, Buffett didn’t make billions off companies like American Express and Coca-Cola by focusing on the meaningless movements of the stock ticker.

 

Rule #2—If Someone Tries to Sell You Something, Don’t Buy It

The brain will often make terrible decisions in response to detailed pitches from gifted salespeople.

Rule #3—Don’t Talk to Management

Beware of CEO’s and other top management, no matter how charismatic, persuasive, and amiable they seem.  Most managers have natural biases towards their own companies.

Rule #4—Gather Investment Research in the Right Order

We know from Munger’s speech on the causes of human misjudgment that the first idea to enter the brain tends to be the one that sticks.

Spier starts with corporate filings—‘meat and vegetables’—before consuming news and other types of information.

Rule #5—Discuss Your Investment Ideas Only with People Who Have No Axe to Grind

The idea is to try to find knowledgeable people who can communicate in an objective and logical way, minimizing the influence of various biases.

Rule #6—Never Buy or Sell Stocks When the Market is Open

This again relates to the fact that flashing stock prices push the brain subconsciously towards action:

When it comes to buying and selling stocks, I need to detach myself from the price action of the market, which can stir up my emotions, stimulate my desire to act, and cloud my judgment.  So I have a rule, inspired by Mohnish, that I don’t trade stocks while the market is open.  Instead, I prefer to wait until trading hours have ended.

Rule #7—If a Stock Tumbles after You Buy It, Don’t Sell It for Two Years

When you’ve lost a lot of money, many negative emotions occur.

Mohnish developed a rule to deal with the psychological forces aroused in these situations: if he buys a stock and it goes down, he won’t allow himself to sell it for two years.

…Once again, it acts as a circuit breaker, a way to slow me down and improve my odds of making rational decisions.  Even more important, it forces me to be more careful before buying a stock since I know that I’ll have to live with my mistake for at least two years.  That knowledge helps me to avoid a lot of bad investments.  In fact, before buying a stock, I consciously assume that the price will immediately fall by 50 percent, and I ask myself if I’ll be able to live through it.  I then buy only the amount that I could handle emotionally if this were to happen.

Mohnish’s rule is a variation on an important idea that Buffett has often shared with students:

I could improve your ultimate financial welfare by giving you a ticket with only 20 slots in it, so that you had 20 punches—representing investments that you got to make in a lifetime.  And once you’d punched through the card, you couldn’t make any more investments at all.  Under those rules, you’d really think carefully about what you did, and you’d be forced to load up on what you’d really thought about.  So you’d do much better.

Rule #8—Don’t Talk about Your Current Investments

Once we’ve made a public statement, it’s psychologically difficult to back away from what we’ve said.  The automatic intuitive system in our brains tries to quickly remove doubt by jumping to conclusions.  This system also tries to eliminate any apparent inconsistencies in order to maintain a coherent—albeit highly simplified—story about the world.

But it’s not just our intuitive system that focuses on confirming evidence.  Even our logical system—the system that can do math and statistics—uses a positive test strategy:  When testing a given hypothesis, our logical system looks for confirming evidence rather than disconfirming evidence.  This is the opposite of what works best in science.

Thus, once we express a view, our brain tends to see all the reasons why the view must be correct and our brain tends to be blind to reasons why the view might be wrong.

 

AN INVESTOR’S CHECKLIST

Atul Gawande, a former Rhodes scholar, is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, and a renowned author.  He’s ‘a remarkable blend of practitioner and thinker, and also an exceptionally nice guy.’  In December 2007, Gawande published a story in The New Yorker entitled “The Checklist”:  http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist

One of Gawande’s main points is that ‘intensive-care medicine has grown so far beyond ordinary complexity that avoiding daily mistakes is proving impossible even for our super-specialists.’

Gawande then described the work of Peter Pronovost, a critical-care specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital.  Pronovost designed a checklist after a particular patient nearly died:

Pronovost took a single sheet of paper and listed all of the steps required to avoid the infection that had almost killed the man.  These steps were all ‘no-brainers,’ yet it turned out that doctors skipped at least one step with over a third of their patients.  When the hospital began to use checklists, numerous deaths were prevented.  This was partly because checklists helped with memory recall, ‘especially with mundane matters that are easily overlooked,’ and partly because they made explicit the importance of certain precautions.  Other hospitals followed suit, adopting checklists as a pragmatic way of coping with complexity.

Mohnish Pabrai and Guy Spier, following Charlie Munger, realized that they could develop a useful checklist for value investing.  The checklist makes sense as a way to overcome the subconscious biases of the human intuitive system.  Moreover, humans have what Spier calls “cocaine brain”:

the intoxicating prospect of making money can arouse the same reward circuits in the brain that are stimulated by drugs, making the rational mind ignore supposedly extraneous details that are actually very relevant.  Needless to say, this mental state is not the best condition in which to conduct a cool and dispassionate analysis of investment risk.

An effective investor’s checklist is based on a careful analysis of past mistakes, both by oneself and by others.

My own checklist, which borrows shamelessly from [Mohnish Pabrai’s], includes about 70 items, but it continues to evolve.  Before pulling the trigger on any investment, I pull out the checklist from my computer or the filing cabinet near my desk to see what I might be missing.  Sometimes, this takes me as little as 15 minutes, but it’s led me to abandon literally dozens of investments that I might otherwise have made…

As I’ve discovered from having ADD, the mind has a way of skipping over certain pieces of information—including rudimentary stuff like where I’ve left my keys.  This also happens during the investment process.  The checklist is invaluable because it redirects and challenges the investor’s wandering attention in a systematic manner…

That said, it’s important to recognize that my checklist should not be your checklist.  This isn’t something you can outsource since your checklist has to reflect your own unique experience, knowledge, and previous mistakes.  It’s critical to go through the arduous process of analyzing where things have gone wrong for you in the past so you can see if there are any recurring patterns or particular areas of vulnerability.

It is very important to note that there are at least four categories of investment mistakes, all of which must be identified, studied, and learned from:

  • A mistake where the investment does poorly because the intrinsic value of the business in question turns out to be lower than one thought;
  • A mistake of omission, where one fails to invest in a stock that one knows is cheap;
  • A mistake of selling the stock too soon.  Often a value investment will fail to move for years.  When it finally does move, many value investors will sell far too soon, sometimes missing out on an additional 300-500% return (or even more).  Value investors Peter Cundill and Robert Robotti have discussed this mistake.
  • A mistake where the investment does well, but one realizes that the good outcome was due to luck and that one’s analysis was incorrect.  It is often difficult to identify this type of mistake because the outcome of the investment is good, but it’s crucial to do so, otherwise one’s future results will be penalized.

Here is the value investor Chris Davis talking about how he and his colleagues frame their mistakes on the wall in order never to forget the lessons:  http://davisfunds.com/document/video/mistake_wall

Davis points out that, as an investor, one should always be improving with age.  As Buffett and Munger say, lifelong learning is a key to success, especially in investing, where all knowledge is cumulative.   Frequently one’s current decisions are better and more profitable as a result of having learned the right lessons from past mistakes.

 

DOING BUSINESS THE BUFFETT-PABRAI WAY

Buffett:

Hang out with people better than you, and you cannot help but improve.

Pabrai likes to quote Ronald Reagan:

There’s no limit to what you can do if you don’t mind who gets the credit.

Buffett also talks about the central importance of treating others as one wishes to be treated:

The more love you give, the more love you get.

Spier says that this may be the most important lesson of all.  The key is to value each person as an end rather than a means.  It helps to remember that one is a work in progress and also that one is mortal.  Pabrai:

I am but ashes and dust.

Spier explains that he tries to do things for people he meets.  Over time, he has learned to distinguish givers from takers.

The crazy thing is that, when you start to live this way, everything becomes so much more joyful.  There is a sense of flow and alignment with the universe that I never felt when everything was about what I could take for myself…

I’m not telling you this to be self-congratulatory as there are countless people who do so much more good than I do.  The point is simply that life has improved immeasurably since I began to live this way.  In truth, I’ve become increasingly addicted to the positive emotions awakened in me by these activities… One thing is for sure: I receive way more by giving than I ever did by taking.  So, paradoxically, my attempts at selflessness may actually be pretty selfish.

 

THE QUEST FOR TRUE VALUE

Buffett calls it the inner scorecard and Spier calls it the inner journey:

The inner journey is that path to becoming the best version of ourselves that we can be, and this strikes me as the only true path in life.  It involves asking questions such as:  What is my wealth for?  What give my life meaning?  And how can I use my gifts to help others?

Templeton also devoted much of his life to the inner journey.  Indeed, his greatest legacy is his charitable foundation, which explores ‘the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality,’ including complexity, evolution, infinity, creativity, forgiveness, love, gratitude, and free will.  The foundation’s motto is ‘How little we know, how eager to learn.’

In my experience, the inner journey is not only more fulfilling but is also a key to becoming a better investor.  If I don’t understand my inner landscape—including my fears, insecurities, desires, biases, and attitude to money—I’m likely to be mugged by reality.  This happened early in my career, when my greed and arrogance led me to D. H. Blair…. [also later in New York with envy]

By embarking on the inner journey, I became more self-aware and began to see these flaws more clearly.  I could work to overcome them only once I acknowledged them.  But these traits were so deepseated that I also had to find practical ways to navigate around them.

The important thing is to understand not only human biases in general, but also one’s own unique brain.  Also, some lessons can only be learned through difficult experiences—including mistakes:

Adversity may, in fact, be the best teacher of all.  The only trouble is that it takes a long time to live through our mistakes and then learn from them, and it’s a painful process.

It doesn’t matter exactly how you do the inner journey, just that you do it.

[The] real reward of this inner transformation is not just enduring investment success.  It’s the gift of becoming the best person we can be.  That, surely, is the ultimate prize. 

 

BOOLE MICROCAP FUND

An equal weighted group of micro caps generally far outperforms an equal weighted (or cap-weighted) group of larger stocks over time.  See the historical chart here:  http://boolefund.com/best-performers-microcap-stocks/

This outperformance increases significantly by focusing on cheap micro caps.  Performance can be further boosted by isolating cheap microcap companies that show improving fundamentals.  We rank microcap stocks based on these and similar criteria.

There are roughly 10-20 positions in the portfolio.  The size of each position is determined by its rank.  Typically the largest position is 15-20% (at cost), while the average position is 8-10% (at cost).  Positions are held for 3 to 5 years unless a stock approaches intrinsic value sooner or an error has been discovered.

The mission of the Boole Fund is to outperform the S&P 500 Index by at least 5% per year (net of fees) over 5-year periods.  We also aim to outpace the Russell Microcap Index by at least 2% per year (net).  The Boole Fund has low fees.

 

If you are interested in finding out more, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

My e-mail: jb@boolefund.com

 

 

 

Disclosures: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. All investments contain risk and may lose value. This material is distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of Boole Capital, LLC.

Walter Schloss: Cigar-Butt Specialist

November 6, 2022

Walter Schloss generated one of the best investment track records of all time—close to 21% (gross) annually over 47 years—by investing exclusively in cigar butts (deep value stocks).  Cigar-butt investing usually means buying stock at a discount to book value, i.e., a P/B < 1 (price-to-book ratio below 1).

The highest returning cigar butt strategy comes from Ben Graham, the father of value investing.  It’s called the net-net strategy whereby you take current assets minus all liabilities, and then invest at 2/3 of that level or less.

  • The main trouble with net nets today is that many of them are tiny microcap stocks—below $50 million in market cap—that are too small even for most microcap funds.
  • Also, many net nets exist in markets outside the United States.  Some of these markets have had problems periodically related to the rule of law.

Schloss used net nets in the early part of his career (1955 to 1960).  When net nets became too scarce (1960), Schloss started buying stocks at half of book value.  When those became too scarce, he went to buying stocks at two-thirds of book value.  Eventually he had to adjust again and buy stocks at book value.  Though his cigar-butt method evolved, Schloss was always using a low P/B to find cheap stocks.

(Photo by Sky Sirasitwattana)

One extraordinary aspect to Schloss’s track record is that he invested in roughly 1,000 stocks over the course of his career.  (At any given time, his portfolio had about 100 stocks.)  Warren Buffett commented:

Following a strategy that involved no real risk—defined as permanent loss of capital—Walter produced results over his 47 partnership years that dramatically surpassed those of the S&P 500.  It’s particularly noteworthy that he built this record by investing in about 1,000 securities, mostly of a lackluster type.  A few big winners did not account for his success.  It’s safe to say that had millions of investment managers made trades by a) drawing stock names from a hat; b) purchasing these stocks in comparable amounts when Walter made a purchase; and then c) selling when Walter sold his pick, the luckiest of them would not have come close to equaling his record. There is simply no possibility that what Walter achieved over 47 years was due to chance.

Schloss was aware that a concentrated portfolio—e.g., 10 to 20 stocks—could generate better long-term returns.  However, this requires unusual insight on a repeated basis, which Schloss humbly admitted he didn’t have.

Most investors are best off investing in low-cost index funds or in quantitative value funds.  For investors who truly enjoy looking for undervalued stocks, Schloss offered this advice:

It is important to know what you like and what you are good at and not worry that someone else can do it better.  If you are honest, hardworking, reasonably intelligent and have good common sense, you can do well in the investment field as long as you are not too greedy and don’t get too emotional when things go against you.

I found a few articles I hadn’t seen before on The Walter Schloss Archive, a great resource page created by Elevation Capital: https://www.walterschloss.com/

Here’s the outline for this blog post:

  • Stock is Part Ownership;  Keep It Simple
  • Have Patience;  Don’t Sell on Bad News
  • Have Courage
  • Buy Assets Not Earnings
  • Buy Based on Cheapness Now, Not Cheapness Later
  • Boeing:  Asset Play
  • Less Downside Means More Upside
  • Multiple Ways to Win
  • History;  Honesty;  Insider Ownership
  • You Must Be Willing to Make Mistakes
  • Don’t Try to Time the Market
  • When to Sell
  • The First 10 Years Are Probably the Worst
  • Stay Informed About Current Events
  • Control Your Emotions;  Be Careful of Leverage
  • Ride Coattails;  Diversify

 

STOCK IS PART OWNERSHIP;  KEEP IT SIMPLE

A share of stock represents part ownership of a business and is not just a piece of paper or a blip on the computer screen.

Try to establish the value of the company.  Use book value as a starting point.  There are many businesses, both public and private, for which book value is a reasonable estimate of intrinsic value.  Intrinsic value is what a company is worth—i.e., what a private buyer would pay for it.  Book value—assets minus liabilities—is also called “net worth.”

Follow Buffett’s advice: keep it simple and don’t use higher mathematics.

(Illustration by Ileezhun)

Some kinds of stocks are easier to analyze than others.  As Buffett has said, usually you don’t get paid for degree of difficulty in investing.  Therefore, stay focused on businesses that you can fully understand.

  • There are thousands of microcap companies that are completed neglected by most professional investors.  Many of these small businesses are simple and easy to understand.

 

HAVE PATIENCE;  DON’T SELL ON BAD NEWS

Hold for 3 to 5 years.  Schloss:

Have patience.  Stocks don’t go up immediately.

Schloss again:

Things usually take longer to work out but they work out better than you expect.

(Illustration by Marek)

Don’t sell on bad news unless intrinsic value has dropped materially.  When the stock drops significantly, buy more as long as the investment thesis is intact.

Schloss’s average holding period was 4 years.  It was less than 4 years in good markets when stocks went up more than usual.  It was greater than 4 years in bad markets when stocks stayed flat or went down more than usual.

 

HAVE COURAGE

Have the courage of your convictions once you have made a decision.

(Courage concept by Travelling-light)

Investors shun companies with depressed earnings and cash flows.  It’s painful to own stocks that are widely hated.  It can also be frightening.  As John Mihaljevic explains in The Manual of Ideas (Wiley, 2013):

Playing into the psychological discomfort of Graham-style equities is the tendency of such investments to exhibit strong asset value but inferior earnings or cash flows.  In a stressed situation, investors may doubt their investment theses to such an extent that they disregard the objectively appraised asset values.  After all—the reasoning of a scared investor might go—what is an asset really worth if it produces no cash flow?

A related worry is that if a company is burning through its cash, it will gradually destroy net asset value.  Ben Graham:

If the profits had been increasing steadily it is obvious that the shares would not sell at so low a price.  The objection to buying these issues lies in the probability, or at least the possibility, that earnings will decline or losses continue, and that the resources will be dissipated and the intrinsic value ultimately become less than the price paid.

It’s true that an individual cigar butt (deep value stock) is more likely to underperform than an average stock.  But because the potential upside for a typical cigar butt is greater than the potential downside, a basket of cigar butts (portfolio of at least 30) does better than the market over time and also has less downside during bad states of the world—such as bear markets and recessions.

Schloss discussed an example: Cleveland Cliffs, an iron ore producer.  Buffett owned the stock at $18 but then sold at about that level.  The steel industry went into decline.  The largest shareholder sold out because he thought the industry wouldn’t recover.

Schloss bought a lot of stock at $6.  Nobody wanted it.  There was talk of bankruptcy.  Schloss noted that if he had lived in Cleveland, he probably wouldn’t have been able to buy the stock because all the bad news would have been too close.

Soon thereafter, the company sold some assets and bought back some stock.  After the stock increased a great deal from the lows, then it started getting attention from analysts.

In sum, often when an industry is doing terribly, that’s the best time to find cheap stocks.  Investors avoid stocks when they’re having problems, which is why they get so cheap.  Investors overreact to negative news.

 

BUY ASSETS NOT EARNINGS

(Illustration by Teguh Jati Prasetyo)

Schloss:

Try to buy assets at a discount [rather] than to buy earnings.  Earnings can change dramatically in a short time.  Usually assets change slowly.  One has to know much more about a company if one buys earnings.

Not only can earnings change dramatically; earnings can easily be manipulated—often legally.  Schloss:

Ben made the point in one of his articles that if U.S. Steel wrote down their plants to a dollar, they would show very large earnings because they would not have to depreciate them anymore.

 

BUY BASED ON CHEAPNESS NOW, NOT CHEAPNESS LATER

Buy things based on cheapness now.  Don’t buy based on cheapness relative to future earnings, which are hard to predict.

Graham developed two ways of estimating intrinsic value that don’t depend on predicting the future:

  • Net asset value
  • Current and past earnings

Professor Bruce Greenwald, in Value Investing (Wiley, 2004), has expanded on these two approaches.

  • As Greenwald explains, book value is a good estimate of intrinsic value if book value is close to the replacement cost of the assets.  The true economic value of the assets is the cost of reproducing them at current prices.
  • Another way to determine intrinsic value is to figure out earnings power—also called normalized earnings—or how much the company should earn on average over the business cycle.  Earnings power typically corresponds to a market level return on the reproduction value of the assets.  In this case, your intrinsic value estimate based on normalized earnings should equal your intrinsic value estimate based on the reproduction value of the assets.

In some cases, earnings power may exceed a market level return on the reproduction value of the assets.  This means that the ROIC (return on invested capital) exceeds the cost of capital.  It can be exceedingly difficult, however, to determine by how much and for how long earnings power will exceed a market level return.  Often it’s a question of how long some competitive advantage can be maintained.  How long can a high ROIC be sustained?

As Buffett remarked:

The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.  The products or services that have wide, sustainable moats around them are the ones that deliver rewards to investors.

A moat is a sustainable competitive advantage.  Schloss readily admits he can’t determine which competitive advantages are sustainable.  That requires unusual insight.  Buffett can do it, but very few investors can.

As far as franchises or good businesses—companies worth more than adjusted book value—Schloss says he likes these companies, but rarely considers buying them unless the stock is close to book value.  As a result, Schloss usually buys mediocre and bad businesses at book value or below.  Schloss buys “difficult businesses” at clearly cheap prices.

Buying a high-growing company on the expectation that growth will continue can be quite dangerous.  First, growth only creates value if the ROIC exceeds the cost of capital.  Second, expectations for the typical growth stock are so high that even a small slowdown can cause the stock to drop noticeably.  Schloss:

If observers are expecting the earnings to grow from $1.00 to $1.50 to $2.00 and then $2.50, an earnings disappointment can knock a $40 stock down to $20.  You can lose half your money just because the earnings fell out of bed.

If you buy a debt-free stock with a $15 book selling at $10, it can go down to $8.  It’s not great, but it’s not terrible either.  On the other hand, if things turn around, that stock can sell at $25 if it develops its earnings.

Basically, we like protection on the downside.  A $10 stock with a $15 book can offer pretty good protection.  By using book value as a parameter, we can protect ourselves on the downside and not get hurt too badly.

Also, I think the person who buys earnings has got to follow it all the darn time.  They’re constantly driven by earnings, they’re driven by timing.  I’m amazed.

 

BOEING:  ASSET PLAY

(Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives, via Wikimedia Commons)

Cigar butts—deep value stocks—are characterized by two things:

  • Poor past performance;
  • Low expectations for future performance, i.e., low multiples (low P/B, low P/E, etc.)

Schloss has pointed out that Graham would often compare two companies.  Here’s an example:

One was a very popular company with a book value of $10 selling at $45.  The second was exactly the reverse—it had a book value of $40 and was selling for $25.

In fact, it was exactly the same company, Boeing, in two very different periods of time.  In 1939, Boeing was selling at $45 with a book of $10 and earning very little.  But the outlook was great.  In 1947, after World War II, investors saw no future for Boeing, thinking no one was going to buy all these airplanes.

If you’d bought Boeing in 1939 at $45, you would have done rather badly.  But if you’d bought Boeing in 1947 when the outlook was bad, you would have done very well.

Because a cigar butt is defined by poor recent performance and low expectations, there can be a great deal of upside if performance improves.  For instance, if a stock is at a P/E (price-to-earnings ratio) of 5 and if earnings are 33% of normal, then if earnings return to normal and if the P/E moves to 15, you’ll make 900% on your investment.  If the initial purchase is below true book value—based on the replacement cost of the assets—then you have downside protection in case earnings don’t recover.

 

LESS DOWNSIDE MEANS MORE UPSIDE

If you buy stocks that are protected on the downside, the upside takes care of itself.

The main way to get protection on the downside is by paying a low price relative to book value.  If in addition to quantitative cheapness you focus on companies with low debt, that adds additional downside protection.

If the stock is well below probable intrinsic value, then you should buy more on the way down.  The lower the price relative to intrinsic value, the less downside and the more upside.  As risk decreases, potential return increases.  This is the opposite of what modern finance theory teaches.  According to theory, your expected return only increases if your risk also increases.

In The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville, Warren Buffett discusses the relationship between risk and reward.  Sometimes risk and reward are positively correlated.  Buffett gives the example of Russian roulette.  Suppose a gun contains one cartridge and someone offers to pay you $1 million if you pull the trigger once and survive.  Say you decline the bet as too risky, but then the person offers to pay you $5 million if you pull the trigger twice and survive.  Clearly that would be a positive correlation between risk and reward.  Buffett continues:

The exact opposite is true with value investing.  If you buy a dollar bill for 60 cents, it’s riskier than if you buy a dollar bill for 40 cents, but the expectation of reward is greater in the latter case.  The greater the potential for reward in the value portfolio, the less risk there is.

One quick example:  The Washington Post Company in 1973 was selling for $80 million in the market.  At the time, that day, you could have sold the assets to any one of ten buyers for not less than $400 million, probably appreciably more.  The company owned the Post, Newsweek, plus several television stations in major markets.  Those same properties are worth $2 billion now, so the person who would have paid $400 million would not have been crazy.

Now, if the stock had declined even further to a price that made the valuation $40 million instead of $80 million, its beta would have been greater.  And to people that think beta measures risk, the cheaper price would have made it look riskier.  This is truly Alice in Wonderland.  I have never been able to figure out why it’s riskier to buy $400 million worth of properties for $40 million than $80 million.

Link: https://bit.ly/2jBezdv

Most brokers don’t recommend buying more on the way down because most people (including brokers’ clients) don’t like to buy when the price keeps falling.  In other words, most investors focus on price instead of intrinsic value.

 

MULTIPLE WAYS TO WIN

A stock trading at a low price relative to book value—a low P/B stock—is usually distressed and is experiencing problems.  But there are several ways for a cigar-butt investor to win, as Schloss explains:

The thing about buying depressed stocks is that you really have three strings to your bow:  1) Earnings will improve and the stocks will go up;  2) somebody will come in and buy control of the company;  or 3) the company will start buying its own stock and ask for tenders.

Schloss again:

But lots of times when you buy a cheap stock for one reason, that reason doesn’t pan out but another reason does—because it’s cheap.

 

HISTORY;  HONESTY;  INSIDER OWNERSHIP

Look at the history of the company.  Value line is helpful for looking at history 10-15 years back.  Also, read the annual reports.  Learn about the ownership, what the company has done, when business they’re in, and what’s happened with dividends, sales, earnings, etc.

It’s usually better not to talk with management because it’s easy to be blinded by their charisma or sales skill:

When we buy into a company that has problems, we find it difficult talking to management as they tend to be optimistic.

That said, try to ensure that management is honest.  Honesty is more important than brilliance, says Schloss:

…we try to get in with people we feel are honest.  That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily smart—they may be dumb.

But in a choice between a smart guy with a bad reputation or a dumb guy, I think I’d go with the dumb guy who’s honest.

Finally, insider ownership is important.  Management should own a fair amount of stock, which helps to align their incentives with the interests of the stockholders.

Speaking of insider ownership, Walter and Edwin Schloss had a good chunk of their own money invested in the fund they managed.  You should prefer investment managers who, like the Schlosses, eat their own cooking.

 

YOU MUST BE WILLING TO MAKE MISTAKES

(Illustration by Lkeskinen0)

You have to be willing to make mistakes if you want to succeed as an investor.  Even the best value investors tend to be right about 60% of the time and wrong 40% of the time.  That’s the nature of the game.

You can’t do well unless you accept that you’ll make plenty of mistakes.  The key, again, is to try to limit your downside by buying well below probable intrinsic value.  The lower the price you pay (relative to estimated intrinsic value), the less you can lose when you’re wrong and the more you can make when you’re right.

 

DON’T TRY TO TIME THE MARKET

No one can predict the stock market.  Ben Graham observed:

If I have noticed anything over these sixty years on Wall Street, it is that people do not succeed in forecasting what’s going to happen to the stock market.

(Illustration by Maxim Popov)

Or as value investor Seth Klarman has put it:

In reality, no one knows what the market will do; trying to predict it is a waste of time, and investing based upon that prediction is a speculative undertaking.

Perhaps the best quote comes from Henry Singleton, a business genius (100 points from being a chess grandmaster) who was easily one of the best capital allocators in American business history:

I don’t believe all this nonsense about market timing.  Just buy very good value and when the market is ready that value will be recognized.

Singleton built Teledyne using extraordinary capital allocation skills over the course of more than three decades, from 1960 to the early 1990’s.  Fourteen of these years—1968 to 1982—were a secular bear market during which stocks were relatively flat and also experienced a few large downward moves (especially 1973-1974).  But this long flat period punctuated by bear markets didn’t slow down or change Singleton’s approach.  Because he consistently bought very good value, on the whole his acquisitions grew significantly in worth over time regardless of whether the broader market was down, flat, or up.

Of course, it’s true that if you buy an undervalued stock and then there’s a bear market, it may take longer for your investment to work.  However, bear markets create many bargains.  As long as you maintain a focus on the next 3 to 5 years, bear markets are wonderful times to buy cheap stocks (including more of what you already own).

In 1955, Buffett was advised by his two heroes, his father and Ben Graham, not to start a career in investing because the market was too high.  Similarly, Graham told Schloss in 1955 that it wasn’t a good time to start.

Both Buffett and Schloss ignored the advice.  In hindsight, both Buffett and Schloss made great decisions.  Of course, Singleton would have made the same decision as Buffett and Schloss.  Even if the market is high, there are invariably individual stocks hidden somewhere that are cheap.

Schloss always remained fully invested because he knew that virtually no one can time the market except by luck.

 

WHEN TO SELL

Don’t be in too much of a hurry to sell… Before selling try to reevaluate the company again and see where the stock sells in relation to its book value.

Selling is hard.  Schloss readily admits that many stocks he sold later increased a great deal.  But he doesn’t dwell on that.

The basic criterion for selling is whether the stock price is close to estimated intrinsic value.  For a cigar butt investor like Schloss, if he paid a price that was half book, then if the stock price approaches book value, it’s probably time to start selling.  (Unless it’s a rare stock that is clearly worth more than book value, assuming the investor was able to buy it low in the first place.)

If stock A is cheaper than stock B, some value investors will sell A and buy B.  Schloss doesn’t do that.  It often takes four years for one of Schloss’s investments to work.  If he already has been waiting for 1-3 years with stock A, he is not inclined to switch out of it because he might have to wait another 1-3 years before stock B starts to move.  Also, it’s very difficult to compare the relative cheapness of stocks in different industries.

Instead, Schloss makes an independent buy or sell decision for every stock.  If B is cheap, Schloss simply buys B without selling anything else.  If A is no longer cheap, Schloss sells A without buying anything else.

 

THE FIRST 10 YEARS ARE PROBABLY THE WORST

John Templeton’s worst ten years as an investor were his first ten years.  The same was true for Schloss, who commented that it takes about ten years to get the hang of value investing.

 

STAY INFORMED ABOUT CURRENT EVENTS

(Photo by Juan Moyano)

Walter Schloss and his son Edwin sometimes would spend a whole day discussing current events, social trends, etc.  Edwin Schloss said:

If you’re not in touch with what’s going on or you don’t see what’s going on around you, you can miss out on a lot of investment opportunities. So we try to be aware of everything around us—like John Templeton says in his book about being open to new ideas and new experiences.

 

CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS;  BE CAREFUL OF LEVERAGE

Try not to let your emotions affect your judgment.  Fear and greed are probably the worst emotions to have in connection with the purchase and sale of stocks.

Quantitative investing is a good way to control emotion.  This is what Graham suggested and practiced.  Graham just looked at the numbers to make sure they were below some threshold—like 2/3 of current assets minus all liabilities (the net-net method).  Graham typically was not interested in what the business did.

On the topic of discipline and controlling your emotions, Schloss told a great story about when Warren Buffett was playing golf with some buddies:

One of them proposed, “Warren, if you shoot a hole-in-one on this 18-hole course, we’ll give you $10,000 bucks.  If you don’t shoot a hole-in-one, you owe us $10.”

Warren thought about it and said, “I’m not taking the bet.”

The others said, “Why don’t you?  The most you can lose is $10. You can make $10,000.”

Warren replied, If you’re not disciplined in the little things, you won’t be disciplined in the big things.”

Be careful of leverage.  It can go against you.  Schloss acknowledges that sometimes he has gotten too greedy by buying highly leveraged stocks because they seemed really cheap.  Companies with high leverage can occasionally become especially cheap compared to book value.  But often the risk of bankruptcy is too high.

Still, as conservative value investor Seth Klarman has remarked, there’s room in the portfolio occasionally for a super cheap, highly indebted company.  If the probability of success is high enough and if the upside is great enough, it may not be a difficult decision.  Often the upside can be 10x or 20x your investment, which implies a positive expected return even when the odds of success are 10%.

 

RIDE COATTAILS;  DIVERSIFY

Sometimes you can get good ideas from other investors you know or respect.  Even Buffett did this.  Buffett called it “coattail riding.”

Schloss, like Graham and Buffett, recommends a diversified approach if you’re doing cigar butt (deep value) investing.  Have at least 15-20 stocks in your portfolio.  A few investors can do better by being more concentrated.  But most investors will do better over time by using a quantitative, diversified approach.

Schloss tended to have about 100 stocks in his portfolio:

…And my argument was, and I made it to Warren, we can’t project the earnings of these companies, they’re secondary companies, but somewhere along the line some of them will work out.  Now I can’t tell you which ones, so I buy a hundred of them.  Of course, it doesn’t mean you own the same amount of each stock.  If we like a stock we put more money in it.  Positions we are less sure about we put less in… We then buy the stock on the way down and try to sell it on the way up.

Even though Schloss was quite diversified, he still took larger positions in the stocks he liked best and smaller positions in the stocks about which he was less sure.

Schloss emphasized that it’s important to know what you know and what you don’t know.  Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger call this a circle of competence.  Even if a value investor is far from being the smartest, there are hundreds of microcap companies that are easy to understand with enough work.

(Image by Wilma64)

The main trouble in investing is overconfidence: having more confidence than is warranted by the evidence.  Overconfidence is arguably the most widespread cognitive bias suffered by humans, as Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman details in Thinking, Fast and Slow.  By humbly defining your circle of competence, you can limit the impact of overconfidence.  Part of this humility comes from making mistakes.

The best choice for most investors is either an index fund or a quantitative value fund.  It’s the best bet for getting solid long-term returns, while minimizing or removing entirely the negative influence of overconfidence.

 

BOOLE MICROCAP FUND

An equal weighted group of micro caps generally far outperforms an equal weighted (or cap-weighted) group of larger stocks over time.  See the historical chart here:  http://boolefund.com/best-performers-microcap-stocks/

This outperformance increases significantly by focusing on cheap micro caps.  Performance can be further boosted by isolating cheap microcap companies that show improving fundamentals.  We rank microcap stocks based on these and similar criteria.

There are roughly 10-20 positions in the portfolio.  The size of each position is determined by its rank.  Typically the largest position is 15-20% (at cost), while the average position is 8-10% (at cost).  Positions are held for 3 to 5 years unless a stock approaches intrinsic value sooner or an error has been discovered.

The mission of the Boole Fund is to outperform the S&P 500 Index by at least 5% per year (net of fees) over 5-year periods.  We also aim to outpace the Russell Microcap Index by at least 2% per year (net).  The Boole Fund has low fees.

 

If you are interested in finding out more, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

My e-mail: jb@boolefund.com

 

Disclosures: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. All investments contain risk and may lose value. This material is distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of Boole Capital, LLC.

Business Adventures

October 30, 2022

In 1991, when Bill Gates met Warren Buffett, Gates asked him to recommend his favorite business book.  Buffett immediately replied, “It’s Business Adventures, by John Brooks.  I’ll send you my copy.”  Gates wrote in 2014:

Today, more than two decades after Warren lent it to me—and more than four decades after it was first published—Business Adventures remains the best business book I’ve ever read.  John Brooks is still my favorite business writer.

It’s certainly true that many of the particulars of business have changed.  But the fundamentals have not.  Brooks’s deeper insights about business are just as relevant today as they were back then.  In terms of its longevity, Business Adventures stands alongside Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, the 1949 book that Warren says is the best book on investing that he has ever read.

See:  https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Business-Adventures

I’ve had the enormous pleasure of reading Business Adventures twice.  John Brooks is quite simply a terrific business writer.

Each chapter of the book is a separate business adventure.  Outline:

  • The Fluctuation
  • The Fate of the Edsel
  • A Reasonable Amount of Time
  • Xerox Xerox Xerox Xerox
  • Making the Customers Whole
  • The Impacted Philosophers
  • The Last Great Corner
  • A Second Sort of Life
  • Stockholder Season
  • One Free Bite

 

THE FLUCTUATION

Brooks recounts J.P. Morgan’s famous answer when an acquaintance asked him what the stock market would do:  “It will fluctuate.”  Brooks then writes:

Apart from the economic advantages and disadvantages of stock exchanges – the advantage that they provide a free flow of capital to finance industrial expansion, for instance, and the disadvantage that they provide an all too convenient way for the unlucky, the imprudent, and the gullible to lose their money – their development has created a whole pattern of social behavior, complete with customs, language, and predictable responses to given events.

Brooks explains that the pattern emerged fully at the first important stock exchange in 1611 in Amsterdam.  Brooks mentions that Joseph de la Vega published, in 1688, a book about the first Dutch stock traders.  The book was aptly titled, Confusion of Confusions.

