There seems to be a strange dichotomy in the value investing universe: those who buy so-called compounders, and those who buy so-called cheap stocks. I want to own businesses that are building value, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about valuation. I pass on probably 99% of the ideas I look at, many of which are great businesses, simply because the current price won’t allow my investment in the stock to compound at the rate of return that I’m looking for over time.
However, I think there is far too much “compartmentalization” going on in the value investing world. I should say—I too tend to compartmentalize on occasion. And Buffett compartmentalized when he ran his partnership. (By this, I mean that investors tend to put stocks into categories such as compounders, cheap assets, net-nets, arbitrage, special situations, etc…)
I don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with putting investments into these buckets, and when it comes to selling stocks, I think it might be useful.
However, I think when you rigidly define what type of stocks you invest in, you run the risk of pigeonholing yourself into a strategy that might negatively impact your investment results.
In other words, knowing what type of an investment you’re in is helpful, but limiting yourself to only a certain bucket of investments is not.
Focus on Things You Understand