And the pattern persists on the New York Stock Exchange.  (Brooks was writing in the 1960’s, but many of his descriptions still apply.)  Brooks adds that a few Dutchmen haggling in the rain might seem to be rather far from the millions of participants in the 1960’s.  However:

The first stock exchange was, inadvertently, a laboratory in which new human reactions were revealed.  By the same token, the New York Stock Exchange is also a sociological test tube, forever contributing to the human species’ self-understanding.

On Monday, May 28, 1962, the Dow Jones Average dropped 34.95 points, or more than it had dropped on any day since October 28, 1929.  The volume was the seventh-largest ever.  Then on Tuesday, May 29, after most stocks opened down, the market reversed itself and surged upward with a large gain of 27.03.  The trading volume on Tuesday was the highest ever except for October 29, 1929.  Then on Thursday, May 31, after a holiday on Wednesday, the Dow rose 9.40 points on the fifth-greatest volume ever.

Brooks:

The crisis ran its course in three days, but needless to say, the post-mortems took longer.  One of de la Vega’s observations about the Amsterdam traders was that they were ‘very clever in inventing reasons’ for a sudden rise or fall in stock prices, and the Wall Street pundits certainly needed all the cleverness they could muster to explain why, in the middle of an excellent business year, the market had suddenly taken its second-worst nose dive ever up to that moment.

Many rated President Kennedy’s April crackdown on the steel industry’s planned price increase as one of the most likely causes.  Beyond that, there were comparisons to 1929.  However, there were more differences than similarities, writes Brooks.  For one thing, margin requirements were far higher in 1962 than in 1929.  Nonetheless, the weekend before the May 1962 crash, many securities dealers were occupied sending out margin calls.

In 1929, it was not uncommon for people to have only 10% equity, with 90% of the stock position based on borrowed money.  (The early Amsterdam exchange was similar.)  Since the crash in 1929, margin requirements had been raised to 50% equity (leaving 50% borrowed).

Brooks says the stock market had been falling for most of 1962 up until crash.  But apparently the news before the May crash was good.  Not that news has any necessary relationship with stock movements, although most financial reporting services seem to assume otherwise.  After a mixed opening – some stocks up, some down – on Monday, May 28, volume spiked as selling became predominant.  Volume kept going up thereafter as the selling continued.  Brooks:

Evidence that people are selling stocks at a time when they ought to be eating lunch is always regarded as a serious matter.

One problem in this crash was that the tape – which records the prices of stock trades – got delayed by 55 minutes due to the huge volume.  Some brokerage firms tried to devise their own systems to deal with this issue.  For instance, Merrill Lynch floor brokers – if they had time – would shout the results of trades into a floorside telephone connected to a “squawk box” in the firm’s head office.

Brooks remarks:

All that summer, and even into the following year, security analysts and other experts cranked out their explanations of what had happened, and so great were the logic, solemnity, and detail of these diagnoses that they lost only a little of their force through the fact that hardly any of the authors had had the slightest idea what was going to happen before the crisis occurred.

Brooks then points out that an unprecedented 56.8 percent of the total volume in the crash had been individual investors.  Somewhat surprisingly, mutual funds were a stabilizing factor.  During the Monday sell-off, mutual funds bought more than they sold.  And as stocks surged on Thursday, mutual funds sold more than they bought.  Brooks concludes:

In the last analysis, the cause of the 1962 crisis remains unfathomable;  what is known is that it occurred, and that something like it could occur again.

 

THE FATE OF THE EDSEL

1955 was the year of the automobile, writes Brooks.  American auto makers sold over 7 million cars, a million more than in any previous year.  Ford Motor Company decided that year to make a new car in the medium-price range of $2,400 to $4,000.  Brooks continues:

[Ford] went ahead and designed it more or less in comformity with the fashion of the day, which was for cars that were long, wide, low, lavishly decorated with chrome, liberally supplied with gadgets… Two years later, in September, 1957, Ford put its new car, the Edsel, on the market, to the accompaniment of more fanfare than had attended the arrival of any new car since the same company’s Model A, brought out thirty years earlier.  The total amount spent on the Edsel before the first specimen went on sale was announced as a quarter of a billion dollars;  its launching… was more costly than any other consumer product in history.  As a starter toward getting its investment back, Ford counted on selling at least 200,000 Edsels the first year.

There may be an aborigine somewhere in a remote rainforest who hasn’t yet heard that things failed to turn out that way… on November 19, 1959, having lost, according to some outside estimates, around $350 million on the Edsel, the Ford Company permanently discontinued its production.

Brooks asks:

How could this have happened?  How could a company so mightily endowed with money, experience, and, presumably, brains have been guilty of such a monumental mistake?

Many claimed that Ford had paid too much attention to public-opinion polls and the motivational research it conducted.  But Brooks adds that some non-scientific elements also played a roll.  In particular, after a massive effort to come up with possible names for the car, science was ignored at the last minute and the Edsel was named for the father of the company’s president.  Brooks:

As for the design, it was arrived at without even a pretense of consulting the polls, and by the method that has been standard for years in the designing of automobiles – that of simply pooling the hunches of sundry company committees.

The idea for the Edsel started years earlier.  The company noticed that owners of cars would trade up to the medium-priced car as soon as they could.  The problem was that Ford owners were not trading up to the Mercury, Ford’s medium-priced car, but to the medium-priced cars of its rivals, General Motors and Chrysler.

Late in 1952, a group called the Forward Product Planning Committee gave much of the detailed work to the Lincoln-Mercury Division, run by Richard Krafve (pronounced “Kraffy”).  In 1954, after two years’ work, the Forward Product Planning Committee submitted to the executive committee a six-volume report.  In brief, the report predicted that there would be seventy million cars in the U.S. by 1965, and more than 40 percent of all cars sold would be in the medium-price range.  Brooks:

On the other hand, the Ford bosses were well aware of the enormous risks connected with putting a new car on the market.  They knew, for example, that of the 2,900 American makes that had been introduced since the beginning of the automobile age… only about twenty were still around.

But Ford executives felt optimistic.  They set up another agency, the Special Products Division, again with Krafve in charge.  The new car was referred to as the “E”-Car among Ford designers and workers.  “E” for Experimental.  Roy A. Brown was in charge of the E-car’s design.  Brown stated that they sought to make a car that was unique as compared to the other nineteen cars on the road at the time.

Brooks observes that Krafve later calculated that he and his associates would make at least four thousand decisions in designing the E-Car.  He thought that if they got every decision right, they could create the perfectly designed car.  Krafve admitted later, however, that there wasn’t really enough time for perfection.  They would make modifications, and then modifications of those modifications.  Then time would run out and they had to settle on the most recent modifications.

Brooks comments:

One of the most persuasive and frequently cited explanations of the Edsel’s failure is that it was a victim of the time lag between the decision to produce it and the act of putting it on the market.  It was easy to see a few years later, when smaller and less powerful cars, euphemistically called “compacts,” had become so popular as to turn the old automobile status-ladder upside down, that the Edsel was a giant step in the wrong direction, but it far from easy to see that in fat, tail-finny 1955.

As part of the marketing effort, the Special Products Division tapped David Wallace, director of planning for market research.  Wallace:

‘We concluded that cars are a means to a sort of dream fulfillment.  There’s some irrational factor in people that makes them want one kind of car rather than another – something that has nothing to do with the mechanism at all but with the car’s personality, as the customer imagines it.  What we wanted to do, naturally, was to give the E-Car the personality that would make the greatest number of people want it.’

Wallace’s group decided to get interviews of 1,600 car buyers.  The conclusion, in a nutshell, was that the E-Car could be “the smart car for the younger executive or professional family on its way up.”

As for the name of the car, Krafve had suggested to the members of the Ford family that the new car be named the Edsel Ford – the name of their father.  The three Ford brothers replied that their father probably wouldn’t want the car named after him.  Therefore, they suggested that the Special Products Division look for another name.

The Special Products Division conducted a large research project regarding the best name for the E-Car.  At one point, Wallace interviewed the poet Marianne Moore about a possible name.  A bit later, the Special Products Division contacted Foote, Cone & Belding, an advertising agency, to help with finding a name.

The advertising agency produced 18,000 names, which they then carefully pruned to 6,000.  Wallace told them that was still way too many names from which to pick.  So Foote, Cone & Belding did an all-out three-day session to cut the list down to 10 names.  They divided into two groups for this task.  By chance, when each group produced its list of 10 names, 4 of the names were the same:  Corsair, Citation, Pacer, and Ranger.

Wallace thought that Corsair was clearly the best name.  However, the Ford executive committee had a meeting at a time when all three Ford brothers were away.  Executive vice-president Ernest R. Breech, chairman of the board, led the meeting.  When Breech saw the final list of 10 names, he said he didn’t like any of them.

So Breech and the others were shown another list of names that hadn’t quite made the top 10.  The Edsel had been kept on this second list – despite the three Ford brothers being against it – for some reason, perhaps because it was the originally suggested name.  When the group came to the name “Edsel,” Breech firmly said, “Let’s call it that.”  Breech added that since there were going to be four models of the E-Car, the four favorite names – Corsair, Citation, Pacer, and Ranger – could still be used as sub-names.

Brooks writes that Foote, Cone & Belding presumably didn’t react well to the chosen name, “Edsel,” after their exhaustive research to come up with the best possible names.  But the Special Products Division had an even worse reaction.  However, there were a few, including Krafve, would didn’t object to the name.

Krafve was named Vice-President of the Ford Motor Company and General Manager, Edsel Division.  Meanwhile, Edsels were being road-tested.  Brown and other designers were already working on the subsequent year’s model.  A new set of retail dealers was already being put together.  Foote, Cone & Belding was hard at work on strategies for advertising and selling Edsels.  In fact, Fairfax M. Cone himself was leading this effort.

Cone decided to use Wallace’s idea of “the smart car for the younger executive or professional family on its way up.”  But Cone amended it to: “the smart car for the younger middle-income family or professional family on its way up.”  Cone was apparently quite confident, since he described his advertising ideas for the Edsel to some reporters.  Brooks notes with amusement:

Like a chess master that has no doubt that he will win, he could afford to explicate the brilliance of his moves even as he made them.

Normally, a large manufacturer launches a new car through dealers already handling some of its other makes.  But Krafve got permission to go all-out on the Edsel.  He could contact dealers for other car manufacturers and even dealers for other divisions of Ford.  Krafve set a goal of signing up 1,200 dealers – who had good sales records – by September 4, 1957.

Brooks remarks that Krafve had set a high goal, since a dealer’s decision to sell a new car is major.  Dealers typically have one hundred thousand dollars – more than 8x that in 2019 dollars – invested in their dealerships.

J. C. (Larry) Doyle, second to Krafve, led the Edsel sales effort.  Doyle had been with Ford for 40 years.  Brooks records that Doyle was somewhat of a maverick in his field.  He was kind and considerate, and he didn’t put much stock in the psychological studies of car buyers.  But he knew how to sell cars, which is why he was called on for the Edsel campaign.

Doyle put Edsels into a few dealerships, but kept them hidden from view.  Then he went about recruiting top dealers.  Many dealers were curious about what the Edsel looked like.  But Doyle’s group would only show dealers the car if they listened to a one-hour pitch.  This approach worked.  It seems that quite a few dealers were so convinced by the pitch that they signed up without even looking at the car in any detail.

C. Gayle Warnock, director of public relations at Ford, was in charge of keeping public interest in the Edsel – which was already high – as strong as possible.  Warnock told Krafve that public interest might be too strong, to the extent that people would be disappointed when they discovered that the Edsel was a car.  Brooks:

It was agreed that the safest way to tread the tightrope between overplaying and underplaying the Edsel would be to say nothing about the car as a whole but to reveal its individual charms a little at a time – a sort of automotive strip tease…

Brooks continues:

That summer, too, was a time of speechmaking by an Edsel foursome consisting of Krafve, Doyle, J. Emmet Judge, who was Edsel’s director of merchandise and product planning, and Robert F. G. Copeland, its assistant general sales manager for advertising, sales promotion, and training.  Ranging separately up and down and across the nation, the four orators moved around so fast and so tirelessly, that Warnock, lest he lost track of them, took to indicating their whereabouts with colored pins on a map in his office.  ‘Let’s see, Krafve goes from Atlanta to New Orleans, Doyle from Council Bluffs to Salt Lake City,’ Warnock would muse of a morning in Dearborn, sipping his second cup of coffee and then getting up to yank the pins out and jab them in again.

Needless to say, this was by far the largest advertising campaign ever conducted by Ford.  This included a three-day press preview, with 250 reporters from all over the country.  On one afternoon, the press were taken to the track to see stunt drivers in Edsels doing all kinds of tricks.  Brooks quotes the Foote, Cone man:

‘You looked over this green Michigan hill, and there were those glorious Edsels, performing gloriously in unison.  It was beautiful.  It was like the Rockettes.  It was exciting.  Morale was high.’

Brooks then writes about the advertising on September 3 – “E-Day-minus-one”:

The tone for Edsel Day’s blizzard of publicity was set by an ad, published in newspapers all over the country, in which the Edsel shared the spotlight with the Ford Company’s President Ford and Chairman Breech.  In the ad, Ford looked like a dignified young father, Breech like a dignified gentleman holding a full house against a possible straight, the Edsel just looked like an Edsel.  The accompanying text declared that the decision to produce the car had been ‘based on what we knew, guessed, felt, believed, suspected – about you,’ and added, ‘YOU are the reason behind the Edsel.’  The tone was calm and confident.  There did not seem to be much room for doubt about the reality of that full house.

The interior of the Edsel, as predicted by Krafve, had an almost absurd number of push-buttons.

The two larger models – the Corsair and the Citation – were 219 inches long, two inches longer than the biggest of the Oldsmobiles.  And they were 80 inches wide, “or about as wide as passenger cars ever get,” notes Brooks.  Each had 345 horsepower, making it more powerful than any other American car at the time of launching.

Brooks records that the car received mixed press after it was launched.  In January, 1958, Consumer Reports wrote:

The Edsel has no important basic advantage over other brands.  The car is almost entirely conventional in construction…

Three months later, Consumer Reports wrote:

[The Edsel] is more uselessly overpowered… more gadget bedecked, more hung with expensive accessories than any other car in its price class.

This report gave the Corsair and the Citation the bottom position in its competitive ratings.

Brooks says there were several factors in the downfall of the Edsel.  It wasn’t just that the design fell short, nor was it simply that the company relied too much on psychological research.  For one, many of the early Edsels suffered from a surprising variety of imperfections.  It turned out that only about half the early Edsels functioned properly.

Brooks recounts:

For the first ten days of October, nine of which were business days, there were only 2,751 deliveries – an average of just over three hundred cars a day.  In order to sell the 200,000 cars per year that would make the Edsel operation profitable the Ford Motor Company would have to move an average of between six and seven hundred each business day – a good many more than three hundred a day.  On the night of Sunday, October 13th, Ford put on a mammoth television spectacular for Edsel, pre-empting the time ordinarily allotted to the Ed Sullivan show, but though the program cost $400,000 and starred Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, it failed to cause any sharp spurt in sales.  Now it was obvious that things were not going well at all.

Among the former executives of the Edsel Division, opinions differ as to the exact moment when the portents of doom became unmistakable… The obvious sacrificial victim was Brown, whose stock had gone through the roof at the time of the regally accoladed debut of his design, in August, 1955.  Now, without having done anything further, for either better or worse, the poor fellow became the company scapegoat…

Ford re-committed to selling the Edsel in virtually every way that it could.  Sales eventually increased, but not nearly enough.  Ultimately, the company had to stop production.  The net loss for Ford was roughly $350 million.

Krafve rejects that the Edsel failed due to a poor choice of the name.  He maintains that it was a mistake of timing.  Had they produced the car two years earlier, when medium-sized cars were still highly popular, the Edsel would have been a success.  Brown agrees with Krafve that it was a mistake of timing.

Doyle says it was a buyers’ strike.  He claims not to understand at all why the American public suddenly switched its taste from medium-sized cars to smaller-sized cars.

Wallace argued that the Russian launch of the sputnik had caused many Americans to start viewing Detroit products as bad, especially medium-priced cars.

Brooks concludes by noting that Ford did not get hurt by this setback, nor did the majority of people associated with the Edsel.  In 1958, net income per share dropped from $5.40 to $2.12, and Ford stock dropped from a 1957 high of $60 to a low of $40.  However, by 1959, net income per-share jumped to $8.24 and the stock hit $90.

The Ford executives associated with the Edsel advanced in their careers, for the most part.  Moreover, writes Brooks:

The subsequent euphoria of these former Edsel men did not stem entirely from the fact of their economic survival;  they appear to have been enriched spiritually.  They are inclined to speak of their Edsel experience – except for those still with Ford, who are inclined to speak of it as little as possible – with the verve and garrulity of old comrades-in-arms hashing over their most thrilling campaign.

 

A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME

Brooks:

Most nineteenth-century American fortunes were enlarged by, if they were not actually founded on, the practice of insider trading…

Not until 1934 did Congress pass the Securities Exchange Act, which forbids insider trading.  Later, a 1942 rule 10B-5 held that no stock trader could “make any untrue statement of a material fact or… omit to state a material fact.”  However, observes Brooks, this rule had basically been overlooked for the subsequent couple of decades.  It was argued that insiders needed the incentive of being able to profit in order to bring forth their best efforts.  Further, some authorities said that insider trading helped the markets function more smoothly.  Finally, it was held that most stock traders “possess and conceal information of one sort or another.”

In short, the S.E.C. seemed to be refraining from doing anything regarding insider trading.  But this changed when a civil complaint was made against Texas Gulf Sulphur Company.  The case was tried in the United States District Court in Foley Square May 9 to June 21, 1966.  The presiding judge was Dudley J. Bonsal, says Brooks, who remarked at one point, “I guess we all agree that we are plowing new ground here to some extent.”

In March 1959, Texas Gulf, a New York-based company and the world’s leader producer of sulphur, began conducting aerial surveys over a vast area of eastern Canada.  They weren’t looking for sulphur or gold, but for sulphides – sulphur in combination with other useful minerals such as zinc and copper.  Texas Gulf wanted to diversify its production.

These surveys took place over two years.  Many areas of interest were noted.  The company concluded that several hundred areas were most promising, including a segment called Kidd-55, which was fifteen miles north of Timmins, Ontario, an old gold-mining town several hundred miles northwest of Toronto.

The first challenge was to get title to do exploratory drilling on Kidd-55.  It wasn’t until June, 1963, that Texas Gulf was able to begin exploring on the northeast quarter of Kidd-55.  After Texas Gulf engineer, Richard H. Clayton, completed a ground electromagnetic survey and was convinced the area had potential, the company decided to drill.  Drilling began on November 8.  Brooks writes:

The man in charge of the drilling crew was a young Texas Gulf geologist named Kenneth Darke, a cigar smoker with a rakish gleam in his eye, who looked a good deal more like the traditional notion of a mining prospector than that of the organization man that he was.

A cylindrical sample an inch and a quarter in diameter was brought out of the earth.  Darke studied it critically inch by inch using only his eyes and his knowledge.  On November 10, Darke telephoned his immediate superior, Walter Holyk, chief geologist of Texas Gulf, to report the findings at that point.

The same night, Holyk called his superior, Richard D. Mollison, a vice president of Texas Gulf.  Mollison then called his superior, Charles F. Fogarty, executive vice president and the No. 2 man at the company.  Further reports were made the next day.  Soon Holyk, Mollison, and Fogarty decided to travel to Kidd-55 to take a look for themselves.

By November 12, Holyk was on site helping Darke examine samples.  Holyk was a Canadian in his forties with a doctorate in geology from MIT.  The weather had turned bad.  Also, much of the stuff came up covered in dirt and grease, and had to be washed with gasoline.  Nonetheless, Holyk arrived at an initial estimate of the core’s content.  There seemed to be average copper content of 1.15% and average zinc content of 8.64%.  If true and if it was not just in one narrow area, this appeared to be a huge discovery.  Brooks:

Getting title would take time if it were possible at all, but meanwhile there were several steps that the company could and did take.  The drill rig was moved away from the site of the test hole.  Cut saplings were stuck in the ground around the hole, to restore the appearance of the place to a semblance of its natural state.  A second test hole was drilled, as ostentatiously as possible, some distance away, at a place where a barren core was expected – and found.  All of these camouflage measures, which were in conformity with long-established practice among miners who suspect that they have made a strike, were supplemented by an order from Texas Gulf’s president, Claude O. Stephens, that no one outside the actual exploration group, even within the company, should be told what had been found.  Late in November, the core was shipped off, in sections, to the Union Assay Office in Salt Lake City for scientific analysis of its contents.  And meanwhile, of course, Texas Gulf began discreetly putting out feelers for the purchase of the rest of Kidd-55.

Brooks adds:

And meanwhile other measures, which may or may not have been related to the events of north of Timmins, were being taken.  On November 12th, Fogarty bought three hundred shares of Texas Gulf stock;  on the 15th he added seven hundred more shares, on November 19th five hundred more, and on November 26th two hundred more.  Clayton bought two hundred on the 15th, Mollison one hundred on the same day; and Mrs. Holyk bought fifty on the 29th and one hundred more on December 10th.  But these purchases, as things turned out, were only the harbingers of a period of apparently intense affection for Texas Gulf stock among certain of its officers and employees, and even some of their friends.

The results of the sample test confirmed Holyk’s estimates.  Also found were 3.94 ounces of silver per ton.  In late December, while in the Washington, D.C. area, Darke recommended Texas Gulf stock to a girl he knew there and her mother.  They later became known as “tippees,” while a few people they later told naturally became “sub-tippees.”  Between December 30 and February 17, Darke’s tippees and sub-tippees purchased 2,100 shares of Texas Gulf stock and also bought calls on another 1,500 shares.

In the first three months of 1964, Darke bought 300 shares of Texas Gulf stock, purchased calls on 3,000 more shares, and added several more persons to his burgeoning list of tippees.  Holyk and his wife bought a large number of calls on Texas Gulf stock.  They’d hardly heard of calls before, but calls “were getting to be quite the rage in Texas Gulf circles.”

Finally in the spring, Texas Gulf had the drilling rights it needed and was ready to proceed.  Brooks:

After a final burst of purchases by Darke, his tippees, and his sub-tippees on March 30th and 31st (among them all, six hundred shares and calls on 5,100 more shares for the two days), drilling was resumed in the still-frozen muskeg at Kidd-55, with Holyk and Darke both on the site this time.

While the crew stayed on site, the geologists almost daily made the fifteen-mile trek to Simmins.  With seven-foot snowdrifts, the trip took three and a half to four hours.

At some stage – later a matter of dispute – Texas Gulf realized that it had a workable mine of large proportions.  Vice President Mollison arrived on site for a day.  Brooks:

But before going he issued instructions for the drilling of a mill test hole, which would produce a relatively large core that could be used to determine the amenability of the mineral material to routine mill processing.  Normally, a mill test hole is not drilled until a workable mine is believed to exist.  And so it may have been in this case;  two S.E.C. mining experts were to insist later, against contrary opinions of experts for the defense, that by the time Mollison gave his order, Texas Gulf had information on the basis of which it could have calculated that the ore reserves at Kidd-55 had a gross assay value of at least two hundred million dollars.

Brooks notes:

The famous Canadian mining grapevine was humming by now, and in retrospect the wonder is that it had been relatively quiet for so long.

On April 10, President Stephens had become concerned enough to ask a senior member of the board – Thomas S. Lamont of Morgan fame – whether Texas Gulf should issue a statement.  Lamont told him he could wait until the reports were published in U.S. papers, but then he should issue a statement.

The following day, April 11, the reports poured forth in the U.S. papers.  The Herald Tribune called it “the biggest ore strike since gold was discovered more than 60 years ago in Canada.”  Stephens instructed Fogarty to begin preparing a statement to be issued on Monday, April 13.  Meanwhile, the estimated value of the mine seemed to be increasing by the hour as more and more copper and zinc ore was brought to the surface.  Brooks writes:

However, Fogarty did not communicate with Timmins after Friday night, so the statement that he and his colleagues issued to the press on Sunday afternoon was not based on the most up-to-the-minute information.  Whether because of that or for some other reason, the statement did not convey the idea that Texas Gulf thought it had a new Comstock Lode.  Characterizing the published reports as exaggerated and unreliable, it admitted that recent drilling on ‘one property near Timmins’ had led to ‘preliminary indications that more drilling would be required for proper evaluation of the prospect;’  went on to say that ‘the drilling done to date has not been conclusive;’  and then, putting the same thought in what can hardly be called another way, added that ‘the work done to date has not been sufficient to reach definitive conclusions.’

The wording of this press release was sufficient to put a damper on any expectations that may have arisen due to the newspaper stories the previous Friday.  Texas Gulf stock had gone from around $17 the previous November to around $30 just before the stories.  On Monday, the stock went to $32, but then came back down and even dipped below $29 in the subsequent two days.

Meanwhile, at Kidd-55, Mollison, Holyk, and Darke talked with a visiting reporter who had been shown around the place.  Brooks:

The things they told the reporter make it clear, in retrospect, that whatever the drafters of the release may have believed on Sunday, the men at Kidd-55 knew on Monday that they had a mine and a big one.  However, the world was not to know it, or at least not from that source, until Thursday morning, when the next issue of the Miner would appear in subscribers’ mail and on newstands.

Mollison and Holyk flew to Montreal Tuesday evening for the annual convention of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.  They had arranged for that Wednesday, in the company of the Minister of Mines of the Province of Ontario and his deputy, to attend the convention.  En route, they briefed the minister on Kidd-55.  The minister decided he wanted to make an announcement as soon as possible.  Mollison helped the minister draft the statement.

According to the copy Mollison kept, the announcement stated that “the information now in hand… gives the company confidence to allow me to announce that Texas Gulf Sulphur has a mineable body of zinc, copper, and silver ore of substantial dimensions that will be developed and brought to production as soon as possible.”  Mollison and Holyk believed that the minister would make the announcement that evening.  But for some reason, the minister didn’t.

Texas Gulf was to have a board of directors meeting that Thursday.  Since better and better news had been coming in from Kidd-55, the company officers decided they should write a new press release, to be issued after the Thursday morning board meeting.  This statement was based on the very latest information and it read, in part, “Texas Gulf Sulphur Company has made a major strike of zinc, copper, and silver in the Timmins area… Seven drill holes are now essentially complete and indicate an ore body of at least 800 feet in length, 300 feet in width, and having a vertical depth of more than 800 feet.  This is a major discovery.  The preliminary data indicate a reserve of more than 25 million tons of ore.”

The statement also noted that “considerably more data has been accumulated,” in order to explain the difference between this statement and the previous one.  Indeed, the value of the ore was not the two hundred million dollars alleged to have been estimable a week earlier, but many times that.

The same day, engineer Clayton and company secretary Crawford bought 200 and 300 shares, respectively.  The next morning, Crawford doubled his order.

The directors’ meeting ended at ten o’clock.  Then 22 reporters entered the room.  President Stephens read the new press release.  Most reporters rushed out before he was finished to report the news.

The actions of two Texas Gulf directors, Coates and Lamont, during the next half hour were later to lead to the most controversial part of the S.E.C.’s complaint.  As Brooks writes, the essence of the controversy was timing.  The Texas Gulf news was released by the Dow Jones News Service, the well-known spot-news for investors.  In fact, a piece of news is considered to be public the moment it crosses “the broad tape.”

The morning of April 16, 1964, a Dow Jones reporter was among those who attended the Texas Gulf press conference.  He left early and called in the news around 10:10 or 10:15, according to his recollection.  Normally, a news item this important would be printed on the Dow Jones machines two or three minutes after being phoned in.  But for reasons unknown, the Texas Gulf story did not appear on the tape until 10:54.  This delay was left unexplained during the trial based on irrelevance, says Brooks.

Coates, the Texan, around the end of the press conference, called his son-in-law, H. Fred Haemisegger, a stockbroker in Houston.  Coates told Haemisegger about the Texas Gulf discovery, also saying that he waited to call until “after the public announcement” because he was “too old to get in trouble with the S.E.C.”  Coates next placed an order for 2,000 shares of Texas Gulf stock for four family trusts.  He was a trustee, but not a beneficiary.  The stock had opened at $30.  Haemisegger, by acting quickly, was able to buy a bit over $31.

Lamont hung around the press conference area for 20 minutes or so.  He recounts that he “listened to chatter” and “slapped people on the back.”  Then at 10:39 or 10:40, he called a friend at Morgan Guaranty Trust Company – Longstreet Hinton, the bank’s executive vice president and head of its trust department.  Hinton had asked Lamont earlier in the week if he knew anything about the rumors of an ore discovery made by Texas Gulf.  Lamont had said no then.

But during this phone call, Lamont told Hinton that he had some news now.  Hinton asked whether it was good.  Lamont replied either “pretty good” or “very good.”  (Brooks notes that they mean the same thing in this context.)  Hinton immediately called the bank’s trading department, got a quote on Texas Gulf, and placed an order for 3,000 shares for the account of the Nassau Hospital, of which he was treasurer.  Hinton never bothered to look at the tape – despite being advised to do so by Lamont – because Hinton felt he already had the information he needed.  (Lamont didn’t know about the inexplicable forty minute delay before the Texas Gulf news appeared on the tape.)

Then Hinton went to the office of the Morgan Guaranty officer in charge of pension trusts.  Hinton recommended buying Texas Gulf.  In less than half an hour, the bank had ordered 7,000 shares for its pension fund and profit-sharing account.

An hour after that – at 12:33 – Lamont purchased 3,000 shares for himself and his family, paying $34 1/2 for them.  The stock closed above $36.  It hit a high of over $58 later that month.  Brooks:

…and by the end of 1966, when commercial production of ore was at last underway at Kidd-55 and the enormous new mine was expected to account for one-tenth of Canada’s total annual production of copper and one-quarter of its total annual production of zinc, the stock was selling at over 100.  Anyone who had bought Texas Gulf between November 12th, 1963 and the morning (or even the lunch hour) of April 16th, 1964 had therefore at least tripled his money.

Brooks then introduces the trial:

Perhaps the most arresting aspect of the Texas Gulf trial – apart from the fact that a trial was taking place at all – was the vividness and variety of the defendants who came before Judge Bonsal, ranging as they did from a hot-eyed mining prospector like Clayton (a genuine Welchman with a degree in mining from the University of Cardiff) through vigorous and harried corporate nabobs like Fogarty and Stephens to a Texas wheeler-dealer like Coates and a polished Brahmin of finance like Lamont.

Darke did not appear at the trial, claiming his Canadian nationality.  Brooks continues:

The S.E.C., after its counsel, Frank E. Kennamer Jr. had announced his intention to “drag to light and pillory the misconduct of these defendants,” asked the court to issue a permanent injunction forbidding Fogarty, Mollison, Clayton, Holyk, Darke, Crawford, and several other corporate insiders who had bought stock or calls between November 8th, 1963 and April 15th, 1964, from ever again “engaging in any act… which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person in connection with purchase or sale of securities”;  further – and here it was breaking entirely new ground – it prayed that the court order the defendants to make restitution to the persons they had allegedly defrauded by buying stock or calls from them on the basis of inside information.  The S.E.C. also charged that the pessimistic April 12th press release was deliberately deceptive, and asked that because of it Texas Gulf be enjoined from “making any untrue statement of material fact or omitting to state a material fact.”  Apart from any question of loss of corporate face, the nub of the matter here lay in the fact that such a judgment, if granted, might well open the way for legal action against the company by any stockholder who had sold his Texas Gulf stock to anybody in the interim between the first press release and the second one, and since the shares that had changed hands during that period had run into the millions, it was a nub indeed.

Regarding the November purchases, the defense argued that a workable mine was far from a sure thing based only on the first drill hole.  Some even argued that the hole could have turned out to be a liability rather than an asset for Texas Gulf, based on what was known then.  The people who bought stock or calls during the winter claimed that the hole had little or nothing to do with their decision.  They stated that they thought Texas Gulf was a good investment in general.  Clayton said his sudden appearance as a large investor was because he had just married a well-to-do wife.  Brooks:

The S.E.C. countered with its own parade of experts, maintaining that the nature of the first core had been such as to make the existence of a rich mine an overwhelming probability, and that therefore those privy to the facts about it had possessed a material fact.

The S.E.C. also made much of the fact that Fogarty based the initial press release on information that was two days old.  The defense countered that the company had been in a sensitive position.  If it had issued an optimistic report that later turned out to be false, it could well be accused of fraud for that.

Judge Bonsal concluded that the definition of materiality must be conservative.  He therefore decided that up until April 9th, when three converging drill holes positively established the three-dimensionality of the ore deposit, material information had not been in hand.  Therefore, the decisions of insiders to buy stock before that date, even if based on initial drilling results, were legal “educated guesses.”

Case was thus dismissed against all educated guessers who had bought stock or calls, or recommended others do so, before the evening of April 9th.  Brooks:

With Clayton and Crawford, who had been so injudicious as to buy or order stock on April 15th, it was another matter.  The judge found no evidence that they had intended to deceive or defraud anyone, but they had made their purchases with the full knowledge that a great mine had been found and that it would be announced the next day – in short, with material private information in hand.  Therefore they were found to have violated Rule 10B-5, and in due time would presumably be enjoined from doing such a thing again and made to offer restitution to the persons they bought their April 15th shares from – assuming, of course, that such persons can be found…

On the matter of the April 12th press release, the judge found that it was not false or misleading.

Still to be settled was the matter of Coates and Lamont making their purchases.  The question was when it can be said that the information has officially been made public.  This was the most important issue and would likely set a legal precedent.

The S.E.C. argued that the actions of Coates and Lamont were illegal because they occurred before the ore strike news had crossed the Dow Jones broad tape.  The S.E.C. argued, furthermore, that even if Coates and Lamont had acted after the “official” announcement, it still would be illegal unless enough time had passed so that those who hadn’t attended the press conference, or even those who hadn’t seen the initial news cross the broad tape, had enough time to absorb the information.

Defense argued first that Coates and Lamont had every reason to believe that the news was already out, since Stephens said it had been released by the Ontario Minister of Mines the previous evening.  So Coates and Lamont acted in good faith.  Second, counsel argued that for all practical purposes, the news was out, via osmosis and The Northern Miner.  Brokerage offices and the Stock Exchange had been buzzing all morning.  Lamont’s lawyers also argued that Lamont had merely told Hinton to look at the tape, not to buy any stock.  Defense argued that the S.E.C. was asking the court to write new rules and then apply them retroactively, while the plaintiff was merely asking that an old rule 10B-5, be applied broadly.

As for Lamont’s waiting for two hours, until 12:33, before buying stock for himself, the S.E.C. took issue, as Brooks records:

‘It is the Commission’s position that even after corporate information has been published in the news media, insiders, are still under a duty to refrain from securities transactions until there had elapsed a reasonable amount of time in which the securities industry, the shareholders, and the investing public can evaluate the development and make informed investment decisions… Insiders must wait at least until the information is likely to have reached the average investor who follows the market and he has had some opportunity to consider it.’

In the Texas Gulf case, the S.E.C. argued that one hour and thirty-nine minutes was not “a reasonable amount of time.”  What, then, is “a reasonable amount of time,” the S.E.C. was asked?  The S.E.C.’s counsel, Kennamer, said it “would vary from case to case.”  Kennamer added that it would be “a nearly impossible task to formulate a rigid set of rules that would apply in all situations of this sort.”

Brooks sums it up with a hint of irony:

Therefore, in the S.E.C.’s canon, the only way an insider could find out whether he had waited long enough before buying his company’s stock was by being hauled into court and seeing what the judge would decide.

Judge Bonsal rejected this argument by the S.E.C.  Moreover, he took a narrower view that, based on legal precedent, the key moment was when the press release was read.  The judge admitted that a better rule might be formulated according to which insiders had to wait at least some amount time after the initial press release so that other investors could absorb it.  However, he didn’t think he should write such a rule.  Nor should this matter be left up to the judge on a case-by-base basis.  Thus, the complaints against Coates and Lamont were dismissed.

The S.E.C. appealed all the dismissals.  Brooks concludes:

…in August, 1968, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit handed down a decision which flatly reversed Judge Bonsal’s findings on just about every score except the findings against Crawford and Clayton, which were affirmed.  The Appeals Court found that the original November drill hole had provided material evidence of a valuable ore deposit, and that therefore Fogarty, Mollison, Darke, Holyk, and all other insiders who had bought Texas Gulf stock or calls on it during the winter were guilty of violations of the law;  that the gloomy April 12th press release had been ambiguous and perhaps misleading;  and that Coates had improperly and illegally jumped the gun in placing his orders right after the April 16th press conference.  Only Lamont – the charges against whom had been dropped following his death shortly after the lower court decision – and a Texas Gulf office manager, John Murray, remained exonerated.

 

XEROX XEROX XEROX XEROX

There was no economical and practical way of making copies until after 1950.  Brooks writes that the 1950’s were the pioneering years for mechanized office copying.  Although people were starting to show a compulsion to make copies, the early copying machines suffered from a number of problems.  Brooks:

…What was needed for the compulsion to flower into a mania was a technological breakthrough, and the breakthrough came at the turn of the decade with the advent of a machine that worked on a new principle, known as xerography, and was able to make dry, good-quality, permanent copies on ordinary paper with a minimum of trouble.  The effect was immediate.  Largely as a result of xerography, the estimated number of copies (as opposed to duplicates) made annually in the United States sprang from some twenty million in the mid-fifties to nine and a half billion in 1964, and to fourteen billion in 1966 – not to mention billions more in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.  More than that, the attitude of educators towards printed textbooks and of business people toward written communication underwent a discernable change;  avant-garde philosophers took to hailing xerography as a revolution comparable in importance to the invention of the wheel;  and coin-operated copy machines began turning up in candy stores and beauty parlors…

The company responsible for the great breakthrough and the one on whose machines the majority of these billions of copies were made was of course, the Xerox Corporation, of Rochester, New York.  As a result, it became the most spectacular big-business success of the nineteen-sixties.  In 1959, the year the company – then called Haloid Xerox, Inc. – introduced its first automatic xerographic office copier, its sales were thirty-three million dollars.  In 1961, they were sixty-six million, in 1963 a hundred and seventy-six million, and in 1966 over half a billion.

The company was extremely profitable.  It ranked two hundred and seventy-first in Fortune’s ranking in 1967.  However, in 1966 the company ranked sixty-third in net profits and probably ninth in the ratio of profits to sales and fifteenth in terms of market value.  Brooks continues:

…Indeed, the enthusiasm the investing public showed for Xerox made its shares the stock market Golconda of the sixties.  Anyone who bought its stock toward the end of 1959 and held on to it until early 1967 would have found his holding worth about sixty-six times its original price, and anyone who was really fore-sighted and bought Haloid in 1955 would have seen his original investment grow – one might almost say miraculously – a hundred and eighty times.  Not surprisingly, a covey of “Xerox millionaires” sprang up – several hundred of them all told, most of whom either lived in the Rochester area or had come from there.

The Haloid company was started in Rochester in 1906.  It manufactured photographic papers.  It survived OK.  But after the Second World War, due to an increase in competition and labor costs, the company was looking for new products.

More than a decade earlier, in 1938, an obscure thirty-two year-old inventor, Chester F. Carlson, was spending his spare time trying to invent an office copying machine.  Carlson had a degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology.  Carlson had hired Otto Kornei, a German refugee physicist, to help him.  Their initial copying machine was unwieldy and produced much smoke and stench.  Brooks:

The process, which Carlson called electrophotography, had – and has – five basic steps:  sensitizing a photoconductive surface to light by giving it an electrostatic charge (for example, by rubbing it with fur);  exposing this surface to a written page to form an electrostatic image;  developing the latest image by dusting the surface with a powder that will adhere only to the charged areas;  transferring the image to some sort of paper;  and fixing the image by the application of heat.

Although each individual step was already used in other technologies, this particular combination of steps was new.  Carlson carefully patented the process and began trying to sell it.  Over the ensuing five years, Carlson tried to sell the rights to every important office-equipment company in the country.  He was turned down every time.  In 1944, Carlson finally convinced Battelle Memorial Institute to conduct further development work on the process in exchange for three-quarters of any future royalties.

In 1946, various people at Haloid, including Joseph C. Wilson – who was about to become president – had noticed the work that Battelle was doing.  Wilson asked a friend of his, Sol M. Linowitz, a smart, public-spirited lawyer just back from service in the Navy, to research the work at Battelle as a “one-shot” job.  The result was an agreement giving Haloid the rights to the Carlson process in exchange for royalties for Battelle and Carlson.

At one point in the research and development process, the Haloid people got so discouraged that they considered selling most of their xerography rights to International Business Machines.  The research process became quite costly.  But Haloid committed itself to seeing it through.  It took full title of the Carlson process and assumed the full cost of development in exchange for shares in Haloid (for Battelle and Carlson).  Brooks:

…The cost was staggering.  Between 1947 and 1960, Haloid spent about seventy-five million dollars [over $800 million in 2019 dollars] on research in xerography, or about twice what it earned from its regular operations during that period;  the balance was raised through borrowing and through the wholesale issuance of common stock to anyone who was kind, reckless, or prescient enough to take it.  The University of Rochester, partly out of interest in a struggling local industry, bought an enormous quantity for its endowment fund at a price that subsequently, because of stock splits, amounted to fifty cents a share.  ‘Please don’t be mad at us if we have to sell our Haloid stock in a couple of years to cut our losses on it,’ a university official nervously warned Wilson.  Wilson promised not to be mad.  Meanwhile, he and other executives of the company took most of their pay in the form of stock, and some of them went as far as to put up their savings and the mortgages on their houses to help the cause along.

In 1961, the company changed its name to Xerox Corporation.  One unusual aspect to the story is that Xerox became rather public-minded.  Brooks quotes Wilson:

‘To set high goals, to have almost unattainable aspirations, to imbue people with the belief that they can be achieved – these are as important as the balance sheet, perhaps more so.’

This rhetoric is not uncommon.  But Xerox followed through by donating one and a half percent of its profits to educational and charitable institutions in 1965-1966.  In 1966, Xerox committed itself to the “one-per-cent program,” also called the Cleveland Plan, according to which the company gives one percent of its pre-tax income annually to educational institutions, apart from any other charitable activities.

Furthermore, President Wilson said in 1964, “The corporation cannot refuse to take a stand on public issues of major concern.”  As Brooks observes, this is “heresy” for a business because it could alienate customers or potential customers.  Xerox’s chief stand was in favor of the United Nations.  Brooks:

Early in 1964, the company decided to spend four million dollars – a year’s advertising budget – on underwriting a series of network-television programs dealing with the U.N., the programs to be unaccompanied by commercials or any other identification of Xerox apart from a statement at the beginning and end of each that Xerox had paid for it.

Xerox was inundated with letters opposing the company’s support of the U.N.  Many said that the U.N. charter had been written by American Communists and that the U.N. was an instrument for depriving Americans of their Constitutional rights.  Although only a few of these letters came from the John Birch Society, it turned out later that most of the letters were part of a meticulously planned Birch campaign.  Xerox officers and directors were not intimidated.  The U.N. series appeared in 1965 and was widely praised.

Furthermore, Xerox consistently committed itself to informing the users of its copiers of their legal responsibilities.  It took this stand despite their commercial interest.

Brooks visited Xerox in order to talk with some of its people.  First he spoke with Dr. Dessauer, a German-born engineer who had been in charge of the company’s research and engineering since 1938.  It was Dessauer who first brought Carlson’s invention to the attention of Joseph Wilson.  Brooks noticed a greeting card from fellow employees calling Dessauer the “Wizard.”

Dr. Dessauer told Brooks about the old days.  Dessauer said money was the main problem.  Many team members gambled heavily on the xerox project.  Dessauer himself mortgaged his house.  Early on, team members would often say the damn thing would never work.  Even if it did work, the marketing people said there was only a market for a few thousand of the machines.

Next Brooks spoke with Dr. Harold E. Clark, who had been a professor of physics before coming to Haloid in 1949.  Dr. Clark was in charge of the xerography-development program under Dr. Dessauer.  Dr. Clark told Brooks that Chet Carlson’s invention was amazing.  Also, no one else invented something similar at the same time, unlike the many simultaneous discoveries in scientific history.  The only problem, said Dr. Clark, was that it wasn’t a good product.

The main trouble was that Carlson’s photoconductive surface, which was coated with sulphur, lost its qualities after it had made a few copies and became useless.  Acting on a hunch unsupported by scientific theory, the Battelle researchers tried adding to the sulphur a small quantity of selenium, a non-metallic element previously used chiefly in electrical resistors and as a coloring material to redden glass.  The selenium-and-sulphur surface worked a little better than the all-sulphur one, so the Battelle men tried adding a little more selenium.  More improvement.  They gradually kept increasing the percentage until they had a surface consisting entirely of selenium – no sulphur.  That one worked best of all, and thus it was found, backhandedly, that selenium and selenium alone could make xerography practical.

Dr. Clark went on to tell Brooks that they basically patented one of the elements, of which there are not many more than one hundred.  What is more, they still don’t understand how it works.  There are no memory effects – no traces of previous copies are left on the selenium drum.  A selenium-coated drum in the lab can last a million processes, or theoretically an infinite number.  They don’t understand why.  Dr. Clark concluded that they combined “Yankee tinkering and scientific inquiry.”

Brooks spoke with Linowitz, who only had a few minutes because he had just been appointed U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States.  Linowitz told him:

…the qualities that made for the company’s success were idealism, tenacity, the courage to take risks, and enthusiasm.

Joseph Wilson told Brooks that his second major had been English literature.  He thought he would be a teacher or work in administration at a university.  Somehow he ended up at Harvard Business School, where he was a top student.  After that, he joined Haloid, the family business, something he’d never planned on doing.

Regarding the company’s support of the U.N., Wilson explained that world cooperation was the company’s business, because without it there would be no world and thus no business.  He went on to explain that elections were not the company’s business.  But university education, civil rights, and employment of African-Americans were their business, to name just a few examples.  So far, at least, Wilson said there hadn’t been a conflict between their civic duties and good business.  But if such a conflict arose, he hoped that the company would honor its civic responsibilities.

 

MAKING THE CUSTOMERS WHOLE

On November 19th, 1963, the Stock Exchange became aware that two of its member firms – J. R. Williston & Beane, Inc., and Ira Haupt & Co. – were in serious financial trouble.  This later became a crisis that was made worse by the assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963.  Brooks:

It was the sudden souring of a speculation that these two firms (along with various brokers not members of the Stock Exchange) had become involved in on behalf of a single customer – the Allied Crude Vegetable Oil & Refining Co., of Bayonne, New Jersey.  The speculation was in contracts to buy vast quantities of cotton-seed oil and soybean oil for future delivery.

Brooks then writes:

On the two previous business days – Friday the fifteenth and Monday the eighteenth – the prices had dropped an average of a little less than a cent and a half per pound, and as a result Haupt had demanded that Allied put up about fifteen million dollars in cash to keep the account seaworthy.  Allied had declined to do this, so Haupt – like any broker when a customer operating on credit has defaulted – was faced with the necessity of selling out the Allied contracts to get back what it could of its advances.  The suicidal extent of the risk that Haupt had undertaken is further indicated by the fact that while the firm’s capital in early November had amounted to only about eight million dollars, it had borrowed enough money to supply a single customer – Allied – with some thirty-seven million dollars to finance the oil speculations.  Worse still, as things turned out it had accepted as collateral for some of these advances enormous amounts of actual cottonseed oil and soybean oil from Allied’s inventory, the presence of which in tanks at Bayonne was attested to by warehouse receipts stating the precise amount and kind of oil on hand.  Haupt had borrowed the money it supplied Allied from various banks, passing along most of the warehouse receipts to the banks as collateral.  All this would have been well and good if it had not developed later that many of the warehouse receipts were forged, that much of the oil they attested to was not, and probably never had been, in Bayonne, and that Allied’s President, Anthony De Angelis (who was later sent to jail on a whole parcel of charges), had apparently pulled off the biggest commercial fraud since that of Ivar Kreuger, the match king.

What began to emerge as the main issue was that Haupt had about twenty thousand individual stock-market customers, who had never heard of Allied or commodity trading.  Williston & Beane had nine thousand individual customers.  All these accounts were frozen when the two firms were suspended by the Stock Exchange.  (Fortunately, the customers of Williston & Beane were made whole fairly rapidly.)

The Stock Exchange met with its member firms.  They decided to make the customers of Haupt whole.  G. Keith Funston, President of the Stock Exchange, urged the member firms to take over the matter.  The firms replied that the Stock Exchange should do it.  Funston replied, “If we do, you’ll have to repay us the amount we pay out.”  So it was agreed that the payment would come out of the Exchange’s treasury, to be repaid later by the member firms.

Funston next led the negotiations with Haupt’s creditor banks.  Their unanimous support was essential.  Chief among the creditors were four local banks – Chase Manhattan, Morgan Guaranty Trust, First National City, and Manufacturers Hanover Trust.  Funston proposed that the Exchange would put up the money to make the Haupt customers whole – about seven and a half million dollars.  In return, for every dollar the Exchange put up, the banks would agree to defer collection on two dollars.  So the banks would defer collection on about fifteen million.

The banks agreed to this on the condition that the Exchange’s claim to get back any of its contribution would come after the banks’ claims for their loans.  Funston and his associates at the Exchange agreed to that.  After more negotiating, there was a broad agreement on the general plan.

Early on Saturday, the Exchange’s board met and learned from Funston what was proposed.  Almost immediately, several governors rose to state that it was a matter of principle.  And so the board agreed with the plan.  Later, Funston and his associates decided to put the Exchange’s chief examiner in charge of the liquidation of Haupt in order to ensure that its twenty thousand individual customers were made whole as soon as the Exchange had put up the cash.  (The amount of cash would be at least seven and a half million, but possibly as high as twelve million.)

Fortunately, the American banks eventually all agreed to the final plan put forth by the Exchange.  Brooks notes that the banks were “marvels of cooperation.”  But agreement was still needed from the British banks.  Initially, Funston was going to make the trip to England, but he couldn’t be spared.

Several other governors quickly volunteered to go, and one of them, Gustave L. Levy, was eventually selected, on the ground that his firm, Goldman, Sachs & Co., had had a long and close association with Kleinwort, Benson, one of the British banks, and that Levy himself was on excellent terms with some of the Kleinwort, Benson partners.

The British banks were very unhappy.  But since their loans to Allied were unsecured, they didn’t have any room to negotiate.  Still, they asked for time to think the matter over.  This gave Levy an opportunity to meet with this Kleinwort, Benson friends.  Brooks:

The circumstances of the reunion were obviously less than happy, but Levy says that his friends took a realistic view of their situation and, with heroic objectivity, actually helped their fellow-Britons to see the American side of the question.

The market was closed Monday for JFK’s funeral.  Funston was still waiting for the call from Levy.  After finally getting agreement from all the British banks, Levy placed the call to Funston.

Funston felt at this point that the final agreement had been wrapped up, since all he needed was the signatures of the fifteen Haupt general partners.  The meeting with the Haupt partners ended up taking far longer than expected.  Brooks:

One startling event broke the even tenor of this gloomy meeting… someone noticed an unfamiliar and strikingly youthful face in the crowd and asked its owner to identify himself.  The unhesitating reply was, ‘I’m Russell Watson, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal.’  There was a short, stunned silence, in recognition of the fact that an untimely leak might still disturb the delicate balance of money and emotion that made up the agreement.  Watson himself, who was twenty-four and had been on the Journal for a year, has since explained how he got into the meeting, and under what circumstances he left it.  ‘I was new on the Stock Exchange beat then,’ he said afterward.  ‘Earlier in the day, there had been word that Funston would probably hold a press conference sometime that evening, so I went over to the Exchange.  At the main entrance, I asked a guard where Mr. Funston’s conference was.  The guard said it was on the sixth floor, and ushered me into an elevator.  I suppose he thought I was a banker, a Haupt partner, or a lawyer.  On the sixth floor, people were milling around everywhere.  I just walked off the elevator and into the office where the meeting was – nobody stopped me.  I didn’t understand much of what was going on.  I got the feeling that whatever was at stake, there was general agreement but still a lot of haggling over details to be done.  I didn’t recognize anybody there but Funston.  I stood around quietly for about five minutes before anybody noticed me, and then everybody said, pretty much at once, “Good God, get out of here!”  They didn’t exactly kick me out, but I saw it was time to go.’

At fifteen minutes past midnight, finally all the parties signed an agreement.

As soon as the banks opened on Tuesday, the Exchange deposited seven and a half million dollars in an account on which the Haupt liquidator – James P. Mahony – could draw.  The stock market had its greatest one-day rise in history.  A week later, by December 2, $1,750,000 had been paid out to Haupt customers.  By December 12, it was $5,400,000.  And by Christmas, it was $6,700,000.  By March 11, the pay-out had reached nine and a half million dollars and all the Haupt customers had been made whole.

  • Note:  $9.5 million in 1963 would be approximately $76 million dollars today (in 2018), due to inflation.

Brooks describes the reaction:

In Washington, President Johnson interrupted his first business day in office to telephone Funston and congratulate him.  The chairman of the S.E.C., William L. Cary, who was not ordinarily given to throwing bouquets at the Stock Exchange, said in December that it had furnished ‘a dramatic, impressive demonstration of its strength and concern for the public interest.’

Brooks later records:

Oddly, almost no one seems to have expressed gratitude to the British and American banks, which recouped something like half of their losses.  It may be that people simply don’t thank banks, except in television commercials.

 

THE IMPACTED PHILOSOPHERS

Brooks opens this chapter by observing that communication is one of the biggest problems in American industry.  (Remember he was writing in the 1960’s).  Brooks:

This preoccupation with the difficulty of getting a thought out of one head and into another is something the industrialists share with a substantial number of intellectuals and creative writers, more and more of whom seemed inclined to regard communication, or the lack of it, as one of the greatest problems not just of industry, but of humanity.

Brooks then adds:

What has puzzled me is how and why, when foundations sponsor one study of communication after another, individuals and organizations fail so consistently to express themselves understandably, or how and why their listeners fail to grasp what they hear.

A few years ago, I acquired a two-volume publication of the United States Government Printing Office entitled Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Seventh Congress, First Session, Pursuant to S. Res. 52, and after a fairly diligent perusal of its 1,459 pages I thought I could begin to see what the industrialists are talking about.

The hearings were conducted in April, May, and June of 1961 under the chairmanship of Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.  They concerned price-fixing and bid-rigging in conspiracies in the electrical-manufacturing industry.  Brooks:

…Senator Kefauver felt that the whole matter needed a good airing.  The transcript shows that it got one, and what the airing revealed – at least within the biggest company involved – was a breakdown in intramural communication so drastic as to make the building of the tower of Babel seem a triumph of organizational rapport.

Brooks explains a bit later:

The violations, the government alleged, were committed in connection with the sale of large and expensive pieces of apparatus of a variety that is required chiefly by public and private electric-utility companies (power transformers, switchgear assemblies, and turbine-generator units, among many others), and were the outcome of a series of meetings attended by executives of the supposedly competing companies – beginning at least as early as 1956 and continuing into 1959 – at which noncompetitive price levels were agreed upon, nominally sealed bids on individual contracts were rigged in advance, and each company was allocated a certain percentage of the available business.

Brooks explains that in an average year at the time of the conspiracies, about $1.75 billion – $14 billion in 2019 dollars – was spent on the sorts of machines in question, with nearly a quarter of that local, state, and federal government spending.  Brooks gives a specific example, a 500,000-kilowatt turbine-generator, which sold for about $16 million (nearly $130 million in 2019 dollars), but was often discounted by 25 percent.  If the companies wanted to, they could effectively charge $4 million extra (nearly $32 million extra in 2019 dollars).  Any such additional costs as a result of price-fixing would, in the case of government purchases, ultimately fall on the taxpayer.

Brooks again:

To top it all off, there was a prevalent suspicion of hypocrisy in the very highest places.  Neither the chairman of the board nor the president of General Electric, the largest of the corporate defendants, had been caught on the government’s dragnet, and the same was true of Westinghouse Electric, the second-largest;  these four ultimate bosses let it be known that they had been entirely ignorant of what had been going on within their commands right up to the time the first testimony on the subject was given to the Justice Department.  Many people, however, were not satisfied by these disclaimers, and, instead, took the position that the defendant executives were men in the middle, who had broken the law only in response either to actual orders or to a corporate climate favoring price-fixing, and who were now being allowed to suffer for the sins of their superiors.  Among the unsatisfied was Judge Ganey himself, who said at the time of the sentencing, ‘One would be most naive indeed to believe that these violations of the law, so long persisted in, affecting so large a segment of the industry, and, finally, involving so many millions upon millions of dollars, were facts unknown to those responsible for the conduct of the corporation… I am convinced that in the great number of these defendants’ cases, they were torn between conscience and approved corporate policy, with the rewarding objectives of promotion, comfortable security, and large salaries.’

General Electric got most of the attention.  It was, after all, by far the largest of those companies involved.  General Electric penalized employees who admitted participation in the conspiracy.  Some saw this as good behavior, while others thought it was G.E. trying to save higher-ups by making a few sacrifices.

G.E. maintained that top executives didn’t know.  Judge Ganey thought otherwise.  But Brooks realized it couldn’t be determined:

…For, as the testimony shows, the clear waters of moral responsibility at G.E. became hopelessly muddied by a struggle to communicate – a struggle so confused that in some cases, it would appear, if one of the big bosses at G.E. had ordered a subordinate to break the law, the message would somehow have been garbled in its reception, and if the subordinate had informed the boss that he was holding conspiratorial meetings with competitors, the boss might well have been under the impression that the subordinate was gossiping idly about lawn parties or pinochle lessons.

G.E., for at least eight years, has had a rule, Directive Policy 20.5, which explicitly forbids price-fixing, bid-rigging, and similar anticompetitive practices.  The company regularly reissued 20.5 to new executives and asked them to sign their names to it.

The problem was that many, including those who signed, didn’t take 20.5 seriously.  They thought it was just a legal device.  They believed that meeting illegally with competitors was the accepted and standard practice.  They concluded that if a superior told them to comply with 20.5, he was actually ordering him to violate it.  Brooks:

Illogical as it might seem, this last assumption becomes comprehensible in light of the fact that, for a time, when some executives orally conveyed, or reconveyed, the order, they were apparently in the habit of accompanying it with an unmistakable wink.

Brooks gives an example of just such a meeting of sales managers in May 1948.  Robert Paxton, an upper-level G.E. executive who later became the company’s president, addressed the group and gave the usual warnings about antitrust violations.  William S. Ginn, a salesman under Paxton, interjected, “We didn’t see you wink.”  Paxton replied, “There was no wink.  We mean it, and these are the orders.”

Senator Kefauver asked Paxton how long he had known about such winks.  Paxton said that in 1935, he saw his boss do it following an order.  Paxton recounts that he became incensed.  Since then, he had earned a reputation as an antiwink man.

In any case, Paxton’s seemingly unambiguous order in 1948 failed to get through to Ginn, who promptly began pricing-fixing with competitors.  When asked about it thirteen years later, Ginn – having recently gotten out of jail and having lost his $135,000 a year job at G.E. – said he had gotten a contrary order from two other superiors, Henry V. B. Erben and Francis Fairman.  Brooks:

Erben and Fairman, Ginn said, had been more articulate, persuasive, and forceful in issuing their order than Paxton had been in issuing his;  Fairman, especially, Ginn stressed, had proved to be ‘a great communicator, a great philosopher, and, frankly, a great believer in stability of prices.’  Both Erben and Fairman had dismissed Paxton as naive, Ginn testified, and, in further summary of how he had been led astray, he said that ‘the people who were advocating the Devil were able to sell me better than the philosophers that were selling me the Lord.’

Unfortunately, Erben and Fairman had passed away before the hearing.  So we don’t have their testimonies.  Ginn consistently described Paxton as a philosopher-salesman on the side of the Lord.

In November, 1954, Ginn was made general manager of the transformer division.  Ralph J. Cordiner, chairman of the board at G.E. since 1949, called Ginn down to New York to order him to comply strictly with Directive 20.5.  Brooks:

Cordiner communicated this idea so successfully that it was clear enough to Ginn at the moment, but it remained so only as long as it took him, after leaving the chairman, to walk to Erben’s office.

Erben, Ginn’s direct superior, countermanded Cordiner’s order.

Erben’s extraordinary communicative prowess carried the day, and Ginn continued to meet with competitors.

At the end of 1954, Paxton took over Erben’s job and was thus Ginn’s direct superior.  Ginn kept meeting with competitors, but he didn’t tell Paxton about it, knowing his opposition to the practice.

In January 1957, Ginn became general manager of G.E.’s turbine-generator division.  Cordiner called him down again to instruct him to follow 20.5.  This time, however, Ginn got the message.  Why?  “Because my air cover was gone,” Ginn explained to the Subcommittee.  Brooks:

If Erben, who had not been Ginn’s boss since late in 1954, had been the source of his air cover, Ginn must have been without its protection for over two years, but, presumably, in the excitement of the price war he had failed to notice its absence.

In any case, Ginn apparently had reformed.  Ginn circulated copies of 20.5 among all his division managers.  He then instructed them not to even socialize with competitors.

It appears that Ginn had not been able to impart much of his shining new philosophy to others, and that at the root of his difficulty lay that old jinx, the problem of communicating.

Brooks quotes Ginn:

‘I have got to admit that I made a communication error.  I didn’t sell this thing to the boys well enough… The price is so important in the complete running of a business that, philosophically, we have got to sell people not only just the fact that it is against the law, but… that it shouldn’t be done for many, many reasons.  But it has got to be a philosophical approach and a communication approach…’

Frank E. Stehlik was general manager of the low-voltage-switchgear department from May, 1956 to February, 1960.  Stehlik not only heard 20.5 directly from his superiors in oral and written communications.  But, in addition, Stehlik was open to a more visceral type of communication he called “impacts.”  Brooks explains:

Apparently, when something happened within the company that made an impression on him, he would consult an internal sort of metaphysical voltmeter to ascertain the force of the jolt he had received, and, from the reading he got, would attempt to gauge the true drift of company policy.

In 1956, 1957, and for most of 1958, Stehlik believed that company policy clearly required compliance with 20.5.  But in the fall of 1958, Stehlik’s immediate superior, George E. Burens, told him that Paxton had told him (Burens) to have lunch with a competitor.  Paxton later testified that he categorically told Burens not to discuss prices.  But Stehlik got a different impression.

In Stehlik’s mind, this fact made an “impact.”  He felt that company policy was now in favor of disobeying 20.5.  So, late in 1958, when Burens told him to begin having price meetings with a competitor, he was not at all surprised.  Stehlik complied.

Brooks next describes the communication problem from the point of view of superiors.  Raymond W. Smith was general manager of G.E.’s transformer division, while Arthur F. Vinson was vice-president in charge G.E.’s apparatus group.  Vinson ended up becoming Smith’s immediate boss.

Smith testified that Cordiner gave him the usual order on 20.5.  But late in 1957, price competition for transformers was so intense that Smith decided on his own to start meeting with competitors to see if prices could be stabilized.  Smith thought company policy and industry practice both supported his actions.

When Vinson became Smith’s boss, Smith felt he should let him know what he was doing.  So on several occasions, Smith told Vinson, “I had a meeting with the clan this morning.”

Vinson, in his testimony, said he didn’t even recall Smith use the phrase, “meeting of the clan.”  Vinson only recalled that Smith would say things like, “Well, I am going to take this new plan on transformers and show it to the boys.”  Vinson testified that he thought Smith meant the G.E. district salespeople and the company’s customers.  Vinson claimed to be shocked when he learned that Smith was referring to price-fixing meetings with competitors.

But Smith was sure that his communication had gotten through to Vinson.  “I never got the impression that he misunderstood me,” Smith testified.

Senator Kefauver asked Vinson if he was so naive as to not know to whom “the boys” referred.  Vinson replied, “I don’t think it is too naive.   We have a lot of boys… I may be naive, but I am certainly telling the truth, and in this kind of thing I am sure I am naive.”

Kefauver pressed Vinson, asking how he could have become vice-president at $200,000 a year if he were naive.  Vinson:  “I think I could well get there by being naive in this area.  It might help.”

Brooks asks:

Was Vinson really saying to Kefauver what he seemed to be saying – that naivete about antitrust violations might be a help to a man in getting and holding a $200,000-a-year job at General Electric?  It seems unlikely.  And yet what else could he have meant?

Vinson was also implicated in another part of the case.  Four switchgear executives – Burens, Stehlik, Clarence E. Burke, and H. Frank Hentschel – testified before the grand jury (and later before the Subcommittee) that in mid-1958, Vinson had lunch with them in Dining Room B of G.E.’s switchgear works in Philadelphia, and that Vinson told them to hold price meetings with competitors.

This led the four switchgear executives to hold a series of meetings with competitors.  But Vinson told prosecutors that the lunch never took place and that he had had no knowledge at all of the conspiracy until the case broke.  Regarding the lunch, Burens, Stehlik, Burke, and Hentschel all had lie-detector tests, given by the F.B.I., and passed them.

Brooks writes:

Vinson refused to take a lie-detector test, at first explaining that he was acting on advice of counsel and against his personal inclination, and later, after hearing how the four other men had fared, arguing that if the machine had not pronounced them liars, it couldn’t be any good.

It was shown that there were only eight days in mid-1958 when Burens, Stehlik, Burke, and Hentschel all had been together at the Philadelphia plant and could have had lunch together.  Vinson produced expense accounts showing that he had been elsewhere on each of those eight days.  So the Justice Department dropped the case against Vinson.

The upper level of G.E. “came through unscathed.”  Chairman Cordiner and President Paxton did seem to be clearly against price-fixing, and unaware of all the price-fixing that had been occurring.  Paxton, during his testimony, said that he learned from his boss, Gerard Swope, that the ultimate goal of business was to produce more goods for people at lower cost.  Paxton claimed to be deeply impacted by this philosophy, explaining why he was always strongly against price-fixing.

Brooks concludes:

Philosophy seems to have reached a high point at G.E., and communication a low one.  If executives could just learn to understand one another, most of the witnesses said or implied, the problem of antitrust violations would be solved.  But perhaps the problem is cultural as well as technical, and has something to do with a loss of personal identity that comes with working in a huge organization.  The cartoonist Jules Feiffer, contemplating the communication problem in a nonindustrial context, has said, ‘Actually, the breakdown is between the person and himself.  If you’re not able to communicate successfully between yourself and yourself, how are you supposed to make it with the strangers outside?’  Suppose, purely as a hypothesis, that the owner of a company who orders his subordinates to obey the antitrust laws has such poor communication with himself that he does not really know whether he wants the order to be complied with or not.  If his order is disobeyed, the resulting price-fixing may benefit his company’s coffers;  if it is obeyed, then he has done the right thing.  In the first instance, he is not personally implicated in any wrongdoing, while in the second he is positively involved in right doing.  What, after all, can he lose?  It is perhaps reasonable to suppose that such an executive will communicate his uncertainty more forcefully than his order.

 

THE LAST GREAT CORNER

Piggly Wiggly Stores – a chain of retail self-service markets mostly in the South and West, and headquartered in Memphis – was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in June, 1922.  Clarence Saunders was the head of Piggly Wiggly.  Brooks describes Saunders:

…a plump, neat, handsome man of forty-one who was already something of a legend in his home town, chiefly because of a house he was putting up there for himself.  Called the Pink Palace, it was an enormous structure faced with pink Georgia marble and built around an awe-inspiring white-marble Roman atrium, and, according to Saunders, it would stand for a thousand years.  Unfinished though it was, the Pink Palace was like nothing Memphis had ever seen before.  Its grounds were to include a private golf course, since Saunders liked to do his golfing in seclusion.

Brooks continues:

The game of Corner – for in its heyday it was a game, a high-stakes gambling game, pure and simple, embodying a good many of the characteristics of poker – was one phase of the endless Wall Street contest between bulls, who want the price of a stock to go up, and bears, who want it to go down.  When a game of Corner was underway, the bulls’ basic method of operation was, of course, to buy stock, and the bears’ was to sell it.

Since most bears didn’t own the stock, they would have to conduct a short sale.  This means they borrow stock from a broker and sell it.  But they must buy the stock back later in order to return it to the broker.  If they buy the stock back at a lower price, then the difference between where they initially sold the stock short, and where they later buy it back, represents their profit.  If, however, they buy the stock back at a higher price, then they suffer a loss.

There are two related risks that the short seller (the bear) faces.  First, the short seller initially borrows the stock from the broker in order to sell it.  If the broker is forced to demand the stock back from the short seller – either because the “floating supply” needs to be replenished, or because the short seller has insufficient equity (due to the stock price moving to high) – then the short seller can be forced to take a loss.  Second, technically there is no limit to how much the short seller can lose because there is no limit to how high a stock can go.

The danger of potentially unlimited losses for a short seller can be exacerbated in a Corner.  That’s because the bulls in a Corner can buy up so much of the stock that there is very little supply of it left.  As the stock price skyrockets and the supply of stock shrinks, the short seller can be forced to buy the stock back – most likely from the bulls – at an extremely high price.  This is precisely what the bulls are trying to accomplish in a Corner.

On the other hand, if the bulls end up owning most of the publicly available stock, and if the bears can ride out the Corner, then to whom can the bulls sell their stock?  If there are virtually no buyers, then the bulls have no chance of selling most of their holding.  In this case, the bulls can get stuck with a mountain of stock they can’t sell.  The achievable value of this mountain can even approach zero in some extreme cases.

Brooks explains that true Corners could not happen after the new securities legislation in the 1930’s.  Thus, Saunders was the last intentional player of the game.

Saunders was born to a poor family in Amherst County, Virginia, in 1881.  He started out working for practically nothing for a local grocer.  He then worked for a wholesale grocer in Clarksville, Tennessee, and then for another one in Memphis.  Next, he organized a retail food chain, which he sold.  Then he was a wholesale grocer before launching the retail self-service food chain he named Piggly Wiggly Stores.

By the fall of 1922, there were over 1,200 Piggly Wiggly Stores.  650 of these were owned outright by Saunders’ Piggly Wiggly Stores, Inc.  The rest were owned independently, but still paid royalties to the parent company.  For the first time, customers were allowed to go down any aisle and pick out whatever they wanted to buy.  Then they paid on their way out of the store.  Saunders didn’t know it, but he had invented the supermarket.

In November, 1922, several small companies operating Piggly Wiggly Stores in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut went bankrupt.  These were independently owned, having nothing to do with Piggly Wiggly Stores, Inc.  Nonetheless, several stock-market operators saw what they believed was a golden opportunity for a bear raid.  Brooks:

If individual Piggly Wiggly stores were failing, they reasoned, then rumors could be spread that would lead the uninformed public to believe that the parent firm was failing, too.  To further this belief, they began briskly selling Piggly Wiggly short, in order to force the price down.  The stock yielded readily to their pressure, and within a few weeks its price, which earlier in the year had hovered around fifty dollars a share, dropped to below forty.

Saunders promptly announced to the press that he was going to “beat the Wall Street professionals at their own game” through a buying campaign.  At that point, Saunders had no experience at all with owning stock, Piggly Wiggly being the only stock he had ever owned.  Moreover, there is no reason to think Saunders was going for a Corner at this juncture.  He merely wanted to support his stock on behalf of himself and other stockholders.

Saunders borrowed $10 million dollars – about $140 million in 2019 dollars – from bankers in Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Chattanooga, and St. Louis.  Brooks:

Legend has it that he stuffed his ten million-plus, in bills of large denomination, into a suitcase, boarded a train for New York, and, his pockets bulging with currency that wouldn’t fit in the suitcase, marched on Wall Street, ready to do battle.

Saunders later denied this, saying he conducted his campaign from Memphis.  Brooks continues:

Wherever he was at the time, he did round up a corp of some twenty brokers, among them Jesse L. Livermore, who served as his chief of staff.  Livermore, one of the most celebrated American speculators of this century, was then forty-five years old but was still occasionally, and derisively, referred to by the nickname he had earned a couple of decades earlier – the Boy Plunger of Wall Street.  Since Saunders regarded Wall Streeters in general and speculators in particular as parasitic scoundrels intent only on battering down his stock, it seemed likely that his decision to make an ally of Livermore was a reluctant one, arrived at simply with the idea of getting the enemy chieftain into his own camp.

Within a week, Saunders had bought 105,000 shares – more than half of the 200,000 shares outstanding.  By January 1923, the stock hit $60 a share, its highest level ever.  Reports came from Chicago that the stock was cornered.  The bears couldn’t find any available supply in order to cover their short positions by buying the stock back.  The New York Stock Exchange immediately denied the rumor, saying ample amounts of Piggly Wiggly stock were still available.

Saunders then made a surprising but exceedingly crafty move.  The stock was pushing $70, but Saunders ran advertisements offering to sell it for $55.  Brooks explains:

One of the great hazards in Corner was always that even though a player might defeat his opponents, he would discover that he had won a Pyrrhic victory.  Once the short sellers had been squeezed dry, that is, the cornerer might find that the reams of stock he had accumulated in the process were a dead weight around his neck;  by pushing it all back into the market in one shove, he would drive its price down close to zero.  And if, like Saunders, he had had to borrow heavily to get into the game in the first place, his creditors could be expected to close in on him and perhaps not only divest him of his gains but drive him into bankruptcy.  Saunders apparently anticipated this hazard almost as soon as a corner was in sight, and accordingly made plans to unload some of his stock before winning instead of afterward.  His problem was to keep the stock he sold from going right back into the floating supply, thus breaking his corner;  and his solution was to sell his fifty-five-dollar shares on the installment plan.

Crucially, the buyers on the installment plan wouldn’t receive the certificates of ownership until they had paid their final installment.  This meant they couldn’t sell their shares back into the floating supply until they had finished making all their installment payments.

By Monday, March 19, Saunders owned nearly all of the 200,000 shares of Piggly Wiggly stock.  Livermore had already bowed out of the affair on March 12 because he was concerned about Saunders’ financial position.  Nonetheless, Saunders asked Livermore to spring the bear trap.  Livermore wouldn’t do it.  So Saunders himself had to do it.

On Tuesday, March 20, Saunders called for delivery all of his Piggly Wiggly stock.  By the rules of the Exchange, stock so called for had to be delivered by 2:15 the following afternoon.  There were a few shares around owned in small amounts by private investors.  Short sellers were frantically trying to find these folks.  But on the whole, there were basically no shares available outside of what Saunders himself owned.

This meant that Piggly Wiggly shares had become very illiquid – there were hardly any shares trading.  A nightmare, it seemed, for short sellers.  Some short sellers bought at $90, some at $100, some at $110.  Eventually the stock reached $124.  But then a rumor reached the floor that the governors of the Exchange were considering a suspension of trading in Piggly Wiggly, as well as an extension of the deadline for short sellers.  Piggly Wiggly stock fell to $82.

The Governing Committee of the Exchange did, in fact, made such an announcement.  They claimed that they didn’t want to see a repeat of the Northern Pacific panic.  However, many wondered whether the Exchange was just helping the short sellers, among whom were some members of the Exchange.

Saunders still hadn’t grasped the fundamental problem he now faced.  He still seemed to have several million in profits.  But only if he could actually sell his shares.

Next, the Stock Exchange announced a permanent suspension of trading in Piggly Wiggly stock and a full five day extension for short sellers to return their borrowed shares.  Short sellers had until 2:15 the following Monday.

Meanwhile, Piggly Wiggly Stores, Inc., released its annual financial statement, which revealed that sales, profits, and assets had all sharply increased from the previous year.  But everyone ignored the real value of the company.  All that mattered at this point was the game.

The extension allowed short sellers the time to find shareholders in a variety of locations around the country.  These shareholders were of course happy to dig out their stock certificates and sell them for $100 a share.  In this way, the short sellers were able to completely cover their short positions by Friday evening.  And instead of paying Saunders cash for some of his shares, the short sellers gave him more shares to settle their debt, which is the last thing Saunders wanted just then.  (A few short sellers had to pay Saunders directly.)

The upshot was that all the short sellers were in the clear, whereas Saunders was stuck owning nearly every single share of Piggly Wiggly stock.  Saunders, who had already started complaining loudly, repeated his charge that Wall Street had changed its own rule in order to let “a bunch of welchers” off the hook.

In response, the Stock Exchange issued a statement explaining its actions:

‘The enforcement simultaneously of all contracts for the return of stock would have forced the stock to any price that might be fixed by Mr. Saunders, and competitive bidding for the insufficient supply might have brought about conditions illustrated by other corners, notably the Northern Pacific corner in 1901.’

Furthermore, the Stock Exchange pointed out that its own rules allowed it to suspend trading in a stock, as well as to extend the deadline for the return of borrowed shares.

It is true that the Exchange had the right to suspend trading in a stock.  But it is unclear, to say the least, about whether the Exchange had any right to postpone the deadline for the delivery of borrowed shares.  In fact, two years after Saunders’ corner, in June, 1925, the Exchange felt bound to amend its constitution with an article stating that “whenever in the opinion of the Governing Committee a corner has been created in a security listed on the Exchange… the Governing Committee may postpone the time for deliveries on Exchange contracts therein.”

 

A SECOND SORT OF LIFE

According to Brooks, other than FDR himself, perhaps no one typified the New Deal better than David Eli Lilienthal.  On a personal level, Wall Streeters found Lilienthal a reasonable fellow.  But through his association with Tennessee Valley Authority from 1933 to 1946, Lilienthal “wore horns.”  T.V.A. was a government-owned electric-power concern that was far larger than any private power corporation.  As such, T.V.A. was widely viewed on Wall Street as the embodiment of “galloping Socialism.”

In 1946, Lilienthal became the first chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, which he held until February, 1950.

Brooks was curious what Lilienthal had been up to since 1950, so he did some investigating.  He found that Lilienthal was co-founder and chairman of Development & Resources Corporation.  D. & R. helps governments set up programs similar to the T.V.A.  Brooks also found that as of June, 1960, Lilienthal was a director and major shareholder of Minerals & Chemicals Corporation of America.

Lastly, Brooks discovered Lilienthal had published his third book in 1953, “Big Business: A New Era.”  In the book, he argues that:

  • the productive superiority of the United States depends on big business;
  • we have adequate safeguards against abuses by big business;
  • big businesses tend to promote small businesses, not destroy them;
  • and big business promotes individualism, rather than harms it, by reducing poverty, disease, and physical insecurity.

Lilienthal later agreed with his family that he hadn’t spent enough time on the book, although its main points were correct.  Also, he stressed that he had conceived of the book before he ever decided to transition from government to business.

In 1957, Lilienthal and his wife Helen Lamb Lilienthal had settled in a house in Princeton.  It was a few years later, at this house, that Brooks went to interview Lilienthal.  Brooks was curious to hear about how Lilienthal thought about his civic career as compared to his business career.

Lilienthal had started out as a lawyer in Chicago and he done quite well.  But he didn’t want to practice the law.  Then – in 1950 – his public career over, he was offered various professorship positions at Harvard.  He didn’t want to be a professor.  Then various law firms and businesses approached Lilienthal.  He still had no interest in practicing law.  He also rejected the business offers he received.

In May, 1950, Lilienthal took a job as a part-time consultant for Lazard Freres & Co., whose senior partner, Andre Meyer, he had met through Albert Lasker, a mutual friend.  Through Lazard Freres and Meyer, Lilienthal became a consultant and then an executive of a small company, the Minerals Separation North American Corporation.  Lazard Freres had a large interest in the concern.

The company was in trouble, and Meyer thought Lilienthal was the man to solve the case.  Through a series of mergers, acquisitions, etc., the firm went through several name changes ending, in 1960, with the name, Minerals & Chemicals Philipp Corporation.  Meanwhile, annual sales for the company went from $750,000 in 1952 to more than $274,000,000 in 1960.  (In 2019 dollars, this would be a move from $6,750,000 to $2,466,000,000.)  Brooks writes:

For Lilienthal, the acceptance of Meyer’s commission to look into the company’s affairs was the beginning of a four-year immersion in the day-to-day problems of managing a business;  the experience, he said decisively, turned out to be one of his life’s richest, and by no means only in the literal sense of that word.

Minerals Separation North American, founded in 1916 as an offshoot from a British company, was a patent firm.  It held patents on processes used to refine copper ore and other nonferrous minerals.  In 1952, Lilienthal became the president of the company.  In order to gain another source of revenue, Lilienthal arranged a merger between Minerals Separation and Attapulgus Clay Company, a producer of a rare clay used in purifying petroleum products and also a manufacturer of various household products.

The merger took place in December, 1952, thanks in part to Lilienthal’s work to gain agreement from the Attapulgus people.  The profits and stock price of the new company went up from there.  Lilienthal managed some of the day-to-day business.  And he helped with new mergers.  One in 1954, with Edgar Brothers, a leading producer of kaolin for paper coating.  Two more in 1955, with limestone firms in Ohio and Virginia.  Brooks notes that the company’s net profits quintupled between 1952 and 1955.

Lilienthal received stock options along the way.  Because the stock went up a great deal, he exercised his options and by August, 1955, Lilienthal had 40,000 shares.  Soon the stock hit $40 and was paying a $0.50 annual dividend.  Lilienthal’s financial worries were over.

Brooks asked Lilienthal how all of this felt.  Lilienthal:

‘I wanted an entrepreneurial experience.  I found a great appeal in the idea of taking a small and quite crippled company and trying to make something of it.  Building.  That kind of building, I thought, is the central thing in American free enterprise, and something I’d missed in all my government work.  I wanted to try my hand at it.  Now, about how it felt.  Well, it felt plenty exciting.  It was full of intellectual stimulation, and a lot of my old ideas changed.  I conceived a great new respect for financiers – men like Andre Meyer.  There’s a correctness about them, a certain high sense of honor, that I’d never had any conception of.  I found that business life is full of creative, original minds – along with the usual number of second-guessers, of course.  Furthermore, I found it seductive.  In fact, I was in danger of becoming a slave… I found that the things you read – for instance, that acquiring money for its own sake can become an addiction if you’re not careful – are literally true.  Certain good friends helped keep me on track… Oh, I had my problems.  I questioned myself at every step.  It was exhausting.’

A friend of Lilienthal’s told Brooks that Lilienthal had a marvelous ability to immerse himself totally in the work.  The work may not always be important.  But Lilienthal becomes so immersed, it’s as if the work becomes important simply because he’s doing it.

On the matter of money, Lilienthal said it doesn’t make much difference as long as you have enough.  Money was something he never really thought about.

Next Brooks describes Lilienthal’s experience at Development & Resources Corporation.  The situation became ideal for Lilienthal because it combined helping the world directly with the possibility of also earning a profit.

In the spring of 1955, Lilienthal and Meyer had several conversations.  Lilienthal told Meyer that he knew dozens of foreign dignitaries and technical personnel who had visited T.V.A. and shown strong interest.  Many of them told Lilienthal that at least some of their own countries would be interested in starting similar programs.

The idea for D. & R. was to accomplish very specific projects and, incidentally, to make a profit.  Meyer liked the idea – although he expected no profit – so they went forward, with Lazard Freres owning half the firm.  The executive appointments for D.& R. included important alumni from T.V.A., people with deep experience and knowledge in management, engineering, dams, electric power, and related areas.

In September, 1955, Lilienthal was at a World Bank meeting in Istanbul and he ended up speaking with Abolhassan Ebtehaj, head of a 7-year development plan in Iran.  Iran had considerable capital with which to pay for development projects, thanks to royalties from its nationalized oil industry.  Moreover, what Iran badly needed was technical and professional guidance.  Lilienthal and a colleague later visited Iran as guests of the Shah to see what could be done about Khuzistan.

Lilienthal didn’t know anything about the region at first.  But he learned that Khuzistan was in the middle of the Old Testament Elamite kingdom and later of the Persian Empire.  The ruins of Persepolis are close by.  The ruins of Susa, where King Darius had a winter palace, are at the center of Khuzistan.  Brooks quotes Lilienthal (in the 1960’s):

Nowadays, Khuzistan is one of the world’s richest oil fields  – the famous Abadan refinery is at its southern tip – but the inhabitants, two and a half million of them, haven’t benefited from that.  The rivers have flowed unused, the fabulously rich soil has lain fallow, and all but a tiny fraction of the people have continued to live in desperate poverty.

D. & R. signed a 5-year agreement with the Iranian government.  Once the project got going, there were 700 people working on it – 100 Americans, 300 Iranians, and 300 others (mostly Europeans).  In addition, 4,700 Iranian-laborers were on the various sites.  The entire project called for 14 dams on 5 different rivers.  After D. & R. completed its first 5-year contract, they signed a year-and-a-half extension including an option for an additional 5 years.

Brooks records:

While the Iranian project was proceeding, D. & R. was also busy lining up and carrying out its programs for Italy, Colombia, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and Puerto Rico, as well as programs for private business groups in Chile and the Philippines.  A job that D. & R. had just taken on from the United States Army Corps of Engineers excited Lilienthal enormously – an investigation of the economic impact of power from a proposed dam on the Alaskan sector of the Yukon, which he described as ‘the river with the greatest hydroelectric potential remaining on this continent.’  Meanwhile, Lazard Freres maintained its financial interest in the firm and now very happily collected its share of a substantial annual profit, and Lilienthal happily took to teasing Meyer about his former skepticism as to D. & R. financial prospects.

Lilienthal wrote in his journal about the extreme poverty in Ahwaz, Khuzistan:

…visiting villages and going into mud ‘homes’ quite unbelievable – and unforgettable forever and ever.  As the Biblical oath has it:  Let my right hand wither if I ever forget how some of the most attractive of my fellow human beings live – are living tonight, only a few kilometres from here, where we visited them this afternoon…

And yet I am as sure as I am writing these notes that the Ghebli area, of only 45,000 acres, swallowed in the vastness of Khuzistan, will become as well known as, say, the community of Tupelo… became, or New Harmony or Salt Lake City when it was founded by a handful of dedicated men in a pass of the great Rockies.

 

STOCKHOLDER SEASON

The owners of public businesses in the United States are the stockholders.  But many stockholders don’t pay much attention to company affairs when things are going well.  Also, many stockholders own small numbers of shares, making it not seem worthwhile to exercise their rights as owners of the corporations.  Furthermore, many stockholders don’t understand or follow business, notes Brooks.

Brooks decided to attend several annual meetings in the spring of 1966.

What particularly commended the 1966 season to me was that it promised to be a particularly lively one.  Various reports of a new “hard-line approach” by company managements to stockholders had appeared in the press.  (I was charmed by the notion of a candidate for office announcing his new hard-line approach to voters right before an election.)

Brooks first attended the A. T. & T. annual meeting in Detroit.  Chairman Kappel came on stage, followed by eighteen directors who sat behind him, and he called the meeting to order.  Brooks:

From my reading and from annual meetings that I’d attended in past years, I knew that the meetings of the biggest companies are usually marked by the presence of so-called professional stockholders… and that the most celebrated members of this breed were Mrs. Wilma Soss, of New York, who heads an organization of women stockholders and votes the proxies of its members as well as her own shares, and Lewis D. Gilbert, also of New York, who represents his own holdings and those of his family – a considerable total.

Brooks learned that, apart from prepared comments by management, many big-company meetings are actually a dialogue between the chairman and a few professional stockholders.  So professional stockholders can come to represent, in a way, many other shareholders who might otherwise not be represented, whether because they own few shares, don’t follow business, or other reasons.

Brooks notes that occasionally some professional stockholders get boorish, silly, on insulting.  But not Mrs. Soss or Mr. Gilbert:

Mrs. Soss, a former public-relations woman who has been a tireless professional stockholder since 1947, is usually a good many cuts above this level.  True, she is not beyond playing to the gallery by wearing bizarre costumes to meetings;  she tries, with occasional success, to taunt recalcitrant chairmen into throwing her out;  she is often scolding and occasionally abusive;  and nobody could accuse her of being unduly concise.  I confess that her customary tone and manner set my teeth on edge, but I can’t help recognizing that, because she does her homework, she usually has a point.  Mr. Gilbert, who has been at it since 1933 and is the dean of them all, almost invariably has a point, and by comparison with his colleagues he is the soul of brevity and punctilio as well as of dedication and diligence.

At the A. T. & T. meeting, after the management-sponsored slate of directors had been duly nominated, Mrs. Soss got up to make a nomination of her own, Dr. Frances Arkin, a psychoanalyst.  Mrs. Soss said A. T. & T. ought to have a woman on its board and, moreover, she thought some of the company’s executives would have benefited from periodic psychiatric examinations.  (Brooks comments that things were put back into balance at another annual meeting when the chairman suggested that some of the firm’s stockholders should see a psychiatrist.)  The nomination of Dr. Arkin was seconded by Mr. Gilbert, but only after Mrs. Soss nudged him forcefully in the ribs.

A professional stockholder named Evelyn Y. Davis complained about the meeting not being in New York, as it usually is.  Brooks observed that Davis was the youngest and perhaps the best-looking, but “not the best-informed or the most temperate, serious-minded, or worldly-wise.”  Davis’ complaint was met with boos from the largely local crowd in Detroit.

After a couple of hours, Mr. Kappel was getting testy.  Soon thereafter, Mrs. Soss was complaining that while the business affiliations of the nominees for director were listed in the pamphlet handed out at the meeting, this information hadn’t been included in the material mailed to stockholders, contrary to custom.  Mrs. Soss wanted to know why.  Mrs. Soss adopted a scolding tone and Mr. Kappel an icy one, says Brooks.  “I can’t hear you,” Mrs. Soss said at one point.  “Well, if you’d just listen instead of talking…”, Mr. Kappel replied.  Then Mrs. Soss said something (Brooks couldn’t hear it precisely) that successfully baited the chairman, who got upset and had the microphone in front of Mrs. Soss turned off.  Mrs. Soss marched towards the platform and was directly facing Mr. Kappel.  Mr. Kappel said he wasn’t going to throw her out of the meeting as she wanted.  Mrs. Soss later returned to her seat and a measure of calm was restored.

Later, Brooks attended the annual meeting of Chas. Pfizer & Co., which was run by the chairman, John E. McKeen.  After the company announced record highs on all of its operational metrics, and predicted more of the same going forward, “the most intransigent professional stockholder would have been hard put to it to mount much of a rebellion at this particular meeting,” observes Brooks.

John Gilbert, brother of Lewis Gilbert, may have been the only professional stockholder present.  (Lewis Gilbert and Mrs. Davis were at the U.S. Steel meeting in Cleveland that day.)

John Gilbert is the sort of professional stockholder the Pfizer management deserves, or would like to think it does.  With an easygoing manner and a habit of punctuating his words with self-deprecating little laughs, he is the most ingratiating gadly imaginable (or was on this occasion; I’m told he isn’t always), and as he ran through what seemed to be the standard Gilbert-family repertoire of questions – on the reliability of the firms’s auditors, the salaries of its officers, the fees of its directors – he seemed almost apologetic that duty called on him to commit the indelicacy of asking such things.

The annual meeting of Communications Satellite Corporation had elements of farce, recounts Brooks.  (Brooks refers to Comsat as a “glamorous space-age communications company.”)  Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Soss, and Lewis Gilbert were in attendance.  The chairman of Comsat, who ran the meeting, was James McCormack, a West Point graduate, former Rhodes Scholar, and retired Air Force General.

Mrs. Soss made a speech which was inaudible because her microphone wasn’t working.  Next, Mrs. Davis rose to complain that there was a special door to the meeting for “distinguished guests.”  Mrs. Davis viewed this as undemocratic.  Mr. McCormack responded, “We apologize, and when you go out, please go by any door you want.”  But Mrs. Davis went on speaking.  Brooks:

And now the mood of farce was heightened when it became clear that the Soss-Gilbert faction had decided to abandon all efforts to keep ranks closed with Mrs. Davis.  Near the height of her oration, Mr. Gilbert, looking as outraged as a boy whose ball game is being spoiled by a player who doesn’t know the rules or care about the game, got up and began shouting, ‘Point of order!  Point of order!’  But Mr. McCormack spurned this offer of parliamentary help;  he ruled Mr. Gilbert’s point of order out of order, and bade Mrs. Davis proceed.  I had no trouble deducing why he did this.  There were unmistakable signs that he, unlike any other corporate chairman I had seen in action, was enjoying every minute of the goings on.  Through most of the meeting, and especially when the professional stockholders had the floor, Mr. McCormack wore the dreamy smile of a wholly bemused spectator.

Mrs. Davis’ speech increased in volume and content, and she started making specific accusations against individual Comsat directors.  Three security guards appeared on the scene and marched to a location near Mrs. Davis, who then suddenly ended her speech and sat down.

Brooks comments:

Once, when Mr. Gilbert said something that Mrs. Davis didn’t like and Mrs. Davis, without waiting to be recognized, began shouting her objection across the room, Mr. McCormack gave a short irrepressible giggle.  That single falsetto syllable, magnificently amplified by the chairman’s microphone, was the motif of the Comsat meeting.

 

ONE FREE BITE

Brooks writes about Donald W. Wohlgemuth, a scientist for B. F. Goodrich Company in Akron, Ohio.

…he was the manager of Goodrich’s department of space-suit engineering, and over the past years, in the process of working his way up to that position, he had had a considerable part in the designing and construction of the suits worn by our Mercury astronauts on their orbital and suborbital flights.

Some time later, the International Latex Corporation, one of Goodrich’s three main competitors in the space-suit field, contacted Wohlgemuth.

…Latex had recently been awarded a subcontract, amounting to some three-quarters of a million dollars, to do research and development on space suits for the Apollo, or man-on-the-moon, project.  As a matter of fact, Latex had won this contract in competition with Goodrich, among others, and was thus for the moment the hottest company in the space-suit field.

Moreover, Wohlgemuth was not particularly happy at Goodrich for a number of reasons.  His salary was below average.  His request for air-conditioning had been turned down.

Latex was located in Dover, Delaware.  Wohlgemuth went there to meet with company representatives.  He was given a tour of the company’s space-suit-development facilities.  Overall, he was given “a real red-carpet treatment,” as he later desribed.  Eventually he was offered the position of manager of engineering for the Industrial Products Division, which included space-suit development, at an annual salary of $13,700 (over $109,000 in 2019 dollars) – solidly above his current salary.  Wohlgemuth accepted the offer.

The next morning, Wohlgemuth informed his boss at Goodrich, Carl Effler, who was not happy.  The morning after that, Wohlgemuth told Wayne Galloway – with whom he had worked closely – of his decision.

Galloway replied that in making the move Wohlgemuth would be taking to Latex certain things that did not belong to him – specifically, knowledge of the processes that Goodrich used in making space suits.

Galloway got upset with Wohlgemuth.  Later Effler called Wohlgemuth to his office and told him he should leave the Goodrich offices as soon as possible.  Then Galloway called him and told him the legal department wanted to see him.

While he was not bound to Goodrich by the kind of contract, common in American industry, in which an employee agrees not to do similar work for any competing company for a stated period of time, he had, on his return from the Army, signed a routine paper agreeing ‘to keep confidential all information, records, and documents of the company of which I may have knowledge because of my employment’ – something Wohlgemuth had entirely forgotten until the Goodrich lawyer reminded him.  Even if he had not made that agreement, the lawyer told him now, he would be prevented from going to work on space suits for Latex by established principles of trade-secrets law.  Moreover, if he persisted in his plan, Goodrich might sue him.

To make matters worse, Effler told Wohlgemuth that if he stayed at Goodrich, this incident could not be forgotten and might well impact his future.  Wohlgemuth then informed Latex that he would be unable to accept their offer.

That evening, Wohlgemuth’s dentist put him in touch with a lawyer.  Wohlgemuth talked with the lawyer, who consulted another lawyer.  They told Wohlgemuth that Goodrich was probably bluffing and wouldn’t sue him if he went to work for Latex.

The next morning – Thursday – officials of Latex called him back to assure him that their firm would bear his legal expenses in the event of a lawsuit, and, furthermore, would indemnify him against any salary losses.

Wohlgemuth decided to work for Latex, after all, and left the offices of Goodrich late that day, taking with him no documents.

The next day, R. G. Jeter, general counsel of Goodrich, called Emerson P. Barrett, director of industrial relations for Latex.  Jeter outlined Goodrich’s concern for its trade secrets.  Barrett replied that Latex was not interested in Goodrich trade secrets, but was only interested in Wohlgemuth’s “general professional abilities.”

That evening, at a farewell dinner given by forty or so friends, Wohlgemuth was called outside.  The deputy sheriff of Summit County handed him two papers.

One was a summons to appear in the Court of Common Pleas on a date a week or so off.  The other was a copy of a petition that had been filed in the same court that day by Goodrich, praying that Wohlgemuth be permanently enjoined from, among other things, disclosing to any unauthorized person any trade secrets belonging to Goodrich, and ‘performing any work for any corporation… other than plaintiff, relating to the design, manufacture and/or sale of high-altitude pressure suits, space suits and/or similar protective garments.’

For a variety of reasons, says Brooks, the trial attracted much attention.

On one side was the danger that discoveries made in the course of corporate research might become unprotectable – a situation that would eventually lead to the drying up of private research funds.  On the other side was the danger that thousands of scientists might, through their very ability and ingenuity, find themselves permanently locked in a deplorable, and possibly unconstitutional, kind of intellectual servitude – they would be barred from changing jobs because they knew too much.

Judge Frank H. Harvey presided over the trial, which took place in Akron from November 26 to December 12.  The seriousness with which Goodrich took this case is illustrated by the fact that Jeter himself, who hadn’t tried a case in 10 years, headed Goodrich’s legal team.  The chief defense counsel was Richard A. Chenoweth, of Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs – an Akron law firm retained by Latex.

From the outset, the two sides recognized that if Goodrich was to prevail, it had to prove, first, that it possessed trade secrets;  second, that Wohlgemuth also possessed them, and that a substantial peril of disclosure existed;  and, third, that it would suffer irreparable injury if injunctive relief was not granted.

Goodrich attorneys tried to establish that Goodrich had a good number of space-suit secrets.  Wohlgemuth, upon cross-examination from his counsel, sought to show that none of these processes were secrets at all.  Both companies brought their space suits into the courtroom.  Goodrich wanted to show what it had achieved through research.  The Latex space suit was meant to show that Latex was already far ahead of Goodrich in space-suit development, and so wouldn’t have any interest in Goodrich secrets.

On the second point, that Wohlgemuth possessed Goodrich secrets, there wasn’t much debate.  But Wohlgemuth’s lawyers did argue that he had taken no papers with him and that he was unlikely to remember the details of complex scientific processes, even if he wanted to.

On the third point, seeking injunctive relief to prevent irreparable injury, Jeter argued that Goodrich was the clear pioneer in space suits.  It made the first full-pressure flying suit in 1934.  Since then, it has invested huge amounts in space suit research and development.  Jeter characterized Latex as a newcomer intent on profiting from Goodrich’s years of research by hiring Wohlgemuth.

Furthermore, even if Wohlgemuth and Latex had the best of intentions, Wohlgemuth would inevitably give away trade secrets.  But good intentions hadn’t been demonstrated, since Latex deliberately sought Wohlgemuth, who in turn justified his decision in part on the increase in salary.  The defense disagreed that trade secrets would be revealed or that anyone had bad intentions.  The defense also got a statement in court from Wohlgemuth in which he pledged not to reveal any trade secrets of B. F. Goodrich Company.

Judge Harvey reserved the decision for a later date.  Meanwhile, the lawyers for each side fought one another in briefs intended to sway Judge Harvey.  Brooks:

…it became increasingly clear that the essence of the case was quite simple.  For all practical purposes, there was no controversy over facts.  What remained in controversy was the answer to two questions:  First, should a man be formally restrained from revealing trade secrets when he has not yet committed any such act, and when it is not clear that he intends to?  And, secondly, should a man be prevented from taking a job simply because the job presents him with unique temptations to break the law?

The defense referred to “Trade Secrets,” written by Ridsdale Ellis and published in 1953, which stated that usually it is not until there is evidence that the employee has not lived up to the contract, written or implied, that the former employer can take action.  “Every dog has one free bite.”

On February 20, 1963, Judge Harvey delivered his decision in a 9-page essay.  Goodrich did have trade secrets.  And Wohlgemuth could give these secrets to Latex.  Furthermore, there’s no doubt Latex was seeking to get Wohlgemuth for his specialized knowledge in space suits, which would be valuable for the Apollo contract.  There’s no doubt, wrote the judge, that Wohlgemuth would be able to disclose confidential information.

However, the judge said, in keeping with the one-free-bite principle, an injunction against disclosure of trade secrets cannot be issued before such disclosure has occurred unless there is clear and substantial evidence of evil intent on the part of the defendant.  In the view of the court, Wohlgemuth did not have evil intent in this case, therefore the injunction was denied.

On appeal, Judge Arthur W. Doyle partially reversed the decision.  Judge Doyle granted an injunction against Wohlgemuth from disclosing to Latex any trade secrets of Goodrich.  On the other hand, Wohlgemuth had the right to take a job in a competitive industry, and he could use his knowledge and experience – other than trade secrets – for the benefit of his employer.  Wohlgemuth was therefore free to work on space suits for Latex, provided he didn’t reveal any trade secrets of Goodrich.

 

BOOLE MICROCAP FUND

An equal weighted group of micro caps generally far outperforms an equal weighted (or cap-weighted) group of larger stocks over time.  See the historical chart here:  http://boolefund.com/best-performers-microcap-stocks/

This outperformance increases significantly by focusing on cheap micro caps.  Performance can be further boosted by isolating cheap microcap companies that show improving fundamentals.  We rank microcap stocks based on these and similar criteria.

There are roughly 10-20 positions in the portfolio.  The size of each position is determined by its rank.  Typically the largest position is 15-20% (at cost), while the average position is 8-10% (at cost).  Positions are held for 3 to 5 years unless a stock approaches intrinsic value sooner or an error has been discovered.

The mission of the Boole Fund is to outperform the S&P 500 Index by at least 5% per year (net of fees) over 5-year periods.  We also aim to outpace the Russell Microcap Index by at least 2% per year (net).  The Boole Fund has low fees.

 

If you are interested in finding out more, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

My e-mail: jb@boolefund.com

 

Disclosures: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. All investments contain risk and may lose value. This material is distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of Boole Capital, LLC.

Common Stocks and Common Sense

October 23, 2022

It’s crucial in investing to have the proper balance of confidence and humility.  Overconfidence is very deep-seated in human nature.  Nearly all of us tend to believe that we’re above average across a variety of dimensions, such as looks, smarts, academic ability, business aptitude, driving skill, and even luck (!).

Overconfidence is often harmless and it even helps in some areas.  But when it comes to investing, if we’re overconfident about what we know and can do, eventually our results will suffer.

(Image by Wilma64)

The simple truth is that the vast majority of us should invest in broad market low-cost index funds.  Buffett has maintained this argument for a long time: http://boolefund.com/warren-buffett-jack-bogle/

The great thing about investing in index funds is that you can outperform most investors, net of costs, over the course of several decades.  This is purely a function of costs.  A Vanguard S&P 500 index fund costs 2-3% less per year than the average actively managed fund.  This means that, after a few decades, you’ll be ahead at least 80% (or more) of all active investors.

You can do better than a broad market index fund if you invest in a solid quantitative value fund.  Such a fund can do at least 1-2% better per year, on average and net of costs, than a broad market index fund.

But you can do even better—at least 8% better per year than the S&P 500 index—by investing in a quantitative value fund focused on microcap stocks.

  • At the Boole Microcap Fund, our mission is to help you do at least 8% better per year, on average, than an S&P 500 index fund.  We achieve this by implementing a quantitative deep value approach focused on cheap micro caps with improving fundamentals.  See: http://boolefund.com/best-performers-microcap-stocks/

 

I recently re-read Common Stocks and Common Sense (Wiley, 2016), by Edgar Wachenheim III.  It’s a wonderful book.  Wachenheim is one of the best value investors.  He and his team at Greenhaven Associates have produced 19% annual returns for over 25 years.

Wachenheim emphasizes that, due to certain behavioral attributes, he has outperformed many other investors who are as smart or smarter.  As Warren Buffett has said:

Success in investing doesn’t correlate with IQ once you’re above the level of 125.  Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.

That’s not to say IQ isn’t important.  Most of the finest investors are extremely smart.  Wachenheim was a Baker Scholar at Harvard Business School, meaning that he was in the top 5% of his class.

The point is that—due to behavioral factors such as patience, discipline, and rationality—top investors outperform many other investors who are as smart or smarter.  Buffett again:

We don’t have to be smarter than the rest; we have to be more disciplined than the rest.

Buffett himself has always been extraordinarily patient and disciplined.  There have been several times in Buffett’s career when he went for years on end without making a single investment.

Wachenheim highlights three behavioral factors that have helped him outperform others of equal or greater talent.

The bulk of Wachenheim’s book—chapters 3 through 13—is case studies of specific investments.  Wachenheim includes a good amount of fascinating business history, some of which is mentioned here.

Outline for this blog post:

  • Approach to Investing
  • Being a Contrarian
  • Probable Scenarios
  • Controlling Emotions
  • IBM
  • Interstate Bakeries
  • U.S. Home Corporation
  • Centex
  • Union Pacific
  • American International Group
  • Lowe’s
  • Whirlpool
  • Boeing
  • Southwest Airlines
  • Goldman Sachs

(Photo by Lsaloni)

 

APPROACH TO INVESTING

From 1960 through 2009 in the United States, common stocks have returned about 9 to 10 percent annually (on average).

The U.S. economy grew at roughly a 6 percent annual rate—3 percent from real growth (unit growth) and 3 percent from inflation (price increases).  Corporate revenues—and earnings—have increased at approximately the same 6 percent annual rate.  Share repurchases and acquisitions have added 1 percent a year, while dividends have averaged 2.5 percent a year.  That’s how, on the whole, U.S. stocks have returned 9 to 10 percent annually, notes Wachenheim.

Even if the economy grows more slowly in the future, Wachenheim argues that U.S. investors should still expect 9 to 10 percent per year.  In the case of slower growth, corporations will not need to reinvest as much of their cash flows.  That extra cash can be used for dividends, acquisitions, and share repurchases.

Following Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, Wachenheim defines risk as the potential for permanent loss.  Risk is not volatility.

Stocks do fluctuate up and down.  But every time the market has declined, it has ultimately recovered and gone on to new highs.  The financial crisis in 2008-2009 is an excellent example of large—but temporary—downward volatility:

The financial crisis during the fall of 2008 and the winter of 2009 is an extreme (and outlier) example of volatility.  During the six months between the end of August 2008 and end of February 2009, the [S&P] 500 Index fell by 42 percent from 1,282.83 to 735.09.  Yet by early 2011 the S&P 500 had recovered to the 1,280 level, and by August 2014 it had appreciated to the 2000 level.  An investor who purchased the S&P 500 Index on August 31, 2008, and then sold the Index six years later, lived through the worst financial crisis and recession since the Great Depression, but still earned a 56 percent profit on his investment before including dividends—and 69 percent including the dividends that he would have received during the six-year period.  Earlier, I mentioned that over a 50-year period, the stock market provided an average annual return of 9 to 10 percent.  During the six-year period August 2008 through August 2014, the stock market provided an average annual return of 11.1 percent—above the range of normalcy in spite of the abnormal horrors and consequences of the financial crisis and resulting deep recession.

(Photo by Terry Mason)

Wachenheim notes that volatility is the friend of the long-term investor.  The more volatility there is, the more opportunity to buy at low prices and sell at high prices.

Because the stock market increases on average 9 to 10 percent per year and always recovers from declines, hedging is a waste of money over the long term:

While many investors believe that they should continually reduce their risks to a possible decline in the stock market, I disagree.  Every time the stock market has declined, it eventually has more than fully recovered.  Hedging the stock market by shorting stocks, or by buying puts on the S&P 500 Index, or any other method usually is expensive, and, in the long run, is a waste of money.

Wachenheim describes his investment strategy as buying deeply undervalued stocks of strong and growing companies that are likely to appreciate significantly due to positive developments not yet discounted by stock prices.

Positive developments can include:

  • a cyclical upturn in an industry
  • an exciting new product or service
  • the sale of a company to another company
  • the replacement of a poor management with a good one
  • a major cost reduction program
  • a substantial share repurchase program

If the positive developments do not occur, Wachenheim still expects the investment to earn a reasonable return, perhaps close to the average market return of 9 to 10 percent annually.  Also, Wachenheim and his associates view undervaluation, growth, and strength as providing a margin of safety—protection against permanent loss.

Wachenheim emphasizes that at Greenhaven, they are value investors not growth investors.  A growth stock investor focuses on the growth rate of a company.  If a company is growing at 15 percent a year and can maintain that rate for many years, then most of the returns for a growth stock investor will come from future growth.  Thus, a growth stock investor can pay a high P/E ratio today if growth persists long enough.

Wachenheim disagrees with growth investing as a strategy:

…I have a problem with growth-stock investing.  Companies tend not to grow at high rates forever.  Businesses change with time.  Markets mature.  Competition can increase.  Good managements can retire and be replaced with poor ones.  Indeed, the market is littered with once highly profitable growth stocks that have become less profitable cyclic stocks as a result of losing their competitive edge.  Kodak is one example.  Xerox is another.  IBM is a third.  And there are hundreds of others.  When growth stocks permanently falter, the price of their shares can fall sharply as their P/E ratios contract and, sometimes, as their earnings fall—and investors in the shares can suffer serious permanent loss.

Many investors claim that they will be able to sell before a growth stock seriously declines.  But very often it’s difficult to determine whether a company is suffering from a temporary or permanent decline.

Wachenheim observes that he’s known many highly intelligent investors—who have similar experiences to him and sensible strategies—but who, nonetheless, haven’t been able to generate results much in excess of the S&P 500 Index.  Wachenheim says that a key point of his book is that there are three behavioral attributes that a successful investor needs:

In particular, I believe that a successful investor must be adept at making contrarian decisions that are counter to the conventional wisdom, must be confident enough to reach conclusions based on probabilistic future developments as opposed to extrapolations of recent trends, and must be able to control his emotions during periods of stress and difficulties.  These three behavioral attributes are so important that they merit further analysis.

 

BEING A CONTRARIAN

(Photo by Marijus Auruskevicius)

Most investors are not contrarians because they nearly always follow the crowd:

Because at any one time the price of a stock is determined by the opinion of the majority of investors, a stock that appears undervalued to us appears appropriately valued to most other investors.  Therefore, by taking the position that the stock is undervalued, we are taking a contrarian position—a position that is unpopular and often is very lonely.  Our experience is that while many investors claim they are contrarians, in practice most find it difficult to buck the conventional wisdom and invest counter to the prevailing opinions and sentiments of other investors, Wall Street analysts, and the media.  Most individuals and most investors simply end up being followers, not leaders.

In fact, I believe that the inability of most individuals to invest counter to prevailing sentiments is habitual and, most likely, a genetic trait.  I cannot prove this scientifically, but I have witnessed many intelligent and experienced investors who shunned undervalued stocks that were under clouds, favored fully valued stocks that were in vogue, and repeated this pattern year after year even though it must have become apparent to them that the pattern led to mediocre results at best.

Wachenheim mentions a fellow investor he knows—Danny.  He notes that Danny has a high IQ, attended an Ivy League university, and has 40 years of experience in the investment business.  Wachenheim often describes to Danny a particular stock that is depressed for reasons that are likely temporary.  Danny will express his agreement, but he never ends up buying before the problem is fixed.

In follow-up conversations, Danny frequently states that he’s waiting for the uncertainty to be resolved.  Value investor Seth Klarman explains why it’s usually better to invest before the uncertainty is resolved:

Most investors strive fruitlessly for certainty and precision, avoiding situations in which information is difficult to obtain.  Yet high uncertainty is frequently accompanied by low prices.  By the time the uncertainty is resolved, prices are likely to have risen.  Investors frequently benefit from making investment decisions with less than perfect knowledge and are well rewarded for bearing the risk of uncertainty.  The time other investors spend delving into the last unanswered detail may cost them the chance to buy in at prices so low that they offer a margin of safety despite the incomplete information.

 

PROBABLE SCENARIOS

(Image by Alain Lacroix)

Many (if not most) investors tend to extrapolate recent trends into the future.  This usually leads to underperforming the market.  See:

The successful investor, by contrast, is a contrarian who can reasonably estimate future scenarios and their probabilities of occurrence:

Investment decisions seldom are clear.  The information an investor receives about the fundamentals of a company usually is incomplete and often is conflicting.  Every company has present or potential problems as well as present or future strengths.  One cannot be sure about the future demand for a company’s products or services, about the success of any new products or services introduced by competitors, about future inflationary cost increases, or about dozens of other relevant variables.  So investment outcomes are uncertain.  However, when making decisions, an investor often can assess the probabilities of certain outcomes occurring and then make his decisions based on the probabilities.  Investing is probabilistic.

Because investing is probabilitistic, mistakes are unavoidable.  A good value investor typically will have at least 33% of his or her ideas not work, whether due to an error, bad luck, or an unforeseeable event.  You have to maintain equanimity despite inevitable mistakes:

If I carefully analyze a security and if my analysis is based on sufficiently large quantities of accurate information, I always will be making a correct decision.  Granted, the outcome of the decision might not be as I had wanted, but I know that decisions always are probabilistic and that subsequent unpredictable changes or events can alter outcomes.  Thus, I do my best to make decisions that make sense given everything I know, and I do not worry about the outcomes.  An analogy might be my putting game in golf.  Before putting, I carefully try to assess the contours and speed of the green.  I take a few practice strokes.  I aim the putter to the desired line.  I then putt and hope for the best.  Sometimes the ball goes in the hole…

 

CONTROLLING EMOTION

(Photo by Jacek Dudzinski)

Wachenheim:

I have observed that when the stock market or an individual stock is weak, there is a tendency for many investors to have an emotional response to the poor performance and to lose perspective and patience.  The loss of perspective and patience often is reinforced by negative reports from Wall Street and from the media, who tend to overemphasize the significance of the cause of the weakness.  We have an expression that aiplanes take off and land every day by the tens of thousands, but the only ones you read about in the newspapers are the ones that crash.  Bad news sells.  To the extent that negative news triggers further selling pressures on stocks and further emotional responses, the negativism tends to feed on itself.  Surrounded by negative news, investors tend to make irrational and expensive decisions that are based more on emotions than on fundamentals. This leads to the frequent sale of stocks when the news is bad and vice versa.  Of course, the investor usually sells stocks after they already have materially decreased in price.  Thus, trading the market based on emotional reactions to short-term news usually is expensive—and sometimes very expensive.

Wachenheim agrees with Seth Klarman that, to a large extent, many investors simply cannot help making emotional investment decisions.  It’s part of human nature.  People overreact to recent news.

I have continually seen intelligent and experienced investors repeatedly lose control of their emotions and repeatedly make ill-advised decisions during periods of stress.

That said, it’s possible (for some, at least) to learn to control your emotions.  Whenever there is news, you can learn to step back and look at your investment thesis.  Usually the investment thesis remains intact.

 

IBM

(IBM Watson by Clockready, Wikimedia Commons)

When Greenhaven purchases a stock, it focuses on what the company will be worth in two or three years.  The market is more inefficient over that time frame due to the shorter term focus of many investors.

In 1993, Wachenheim estimated that IBM would earn $1.65 in 1995.  Any estimate of earnings two or three years out is just a best guess based on incomplete information:

…having projections to work with was better than not having any projections at all, and my experience is that a surprisingly large percentage of our earnings and valuation projections eventually are achieved, although often we are far off on the timing.

The positive development Wachenheim expected was that IBM would announce a concrete plan to significantly reduce its costs.  On July 28, 1993, the CEO Lou Gerstner announced such a plan.  When IBM’s shares moved up from $11½ to $16, Wachenheim sold his firm’s shares since he thought the market price was now incorporating the expected positive development.

Selling IBM at $16 was a big mistake based on subsequent developments.  The company generated large amounts of cash, part of which it used to buy back shares.  By 1996, IBM was on track to earn $2.50 per share.  So Wachenheim decided to repurchase shares in IBM at $24½.  Although he was wrong to sell at $16, he was right to see his error and rebuy at $24½.  When IBM ended up doing better than expected, the shares moved to $48 in late 1997, at which point Wachenheim sold.

Over the years, I have learned that we can do well in the stock market if we do enough things right and if we avoid large permanent losses, but that it is impossible to do nearly everything right.  To err is human—and I make plenty of errors.  My judgment to sell IBM’s shares in 1993 at $16 was an expensive mistake.  I try not to fret over mistakes.  If I did fret, the investment process would be less enjoyable and more stressful.  In my opinion, investors do best when they are relaxed and are having fun.

Finding good ideas takes time.  Greenhaven rejects the vast majority of its potential ideas.  Good ideas are rare.

 

INTERSTATE BAKERIES

(Photo of a bakery by Mohylek, Wikimedia Commons)

Wachenheim discovered that Howard Berkowitz bought 12 percent of the outstanding shares of Interstate Bakeries, became chairman of the board, and named a new CEO.  Wachenheim believed that Howard Berkowitz was an experienced and astute investor.  In 1967, Berkowitz was a founding partner of Steinhardt, Fine, Berkowitz & Co., one of the earliest and most successful hedge funds.  Wachenheim started analyzing Interstate in 1985 when the stock was at about $15:

Because of my keen desire to survive by minimizing risks of permanent loss, the balance sheet then becomes a good place to start efforts to understand a company.  When studying a balance sheet, I look for signs of financial and accounting strengths.  Debt-to-equity ratios, liquidity, depreciation rates, accounting practices, pension and health care liabilities, and ‘hidden’ assets and liabilities all are among common considerations, with their relative importance depending on the situation.  If I find fault with a company’s balance sheet, especially with the level of debt relative to the assets or cash flows, I will abort our analysis, unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise.  

Wachenheim looks at management after he is done analyzing the balance sheet.  He admits that he is humble about his ability to assess management.  Also, good or bad results are sometimes due in part to chance.

Next Wachenheim examines the business fundamentals:

We try to understand the key forces at work, including (but not limited to) quality of products and services, reputation, competition and protection from future competition, technological and other possible changes, cost structure, growth opportunities, pricing power, dependence on the economy, degree of governmental regulation, capital intensity, and return on capital.  Because we believe that information reduces uncertainty, we try to gather as much information as possible.  We read and think—and we sometimes speak to customers, competitors, and suppliers.  While we do interview the managements of the companies we analyze, we are wary that their opinions and projections will be biased.

Wachenheim reveals that the actual process of analyzing a company is far messier than you might think based on the above descriptions:

We constantly are faced with incomplete information, conflicting information, negatives that have to be weighed against positives, and important variables (such as technological change or economic growth) that are difficult to assess and predict.  While some of our analysis is quantitative (such as a company’s debt-to-equity ratio or a product’s share of market), much of it is judgmental.  And we need to decide when to cease our analysis and make decisions.  In addition, we constantly need to be open to new information that may cause us to alter previous opinions or decisions.

Wachenheim indicates a couple of lessons learned.  First, it can often pay off when you follow a capable and highly incentivized business person into a situation.  Wachenheim made his bet on Interstate based on his confidence in Howard Berkowitz.  Interstate’s shares were not particularly cheap.

Years later, Interstate went bankrupt because they took on too much debt.  This is a very important lesson.  For any business, there will be problems.  Working through difficulties often takes much longer than expected.  Thus, having low or no debt is essential.

 

U.S. HOME CORPORATION

(Photo by Dwight Burdette, Wikimedia Commons)

Wachenheim describes his use of screens:

I frequently use Bloomberg’s data banks to run screens.  I screen for companies that are selling for low price-to-earnings (PE) ratios, low prices to revenues, low price-to-book values, or low prices relative to other relevant metrics.  Usually the screens produce a number of stocks that merit additional analyses, but almost always the additional analyses conclude that there are valid reasons for the apparent undervaluations. 

Wachenheim came across U.S. Home in mid-1994 based on a discount to book value screen.  The shares appeared cheap at 0.63 times book and 6.8 times earnings:

Very low multiples of book and earnings are adrenaline flows for value investors.  I eagerly decided to investigate further.

Later, although U.S. Home was cheap and produced good earnings, the stock price remained depressed.  But there was a bright side because U.S. Home led to another homebuilder idea…

 

CENTEX CORPORATION

(Photo by Steven Pavlov, Wikimedia Commons)

After doing research and constructing a financial model of Centex Corporation, Wachenheim had a startling realization:  the shares would be worth about $63 a few years in the future, and the current price was $12.  Finally, a good investment idea:

…my research efforts usually are tedious and frustrating.  I have hundreds of thoughts and I study hundreds of companies, but good investment ideas are few and far between.  Maybe only 1 percent or so of the companies we study ends up being part of our portfolios—making it much harder for a stock to enter our portfolio than for a student to enter Harvard.  However, when I do find an exciting idea, excitement fills the air—a blaze of light that more than compensates for the hours and hours of tedium and frustration.

Greenhaven typically aims for 30 percent annual returns on each investment:

Because we make mistakes, to achieve 15 to 20 percent average returns, we usually do not purchase a security unless we believe that it has the potential to provide a 30 percent or so annual return.  Thus, we have very high expectations for each investment.

In late 2005, Wachenheim grew concerned that home prices had gotten very high and might decline.  Many experts, including Ben Bernanke, argued that because home prices had never declined in U.S. history, they were unlikely to decline.  Wachenheim disagreed:

It is dangerous to project past trends into the future.  It is akin to steering a car by looking through the rearview mirror…

 

UNION PACIFIC

(Photo by Slambo, Wikimedia Commons)

After World War II, the construction of the interstate highway system gave trucks a competitive advantage over railroads for many types of cargo.  Furthermore, fewer passengers took trains, partly due to the interstate highway system and partly due to the commercialization of the jet airplane.  Excessive regulation of the railroadsin an effort to help farmersalso caused problems.  In the 1960s and 1970s, many railroads went bankrupt.  Finally, the government realized something had to be done and it passed the Staggers Act in 1980, deregulating the railroads:

The Staggers Act was a breath of fresh air.  Railroads immediately started adjusting their rates to make economic sense.  Unprofitable routes were dropped.  With increased profits and with confidence in their future, railroads started spending more to modernize.  New locomotives, freight cars, tracks, automated control systems, and computers reduced costs and increased reliability.  The efficiencies allowed the railroads to reduce their rates and become more competitive with trucks and barges….

In the 1980s and 1990s, the railroad industry also enjoyed increased efficiencies through consolidating mergers.  In the west, the Burlington Northern merged with the Santa Fe, and the Union Pacific merged with the Southern Pacific.  

Union Pacific reduced costs during the 2001-2002 recession, but later this led to congestion on many of its routes and to the need to hire and train new employees once the economy had picked up again.  Union Pacific experienced an earnings shortfall, leading the shares to decline to $14.86.

Wachenheim thought that Union Pacific’s problems were temporary, and that the company would earn about $1.55 in 2006.  With a conservative multiple of 14 times earnings, the shares would be worth over $22 in 2006.  Also, the company was paying a $0.30 annual dividend.  So the total return over a two-year period from buying the shares at $14½ would be 55 percent.

Wachenheim also thought Union Pacific stock had good downside protection because the book value was $12 a share.

Furthermore, even if Union Pacific stock just matched the expected return from the S&P 500 Index of 9½ percent a year, that would still be much better than cash.

The fact that the S&P 500 Index increases about 9½ percent a year is an important reason why shorting stocks is generally a bad business.  To do better than the market, the short seller has to find stocks that underperform the market by 19 percent a year.  Also, short sellers have limited potential gains and unlimited potential losses.  On the whole, shorting stocks is a terrible business and often even the smartest short sellers struggle.

Greenhaven sold its shares in Union Pacific at $31 in mid-2007, since other investors had recognized the stock’s value.  Including dividends, Greenhaven earned close to a 24 percent annualized return.

Wachenheim asks why most stock analysts are not good investors.  For one, most analysts specialize in one industry or in a few industries.  Moreover, analysts tend to extrapolate known information, rather than define future scenarios and their probabilities of occurrence:

…in my opinion, most individuals, including securities analysts, feel more comfortable projecting current fundamentals into the future than projecting changes that will occur in the future.  Current fundamentals are based on known information.  Future fundamentals are based on unknowns.  Predicting the future from unknowns requires the efforts of thinking, assigning probabilities, and sticking one’s neck out—all efforts that human beings too often prefer to avoid.

Also, I believe it is difficult for securities analysts to embrace companies and industries that currently are suffering from poor results and impaired reputations.  Often, securities analysts want to see tangible proof of better results before recommending a stock.  My philosophy is that life is not about waiting for the storm to pass.  It is about dancing in the rain.  One usually can read a weather map and reasonably project when a storm will pass.  If one waits for the moment when the sun breaks out, there is a high probability others already will have reacted to the improved prospects and already will have driven up the price of the stock—and thus the opportunity to earn large profits will have been missed.

Wachenheim then quotes from a New York Times op-ed piece written on October 17, 2008, by Warren Buffett:

A simple rule dictates my buying:  Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.  And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors.  To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions.  But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense.  These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have.  But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10, and 20 years from now.  Let me be clear on one point:  I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market.  I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month—or a year—from now.  What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up.  So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.

 

AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP

(AIG Corporate, Photo by AIG, Wikimedia Commons)

Wachenheim is forthright in discussing Greenhaven’s investment in AIG, which turned out to be a huge mistake.  In late 2005, Wachenheim estimated that the intrinsic value of AIG would be about $105 per share in 2008, nearly twice the current price of $55.  Wachenheim also liked the first-class reputation of the company, so he bought shares.

In late April 2007, AIG’s shares had fallen materially below Greenhaven’s cost basis:

When shares of one of our holdings are weak, we usually revisit the company’s longer-term fundamentals.  If the longer-term fundamentals have not changed, we normally will continue to hold the shares, if not purchase more.  In the case of AIG, it appeared to us that the longer-term fundamentals remained intact.

When Lehman filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 15, 2008, all hell broke loose:

The decline in asset values caused financial institutions to mark down the carrying value of their assets, which, in turn, caused sharp reductions in their credit ratings.  Sharp reductions in credit ratings required financial institutions to raise capital and, in the case of AIG, to post collateral on its derivative contracts.  But the near freezing of the financial markets prevented the requisite raising of capital and cash and thus caused a further deterioration in creditworthiness, which further increased the need for new capital and cash, and so on… On Tuesday night, September 16, the U.S. government agreed to provide the requisite cash in return for a lion’s share of the ownership of AIG.  As soon as I read the agreement, it was clear to me that we had a large permanent loss in our holdings of AIG.

Wachenheim defends the U.S. government bailouts.  Much of the problem was liquidity, not solvency.  Also, the bailouts helped restore confidence in the financial system.

Wachenheim asked himself if he would make the same decision today to invest in AIG:

My answer was ‘yes’—and my conclusion was that, in the investment business, relatively unpredictable outlier developments sometimes can quickly derail otherwise attractive investments.  It comes with the territory.  So while we work hard to reduce the risks of large permanent loss, we cannot completely eliminate large risks.  However, we can draw a line on how much risk we are willing to accept—a line that provides sufficient apparent protection and yet prevents us from being so risk averse that we turn down too many attractive opportunities.  One should not invest with the precept that the next 100-year storm is around the corner.

Wachenheim also points out that when Greenhaven learns of a flaw in its investment thesis, usually the firm is able to exit the position with only a modest loss.  If you’re right 2/3 of the time and if you limit losses as much as possible, the results should be good over time.

 

LOWE’S

(Photo by Miosotis Jade, Wikimedia Commons)

In 2011, Wachenheim carefully analyzed the housing market and reached an interesting conclusion:

I was excited that we had a concept about a probable strong upturn in the housing market that was not shared by most others.  I believed that the existing negativism about housing was due to the proclivity of human beings to uncritically project recent trends into the future and to overly dwell on existing problems.  When analyzing companies and industries, I tend to be an optimist by nature and a pragmatist through effort.  In terms of the proverbial glass of water, it is never half empty, but always half full—and, as a pragmatist, it is twice as large as it needs to be.

Next Wachenheim built a model to estimate normalized earnings for Lowe’s three years in the future (in 2014).  He came up with normal earnings of $3 per share.  He thought the appropriate price-to-earnings ratio was 16.  So the stock would be worth $48 in 2014 versus its current price (in 2011) of $24.  It looked like a bargain.

After gathering more information, Wachenheim revised his earnings model:

…I revise models frequently because my initial models rarely are close to being accurate.  Usually, they are no better than directional.  But they usually do lead me in the right direction, and, importantly, the process of constructing a model forces me to consider and weigh the central fundamentals of a company that will determine the company’s future value.

Wachenheim now thought that Lowe’s could earn close to $4.10 in 2015, which would make the shares worth even more than $48.  In August 2013, the shares hit $45.

In late September 2013, after playing tennis, another money manager asked Wachenheim if he was worried that the stock market might decline sharply if the budget impasse in Congress led to a government shutdown:

I answered that I had no idea what the stock market would do in the near term.  I virtually never do.  I strongly believe in Warren Buffett’s dictum that he never has an opinion on the stock market because, if he did, it would not be any good, and it might interfere with opinions that are good.  I have monitored the short-term market predictions of many intelligent and knowledgeable investors and have found that they were correct about half the time.  Thus, one would do just as well by flipping a coin.

I feel the same way about predicting the short-term direction of the economy, interest rates, commodities, or currencies.  There are too many variables that need to be identified and weighed.

As for Lowe’s, the stock hit $67.50 at the end of 2014, up 160 percent from what Greenhaven paid.

 

WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION

(Photo by Steven Pavlov, Wikimedia Commons)

Wachenheim does not believe in the Efficient Market Hypothesis:

It seems to me that the boom-bust of growth stocks in 1968-1974 and the subsequent boom-bust of Internet technology stocks in 1998-2002 serve to disprove the efficient market hypothesis, which states that it is impossible for an investor to beat the stock market because stocks always are efficiently priced based on all the relevant and known information on the fundamentals of the stocks.  I believe that the efficient market hypothesis fails because it ignores human nature, particularly the nature of most individuals to be followers, not leaders.  As followers, humans are prone to embrace that which already has been faring well and to shun that which recently has been faring poorly.  Of course, the act of buying into what already is doing well and shunning what is doing poorly serves to perpetuate a trend.  Other trend followers then uncritically join the trend, causing the trend to feed on itself and causing excesses.

Many investors focus on the shorter term, which generally harms their long-term performance:

…so many investors are too focused on short-term fundamentals and investment returns at the expense of longer-term fundamentals and returns.  Hunter-gatherers needed to be greatly concerned about their immediate survival—about a pride of lions that might be lurking behind the next rock… They did not have the luxury of thinking about longer-term planning… Then and today, humans often flinch when they come upon a sudden apparent danger—and, by definition, a flinch is instinctive as opposed to cognitive.  Thus, over years, the selection process resulted in a subconscious proclivity for humans to be more concerned about the short term than the longer term.

By far the best thing for long-term investors is to do is absolutely nothing.  The investors who end up performing the best over the course of several decades are nearly always those investors who did virtually nothing.  They almost never checked prices.  They never reacted to bad news.

Regarding Whirlpool:

In the spring of 2011, Greenhaven studied Whirlpool’s fundamentals.  We immediately were impressed by management’s ability and willingness to slash costs.  In spite of a materially subnormal demand for appliances in 2010, the company was able to earn operating margins of 5.9 percent.  Often, when a company is suffering from particularly adverse industry conditions, it is unable to earn any profit at all.  But Whirlpool remained moderately profitable.  If the company could earn 5.9 percent margins under adverse circumstances, what could the company earn once the U.S. housing market and the appliance market returned to normal?

Not surprisingly, Wall Street analysts were focused on the short term:

…A report by J. P. Morgan dated April 27, 2011, stated that Whirlpool’s current share price properly reflected the company’s increased costs for raw materials, the company’s inability to increase its prices, and the current soft demand for appliances…

The J. P. Morgan report might have been correct about the near-term outlook for Whirlpool and its shares.  But Greenhaven invests with a two- to four-year time horizon and cares little about the near-term outlook for its holdings.

The bulk of Greenhaven’s returns has been generated by relatively few of its holdings:

If one in five of our holdings triples in value over a three-year period, then the other four holdings only have to achieve 12 percent average annual returns in order for our entire portfolio to achieve its stretch goal of 20 percent.  For this reason, Greenhaven works extra hard trying to identify potential multibaggers.  Whirlpool had the potential to be a multibagger because it was selling at a particularly low multiple of its potential earnings power.  Of course, most of our potential multibaggers do not turn out to be multibaggers.  But one cannot hit a multibagger unless one tries, and sometimes our holdings that initially appear to be less exciting eventually benefit from positive unforeseen events (handsome black swans) and unexpectedly turn out to be a complete winner.  For this reason, we like to remain fully invested as long as our holdings remain reasonably priced and free from large risks of permanent loss.

 

BOEING

(Photo by José A. Montes, Wikimedia Commons)

Wachenheim likes to read about the history of each company that he studies.

On July 4, 1914, a flight took place in Seattle, Washington, that had a major effect on the history of aviation.  On that day, a barnstormer named Terah Maroney was hired to perform a flying demonstration as part of Seattle’s Independence Day celebrations.  After displaying aerobatics in his Curtis floatplane, Maroney landed and offered to give free rides to spectators.  One spectator, William Edward Boeing, a wealthy owner of a lumber company, quickly accepted Maroney’s offer.  Boeing was so exhilarated by the flight that he completely caught the aviation bug—a bug that was to be with him for the rest of his life.

Boeing launched Pacific Aero Products (renamed the Boeing Airplane Company in 1917).  In late 1916, Boeing designed an improved floatplane, the Model C.  The Model C was ready by April 1917, the same month the United States entered the war.  Boeing thought the Navy might need training aircraft.  The Navy bought two.  They performed well, so the Navy ordered 50 more.

Boeing’s business naturally slowed down after the war.  Boeing sold a couple of small floatplanes (B-1’s), then 13 more after Charles Lindberg’s 1927 transatlantic flight.  Still, sales of commercial planes were virtually nonexistent until 1933, when the company started marketing its model 247.

The twin-engine 247 was revolutionary and generally is recognized as the world’s first modern airplane.  It had a capacity to carry 10 passengers and a crew of 3.  It had a cruising speed of 189 mph and could fly about 745 miles before needing to be refueled.

Boeing sold seventy-five 247’s before making the much larger 307 Stratoliner, which would have sold well were it not for the start of World War II.

Boeing helped the Allies defeat Germany.  The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber and the B-29 Superfortress bomber became legendary.  More than 12,500 B-17s and more than 3,500 B-29s were built (some by Boeing itself and some by other companies that had spare capacity).

Boeing prospered during the war, but business slowed down again after the war.  In mid-1949, the de Havilland Aircraft Company started testing its Comet jetliner, the first use of a jet engine.  The Comet started carrying passengers in 1952.  In response, Boeing started developing its 707 jet.  Commercial flights for the 707 began in 1958.

The 707 was a hit and soon became the leading commercial plane in the world.

Over the next 30 years, Boeing grew into a large and highly successful company.  It introduced many models of popular commercial planes that covered a wide range of capacities, and it became a leader in the production of high-technology military aircraft and systems.  Moreover, in 1996 and 1997, the company materially increased its size and capabilities by acquiring North American Aviation and McDonnell Douglas.

In late 2012, after several years of delays on its new, more fuel-efficient plane—the 787—Wall Street and the media were highly critical of Boeing.  Wachenheim thought that the company could earn at least $7 per share in 2015.  The stock in late 2012 was at $75, or 11 times the $7.  Wachenheim believed that this was way too low for such a strong company.

Wachenheim estimated that two-thirds of Boeing’s business in 2015 would come from commercial aviation.  He figured that this was an excellent business worth 20 times earnings (he used 19 times to be conservative).  He reckoned that defense, one-third of Boeing’s business, was worth 15 times earnings.  Therefore, Wachenheim used 17.7 as the multiple for the whole company, which meant that Boeing would be worth $145 by 2015.

Greenhaven established a position in Boeing at about $75 a share in late 2012 and early 2013.  By the end of 2013, Boeing was at $136.  Because Wall Street now had confidence that the 787 would be a commercial success and that Boeing’s earnings would rise, Wachenheim and his associates concluded that most of the company’s intermediate-term potential was now reflected in the stock price.  So Greenhaven started selling its position.

 

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES

(Photo by Eddie Maloney, Wikimedia Commons)

The airline industry has had terrible fundamentals for a long time.  But Wachenheim was able to be open-minded when, in August 2012, one of his fellow analysts suggested Southwest Airlines as a possible investment.  Over the years, Southwest had developed a low-cost strategy that gave the company a clear competitive advantage.

Greenhaven determined that the stock of Southwest was undervalued, so they took a position.

The price of Southwest’s shares started appreciating sharply soon after we started establishing our position.  Sometimes it takes years before one of our holdings starts to appreciate sharply—and sometimes we are lucky with our timing.

After the shares tripled, Greenhaven sold half its holdings since the expected return from that point forward was not great.  Also, other investors now recognized the positive fundamentals Greenhaven had expected.  Greenhaven sold the rest of its position as the shares continued to increase.

 

GOLDMAN SACHS

(Photo of Marcus Goldman, Wikimedia Commons)

Wachenheim echoes Warren Buffett when it comes to recognizing how much progress the United States has made:

My experience is that analysts and historians often dwell too much on a company’s recent problems and underplay its strengths, progress, and promise.  An analogy might be the progress of the United States during the twentieth century.  At the end of the century, U.S. citizens generally were far wealthier, healthier, safer, and better educated than at the start of the century.  In fact, the century was one of extraordinary progress.  Yet most history books tend to focus on the two tragic world wars, the highly unpopular Vietnam War, the Great Depression, the civil unrest during the Civil Rights movement, and the often poor leadership in Washington.  The century was littered with severe problems and mistakes.  If you only had read the newspapers and the history books, you likely would have concluded that the United States had suffered a century of relative and absolute decline.  But the United States actually exited the century strong and prosperous.  So did Goldman exit 2013 strong and prosperous.

In 2013, Wachenheim learned that Goldman had an opportunity to gain market share in investment banking because some competitors were scaling back in light of new regulations and higher capital requirements.  Moreover, Goldman had recently completed a $1.9 billion cost reduction program.  Compensation as a percentage of sales had declined significantly in the past few years.

Wachenheim discovered that Goldman is a technology company to a large extent, with a quarter of employees working in the technology division.  Furthermore, the company had strong competitive positions in its businesses, and had sold or shut down sub-par business lines.  Wachenheim checked his investment thesis with competitors and former employees.  They confirmed that Goldman is a powerhouse.

Wachenheim points out that it’s crucial for investors to avoid confirmation bias:

I believe that it is important for investors to avoid seeking out information that reinforces their original analyses.  Instead, investors must be prepared and willing to change their analyses and minds when presented with new developments that adversely alter the fundamentals of an industry or company.  Good investors should have open minds and be flexible.

Wachenheim also writes that it’s very important not to invent a new thesis when the original thesis has been invalidated:

We have a straightforward approach.  When we are wrong or when fundamentals turn against us, we readily admit we are wrong and we reverse our course.  We do not seek new theories that will justify our original decision.  We do not let errors fester and consume our attention.  We sell and move on.

Wachenheim loves his job:

I am almost always happy when working as an investment manager.  What a perfect job, spending my days studying the world, economies, industries, and companies;  thinking creatively;  interviewing CEOs of companies… How lucky I am.  How very, very lucky.

 

BOOLE MICROCAP FUND

An equal weighted group of micro caps generally far outperforms an equal weighted (or cap-weighted) group of larger stocks over time.  See the historical chart here:  http://boolefund.com/best-performers-microcap-stocks/

This outperformance increases significantly by focusing on cheap micro caps.  Performance can be further boosted by isolating cheap microcap companies that show improving fundamentals.  We rank microcap stocks based on these and similar criteria.

There are roughly 10-20 positions in the portfolio.  The size of each position is determined by its rank.  Typically the largest position is 15-20% (at cost), while the average position is 8-10% (at cost).  Positions are held for 3 to 5 years unless a stock approaches intrinsic value sooner or an error has been discovered.

The mission of the Boole Fund is to outperform the S&P 500 Index by at least 5% per year (net of fees) over 5-year periods.  We also aim to outpace the Russell Microcap Index by at least 2% per year (net).  The Boole Fund has low fees.

 

If you are interested in finding out more, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

My e-mail: jb@boolefund.com

 

 

 

Disclosures: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. All investments contain risk and may lose value. This material is distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of Boole Capital, LLC.

Heads, I win; tails, I don’t lose much!

October 9, 2022

Value investor Mohnish Pabrai wrote The Dhandho Investor: The Low-Risk Value Method to High Returns (Wiley, 2007).  It’s an excellent book that captures the essence of value investing:

The lower the price you pay relative to the probable intrinsic value of the business, the higher your returns will likely be if you’re right and the lower your losses will likely be if you’re wrong.

If you have a good investment process as a value investor—whether it’s quantitative and statistical, or it involves stock-picking—then typically you’ll be right on about 60 percent of the positions.  Because losses are minimized on the other 40 percent, the portfolio is likely to do well over time.

Mohnish sums up the Dhandho approach as:

Heads, I win;  tails, I don’t lose much!

There is one very important additional idea that Mohnish focused on in his recent (October 2016) lecture at Peking University (Guanghua School of Management):

10-BAGGERS TO 100-BAGGERS

A 10-bagger is an investment that goes up 10x after you buy it.  A 100-bagger is an investment that goes up 100x after you buy it.  Mohnish gives many examples of stocks—a few of which he kept holding and many of which he sold—that later became 10-baggers, 20-baggers, up to a few 100-baggers.  If you own a stock that has already been a 2-bagger, 3-bagger, 5-bagger, etc., and you sell and the stock later turns out to be a 20-bagger, 50-bagger, or 100-bagger, often you have made a huge mistake by selling too soon.

Link to Mohnish’ lecture at Peking University:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo1XgDJCkh4

Here’s the outline for this blog post:

    • Patel Motel Dhandho
    • Manilal Dhandho
    • Virgin Dhandho
    • Mittal Dhandho
    • The Dhandho Framework
    • Dhandho 101: Invest in Existing Businesses
    • Dhandho 102: Invest in Simple Businesses
    • Dhandho 201: Invest in Distressed Businesses in Distressed Industries
    • Dhandho 202: Invest in Businesses with Durable Moats
    • Dhandho 301: Few Bets, Big Bets, Infrequent Bets
    • Dhandho 302: Fixate on Arbitrage
    • Dhandho 401: Margin of Safety—Always!
    • Dhandho 402: Invest in Low-Risk, High-Uncertainty Businesses
    • Dhandho 403: Invest in the Copycats rather than the Innovators
    • A Short Checklist
    • Be Generous

 

PATEL MOTEL DHANDHO

(Mohnish published the book in 2007.  I will use the present tense in this blog post.)

Mohnish notes that Asian Indians make up about 1 percent of the population of the United States.  Of these three million, a small subsection hails from the Indian state of Gujarat—the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi.  The Patels are from a tiny area in Southern Gujarat.  Mohnish:

Less than one in five hundred Americans is a Patel.  It is thus amazing that over half of all the motels in the entire country are owned and operated by Patels… What is even more stunning is that there were virtually no Patels in the United States just 35 years ago.  They started arriving as refugees in the early 1970s without much in the way of capital or education.  Their heavily accented, broken-English speaking skills didn’t improve their prospects either.  From that severely handicapped beginning, with all the odds stacked against them, the Patels triumphed.  Patels, as a group, today own over $40 billion in motel assets in the United States, pay over $725 million a year in taxes, and employ nearly a million people.  How did this small, impoverished ethnic group come out of nowhere and end up controlling such vast resources?  There is a one word explanation:  Dhandho.

Dhandho means a low-risk, high-return approach to business.  It means the upside is much larger than the downside, which is the essence of value investing.

Dhandho is all about the minimization of risk while maximizing the reward… Dhandho is thus best described as endeavors that create wealth while taking virtually no risk.

Mohnish gives a brief history of the Patels.  Some Patels had gone to Uganda and were doing well there as entrepreneurs.  But when General Idi Amin came to power as a dictator in 1972, things changed.  The Ugandan state seized all of the businesses held by Patels and other non-natives.  These businesses were nationalized, and the previous owners were paid nothing.

Because India was already dealing with a severe refugee crisis in 1972-1973, the Indian-origin population that had been tossed out of Uganda was not allowed back into India.  Many Patels settled in England and Canada, and a few thousand were accepted in the United States.

In 1973, many nondescript motels were being foreclosed and then sold at distressed prices.  “Papa Patel” realized that a motivated seller or bank might finance 90% of the purchase.  If Papa Patel could put $5,000 down, he could get a motel on the cheap.  The Patel family would run things and also live there.  So they had no salaries to pay, and no rent to pay.  With rock-bottom expenses, they could then offer the lowest nightly rates.  This would lead to higher occupancy and high profits over time, given the very low cost structure.

As long as the motel didn’t fail, it would likely be a highly profitable venture relative to the initial $5,000 investment.  If the motel did fail, Papa Patel reasoned that he and his wife could bag groceries and save close to $5,000 in a couple of years.  Then Papa Patel could find another cheap motel and make the same bet.  If the probability of failure is 10%, then the odds of two failures in a row would be 1%, while nearly every other scenario would involve a high return on investment.  Once the first motel was solidly profitable, Papa Patel could let his oldest son take over and look for the next one to buy.

The Patels kept repeating this basic approach until they owned over half the motels in the United States.

 

MANILAL DHANDHO

The Patel formula is repeatable.  It’s not just a one-time opportunity based on unique circumstances.  Consider Manilal Chaudhari, also from Gujarat, says Mohnish.

Manilal had worked hard as an accountant in India.  In 1991, with sponsorship from his brother, he migrated to the United States.  His English was not good, and he couldn’t find a job in accounting.

His first job was working 112 hours a week at a gas station at minimum wage.  Later, he got a job at a power supply manufacturing company, Cherokee International, owned by a Patel.  Manilal worked full-time at Cherokee, and kept working at the gas station as much as possible.  The Persian owner of the gas station, recognizing Manilal’s hard work, gave him a 10 percent stake in the business.

In 1998, Manilal decided he wanted to buy a business.  One of the employees at Cherokee (a Patel) told Manilal that he wanted to invest with him in whatever business he found.  In 2001, the travel industry went into a slump and motel occupancy and prices plummeted.  Manilal found a Best Western motel on sale at a terrific location.  Since everyone in the extended family had been working non-stop and saving, Manilal – along with a few Patels from Cherokee – were able to buy the Best Western.

Four years later, the Best Western had doubled in value to $9 million.  The $1.4 million invested by Manilal and a few Patels was now worth $6.7 million, an annualized return of 48 percent.  This doesn’t include annual free cash flow.  Mohnish concludes:

Now, that’s what I’d call Manilal Dhandho.  He worked hard, saved all he could, and then bet it all on a single no-brainer bet.  Reeling from the severe impact of 9/11 on travel, the motel industry was on its knees.  As prices and occupancy collapsed, Manilal stepped in and made his play.  He was on the hunt for three years.  He patiently waited for the right deal to materialize.  Classically, his story is all about Few Bets, Big Bets, Infrequent Bets.  And it’s all about only participating in coin tosses where:

Heads, I win;  tails, I don’t lose much!

 

VIRGIN DHANDHO

The year was 1984 and Richard Branson knew nothing about the airline business.  He started his entrepreneurial journey at 15 and was very successful in building an amazing music recording and distribution business.

Somebody sent Branson a business plan about starting an all business class airline flying between London and New York.  Branson noted that when an executive in the music business received a business plan to start an airline involving a 747 jumbo jet, he knew that the business plan had been turned down in at least three thousand other places before landing on his desk…

Branson decided to offer a unique dual-class service.  But when he presented the idea to his partners and senior executives at the music business, they told him he was crazy.  Branson persisted and discovered that he could lease a 747 jumbo jet from Boeing.  Branson calculated that Virgin Atlantic Airlines, if it failed, would cost $2 million.  His record company was going to earn $12 million that year and about $20 million the following year.

Branson also realized that tickets get paid about 20 days before the plane takes off.  But fuel is paid 30 days after the plane lands.  Staff wages are paid 15 to 20 days after the plane lands.  So the working capital needs of the business would be fairly low.

Branson had found a service gap and Virgin Atlantic ended up doing well.  Branson would repeat this formula in many other business opportunities:

Heads, I win;  tails, I don’t lose much!

 

MITTAL DHANDHO

Mohnish says Rajasthan is the most colorful state of India.  Marwar is a small district in the state, and the Marwaris are seen as excellent businesspeople.  Lakshmi Mittal, a Marwari entrepreneur, went from zero to a $20 billion net worth in about 30 years.  And he did it in an industry with terrible economics:  steel mills.

Take the example of the deal he created to take over the gigantic Karmet Steel Works in Kazakhstan.  The company had stopped paying its workforce because it was bleeding red ink and had no cash.  The plant was on the verge of closure with its Soviet-era managers forced to barter for steel food for its workers.  The Kazakh government was glad to hand Mr. Mittal the keys to the plant for nothing.  Not only did Mr. Mittal retain the entire workforce and run the plant, he paid all the outstanding wages and within five years had turned it into a thriving business that was gushing cash.  The workers and townsfolk literally worship Mittal as the person who saved their town from collapse.

…The same story was repeated with the Sidek Steel plant in Romania, and the Mexican government handed him the keys to the Sibalsa Mill for $220 million in 1992.  It had cost the Mexicans over $2 billion to build the plant.  Getting dollar bills at 10 cents—or less—is Dhandho on steroids.  Mittal’s approach has always been to get a dollar’s worth of assets for far less than a dollar.  And then he has applied his secret sauce of getting these monolith mills to run extremely efficiently.

Mohnish recounts a dinner he had with a Marwari friend.  Mohnish asked how Marwari businesspeople think about business.  The friend replied that they expect their entire investment to be returned as dividends within three years, with the principal still being worth at least the initial amount invested.

 

THE DHANDHO FRAMEWORK

Mohnish lays out the Dhando framework, including:

  • Invest in existing businesses.
  • Invest in simple businesses.
  • Invested in distressed businesses in distressed industries.
  • Invest in businesses with durable moats.
  • Few bets, big bets, and infrequent bets.
  • Fixate on arbitrage.
  • Margin of safety—always.
  • Invest in low-risk, high-uncertainty businesses.
  • Invest in the Copycats rather than the Innovators.

Let’s look at each point.

 

DHANDHO 101: INVEST IN EXISTING BUSINESSES

Over a long period of time, owning parts of good businesses via the stock market has been shown to be one of the best ways to preserve and grow wealth.  Mohnish writes that there are six big advantages to investing in stocks:

  • When you buy stock, you become a part owner of an existing business. You don’t have to do anything to create the business or to make the business run.
  • You can get part ownership of a compounding machine. It is simple to buy your stake, and the business is already fully staffed and running.
  • When people buy or sell entire businesses, both buyer and seller typically have a good idea of what the business is worth. It’s hard to find a bargain unless the industry is highly distressed.  In the public stock market, however, there are thousands and thousands of businesses.  Many stock prices change by 50% or more in any given year, but the intrinsic value of most businesses does not change by 50% in a given year.  So a patient investor can often find opportunities.
  • Buying an entire business usually takes serious capital. But buying part ownership via stock costs very little by comparison.  In stocks, you can get started with a tiny pool of capital.
  • There are likely over 100,000 different businesses in the world with public stock available.
  • For a long-term value investor, the transaction costs are very low (especially at a discount broker) over time.

 

DHANDHO 102: INVEST IN SIMPLE BUSINESSES

As Warren Buffett has noted, you generally do not get paid extra for degree of difficulty in investing.  There is no reason, especially for smaller investors, not to focus on simple businesses.  By patiently looking at hundreds and hundreds of microcap stocks, eventually you can find a 10-bagger, 20-bagger, or even a 100-bagger.  And the small business in question is likely to be quite simple.  With such a large potential upside, there is no reason, if you’re a small investor, to look at larger or more complicated businesses.  (The Boole Microcap Fund that I manage focuses exclusively on micro caps.)

It’s much easier to value a simple business because it usually is easier to estimate the future free cash flows.  The intrinsic value of any business—what the business is worth—is the sum of all future free cash flows discounted back to the present.  This is called the discounted cash flow (DCF) approach.  (Intrinsic value could also mean liquidation value in some cases.)

You may need to have several scenarios in your DCF analysis—a low case, a mid case, and a high case.  (What you’re really looking for is a high case that involves a 10-bagger, 20-bagger, or 100-bagger.)  But you’re still nearly always better off limiting your investments to simple businesses.

Only invest in businesses that are simple—ones where conservative assumptions about future cash flows are easy to figure out.

 

DHANDHO 201: INVEST IN DISTRESSED BUSINESSES IN DISTRESSED INDUSTRIES

The stock market is usually efficient, meaning that stock prices are usually accurate representations of what businesses are worth.  It is very difficult for an investor to do better than the overall stock market, as represented by the S&P 500 Index or another similar index.

Stock prices, in most instances, do reflect the underlying fundamentals.  Trying to figure out the variance between prices and underlying intrinsic value, for most businesses, is usually a waste of time.  The market is mostly efficient.  However, there is a huge difference between mostly and fully efficient.

Because the market is not always efficient, value investors who patiently examine hundreds of different stocks eventually will find a few that are undervalued.  Because public stock markets are highly liquid, if an owner of shares becomes fearful, he or she can quickly sell those shares.  For a privately held business, however, it usually takes months for an owner to sell the position.  Thus, a fearful owner of public stock is often more likely to sell at an irrationally low price because the sale can be completed right away.

Where can you find distressed businesses or industries?  Mohnish offers some suggestions:

  • Business headlines often include articles about distressed businesses or industries.
  • You can look at prices that have dropped the most in the past 52 weeks. You can also look at stocks trading at low price-to-earnings ratios (P/Es), low price-to-book ratios (P/Bs), high dividend yields, and so on.  Not every quantitatively cheap stock is undervalued, but some are.  There are various services that offer screening such as Value Line.
  • You can follow top value investors by reading 13-F Forms or through different services. I would only note that the vast majority of top value investors are not looking at microcap stocks.  If you’re a small investor, your best opportunities are very likely to be found among micro caps.  Very few professional investors ever look there, causing microcap stocks to be much more inefficiently priced than larger stocks.  Also, micro caps tend to be relatively simple, and they often have far more room to grow.  Most 100-baggers start out as micro caps.
  • Value Investors Club (valueinvestorsclub.com) is a club for top value investors. You can get free guest access to all ideas that are 45 days old or older.  Many cheap stocks stay cheap for a long time.  Often good ideas are still available after 45 days have elapsed.

 

DHANDHO 202: INVEST IN BUSINESSES WITH DURABLE MOATS

A moat is a sustainable competitive advantage.  Moats are often associated with capital-light businesses.  Such businesses (if successful) tend to have sustainably high ROIC (return on invested capital)—the key attribute of a sustainable competitive advantage.  Yet sometimes moats exist elsewhere and sometimes they are hidden.

Sometimes the moat is hidden.  Take a look at Tesoro Corporation.  It is in the oil refining business—which is a commodity.  Tesoro has no control over the price of its principle raw material, crude oil.  It has no control [of the price] over its principal finished good, gasoline.  Nonetheless, it has a fine moat.  Tesoro’s refineries are primarily on the West Coast and Hawaii.  Refining on the West Coast is a great business with a good moat.  There hasn’t been a refinery built in the United States for the past 20 years.  Over that period, the number of refineries has gone down from 220 to 150, while oil demand has gone up about 2 percent a year.  The average U.S. refinery is operating at well over 90 percent of capacity.  Anytime you have a surge in demand, refining margins escalate because there is just not enough capacity.

…How do we know when a business has a hidden moat and what that moat is?  The answer is usually visible from looking at its financial statements.  Good businesses with good moats… generate high returns on capital deployed in the business.  (my emphasis)

But the nature of capitalism is that any company that is earning a high return on invested capital will come under attack by other businesses that want to earn a high return on invested capital.

It is virtually a law of nature that no matter how well fortified and defended a castle is, no matter how wide or deep its moat is, no matter how many sharks or piranhas are in that moat, eventually it is going to fall to the marauding invaders.

Mohnish quotes Charlie Munger:

Of the fifty most important stocks on the NYSE in 1911, today only one, General Electric, remains in business… That’s how powerful the forces of competitive destruction are.  Over the very long term, history shows that the chances of any business surviving in a manner agreeable to a company’s owners are slim at best.

Mohnish adds:

There is no such thing as a permanent moat.  Even such invincible businesses today like eBay, Google, Microsoft, Toyota, and American Express will all eventually decline and disappear.

…It takes about 25 to 30 years from formation for a highly successful company to earn a spot on the Fortune 500… it typically takes many blue chips less than 20 years after they get on the list to cease to exist.  The average Fortune 500 business is already past its prime by the time it gets on the list.

If you’re a small investor, searching for potential 10-baggers or 100-baggers among microcap stocks makes excellent sense.  You want to find tiny companies that much later reach the Fortune 500.  You don’t want to look at companies that are already on the Fortune 500 because the potential returns are far more likely to be mediocre going forward.

 

DHANDHO 301: FEW BETS, BIG BETS, INFREQUENT BETS

Claude Shannon was a fascinating character—he often rode a unicycle while juggling, and his house was filled with gadgets.  Shannon’s master’s thesis was arguably the most important and famous master’s thesis of the twentieth century.  In it, he proposed binary digit or bit, as the basic unit of information.  A bit could have only two values—0 or 1, which could mean true or false, yes or no, or on or off.  This allowed Boolean algebra to represent any logical relationship.  This meant that the electrical switch could perform logic functions, which was the practical foundation for all digital circuits and computers.

The mathematician Ed Thorp, a colleague of Shannon’s at MIT, had discovered a way to beat the casinos at blackjack.  But Thorp was trying to figure out how to size his blackjack bets as a function of how favorable the odds were.  Someone suggested to Thorp that he talk to Shannon about it.  Shannon recalled a paper written by a Bell Labs colleague of his, John Kelly, that dealt with this question.

The Kelly criterion can be written as follows:

  • F = p – [q/o]

where

  • F = Kelly criterion fraction of current capital to bet
  • o = Net odds, or dollars won per $1 bet if the bet wins (e.g., the bet may pay 5 to 1, meaning you win $5 per each $1 bet if the bet wins)
  • p = probability of winning
  • q = probability of losing = 1 – p

The Kelly criterion has a unique mathematical property: if you know the probability of winning and the net odds (payoff), then betting exactly the percentage determined by the Kelly criterion leads to the maximum long-term compounding of capital, assuming that you’re going to make a long series of bets.  Betting any percentage that is not equal to that given by the Kelly criterion will inevitably lead to lower compound growth over a long period of time.

Thorp proceeded to use the Kelly criterion to win quite a bit of money at blackjack, at least until the casinos began taking countermeasures such as cheating dealers, frequent reshuffling, and outright banning.  But Thorp realized that the stock market was also partly inefficient, and it was a far larger game.

Thorp launched a hedge fund that searched for little arbitrage situations (pricing discrepancies) involving warrants, options, and convertible bonds.  In order to size his positions, Thorp used the Kelly criterion.  Thorp evolved his approach over the years as previously profitable strategies were copied.  His multi-decade track record was terrific.

Ed Thorp examined Buffett’s career and concluded that Buffett has used the essential logic of the Kelly criterion by concentrating his capital into his best ideas.  Buffett’s concentrated value approach has produced an outstanding, unparalleled 65-year track record.

Thorp has made several important points about the Kelly criterion as it applies to long-term value investing.  The Kelly criterion was invented to apply to a very long series of bets.  Value investing differs because even a concentrated value investing approach will usually have at least 5-8 positions in the portfolio at the same time.  Thorp argues that, in this situation, the investor must compare all the current and prospective investments simultaneously on the basis of the Kelly criterion.

Mohnish gives an example showing how you can use the Kelly criterion on your top 8 ideas, and then normalize the position sizes.

Say you look at your top 8 investment ideas.  You use the Kelly criterion on each idea separately to figure out how large the position should be, and this is what you conclude about the ideal bet sizes:

  • Bet 1 – 80%
  • Bet 2 – 70%
  • Bet 3 – 60%
  • Bet 4 – 55%
  • Bet 5 – 45%
  • Bet 6 – 35%
  • Bet 7 – 30%
  • Bet 8 – 25%

Of course, that adds up to 400%.  Yet for a value investor, especially running a concentrated portfolio of 5-8 positions, it virtually never makes sense to buy stocks on margin.  Leverage cannot make a bad investment into a good investment, but it can turn a good investment into a bad investment.  So you don’t need any leverage.  It’s better to compound at a slightly lower rate than to risk turning a good investment into a bad investment because you lack staying power.

So the next step is simply to normalize the position sizes so that they add up to 100%.  Since the original portfolio adds up to 400%, you just divide each position by 4:

  • Bet 1 – 20%
  • Bet 2 – 17%
  • Bet 3 – 15%
  • Bet 4 – 14%
  • Bet 5 – 11%
  • Bet 6 – 9%
  • Bet 7 – 8%
  • Bet 8 – 6%

(These percentages are rounded for simplicity.)

As mentioned earlier, if you truly know the odds of each bet in a long series of bets, the Kelly criterion tells you exactly how much to bet on each bet in order to maximize your long-term compounded rate of return.  Betting any other amount will lead to lower compound returns.  In particular, if you repeatedly bet more than what the Kelly criterion indicates, you eventually will destroy your capital.

It’s nearly always true when investing in a stock that you won’t know the true odds or the true future scenarios.  You usually have to make an estimate.  Because you never want to bet more than what the Kelly criterion says, it is wise to bet one half or one quarter of what the Kelly criterion says.  This is called half-Kelly or quarter-Kelly betting.  What is nice about half-Kelly betting is that you will earn three-quarters of the long-term returns of what full Kelly betting would deliver, but with only half the volatility.

So in practice, if there is any uncertainty in your estimates, you want to bet half-Kelly or quarter-Kelly.  In the case of a concentrated portfolio of 5-8 stocks, you will frequently end up betting half-Kelly or quarter-Kelly because you are making 5-8 bets at the same time.  In Mohnish’s example, you end up betting quarter-Kelly in each position once you’ve normalized the portfolio.

Mohnish quotes Charlie Munger again:

The wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity.  They bet big when they have the odds.  And the rest of the time, they don’t.  It’s just that simple.

When running the Buffett Partnership, Warren Buffett invested 40% of the partnership in American Express after the stock had been cut in half following the salad oil scandal.  American Express had to announce a $60 million loss, a huge hit given its total market capitalization of roughly $150 million at the time.  But Buffett determined that the essential business of American Express—travelers’ checks and charge cards—had not been permanently damaged.  American Express still had a very valuable moat.

Buffett explained his reasoning in several letters to limited partners, as quoted by Mohnish here:

We might invest up to 40% of our net worth in a single security under conditions coupling an extremely high probability that our facts and reasoning are correct with a very low probability that anything could change the underlying value of the investment.

We are obviously only going to go to 40% in very rare situations—this rarity, of course, is what makes it necessary that we concentrate so heavily, when we see such an opportunity.  We probably have had only five or six situations in the nine-year history of the partnerships where we have exceeded 25%.  Any such situations are going to have to promise very significant superior performance… They are also going to have to possess such superior qualitative and/or quantitative factors that the chance of serious permanent loss is minimal…

There’s virtually no such thing as a sure bet in the stock market.  But there are situations where the odds of winning are very high or where the potential upside is substantial.

One final note:  In constructing a concentrated portfolio of 5-8 stocks, if at least some of the positions are non-correlated or even negatively correlated, then the volatility of the overall portfolio can be reduced.  Some top investors prefer to have about 15 positions with low correlations.

Once you get to at least 25 positions, specific correlations typically tend not to be an issue, although some investors may end up concentrating on specific industries.  In fact, it often may make sense to concentrate on industries that are deeply out-of-favor.

Mohnish concludes:

…It’s all about the odds.  Looking out for mispriced betting opportunities and betting heavily when the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor is the ticket to wealth.  It’s all about letting the Kelly Formula dictate the upper bounds of these large bets.  Further, because of multiple favorable betting opportunities available in equity markets, the volatility surrounding the Kelly Formula can be naturally tamed while still running a very concentrated portfolio.

In sum, top value investors like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Mohnish Pabrai—to name just a few out of many—naturally concentrate on their best 5-8 ideas, at least when they’re managing a small enough amount of money.  (These days, Berkshire’s portfolio is massive, which makes it much more difficult to concentrate, let alone to find hidden gems among micro caps.)

You have to take a humble look at your strategy and your ability before deciding on your level of concentration.  The Boole Microcap Fund that I manage is designed to focus on the top 15-25 ideas.  This is concentrated enough so that the best performers—whichever stocks they turn out to be—can make a difference to the portfolio.  But it is not so concentrated that it misses the best performers.  In practice, the best performers very often turn out to be idea #9 or idea #17, rather than idea #1 or idea #2.  Many top value investors—including Peter Cundill, Joel Greenblatt, and Mohnish Pabrai—have found this to be true.

 

DHANDHO 302: FIXATE ON ARBITRAGE

The example often given for traditional commodity arbitrage is that gold is selling for $1,500 in London and $1,490 in New York.  By buying gold in New York and selling it in London, the arbitrageur can make an almost risk-free profit.

In merger arbitrage, Company A offers to buy Company B at, say, $20 per share.  The stock of Company B may move from $15 to $19.  Now the arbitrageur can buy the stock in Company B at $19 in order to capture the eventual move to $20.  By doing several such deals, the arbitrageur can probably make a nice profit, although there is a risk for each individual deal.

In what Mohnish calls Dhandho arbitrage, the entrepreneur risks a relatively small amount of capital relative to the potential upside.  Just look at the earlier examples, including Patel Motel Dhandho, Virgin Dhandho, and Mittal Dhandho.

Heads, I win;  tails, I don’t lose much!

 

DHANDHO 401: MARGIN OF SAFETY—ALWAYS!

Nearly every year, Buffett has hosted over 30 groups of business students from various universities.  The students get to ask questions for over an hour before going to have lunch with Buffett.  Mohnish notes that students nearly always ask for book or reading recommendations, and Buffett’s best recommendation is always Ben Graham’s The Intelligent Investor.  As Buffett told students from Columbia Business School on March 24, 2006:

The Intelligent Investor is still the best book on investing.  It has the only three ideas you really need:

  • Chapter 8—The Mr. Market analogy.  Make the stock market serve you.  The C section of the Wall Street Journal is my business broker—it quotes me prices every day that I can take or leave, and there are no called strikes.
  • Chapter 8—A stock is a piece of a business.  Never forget that you are buying a business which has an underlying value based on how much cash goes in and out.
  • Chapter 20—Margin of Safety.  Make sure that you are buying a business for way less than you think it is conservatively worth.

The heart of value investing is an idea that is directly contrary to economic and financial theory:

  • The bigger the discount to intrinsic value, the lower the risk.
  • The bigger the discount to intrinsic value, the higher the return.

Economic and financial theory teaches that higher returns always require higher risk.  But Ben Graham, the father of value investing, taught just the opposite:  The lower the price you pay below intrinsic value, the lower your risk and the higher your potential return.

Mohnish argues that the Dhandho framework embodies Graham’s margin of safety idea.  Papa Patel, Manilal, and Branson all have tried to minimize the downside while maximizing the upside.  Again, most business schools, relying on accepted theory, teach that low returns come from low risk, while high returns require high risk.

Mohnish quotes Buffett’s observations about Berkshire’s purchase of Washington Post stock in 1973:

We bought all of our [Washington Post (WPC)] holdings in mid-1973 at a price of not more than one-fourth of the then per-share business value of the enterprise.  Calculating the price/value ratio required no unusual insights.  Most security analysts, media brokers, and media executives would have estimated WPC’s intrinsic business value at $400 to $500 million just as we did.  And its $100 million stock market valuation was published daily for all to see.  Our advantage, rather, was attitude:  we had learned from Ben Graham that the key to successful investing was the purchase of shares in good businesses when market prices were at a large discount from underlying business value.

…Through 1973 and 1974, WPC continued to do fine as a business, and intrinsic value grew.  Nevertheless, by year-end 1974 our WPC holding showed a loss of about 25%, with a market value of $8 million against our cost of $10.6 million.  What we had bought ridiculously cheap a year earlier had become a good bit cheaper as the market, in its infinite wisdom, marked WPC stock down to well below 20 cents on the dollar of intrinsic value.

As of 2007 (when Mohnish wrote his book), Berkshire’s stake in the Washington post had grown over 33 years from the original $10.6 million to a market value of over $1.3 billion—more than 124 times the original investment.  Moreover, as of 2007, the Washington Post was paying a modest dividend (not included in the 124 times figure).  The dividend alone (in 2007) was higher than what Berkshire originally paid for its entire position.  Buffett:

Most institutional investors in the early 1970s, on the other hand, regarded business value as of only minor relevance when they were deciding the prices at which they would buy or sell.  This now seems hard to believe.  However, these institutions were then under the spell of academics at prestigious business schools who were preaching a newly-fashioned theory:  the stock market was totally efficient, and therefore calculations of business value—and even thought, itself—were of no importance in investment activities.  (We are enormously indebted to those academics:  what could be more advantageous in an intellectual contest—whether it be bridge, chess, or stock selection—than to have opponents who have been taught that thinking is a waste of energy?)

At any given time, a business is in either of two states:  it has problems or it will have problems.  Virtually every week there are companies or whole industries where stock prices collapse.  Many business problems are temporary and not permanent.  But stock investors on the whole tend to view business problems as permanent, and they mark down the stock prices accordingly.

You may be wondering:  Due to capitalist competition, nearly all businesses eventually fail, so how can many business problems be temporary?  When we look at businesses experiencing problems right now, many of those problems will be solved over the next three to five years.  Thus, considering the next three to five years, many business problems are temporary.  But the fate of a given business over several decades is a different matter entirely.

 

DHANDHO 402: INVEST IN LOW-RISK, HIGH-UNCERTAINTY BUSINESSES

The future is always uncertain.  And that’s even more true for some businesses.  Yet if the stock price is low enough, high uncertainty can create a good opportunity.

Papa Patel, Manilal, Branson, and Mittal are all about investing in low-risk businesses.  Nonetheless, most of the businesses they invested in had a very wide range of possible outcomes.  The future performance of these businesses was very uncertain.  However, these savvy Dhandho entrepreneurs had thought through the range of possibilities and drew comfort from the fact that very little capital was invested and/or the odds of a permanent loss of capital were extremely low… Their businesses had a common unifying characteristic—they were all low-risk, high-uncertainty businesses.

In essence, says Mohnish, these were all simple bets:

Heads, I win;  tails, I don’t lose much!

Wall Street usually hates high uncertainty, and often does not distinguish between high uncertainty and high risk.  But there are several distinct situations, observes Mohnish, where Wall Street tends to cause the stock price to collapse:

  • High risk, low uncertainty
  • High risk, high uncertainty
  • Low risk, high uncertainty

Wall Street loves the combination of low risk and low uncertainty, but these stocks nearly always trade at high multiples.  On the other hand, Dhandho entrepreneurs and value investors are only interested in low risk and high uncertainty.

Mohnish discusses an example of a company he was looking at in the year 2000:  Stewart Enterprises (STEI), a funeral service business.  Leading companies such as Stewart Enterprises, Loewen, Service Corp. (SRV), and Carriage Services (CSV) had gone on buying sprees in the 1990s, acquiring mom-and-pop businesses in their industry.  These companies all ended up with high debt as a result of the acquisitions.  They made the mistake of buying for cash—using debt—rather than buying using stock.

Loewen ended up going bankrupt.  Stewart had $930 million of long-term debt with $500 million due in 2002.  Wall Street priced all the funeral service giants as if they were going bankrupt.  Stewart’s price went from $28 to $2 in two years.  Stewart kept coming up on the Value Line screen for lowest price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios.  Stewart had a P/E of less than three, a rarity.  Mohnish thought that funeral services must be a fairly simple business to understand, so he started doing research.

Mohnish recalled reading an article in the mid-1990s in the Chicago Tribune about the rate of business failure in various industries.  The lowest rate of failure for any type of business was funeral homes.  This made sense, thought Mohnish.  It’s not the type of business that aspiring entrepreneurs would dream about, and pre-need sales often make up about 25 percent of total revenue.  It’s a steady business that doesn’t change much over time.

Stewart had roughly $700 million in annual revenue and owned around 700 cemeteries and funeral homes.  Most of its business was in the United States.  Stewart’s tangible book value was $4 per share, and book value was probably understated because hard assets like land were carried at cost.  At less than $2 per share, Stewart was trading at less than half of stated tangible book value.  By the time the debt was due, the company would generate over $155 million in free cash flow, leaving a shortfall of under $350 million.

Mohnish thought through some scenarios and estimated the probability for each scenario:

  • 25% probability: The company could sell some funeral homes.  Selling 100 to 200 might take care of the debt.  Equity value > $4 per share.
  • 35% probability: Based on the company’s solid and predictable cash flow, Stewart’s lenders or bankers might decide to extend the maturities or refinance the debt—especially if the company offered to pay a higher interest rate.  Equity value > $4 per share.
  • 20% probability: Based on Stewart’s strong cash flows, the company might find another lender—especially if it offered to pay a higher interest rate.  Equity value > $4 per share.
  • 19% probability: Stewart enters bankruptcy.  Even assuming distressed asset sales, equity value > $2 per share.
  • 1% probability: A 50-mile meteor comes in or Yellowstone blows or some other extreme event takes place that destroys the company.  Equity value = $0.

The bottom line, as Mohnish saw it, was that the odds were less than 1% that he would end up losing money if he invested in Stewart at just under $2 per share.  Moreover, there was an 80% chance that the equity would be worth at least $4 per share.  So Mohnish invested 10 percent of Pabrai Funds in Stewart Enterprises at under $2 per share.

A few months later, Stewart announced that it had begun exploring sales of its international funeral homes.  Stewart expected to generate $300 to $500 million in cash from this move.  Mohnish:

The amazing thing was that management had come up with a better option than I had envisioned.  They were going to be able to eliminate the debt without any reduction in their cash flow.  The lesson here is that we always have a free upside option on most equity investments when competent management comes up with actions that make the bet all the more favorable.

Soon the stock hit $4 and Mohnish exited the position with more than 100% profit.

It’s worth repeating what investor Lee Ainslee has said:  Good management tends to surprise on the upside, while bad management tends to surprise on the downside.

Frontline

In 2001, Mohnish noticed two companies with a dividend yield of more than 15 percent.  Both were crude oil shippers:  Knightsbridge (VLCC) and Frontline (FRO).  Mohnish started reading about this industry.

Knightsbridge had been formed a few years earlier when it ordered several tankers from a Korean shipyard.  A very large crude carrier (VLCC) or Suezmax at the time cost $60 to $80 million and would take two to three years to be built and delivered.  Knightsbridge would then lease the ships to Shell Oil under long-term leases.  Shell would pay Knightsbridge a base lease rate (perhaps $10,000 a day per tanker) regardless of whether it used the ships or not.  On top of that, Shell paid Knightsbridge a percentage of the difference between a base rate and the spot market price for VLCC rentals, notes Mohnish.  So if the spot price for a VLCC was $30,000 per day, Knightsbridge might receive $20,000 a day.  If the spot was $50,000, it would get perhaps $35,000 a day.  Mohnish:

At the base rate, Knightbridge pretty much covered its principal and interest payments for the debt it took on to pay for the tankers.  As the rates went above $10,000, there was positive cash flow;  the company was set up to just dividend all the excess cash out to shareholders, which is marvelous…

Because of this unusual structure and contract, when tanker rates go up dramatically, this company’s dividends go through the roof.

Mohnish continues:

In investing, all knowledge is cumulative.  I didn’t invest in Knightsbridge, but I did get a decent handle on the crude oil shipping business.  In 2001, we had an interesting situation take place with one of these oil shipping companies called Frontline.  Frontline is the exact opposite business model of Knightsbridge.  It has the largest oil tanker fleet in the world, among all the public companies.  The entire fleet is on the spot market.  There are very few long-term leases.

Because it rides on the spot market on these tankers, there is no such thing as earnings forecasts or guidance.  The company’s CEO himself doesn’t know what the income will be quarter to quarter.  This is great, because whenever Wall Street gets confused, it means we likely can make some money.  This is a company that has widely gyrating earnings.

Oil tanker rates have ranged historically from $6,000 a day to $100,000 a day.  The company needs about $18,000 a day to breakeven… Once [rates] go above $30,000 to $35,000, it is making huge profits.  In the third quarter of 2002, oil tanker rates collapsed.  A recession in the United States and a few other factors caused a drop in crude oil shipping volume.  Rates went down to $6,000 a day.  At $6,000 a day Frontline was bleeding red ink, badly.  The stock went from $11 a share to around $3, in about three months.

Mohnish notes the net asset value of Frontline:

Frontline had about 70 VLCCs at the time.  While the daily rental rates collapsed, the price per ship hadn’t changed much, dropping about 10 percent or 15 percent.  There is a fairly active market in buying and selling oil tankers.  Frontline had a tangible book value of about $16.50 per share.  Even factoring in the distressed market for ships, you would still get a liquidation value north of $11 per share.  The stock price had gone from $15 to $3… Frontline was trading at less than one-third of liquidation value.

Keep in mind that Frontline could sell a ship for about $60 million, and the company had 70 ships.  Frontline’s annual interest payments were $150 million.  If it sold two to three ships a year, Frontline could sustain the business at the rate of $6,000 a day for several years.

Mohnish also discovered that Frontline’s entire fleet was double hull tankers.  All new tankers had to be double hull after 2006 due to regulations following the Exxon Valdez spill.  Usually single hull tankers were available at cheaper day rates than double hull tankers.  But this wasn’t true when rates dropped to $6,000 a day.  Both types of ship were available at the same rate.  In this situation, everyone would rent the double hull ships and no one rented the single hull ships.

Owners of the single hull ships were likely get jittery and to sell the ships as long as rates stayed at $6,000 a day.  If they waited until 2006, Mohnish explains, the ability to rent single hull ships would be much lower.  And by 2006, scrap rates might be quite low if a large number of single hull ships were scrapped at the same time.  The net result is that there is a big jump in scrapping for single hulled tankers whenever rates go down.  Mohnish:

It takes two to three years to get delivery of a new tanker.  When demand comes back up again, inventory is very tight because capacity has been taken out and it can’t be added back instantaneously.  There is a definitive cycle.  When rates go as low as $6,000 and stay there for a few weeks, they can rise to astronomically high levels, say $60,000 a day, very quickly.  With Frontline, for about seven or eight weeks, the rates stayed under $10,000 a day and then spiked to $80,000 a day in fourth quarter 2002.  The worldwide fleet of VLCCs in 2002 was about 400 ships.  Over the past several decades, worldwide oil consumption has increased by 2 percent to 4 percent on average annually.  This 2 percent to 4 percent is generally tied to GDP growth.  Usually there are 10 to 12 new ships added each year to absorb this added demand.  When scrapping increases beyond normal levels, the fleet is no longer increasing by 2 percent to 4 percent.  When the demand for oil rises, there just aren’t enough ships.  The only thing that’s adjustable is the price, which skyrockets.

Pabrai Funds bought Frontline stock in the fall of 2002 at $5.90 a share, about half of liquidation value of $11 to $12.  When the stock moved up to $9 to $10, Mohnish sold the shares.  Because he bought the stock at roughly half liquidation value, this was a near risk-free bet:  Heads, I win a lot;  tails, I win a little!

Mohnish gives a final piece of advice:

Read voraciously and wait patiently, and from time to time amazing bets will present themselves.

Important Note:  Had Mohnish kept the shares of Frontline, they would have increased dramatically.  The shares approached $120 within a few years, so Mohnish would have made 20x his initial investment at $5.90 per share had he simply held on for a few years.

As noted earlier, Mohnish recently gave a lecture at Peking University (Guanghua School of Management) about 10-baggers to 100-baggers, giving many examples of stocks like Frontline that he had actually owned but sold way too soon.  Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo1XgDJCkh4

 

DHANDHO 403: INVEST IN THE COPYCATS RATHER THAN THE INNOVATORS

What Mohnish calls copycats are businesses that simply copy proven innovations.  The first few Patels figured out the economics of motel ownership.  The vast majority of Patels who came later simply copied what the first Patels had already done successfully.

Mohnish writes:

Most entrepreneurs lift their business ideas from other existing businesses or from their last employer.  Ray Kroc loved the business model of the McDonald brothers’ hamburger restaurant in San Bernardino, California.  In 1954, he bought the rights to the name and know-how, and he scaled it, with minimal change.  Many of the subsequent changes or innovations did not come from within the company with its formidable resources—they came from street-smart franchisees and competitors.  The company was smart enough to adopt them, just as they adopted the entire concept at the outset.

 

A SHORT CHECKLIST

Mohnish gives a list of good questions to ask before buying a stock:

  • Is it a business I understand very well—squarely within my circle of competence?
  • Do I know the intrinsic value of the business today and, with a high degree of confidence, how it is likely to change over the next few years?
  • Is the business priced at a large discount to its intrinsic value today and in two to three years?  Over 50 percent?
  • Would I be willing to invest a large part of my net worth into this business?
  • Is the downside minimal?
  • Does the business have a moat?
  • Is it run by able and honest managers?

If the answers to these questions are yes, buy the stock.  Furthermore, writes Mohnish, hold the stock for at least two to three years before you think about selling.  This gives enough time for conditions to normalize and thus for the stock to approach intrinsic value.  One exception:  If the stock increases materially in less than two years, you can sell, but only after you have updated your estimate of intrinsic value.

In any scenario, you should always update your estimate of intrinsic value.  If intrinsic value is much higher than the current price, then continuing to hold is almost always the best decision.  One huge mistake to avoid is selling a stock that later becomes a 10-bagger, 20-bagger, or 100-bagger.  That’s why you must always update your estimate of intrinsic value.  And don’t get jittery just because a stock is hitting new highs.

A few more points:

  • If you have a good investment process, then about 2/3 of the time the stock will approach intrinsic value over two to three years.  1/3 of the time, the investment won’t work as planned—whether due to error, bad luck, or unforeseeable events—but losses should be limited due to a large margin of safety having been present at the time of purchase.
  • In the case of distressed equities, there may be much greater potential upside as well as much greater potential downside.  A few value investors can use this approach, but it’s quite difficult and typically requires greater diversification.
  • For most value investors, it’s best to stick with companies with low or no debt.  You may grow wealth a bit more slowly this way, but as Buffett and Munger always ask, what’s the rush?  Buffett and Munger had a friend Rick Guerin who owned a huge number of Berkshire Hathaway shares, but many of the shares were on margin.  When Berkshire stock got cut in half—which will happen occasionally to almost any stock, no matter how good the company—Guerin was forced to sell much of his position.  Had Guerin not been on margin, his non-margined shares in Berkshire would later have been worth a fortune (approaching $1 billion).
  • Your own mistakes are your best teachers, explains Mohnish.  You’ll get better over time by studying your own mistakes:

While it is always best to learn vicariously form the mistakes of others, the lessons that really stick are ones we’ve stumbled through ourselves.

 

BE GENEROUS

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are giving away most of their fortune to help many people who are less fortunate.  Bill and Melinda Gates devote much of their time and energy (via the Gates Foundation) to saving or improving as many human lives as possible.

Mohnish Pabrai and his wife started the Dakshana Foundation in 2005.  Mohnish:

I do urge you to leverage Dhandho techniques fully to maximize your wealth.  But I also hope that… you’ll use some time and some of that Dhandho money to leave this world a little better place than you found it.  We cannot change the world, but we can improve this world for one person, ten people, a hundred people, and maybe even a few thousand people.

 

BOOLE MICROCAP FUND

An equal weighted group of micro caps generally far outperforms an equal weighted (or cap-weighted) group of larger stocks over time.  See the historical chart here:  http://boolefund.com/best-performers-microcap-stocks/

This outperformance increases significantly by focusing on cheap micro caps.  Performance can be further boosted by isolating cheap microcap companies that show improving fundamentals.  We rank microcap stocks based on these and similar criteria.

There are roughly 10-20 positions in the portfolio.  The size of each position is determined by its rank.  Typically the largest position is 15-20% (at cost), while the average position is 8-10% (at cost).  Positions are held for 3 to 5 years unless a stock approaches intrinsic value sooner or an error has been discovered.

The mission of the Boole Fund is to outperform the S&P 500 Index by at least 5% per year (net of fees) over 5-year periods.  We also aim to outpace the Russell Microcap Index by at least 2% per year (net).  The Boole Fund has low fees.

 

If you are interested in finding out more, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

My e-mail: jb@boolefund.com

 

 

 

Disclosures: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. All investments contain risk and may lose value. This material is distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of Boole Capital, LLC.

Ten Attributes of Great Investors

September 11, 2022

Michael Mauboussin is the author of several excellent books, including More Than You Know and Think Twice.  I wrote about these books here:

He has also written numerous papers, including Thirty Years: Reflections on the Ten Attributes of Great Investorshttps://bit.ly/2zlaljc

When it comes to value investing, Mauboussin is one of the best writers in the world.  Mauboussin highlights market efficiency, competitive strategy analysis, valuation, and decision making as chief areas of focus for him the past couple of decades.  Mauboussin:

What we know about each of these areas today is substantially greater than what we did in 1986, and yet we have an enormous amount to learn.  As I like to tell my students, this is an exciting time to be an investor because much of what we teach in business schools is a work-in-progress.

(Image by magele-picture)

Here are the Ten Attributes of Great Investors:

  • Be numerate (and understand accounting).
  • Understand value (the present value of free cash flow).
  • Properly assess strategy (or how a business makes money).
  • Compare effectively (expectations versus fundamentals).
  • Think probabilistically (there are few sure things).
  • Update your views effectively (beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be protected).
  • Beware of behavioral biases (minimizing constraints to good thinking).
  • Know the difference between information and influence.
  • Position sizing (maximizing the payoff from edge).
  • Read (and keep an open mind).

 

BE NUMERATE (AND UNDERSTAND ACCOUNTING)

Mauboussin notes that there are two goals when analyzing a company’s financial statements:

  • Translate the financial statements into free cash flow.
  • Determine how the competitive strategy of the company creates value.

The value of any business is the future free cash flow it will produce discounted back to the present.

(Photo by designer491)

Free cash flow is cash earnings minus investments that must be made to grow future earnings.  Free cash flow represents what owners of the business receive.  Warren Buffett refers to free cash flow as owner earnings.

Earnings alone cannot give you the value of a company.  You can grow earnings without growing value.  Whether earnings growth creates value depends on how much money the company invests to generate that growth.  If the ROIC (return on invested capital) of the company’s investment is below the cost of capital, then the resulting earnings growth destroys value rather than creates it.

After calculating free cash flow, the next goal in financial statement analysis is to figure out how the company’s strategy creates value.  For the company to create value, the ROIC must exceed the cost of capital.  Analyzing the company’s strategy means determining precisely how the company can get ROIC above the cost of capital.

Mauboussin writes that one way to analyze strategy is to compare two companies in the same business.  If you look at how the companies spend money, you can start to understand competitive positions.

Another way to grasp competitive position is by analyzing ROIC.

Photo by stanciuc

You can break ROIC into two parts:

  • profitability (net operating profit after tax / sales)
  • capital velocity (sales / invested capital)

Companies with high profitability but low capital velocity are using a differentiation strategy.  Their product is positioned in such a way that the business can earn high profit margins.  (For instance, a luxury jeweler.)

Companies with high capital velocity but low profitability have adopted a cost leadership strategy.  These businesses may have very thin profit margins, but they still generate high ROIC because their capital velocity is so high.  (Wal-Mart is a good example.)

Understanding how the company makes money can lead to insight about how long the company can maintain a high ROIC (if ROIC is high) or what the company must do to improve (if ROIC is low).

 

UNDERSTAND VALUE (THE PRESENT VALUE OF FREE CASH FLOW)

Mauboussin:

Great fundamental investors focus on understanding the magnitude and sustainability of free cash flow.  Factors that an investor must consider include where the industry is in its life cycle, a company’s competitive position within its industry, barriers to entry, the economics of the business, and management’s skill at allocating capital.

It’s worth repeating: The value of any business (or any financial asset) is the future free cash flow it will produce discounted back to the present.  Successful investors understand the variables that impact free cash flow.

Illustration by OpturaDesign

 

PROPERLY ASSESS STRATEGY (OR HOW A COMPANY MAKES MONEY)

Mauboussin says this attribute has two elements:

  • How does the company make money?
  • Does the company have a sustainable competitive advantage, and if so, how durable is it?

To see how a business makes money, you have to figure out the basic unit of analysis.  Mauboussin points out that the basic unit of analysis for a retailer is store economics:  How much does it cost to build a store?  What revenues will it generate?  What are the profit margins?

Regarding sustainable competitive advantage, Warren Buffett famously said:

The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.

If a company has a sustainable competitive advantage, then ROIC (return on invested capital) is above the cost of capital.  To assess the durability of that advantage, you have to analyze the industry and how the company fits in.  Looking at the five forces that determine industry attractiveness is a common step.  You should also examine potential threats from disruptive innovation.

Mauboussin:

Great investors can appreciate what differentiates a company that allows it to build an economic moat around its franchise that protects the business from competitors.  The size and longevity of the moat are significant inputs into any thoughtful valuation.

Bodiam Castle, Photo by valeryegorov

Buffett popularized the term economic moat to refer to a sustainable competitive advantage.  Here’s what Buffett said at the Berkshire annual meeting in 2000:

So we think in terms of that moat and the ability to keep its width and its impossibility of being crossed as the primary criterion of a great business.  And we tell our managers we want the moat widened every year.  That doesn’t necessarily mean the profit will be more this year than it was last year because it won’t be sometimes.  However, if the moat is widened every year, the business will do very well.

 

COMPARE EFFECTIVELY (EXPECTATIONS VERSUS FUNDAMENTALS)

Mauboussin:

Perhaps the most important comparison an investor must make, and one that distinguishes average from great investors, is between fundamentals and expectations.  Fundamentals capture a sense of a company’s future financial performance.  Value drivers including sales growth, operating profit margins, investment needs, and return on investment shape fundamentals.  Expectations reflect the financial performance implied by the stock price.

Mauboussin mentions pari-mutuel betting, specifically horse racing.

(Photo by Elshaneo)

Fundamentals are how fast the horse will run, while expectations are the odds.

  • If a company has good fundamentals, but the stock price already reflects that, then you can’t expect to beat the market by investing in the stock.
  • If a company has bad fundamentals, but the stock price is overly pessimistic, then you can expect to beat the market by investing in the stock.

The best business in the world will not bring excess returns if the stock price already fully reflects the high quality of the business.  Similarly, a terrible business can produce excess returns if the stock price indicates that investors have overreacted.

To make money by investing in a stock, you have to have what great investor Michael Steinhardt calls a variant perception—a view at odds with the consensus view (as reflected in the stock price).  And you have to be right.

Mauboussin observes that humans are quick to compare but aren’t good at it.  This includes reasoning by analogy, e.g., asking whether a particular turnaround is similar to some other turnaround.  However, it’s usually better to figure out the base rate:  What percentage of all turnarounds succeed?  (Not a very high number, which is why Buffett quipped, “Turnarounds seldom turn.”)

Another limitation of humans making comparisons is that people tend to see similarities when they’re looking for similarities, but they tend to see differences when they’re looking for differences.  For instance, Amos Tversky did an experiment in which the subjects were asked which countries are more similar, West Germany and East Germany, or Nepal and Ceylon?  Two-thirds answered West Germany and East Germany.  But then the subjects were asked which countries seemed more different.  Logic says that they would answer Nepal and Ceylon, but instead subjects again answered West Germany and East Germany.

 

THINK PROBABILISTICALLY (THERE ARE FEW SURE THINGS)

Great investors are always seeking an edge, where the price of an asset misrepresents the probabilities or the outcomes.  By similar logic, great investors evaluate each investment decision based on the process used rather than based on the outcome.

  • A good investment decision is one that if repeatedly made would be profitable over time.
  • A bad investment decision is one that if repeatedly made would lead to losses over time.

However, a good decision will sometimes lead to a bad outcome, while a bad decision will sometimes lead to a good outcome.  Investing is similar to other forms of betting in that way.

Photo by annebel146

Furthermore, what matters is not how often an investor is right, but rather how much the investor makes when he is right versus how much he loses when he is wrong.  In other words, what matters is not batting average but slugging percentage.  This is hard to put into practice due to loss aversion—the fact that as humans we feel a loss at least twice as much as an equivalent gain.

There are three ways of determining probabilities.  Subjective probability is a number that corresponds with your state of knowledge or belief.  Mauboussin gives an example:  You might come up with a probability that two countries will go to war.  Propensity is usually based on the physical properties of the system.  If a six-sided die is a perfect cube, then you know that the odds of a particular side coming up must be one out of six.  Frequency is the third approach.  Frequency—also called the base rate—is measured by looking at the outcomes of a proper reference class.  How often will a fair coin land on heads?  If you gather all the records you can of a fair coin being tossed, you’ll find that it lands on heads 50 percent of the time.  (You could run your own trials, too, by tossing a fair coin thousands or millions of times.)

Often subjective probabilities are useful as long as you remain open to new information and properly adjust your probabilities based on that information.  (The proper way to update such beliefs is using Bayes’s theorem.)  Subjective probabilities are useful when there’s no clear reference class—no relevant base rate.

When you’re looking at corporate performance—like sales or profit growth—it’s usually best to look at frequencies, i.e., base rates.

An investment decision doesn’t have to be complicated.  In fact, most good investment decisions are simple.  Mauboussin quotes Warren Buffett:

Take the probability of loss times the amount of possible loss from the probability of gain times the amount of possible gain.  That is what we’re trying to do.  It’s imperfect, but that’s what it’s all about.

Buffett again:

Investing is simple, but not easy.

 

UPDATE YOUR VIEWS EFFECTIVELY (BELIEFS ARE HYPOTHESES TO BE TESTED, NOT TREASURES TO BE PROTECTED)

We have a strong preference for consistency when it comes to our own beliefs.  And we expect others to be consistent.  The problem is compounded by confirmation bias, the tendency to look for and see only information that confirms our beliefs, and the tendency to interpret ambiguous information in a way that supports our beliefs.  As long as we feel like our beliefs are both consistent and correct—and, as a default psychological setting, most of us feel this way most of the time—we’ll feel comfortable and we won’t challenge our beliefs.

Illustration by intheskies

Great investors seek data and arguments that challenge their views.  Great investors also update their beliefs when they come across evidence that suggests they should.  The proper way to update beliefs is using Bayes’s theorem.  To see Bayes’s theorem and also a clear explanation and example, see: http://boolefund.com/the-signal-and-the-noise/

Mauboussin:

The best investors among us recognize that the world changes constantly and that all of the views that we hold are tenuous.  They actively seek varied points of view and update their beliefs as new information dictates.  The consequence of updated views can be action: changing a portfolio stance or weightings within a portfolio.  Others, including your clients, may view this mental flexibility as unsettling.  But good thinking requires maintaining as accurate a view of the world as possible.

 

BEWARE OF BEHAVIORAL BIASES (MINIMIZING CONSTRAINTS TO GOOD THINKING)

Mauboussin:

Keith Stanovich, a professor of psychology, likes to distinguish between intelligence quotient (IQ), which measures mental skills that are real and helpful in cognitive tasks, and rationality quotient (RQ), the ability to make good decisions.  His claim is that the overlap between these abilities is much lower than most people think.  Importantly, you can cultivate your RQ.

Rationality is only partly genetic.  You can train yourself to be more rational.

Great investors relentlessly train themselves to be as rational as possible.  Typically they keep an investment journal in which they write down the reasoning for every investment decision.  Later they look back on their decisions to analyze what they got right and where they went wrong.

Great investors also undertake a comprehensive study of cognitive biases.  For a list of cognitive biases, see these two blog posts:

It’s rarely enough just to know about cognitive biases.  Great investors take steps—like using a checklist—designed to mitigate the impact that innate cognitive biases have on investment decision-making.

Photo by Kenishirotie

 

KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INFORMATION AND INFLUENCE

A stock price generally represents the collective wisdom of investors about how a given company will perform in the future.  Most of the time, the crowd is more accurate than virtually any individual investor.

(Illustration by Marrishuanna)

However, periodically a stock price can get irrational.  (If this weren’t the case, great value investors could not exist.)  People regularly get carried away with some idea.  For instance, as Mauboussin notes, many investors got rich on paper by investing in dot-com stocks in the late 1990’s.  Investors who didn’t own dot-com stocks felt compelled to jump on board when they saw their neighbor getting rich (on paper).

Mauboussin mentions the threshold model from Mark Granovetter, a professor of sociology at Stanford University.  Mauboussin:

Imagine 100 potential rioters milling around in a public square.  Each individual has a “riot threshold,” the number of rioters that person would have to see in order to join the riot.  Say one person has a threshold of 0 (the instigator), one has a threshold of 1, one has a threshold of 2, and so on up to 99.  This uniform distribution of thresholds creates a domino effect and ensures that a riot will happen.  The instigator breaks a window with a rock, person one joins in, and then each individual piles on once the size of the riot reaches his or her threshold.  Substitute “buy dotcom stocks” for “join the riot” and you get the idea.

The point is that very few of the individuals, save the instigator, think that rioting is a good idea.  Most would probably shun rioting.  But once the number of others rioting reaches a threshold, they will jump in.  This is how the informational value of stocks is set aside and the influential component takes over.

Great investors are not influenced much at all by the behavior of other investors.  Great investors know that the collective wisdom reflected in a stock price is usually right, but sometimes wrong.  These investors can identify the occasional mispricing and then make an investment while ignoring the crowd.

 

POSITION SIZING (MAXIMIZING THE PAYOFF FROM EDGE)

Great investors patiently wait for situations where they have an edge, i.e., where the odds are in their favor.  Many investors understand the need for an edge.  However, fewer investors pay much attention to position sizing.

If you know the odds, there’s a formula—the Kelly criterion—that tells you exactly how much to bet in order to maximize your long-term returns.  The Kelly criterion can be written as follows:

  • F = p – [q/o]

where

  • F = Kelly criterion fraction of current capital to bet
  • o = Net odds, or dollars won per $1 bet if the bet wins (e.g., the bet may pay 5 to 1, meaning you win $5 per each $1 bet if the bet wins)
  • p = probability of winning
  • q = probability of losing = 1 – p

The Kelly criterion has a unique mathematical property: if you know the probability of winning and the net odds (payoff), then betting exactly the percentage determined by the Kelly criterion leads to the maximum long-term compounding of capital.  (This assumes that you’re going to make a long series of bets.)  Betting any percentage that is not equal to that given by the Kelly criterion will inevitably lead to lower compound growth over a long period of time.

Mauboussin adds:

Proper portfolio construction requires specifying a goal (maximize sum for one period or parlayed bets), identifying an opportunity set (lots of small edge or lumpy but large edge), and considering constraints (liquidity, drawdowns, leverage).   Answers to these questions suggest an appropriate policy regarding position sizing and portfolio construction.

In brief, most investors are ineffective at position sizing, but great investors are good at it.

 

READ (AND KEEP AN OPEN MIND)

Great investors generally read a ton.  They also read widely across many disciplines.  Moreover, as noted earlier, great investors seek to learn about the arguments of people who disagree with them.  Mauboussin:

Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger said that he really liked Albert Einstein’s point that “success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance and self-criticism. And by self-criticism, he meant the ability to change his mind so that he destroyed his own best-loved ideas.”  Reading is an activity that tends to foster all of those qualities.

(Photo by Lapandr)

Mauboussin continues:

Munger has also said, “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time—none, zero.”  This may be hyperbolic, but seems to be true in the investment world as well.

 

BOOLE MICROCAP FUND

An equal weighted group of micro caps generally far outperforms an equal weighted (or cap-weighted) group of larger stocks over time.  See the historical chart here:  http://boolefund.com/best-performers-microcap-stocks/

This outperformance increases significantly by focusing on cheap micro caps.  Performance can be further boosted by isolating cheap microcap companies that show improving fundamentals.  We rank microcap stocks based on these and similar criteria.

There are roughly 10-20 positions in the portfolio.  The size of each position is determined by its rank.  Typically the largest position is 15-20% (at cost), while the average position is 8-10% (at cost).  Positions are held for 3 to 5 years unless a stock approaches intrinsic value sooner or an error has been discovered.

The mission of the Boole Fund is to outperform the S&P 500 Index by at least 5% per year (net of fees) over 5-year periods.  We also aim to outpace the Russell Microcap Index by at least 2% per year (net).  The Boole Fund has low fees.

 

If you are interested in finding out more, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

My e-mail: jb@boolefund.com

 

 

 

Disclosures: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. All investments contain risk and may lose value. This material is distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of Boole Capital, LLC.

A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes

July 31, 2022

Peter Bevelin is the author of the great book, Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger.  I wrote about this book here: http://boolefund.com/seeking-wisdom/

Bevelin also wrote a shorter book, A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes.  I’m a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes.  Robert Hagstrom has written an excellent book on Holmes called The Detective and the Investor.  Here’s my summary of Hagstrom’s book: http://boolefund.com/invest-like-sherlock-holmes/

I highly recommend Hagstrom’s book.  But if you’re pressed for time, Bevelin’s A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes is worth reading.

Belevin’s book is a collection of quotations.  Most of the quotes are from Holmes, but there are also quotes from others, including:

    • Joseph Bell, a Scottish professor of clinical surgery who was Arthur Conan Doyle’s inspiration for Sherlock Holmes
    • Dr. John Watson, Holmes’s assistant
    • Dr. John Evelyn Thorndike, a fictional detective and forensic scientist  in stories by R. Austin Freeman
    • Claude Bernard, a French physiologist
    • Charles Darwin, the English naturalist
    • Thomas McRae, an American professor of medicine and colleague of Sir William Osler
    • Michel de Montaigne, a French statesman and philosopher
    • William Osler, a Canadian physician
    • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., an American physician and author

Sherlock Holmes:

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.

(Illustration of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget, via Wikimedia Commons)

Here’s an outline for this blog post:

    • Some Lessons
    • On Solving a Case—Observation and Inference
    • Observation—Start with collecting facts and follow them where they lead
    • Deduction—What inferences can we draw from our observations and facts?
    • Test Our Theory—If it disagrees with the facts it is wrong
    • Some Other Tools

 

SOME LESSONS

Bevelin quotes the science writer Martin Gardner on Sherlock Holmes:

Like the scientist trying to solve a mystery of nature, Holmes first gathered all the evidence he could that was relevant to his problem.  At times, he performed experiments to obtain fresh data.  He then surveyed the total evidence in the light of his vast knowledge of crime, and/or sciences relevant to crime, to arrive at the most probable hypothesis.  Deductions were made from the hypothesis; then the theory was further tested against new evidence, revised if need be, until finally the truth emerged with a probability approaching certainty.

Bevelin quotes Holmes on the qualities needed to be a good detective:

He has the power of observation and that of deduction.  He is only wanting in knowledge, and that may come in time.

It’s important to take a broad view.  Holmes:

One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature.

However, focus only on what is useful.  Bevelin quotes Dr. Joseph Bell:

He [Doyle] created a shrewd, quick-sighted, inquisitive man… with plenty of spare time, a retentive memory, and perhaps with the best gift of all—the power of unloading the mind of all burden of trying to remember unnecessary details.

Knowledge of human nature is obviously important.  Holmes:

Human nature is a strange mixture, Watson.  You see that even a villain and murderer can inspire such affection that his brother turns to suicide when he learns his neck is forfeited.

Holmes again:

Jealousy is a strange transformer of characters.

Bevelin writes that the most learned are not the wisest.  Knowledge doesn’t automatically make us wise.  Bevelin quotes Montaigne:

Judgment can do without knowledge but not knowledge without judgment.

Learning is lifelong.  Holmes:

Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.

Interior view of the famous The Sherlock Holmes Museum on Nov. 14, 2015 in London

 

ON SOLVING A CASE—Observation and Inference

Bevelin quotes Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke, a fictional detective in stories by R. Austin Freeman:

…I make it a rule, in all cases, to proceed on the strictly classical lines on inductive inquiry—collect facts, make hypotheses, test them and seek for verification.  And I always endeavour to keep a perfectly open mind.

Holmes:

We approached the case… with an absolutely blank mind, which is always an advantage.  We had formed no theories.  We were there simply to observe and to draw inferences from our observations.

Appearances can be deceiving.  If someone is likeable, that can cloud one’s judgment.  If someone is not likeable, that also can be misleading.  Holmes:

It is of the first importance… not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities… The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning.  I can assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintence is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million on the London poor.

Holmes talking to Watson:

You remember that terrible murderer, Bert Stevens, who wanted us to get him off in ’87?  Was there ever a more mild-mannered, Sunday-school young man?

 

OBSERVATION—Start with collecting facts and follow them where they lead

Bevelin quotes Thomas McCrae, an American professor of medicine and colleague of Sir William Osler:

More is missed by not looking than not knowing.

That said, to conduct an investigation one must have a working hypothesis.  Bevelin quotes the French physiologist Claude Bernard:

A hypothesis is… the obligatory starting point of all experimental reasoning.  Without it no investigation would be possible, and one would learn nothing:  one could only pile up barren observations.  To experiment without a preconceived idea is to wander aimlessly.

(Charles Darwin, Photo by Maull and Polyblank (1855), via Wikimedia Commons)

Bevelin also quotes Charles Darwin:

About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember someone saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colors.  How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!

Holmes:

Let us take that as  a working hypothesis and see what it leads us to.

It’s crucial to make sure one has the facts clearly in mind.  Bevelin quotes the French statesman and philosopher Montaigne:

I realize that if you ask people to account for “facts,” they usually spend more time finding reasons for them than finding out whether they are true…

Deception, writes Bevelin, has many faces.  Montaigne again:

If falsehood, like truth, had only one face, we would be in better shape.  For we would take as certain the opposite of what the liar said.  But the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and a limitless field.

Consider why someone might be lying.  Holmes:

Why are they lying, and what is the truth which they are trying so hard to conceal?  Let us try, Watson, you and I, if we can get behind the lie and reconstruct the truth.

It’s often not clear—especially near the beginning of an investigation—what’s relevant and what’s not.  Nonetheless, it’s vital to try to focus on what’s relevant because otherwise one can get bogged down by unnecessary detail.  Holmes:

The principal difficulty in your case… lay in the fact of their being too much evidence.  What was vital was overlaid and hidden by what was irrelevant.  Of all the facts which were presented to us we had to pick just those which we deemed to be essential, and then piece them together in order, so as to reconstruct this very remarkable chain of events.

Holmes again:

It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize out of a number of facts which are incidental and which are vital.  Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated.

Bevelin quotes the Canadian physician William Osler:

The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.

Observation is a skill one must develop.  Most of us are not observant.  Holmes:

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

(Illustration of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget (1891), via Wikimedia Commons)

Holmes again:

I see no more than you, but I have trained myself to notice what I see.

Small things can have the greatest importance.  Several quotes from Holmes:

    • The smallest point may be the most essential.
    • It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
    • What seems strange to you is only so because you do not follow my train of thought or observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend.
    • It is just these very simple things which are extremely liable to be overlooked.
    • Never trust general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.

Belevin also quotes Dr. Joseph Bell:

I always impressed over and over again upon all my scholars—Conan Doyle among them—the vast importance of little distinctions, the endless significance of trifles.

Belevin points out that it’s easy to overlook relevant facts.  It’s important always to ask if one has overlooked something.

 

DEDUCTION—What inferences can we draw from our observations and facts?

Most people reason forward, predicting what will happen next.  But few people reason backward, inferring the causes of the effects one has observed.  Holmes:

Most people, if you describe a chain of events to them, will tell you what the result would be.  They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass.  There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result.  This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backward, or analytically.

Often the solution is simple.  Holmes:

The case has been an interesting one… because it serves to show very clearly how simple the explanation may be of an affair which at first sight seems to be almost inexplicable.

History frequently repeats.  Holmes:

They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight.  There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel  the thousand and first.

Holmes:

There is nothing new under the sun.  It has all been done before.

That said, some cases are unique and different to an extent.  But bizarre cases tend to be easier to solve.  Holmes:

As a rule… the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be.  It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

(Illustration of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget, via Wikimedia Commons)

Holmes again:

It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery.  The most commonplace crime is often the most mysterious, because it presents no new or special features from which deductions may be drawn.

If something we expect to see doesn’t happen, that in itself can be a clue.  There was one case of a race horse stolen during the night.  When Holmes gathered evidence, he learned that the dog didn’t bark.  This means the midnight visitor must have been someone the dog knew well.

Moreover, many seemingly isolated facts could provide a solution if they are taken together.  Holmes:

You see all these isolated facts, together with many minor ones, all pointed in the same direction.

After enough facts have been gathered, then one can consider each possible hypothesis one at a time.  In practice, there are many iterations:  new facts are discovered along the way, and new hypotheses are constructed.  By carefully excluding each hypothesis that is not possible, eventually one can deduce the hypothesis that is true.  Holmes:

That process… starts upon the supposition that when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.  It may well be that several explanations remain, in which case one tries test after test until one or other of them has a convincing amount of support.

 

TEST OUR THEORY—If it disagrees with the facts it is wrong

What seems obvious can be very misleading.  Holmes:

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

“Truth is stranger than fiction,” said Mark Twain.  Holmes:

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of many could invent.

Holmes again:

One should always look for a possible alternative and provide against it.  It is the first rule of criminal investigation.

(Illustration of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget, via Wikimedia Commons)

It’s vital to take time to think things through.  Watson:

Sherlock Holmes was a man… who, when he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view until he had either fathomed it or convinced himself that his data were insufficient.

Sometimes doing nothing—or something else—is best when one is waiting for more evidence.  Holmes:

I gave my mind a thorough rest by plunging into a chemical analysis.  One of our greatest statesmen has said that a change of work is the best rest.  So it is.

 

SOME OTHER TOOLS

Bevelin observes the importance of putting oneself in another’s shoes.  Holmes:

You’ll get results, Inspector, by always putting yourself in the other fellow’s place, and thinking what you would do yourself.  It takes some imagination, but it pays.

Others may be of help.  Holmes:

If you will find the facts, perhaps others may find the explanation.

Watson was a great help to Holmes.  Watson:

I was a whetstone for his mind.  I stimulated him.  He liked to think aloud in my presence.  His remarks could hardly be said to be made to me—many of them would have been as appropriately addressed to his bedstead—but nonetheless, having formed the habit, it had become in some way helpful that I should register and interject.  If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly.  Such was my humble role in our alliance.

(Illustration of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson by Sidney Paget, via Wikimedia Commons)

Different lines of thought can approximate the truth.  Bevelin quotes Dr. Joseph Bell:

There were two of us in the hunt, and when two men set out to find a golf ball in the rough, they expect to come across it where the straight lines marked in their minds’ eye to it, from their original positions, crossed.  In the same way, when two men set out to investigate a crime mystery, it is where their researches intersect that we have a result.

Holmes makes the same point:

Now we will take another line of reasoning.  When you follow two separate chains of thought, Watson, you will find some point of intersection which should approximate to the truth.

It’s essential to be open to contradictory evidence.  Bevelin quotes Charles Darwin:

I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved… as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it.

Mistakes are inevitable.  Holmes:

Because I made a blunder, my dear Watson—which is, I am afraid, a more common occurrence than anyone would think who only knew me through your memoirs.

Holmes remarks that every mortal makes mistakes.  But the best are able to recognize their mistakes and take corrective action:

Should you care to add the case to your annals, my dear Watson… it can only be as an example of that temporary eclipse to which even the best-balanced mind may be exposed.  Such slips are common to all mortals, and the greatest is he who can recognize and repair them.

Bevelin quotes the physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.:

The best part of our knowledge is that which teaches us where knowledge leaves off and ignorance begins.

(Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., via Wikimedia Commons)

In the investment world, the great investors Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger use the term circle of competence.  Here’s Buffett:

What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses.  Note that word “selected”:  You don’t have to be an expert on every company, or even many.  You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence.  The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.

Buffett again:

What counts for most people in investing is not how much they know, but rather how realistically they define what they don’t know.

Munger:

Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.

Finally, here’s Tom Watson, Sr., the founder of IBM:

I’m no genius.  I’m smart in spots—but I stay around those spots.

 

BOOLE MICROCAP FUND

An equal weighted group of micro caps generally far outperforms an equal weighted (or cap-weighted) group of larger stocks over time.  See the historical chart here:  http://boolefund.com/best-performers-microcap-stocks/

This outperformance increases significantly by focusing on cheap micro caps.  Performance can be further boosted by isolating cheap microcap companies that show improving fundamentals.  We rank microcap stocks based on these and similar criteria.

There are roughly 10-20 positions in the portfolio.  The size of each position is determined by its rank.  Typically the largest position is 15-20% (at cost), while the average position is 8-10% (at cost).  Positions are held for 3 to 5 years unless a stock approaches intrinsic value sooner or an error has been discovered.

The mission of the Boole Fund is to outperform the S&P 500 Index by at least 5% per year (net of fees) over 5-year periods.  We also aim to outpace the Russell Microcap Index by at least 2% per year (net).  The Boole Fund has low fees.

 

If you are interested in finding out more, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

My e-mail: jb@boolefund.com

 

 

 

Disclosures: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. All investments contain risk and may lose value. This material is distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of Boole Capital, LLC.

Invest Like Sherlock Holmes

June 5, 2022

Robert G. Hagstrom has written a number of excellent books on investing.  One of his best is The Detective and the Investor  (Texere, 2002).

Many investors are too focused on the short term, are overwhelmed with information, take shortcuts, or fall prey to cognitive biases.  Hagstrom argues that investors can learn from the Great Detectives as well as from top investigative journalists.

Great detectives very patiently gather information from a wide variety of sources.  They discard facts that turn out to be irrelevant and keep looking for new facts that are relevant.  They painstakingly use logic to analyze the given information and reach the correct conclusion.  They’re quite willing to discard a hypothesis, no matter how well-supported, if new facts lead in a different direction.

(Illustration of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget (1891), via Wikimedia Commons)

Top investigative journalists follow a similar method.

Outline for this blog post:

  • The Detective and the Investor
  • Auguste Dupin
  • Jonathan Laing and Sunbeam
  • Top Investigative Journalists
  • Edna Buchanan—Pulitzer Prize Winner
  • Sherlock Holmes
  • Arthur Conan Doyle
  • Holmes on Wall Street
  • Father Brown
  • How to Become a Great Detective

The first Great Detective is Auguste Dupin, an invention of Edgar Allan Poe.  The financial journalist Jonathan Laing’s patient and logical analysis of the Sunbeam Corporation bears similarity to Dupin’s methods.

Top investigative journalists are great detectives.  The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edna Buchanan is an excellent example.

Sherlock Holmes is the most famous Great Detective.  Holmes was invented by Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle.

Last but not least, Father Brown is the third Great Detective discussed by Hagstrom.  Father Brown was invented by G. K. Chesterton.

The last section—How To Become a Great Detective—sums up what you as an investor can learn from the three Great Detectives.

 

THE DETECTIVE AND THE INVESTOR

Hagstrom writes that many investors, both professional and amateur, have fallen into bad habits, including the following:

  • Short-term thinking: Many professional investors advertise their short-term track records, and many clients sign up on this basis.  But short-term performance is largely random, and usually cannot be maintained.  What matters (at a minimum) is performance over rolling five-year periods.
  • Infatuation with speculation: Speculation is guessing what other investors will do in the short term.  Investing, on the other hand, is figuring out the value of a given business and only buying when the price is well below that value.
  • Overload of information: The internet has led to an overabundance of information.  This makes it crucial that you, as an investor, know how to interpret and analyze the information.
  • Mental shortcuts: We know from Daniel Kahneman (see Thinking, Fast and Slow) that most people rely on System 1 (intuition) rather than System 2 (logic and math) when making decisions under uncertainty.  Most investors jump to conclusions based on easy explanations, and then—due to confirmation bias—only see evidence that supports their conclusions.
  • Emotional potholes: In addition to confirmation bias, investors suffer from overconfidence, hindsight bias, loss aversion, and several other cognitive biases.  These cognitive biases regularly cause investors to make mistakes in their investment decisions.  I wrote about cognitive biases here: http://boolefund.com/cognitive-biases/

How can investors develop better habits?  Hagstrom:

The core premise of this book is that the same mental skills that characterize a good detective also characterize a good investor… To say this another way, the analytical methods displayed by the best fictional detectives are in fact high-level decision-making tools that can be learned and applied to the investment world.

(Illustration of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget, via Wikimedia Commons)

Hagstrom asks if it is possible to combine the methods of the three Great Detectives.  If so, what would the ideal detective’s approach to investing be?

First, our investor-detective would have to keep an open mind, be prepared to analyze each new opportunity without any preset opinions.  He or she would be well versed in the basic methods of inquiry, and so would avoid making any premature and possibly inaccurate assumptions.  Of course, our investor-detective would presume that the truth might be hidden below the surface and so would distrust the obvious.  The investor-detective would operate with cool calculation and not allow emotions to distract clear thinking.  The investor-detective would also be able to deconstruct the complex situation into its analyzable parts.  And perhaps most important, our investor-detective would have a passion for truth, and, driven by a nagging premonition that things are not what they seem to be, would keep digging away until all the evidence had been uncovered.

 

AUGUSTE DUPIN

(Illustration—by Frédéric Théodore Lix—to The Purloined Letter, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Murders in the Rue Morgue exemplifies Dupin’s skill as a detective.  The case involves Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter.  Madame L’Espanaye was found behind the house in the yard with multiple broken bones and her head almost severed.  The daughter was found strangled to death and stuffed upside down into a chimney.  The murders occurred in a fourth-floor room that was locked from the inside.  On the floor were a bloody straight razor, several bloody tufts of grey hair, and two bags of gold coins.

Several witnesses heard voices, but no one could say for sure which language it was.  After deliberation, Dupin concludes that they must not have been hearing a human voice at all.  He also dismisses the possibility of robbery, since the gold coins weren’t taken.  Moreover, the murderer would have to possess superhuman strength to stuff the daughter’s body up the chimney.  As for getting into a locked room, the murderer could have gotten in through a window.  Finally, Dupin demonstrates that the daughter could not have been strangled by a human hand.  Dupin concludes that Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter were killed by an orangutan.

Dupin places an advertisement in the local newspaper asking if anyone had lost an orangutan.  A sailor arrives looking for it.  The sailor explains that he had seen the orangutan with a razor, imitating the sailor shaving.  The orangutan had then fled.  Once it got into the room with Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter, the orangutan probably grabbed Madame’s hair and was waving the razor, imitating a barber.  When the woman screamed in fear, the orangutan grew furious and killed her and her daughter.

Thus Dupin solves what at first seemed like an impossible case.  The solution is completely unexpected but is the only logical possibility, given all the facts.

Hagstrom writes that investors can learn important lessons from the Great Detective Auguste Dupin:

First, look in all directions, observe carefully and thoughtfully everything you see, and do not make assumptions from inadequate information.  On the other hand, do not blindly accept what you find.  Whatever you read, hear, or overhear about a certain stock or company may not necessarily be true.  Keep on with your research;  give yourself time to dig beneath the surface.

If you’re a small investor, it’s often best to invest in microcap stocks.  (This presumes that you have access to a proven investment process.)  There are hundreds of tiny companies much too small for most professional investors even to consider.  Thus, there is much more mispricing among micro caps.  Moreover, many microcap companies are relatively easy to analyze and understand.  (The Boole Microcap Fund invests in microcap companies.)

 

JONATHAN LAING AND SUNBEAM

(Sunbeam logo, via Wikimedia Commons)

Hagstrom writes that, in the spring of 1997, Wall Street was in love with the self-proclaimed ‘turnaround genius’ Al Dunlap.  Dunlap was asked to take over the troubled Sunbeam Corporation, a maker of electric home appliances.  Dunlap would repeat the strategy he used on previous turnarounds:

[Drive] up the stock price by any means necessary, sell the company, and cash in his stock options at the inflated price.

Although Dunlap made massive cost cuts, some journalists were skeptical, viewing Sunbeam as being in a weak competitive position in a harsh industry.  Jonathan Laing of Barron’s, in particular, took a close look at Sunbeam.  Laing focused on accounting practices:

First, Laing pointed out that Sunbeam took a huge restructuring charge ($337 million) in the last quarter of 1996, resulting in a net loss for the year of $228.3 million.  The charges included moving reserves from 1996 to 1997 (where they could later be recharacterized as income);  prepaying advertising expenses to make the new year’s numbers look better;  a suspiciously high charge for bad-debt allowance;  a $90 million write-off for inventory that, if sold at a later date, could turn up in future profits;  and write-offs for plants, equipment, and trademarks used by business lines that were still operating.

To Laing, it looked very much like Sunbeam was trying to find every possible way to transfer 1997 projected losses to 1996 (and write 1996 off as a lost year, claiming it was ruined by previous management) while at the same time switching 1996 income into 1997…

(Photo by Evgeny Ivanov)

Hagstrom continues:

Even though Sunbeam’s first-quarter 1997 numbers did indeed show a strong increase in sales volume, Laing had collected evidence that the company was engaging in the practice known as ‘inventory stuffing’—getting retailers to place abnormally large orders either through high-pressure sales tactics or by offering them deep discounts (using the written-off inventory from 1996).  Looking closely at Sunbeam’s financial reports, Laing also found a hodgepodge of other maneuvers designed to boost sales numbers, such as delaying delivery of sales made in 1996 so they could go on the books as 1997 sales, shipping more units than the customer had actually ordered, and counting as sales orders that had already been canceled.

The bottom line was simply that much of 1997’s results would be artificial.  Hagstrom summarizes the lesson from Dupin and Laing:

The core lesson for investors here can be expressed simply:  Take nothing for granted, whether it comes from the prefect of police or the CEO of a major corporation.  This is, in fact, a key theme of this chapter.  If something doesn’t make sense to you—no matter who says it—that’s your cue to start digging.

By July 1998, Sunbeam stock had lost 80 percent of its value and was lower than when Dunlap took over.  The board of directors fired Dunlap and admitted that its 1997 financial statements were unreliable and were being audited by a new accounting firm.  In February 2001, Sunbeam filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  On May 15, 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against Dunlap and four senior Sunbeam executives, along with their accounting firm, Arthur Andersen.  The SEC charged them with a fraudulent scheme to create the illusion of a successful restructuring.

Hagstrom points out what made Laing successful as an investigative journalist:

He read more background material, dissected more financial statements, talked to more people, and painstakingly pieced together what many others failed to see.

 

TOP INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS

Hagstrom mentions Professor Linn B. Washington, Jr., a talented teacher and experienced investigative reporter.  (Washington was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for his series of articles on drug wars in the Richard Allen housing project.)  Hagstrom quotes Washington:

Investigative journalism is not a nine-to-five job.  All good investigative journalists are first and foremost hard workers.  They are diggers.  They don’t stop at the first thing they come to but rather they feel a need to persist.  They are often passionate about the story they are working on and this passion helps fuel the relentless pursuit of information.  You can’t teach that.  They either have it or they don’t.

…I think most reporters have a sense of morality.  They are outraged by corruption and they believe their investigations have a real purpose, an almost sacred duty to fulfill.  Good investigative reporters want to right the wrong, to fight for the underdog.  And they believe there is a real responsibility attached to the First Amendment.

(Photo by Robyn Mackenzie)

Hagstrom then refers to The Reporter’s Handbook, written by Steve Weinberg for investigative journalists.  Weinberg maintains that gathering information involves two categories: documents and people.  Hagstrom:

Weinberg asks readers to imagine three concentric circles.  The outmost one is ‘secondary sources,’ the middle one ‘primary sources.’  Both are composed primarily of documents.  The inner circle, ‘human sources,’ is made up of people—a wide range of individuals who hold some tidbit of information to add to the picture the reporter is building.

Ideally, the reporter starts with secondary sources and then primary sources:

At these two levels of the investigation, the best reporters rely on what has been called a ‘documents state of mind.’  This way of looking at the world has been articulated by James Steele and Donald Bartlett, an investigative team from the Philadephia Inquirer.  It means that the reporter starts from day one with the belief that a good record exists somewhere, just waiting to be found.

Once good background knowledge is accumulated from all the primary and secondary documents, the reporter is ready to turn to the human sources…

Photo by intheskies

Time equals truth:

As they start down this research track, reporters also need to remember another vital concept from the handbook:  ‘Time equals truth.’  Doing a complete job of research takes time, whether the researcher is a reporter following a story or an investor following a company—or for that matter, a detective following the evidence at a crime scene.  Journalists, investors, and detectives must always keep in mind that the degree of truth one finds is directly proportional to the amount of time one spends in the search.  The road to truth permits no shortcuts.

The Reporter’s Handbook also urges reporters to question conventional wisdom, to remember that whatever they learn in their investigation may be biased, superficial, self-serving for the source, or just plain wrong.  It’s another way of saying ‘Take nothing for granted.’  It is the journalist’s responsibility—and the investor’s—to penetrate the conventional wisdom and find what is on the other side.

The three concepts discussed above—‘adopt a documents state of mind,’ ‘time equals truth,’ and ‘question conventional wisdom;  take nothing for granted’—may be key operating principles for journalists, but I see them also as new watchwords for investors.

 

EDNA BUCHANAN—PULITZER PRIZE WINNER

Edna Buchanan, working for the Miami Herald and covering the police beat, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986.  Hagstrom lists some of Buchanan’s principles:

  • Do a complete background check on all the key players.  Find out how a person treats employees, women, the environment, animals, and strangers who can do nothing for them.  Discover if they have a history of unethical and/or illegal behavior.
  • Cast a wide net.  Talk to as many people as you possibly can.  There is always more information.  You just have to find it.  Often that requires being creative.
  • Take the time.  Learning the truth is proportional to the time and effort you invest.  There is always more that you can do.  And you may uncover something crucial.  Never take shortcuts.
  • Use common sense.  Often official promises and pronouncements simply don’t fit the evidence.  Often people lie, whether due to conformity to the crowd, peer pressure, loyalty (like those trying to protect Nixon et al. during Watergate), trying to protect themselves, fear, or any number of reasons.  As for investing, some stories take a long time to figure out, while other stories (especially for tiny companies) are relatively simple.
  • Take no one’s word.  Find out for yourself.  Always be skeptical and read between the lines.  Very often official press releases have been vetted by lawyers and leave out critical information.  Take nothing for granted.
  • Double-check your facts, and then check them again.  For a good reporter, double-checking facts is like breathing.  Find multiples sources of information.  Again, there are no shortcuts.  If you’re an investor, you usually need the full range of good information in order to make a good decision.

In most situations, to get it right requires a great deal of work.  You must look for information from a broad range of sources.  Typically you will find differing opinions.  Not all information has the same value.  Always be skeptical of conventional wisdom, or what ‘everybody knows.’

 

SHERLOCK HOLMES

Image by snaptitude

Sherlock Holmes approaches every problem by following three steps:

  • First, he makes a calm, meticulous examination of the situation, taking care to remain objective and avoid the undue influence of emotion.  Nothing, not even the tiniest detail, escapes his keen eye.
  • Next, he takes what he observes and puts it in context by incorporating elements from his existing store of knowledge.  From his encyclopedic mind, he extracts information about the thing observed that enables him to understand its significance.
  • Finally, he evaluates what he observed in the light of this context and, using sound deductive reasoning, analyzes what it means to come up with the answer.

These steps occur and re-occur in an iterative search for all the facts and for the best hypothesis.

There was a case involving a young doctor, Percy Trevelyan.  Some time ago, an older gentleman named Blessington offered to set up a medical practice for Trevelyan in return for a share of the profits.  Trevelyan agreed.

A patient suffering from catalepsy—a specialty of the doctor—came to the doctor’s office one day.  The patient also had his son with him.  During the examination, the patient suffered a cataleptic attack.  The doctor ran from the room to grab the treatment medicine.  But when he got back, the patient and his son were gone.  The two men returned the following day, giving a reasonable explanation for the mix-up, and the exam continued.  (On both visits, the son had stayed in the waiting room.)

Shortly after the second visit, Blessington burst into the exam room, demanding to know who had been in his private rooms.  The doctor tried to assure him that no one had.  But upon going to Blessington’s room, he saw a strange set of footprints.  Only after Trevelyan promises to bring Sherlock Holmes to the case does Blessington calm down.

Holmes talks with Blessington.  Blessington claims not to know who is after him, but Holmes can tell that he is lying.  Holmes later tells his assistant Watson that the patient and his son were fakes and had some sinister reason for wanting to get Blessington.

Holmes is right.  The next morning, Holmes and Watson are called to the house again.  This time, Blessington is dead, apparently having hung himself.

But Holmes deduces that it wasn’t a suicide but a murder.  For one thing, there were four cigar butts found in the fireplace, which led the policeman to conclude that Blessington had stayed up late agonizing over his decision.  But Holmes recognizes that Blessington’s cigar is a Havana, but the other three cigars had been imported by the Dutch from East India.  Furthermore, two had been smoked from a holder and two without.  So there were at least two other people in the room with Blessington.

Holmes does his usual very methodical examination of the room and the house.  He finds three sets of footprints on the stairs, clearly showing that three men had crept up the stairs.  The men had forced the lock, as Holmes deduced from scratches on it.

Holmes also realized the three men had come to commit murder.  There was a screwdriver left behind.  And he could further deduce (by the ashes dropped) where each man sat as the three men deliberated over how to kill Blessington.  Eventually, they hung Blessington.  Two killers left the house and the third barred the door, implying that the third murderer must be a part of the doctor’s household.

All these signs were visible:  the three sets of footprints, the scratches on the lock, the cigars that were not Blessington’s type, the screwdriver, the fact that the front door was barred when the police arrived.  But it took Holmes to put them all together and deduce their meaning:  murder, not suicide.  As Holmes himself remarked in another context, ‘The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.’

…He knows Blessington was killed by people well known to him.  He also knows, from Trevelyan’s description, what the fake patient and his son look like.  And he has found a photograph of Blessington in the apartment.  A quick stop at policy headquarters is all Holmes needs to pinpoint their identity.  The killers, no strangers to the police, were a gang of bank robbers who had gone to prison after being betrayed by their partner, who then took off with all the money—the very money he used to set Dr. Trevelyan up in practice.  Recently released from prison, the gang tracked Blessington down and finally executed him.

Spelled out thus, one logical point after another, it seems a simple solution.  Indeed, that is Holmes’s genius:  Everything IS simple, once he explains it.

Hagstrom then adds:

Holmes operates from the presumption that all things are explainable;  that the clues are always present, awaiting discovery. 

The first step—gathering all the facts—usually requires a great deal of careful effort and attention.  One single fact can be the key to deducing the true hypothesis.  The current hypothesis is revisable if there may be relevant facts not yet known.  Therefore, a heightened degree of awareness is always essential.  With practice, a heightened state of alertness becomes natural for the detective (or the investor).

“Details contain the vital essence of the whole matter.” — Sherlock Holmes

Moreover, it’s essential to keep emotion out of the process of discovery:

One reason Holmes is able to see fully what others miss is that he maintains a level of detached objectivity toward the people involved.  He is careful not to be unduly influenced by emotion, but to look at the facts with calm, dispassionate regard.  He sees everything that is there—and nothing that is not.  For Holmes knows that when emotion seeps in, one’s vision of what is true can become compromised.  As he once remarked to Dr. Watson, ‘Emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning… Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.  You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.’

Image by snaptitude

Holmes himself is rather aloof and even antisocial, which helps him to maintain objectivity when collecting and analyzing data.

‘I make a point of never having any prejudices and of following docilely wherever fact may lead me.’  He starts, that is, with no preformed idea, and merely collects data.  But it is part of Holmes’s brilliance that he does not settle for the easy answer.  Even when he has gathered together enough facts to suggest one logical possibility, he always knows that this answer may not be the correct one.  He keeps searching until he has found everything, even if subsequent facts point in another direction.  He does not reject the new facts simply because they’re antithetical to what he’s already found, as so many others might.

Hagstrom observes that many investors are susceptible to confirmation bias:

…Ironically, it is the investors eager to do their homework who may be the most susceptible.  At a certain point in their research, they have collected enough information that a pattern becomes clear, and they assume they have found the answer.  If subsequent information then contradicts that pattern, they cannot bring themselves to abandon the theory they worked so hard to develop, so they reject the new facts.

Gathering information about an investment you are considering means gather all the information, no matter where it ultimately leads you.  If you find something that does not fit your original thesis, don’t discard the new information—change the thesis.

 

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

Arthur Conan Doyle was a Scottish doctor.  One of his professors, Dr. Bell, challenged his students to hone their skills of observation.  Bell believed that a correct diagnosis required alert attention to all aspects of the patient, not just the stated problem.  Doyle later worked for Dr. Bell.  Doyle’s job was to note the patients’ problem along with all possibly relevant details.

Doyle had a very slow start as a doctor.  He had virtually no patients.  He spent his spare time writing, which he had loved doing since boarding school.  Doyle’s main interest was historical fiction.  But he didn’t get much money from what he wrote.

One day he wrote a short novel, A Study in Scarlet, which introduced a private detective, Sherlock Holmes.  Hagstrom quotes Doyle:

I thought I would try my hand at writing a story where the hero would treat crime as Dr. Bell treated disease, and where science would take the place of chance.

Doyle soon realized that he might be able to sell short stories about Sherlock Holmes as a way to get some extra income.  Doyle preferred historical novels, but his short stories about Sherlock Holmes started selling surprisingly well.  Because Doyle continued to emphasize historical novels and the practice of medicine, he demanded higher and higher fees for his short stories about Sherlock Holmes.  But the stories were so popular that magazine editors kept agreeing to the fee increases.

Photo by davehanlon

Soon thereafter, Doyle, having hardly a single patient, decided to abandon medicine and focus on writing.  Doyle still wanted to do other types of writing besides the short stories.  He asked for a very large sum for the Sherlock Holmes stories so that the editors would stop bothering him.  Instead, the editors immediately agreed to the huge fee.

Many years later, Doyle was quite tired of Holmes and Watson after having written fifty-six short stories and four novels about them.  But readers never could get enough.  And the stories are still highly popular to this day, which attests to Doyle’s genius.  Doyle has always been credited with launching the tradition of the scientific sleuth.

 

HOLMES ON WALL STREET

Sherlock Holmes is the most famous Great Detective for good reason.  He is exceptionally thorough, unemotional, and logical.

Holmes knows a great deal about many different things, which is essential in order for him to arrange and analyze all the facts:

The list of things Holmes knows about is staggering:  the typefaces used by different newspapers, what the shape of a skull reveals about race, the geography of London, the configuration of railway lines in cities versus suburbs, and the types of knots used by sailors, for a few examples.  He has authored numerous scientific monographs on such topics as tattoos, ciphers, tobacco ash, variations in human ears, what can be learned from typewriter keys, preserving footprints with plaster of Paris, how a man’s trade affects the shape of his hands, and what a dog’s manner can reveal about the character of its owner.

(Illustration of Sherlock Holmes with various tools, by Elena Kreys)

Consider what Holmes says about his monograph on the subject of tobacco:

“In it I enumerate 140 forms of cigar, cigarette, and pipe tobacco… It is sometimes of supreme importance as a clue.  If you can say definitely, for example, that some murder has been done by a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows your field of search.”

It’s very important to keep gathering and re-gathering facts to ensure that you haven’t missed anything.  Holmes:

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence.  It biases the judgment.”

“The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.”

Although gathering all facts is essential, at the same time, you must be organizing those facts since not all facts are relevant to the case at hand.  Of course, this is an iterative process. You may discard a fact as irrelevant and realize later that it is relevant.

Part of the sorting process involves a logical analysis of various combinations of facts.  You reject combinations that are logically impossible.  As Holmes famously said:

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Often there is more than one logical possibility that is consistent with the known facts.  Be careful not to be deceived by obvious hypotheses.  Often what is ‘obvious’ is completely wrong.

Sometimes finding the solution requires additional research.  Entertaining several possible hypotheses may also be required.  Holmes:

“When you follow two separate chains of thought you will find some point of intersection which should approximate to the truth.”

But be careful to keep facts and hypotheses separate, as Holmes asserts:

“The difficulty is to detach the frame of absolute undeniable facts from the embellishments of theorists.  Then, having established ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to see what inferences may be drawn and what are the special points upon which the whole mystery turns.”

For example, there was a case involving the disappearance of a valuable racehorse.  The chief undeniable fact was that the dog did not bark, which meant that the intruder had to be familiar to the dog.

Sherlock Holmes As Investor

How would Holmes approach investing?  Hagstrom:

Here’s what we know of his methods:  He begins an examination with an objective mind, untainted by prejudice.  He observes acutely and catalogues all the information, down to the tiniest detail, and draws on his broad knowledge to put those details into context.  Then, armed with the facts, he walks logically, rationally, thoughtfully toward a conclusion, always on the lookout for new, sometimes contrary information that might alter the outcome.

It’s worth repeating that much of the process of gathering facts can be tedious and boring.  This is the price you must pay to ensure you get all the facts.  Similarly, analyzing all the facts often requires patience and can take a long time.  No shortcuts.

 

FATHER BROWN

Hagstrom opens the chapter with a scene in which Aristide Valentin—head of Paris police and the most famous investigator in Europe—is chasing Hercule Flambeau, a wealthy and famous French jewel thief.  Both Valentin and Flambeau are on the same train.  But Valentin gets distracted by the behavior of a very short Catholic priest with a round face.  The priest is carrying several brown paper parcels, and he keeps dropping one or the other, or dropping his umbrella.

When the train reaches London, Valentin isn’t exactly sure where Flambeau went.  So Valentin decides to go systematically to the ‘wrong places.’  Valentin ends up at a certain restaurant that caught his attention.  A sugar bowl has salt in it, while the saltcellar contains sugar.  He learns from a waiter that two clergymen had been there earlier, and that one had thrown a half-empty cup of soup against the wall.  Valentin inquires which way the priests went.

Valentin goes to Carstairs Street.  He passes a greengrocer’s stand where the signs for oranges and nuts have been switched.  The owner is still upset about a recent incident in which a parson knocked over his bin of apples.

Valentin keeps looking and notices a restaurant that has a broken window.  He questions the waiter, who explains to him that two foreign parsons had been there.  Apparently, they overpaid.  The waiter told the two parsons of their mistake, at which point one parson said, ‘Sorry for the confusion.  But the extra amount will pay for the window I’m about to break.’  Then the parson broke the window.

Valentin finally ends up in a public park, where he sees two men, one short and one tall, both wearing clerical garb.  Valentin approaches and recognizes that the short man is the same clumsy priest from the train.  The short priest suspected all along that the tall man was not a priest but a criminal.  The short priest, Father Brown, had left the trail of hints for the police.  At that moment, even without turning around, Father Brown knew the police were nearby ready to arrest Flambeau.

Father Brown was invented by G. K. Chesterton.  Father Brown is very compassionate and has deep insight into human psychology, which often helps him to solve crimes.

He knows, from hearing confessions and ministering in times of trouble, how people act when they have done something wrong.  From observing a person’s behavior—facial expressions, ways of walking and talking, general demeanor—he can tell much about that person.  In a word, he can see inside someone’s heart and mind, and form a clear impression about character…

His feats of detection have their roots in this knowledge of human nature, which comes from two sources:  his years in the confessional, and his own self-awareness.  What makes Father Brown truly exceptional is that he acknowledges the capacity for evildoing in himself.  In ‘The Hammer of God’ he says, ‘I am a man and therefore have all devils in my heart.’

Because of this compassionate understanding of human weakness, from both within and without, he can see into the darkest corners of the human heart.  The ability to identify with the criminal, to feel what he is feeling, is what leads him to find the identity of the criminal—even, sometimes, to predict the crime, for he knows the point at which human emotions such as fear or jealousy tip over from acceptable expression into crime.  Even then, he believes in the inherent goodness of mankind, and sets the redemption of the wrongdoer as his main goal.

While Father Brown excels in understanding human psychology, he also excels at logical analysis of the facts.  He is always open to alternative explanations.

(Frontispiece to G. K. Chesterton’s The Wisdom of Father Brown, Illustration by Sydney Semour Lucas, via Wikimedia Commons)

Later the great thief Flambeau is persuaded by Father Brown to give up a life of crime and become a private investigator.  Meanwhile, Valentin, the famous detective, turns to crime and nearly gets away with murder.  Chesterton loves such ironic twists.

Chesterton was a brilliant writer who wrote in an amazing number of different fields.  Chesterton was very compassionate, with a highly developed sense of social justice, notes Hagstrom.  The Father Brown stories are undoubtedly entertaining, but they also deal with questions of justice and morality.  Hagstrom quotes an admirer of Chesterton, who said:  ‘Sherlock Holmes fights criminals;  Father Brown fights the devil.’  Whenever possible, Father Brown wants the criminal to find redemption.

Hagstrom lists what could be Father Brown’s investment guidelines:

  • Look carefully at the circumstances;  do whatever it takes to gather all the clues.
  • Cultivate the understanding of intangibles.
  • Using both tangible and intangible evidence, develop such a full knowledge of potential investments that you can honestly say you know them inside out.
  • Trust your instincts.  Intuition is invaluable.
  • Remain open to the possibility that something else may be happening, something different from that which first appears; remember that the full truth may be hidden beneath the surface.

Hagstrom mentions that psychology can be useful for investing:

Just as Father Brown’s skill as an analytical detective was greatly improved by incorporating the study of psychology with the method of observations, so too can individuals improve their investment performance by combining the study of psychology with the physical evidence of financial statement analysis.

 

HOW TO BECOME A GREAT DETECTIVE

Hagstrom lists the habits of mind of the Great Detectives:

Auguste Dupin

  • Develop a skeptic’s mindset;  don’t automatically accept conventional wisdom.
  • Conduct a thorough investigation.

Sherlock Holmes

  • Begin an investigation with an objective and unemotional viewpoint.
  • Pay attention to the tiniest details.
  • Remain open-minded to new, even contrary, information.
  • Apply a process of logical reasoning to all you learn.

Father Brown

  • Become a student of psychology.
  • Have faith in your intuition.
  • Seek alternative explanations and re-descriptions.

Hagstrom argues that these habits of mind, if diligently and consistently applied, can help you to do better as an investor over time.

Furthermore, the true hero is reason, a lesson directly applicable to investing:

As I think back over all the mystery stories I have read, I realize there were many detectives but only one hero.  That hero is reason.  No matter who the detective was—Dupin, Holmes, Father Brown, Nero Wolfe, or any number of modern counterparts—it was reason that solved the crime and captured the criminal.  For the Great Detectives, reason is everything.  It controls their thinking, illuminates their investigation, and helps them solve the mystery.

Illustration by yadali

Hagstrom continues:

Now think of yourself as an investor.  Do you want greater insight about a perplexing market?  Reason will clarify your investment approach.

Do you want to escape the trap of irrational, emotion-based action and instead make decisions with calm deliberation?  Reason will steady your thinking.

Do you want to be in possession of all the relevant investment facts before making a purchase?  Reason will help you uncover the truth.

Do you want to improve your investment results by purchasing profitable stocks?  Reason will help you capture the market’s mispricing.

In sum, conduct a thorough investigation.  Painstakingly gather all the facts and keep your emotions entirely out of it.  Skeptically question conventional wisdom and ‘what is obvious.’  Carefully use logic to reason through possible hypotheses.  Eliminate hypotheses that cannot explain all the facts.  Stay open to new information and be willing to discard the best current hypothesis if new facts lead in a different direction.  Finally, be a student of psychology.

 

BOOLE MICROCAP FUND

An equal weighted group of micro caps generally far outperforms an equal weighted (or cap-weighted) group of larger stocks over time.  See the historical chart here:  http://boolefund.com/best-performers-microcap-stocks/

This outperformance increases significantly by focusing on cheap micro caps.  Performance can be further boosted by isolating cheap microcap companies that show improving fundamentals.  We rank microcap stocks based on these and similar criteria.

There are roughly 10-20 positions in the portfolio.  The size of each position is determined by its rank.  Typically the largest position is 15-20% (at cost), while the average position is 8-10% (at cost).  Positions are held for 3 to 5 years unless a stock approaches intrinsic value sooner or an error has been discovered.

The mission of the Boole Fund is to outperform the S&P 500 Index by at least 5% per year (net of fees) over 5-year periods.  We also aim to outpace the Russell Microcap Index by at least 2% per year (net).  The Boole Fund has low fees.

 

If you are interested in finding out more, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

My e-mail: jb@boolefund.com

 

 

 

Disclosures: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. All investments contain risk and may lose value. This material is distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of Boole Capital, LLC.

CASE STUDY: Pine Cliff Energy

May 29, 2022

Pine Cliff Energy (PIFYF) is a Canadian natural gas producer.  Pine Cliff Energy has a low-risk, low decline, natural gas asset consolidation strategy in Western Canada with 11 acquisitions since 2012.  PIFYF has one of the lowest decline rates in the oil and gas sector with a base decline rate of about 6% on base production.

Demand for natural gas is likely to continue to surprise to the upside.  Power burn demand is likely to remain high.  At the same time, there is a shortage of global LNG.  New LNG export capacity is being added in the U.S. and Canada.  High power burn plus high LNG gas exports is causing total natural gas demand to be very high.

Furthermore, natural gas storage in the U.S. is 16% below its 5-year average.  And natural gas storage in Canada is at an unprecedented low level.

Natural gas production in the U.S. remains flat.

With high demand, low storage, and flat supply, natural gas prices are likely to remain high and will probably go higher.  The AECO near-month price is $7.53 (CAD/GJ) while the NYMEX near-month price is $8.67 ($/mmbtu).

Here is the Pine Cliff Energy’s most recent investor presentation: https://pinecliff-pull.b-cdn.net/Corporate%20Presentation%202022%2005%2004%20-%20Final.pdf

For 2022, revenue will be about $175 million, EBITDA $146 million, cash flow $135 million, and earnings $95 million.  The current market cap is $503.6 million, while enterprise value (EV) is $526.5 million.

Using these figures, we get the following multiples:

    • EV/EBITDA = 3.61
    • P/E = 5.30
    • P/B = 3.49
    • P/CF = 3.73
    • P/S = 2.88

Insider ownership is 12.9%, which is good.  TL/TA (total liabilities/total assets) is 21.6%, which is very good.  ROE is 828.24%, which is outstanding.

The Piotroski F_score is 9, which is excellent.

Intrinsic value scenarios:

    • Low case: Natural gas prices could fall during a global recession.  The stock of PIFYF could decline 50% or more.
    • Mid case: Current EV/CF (where CF is cash flow) is 3.9.  The average EV/CF for Pine Cliff Energy historically is 8.0.  With EV/CF at 8.0, the stock would be worth $3.12, which is 105% higher than today’s $1.52.
    • High case: Natural gas prices could increase significantly, which means Pine Cliff Energy’s cash flow would increase significantly.  The stock could be worth at least $4.50, which is close to 200% higher than today’s $1.52.

Risks

There will probably be a bear market and/or global recession during which natural gas prices fall temporarily but then quickly rebound.  In this case, PIFYF stock would fall temporarily but then quickly rebound.

 

BOOLE MICROCAP FUND

An equal weighted group of micro caps generally far outperforms an equal weighted (or cap-weighted) group of larger stocks over time.

This outperformance increases significantly by focusing on cheap micro caps.  Performance can be further boosted by isolating cheap microcap companies that show improving fundamentals.  We rank microcap stocks based on these and similar criteria.

There are roughly 10-20 positions in the portfolio.  The size of each position is determined by its rank.  Typically the largest position is 15-20% (at cost), while the average position is 8-10% (at cost).  Positions are held for 3 to 5 years unless a stock approaches intrinsic value sooner or an error has been discovered.

The mission of the Boole Fund is to outperform the S&P 500 Index by at least 5% per year (net of fees) over 5-year periods.  We also aim to outpace the Russell Microcap Index by at least 2% per year (net).  The Boole Fund has low fees.

 

If you are interested in finding out more, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

My e-mail: jb@boolefund.com

 

 

Disclosures: Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. All investments contain risk and may lose value. This material is distributed for informational purposes only. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of Boole Capital, LLC.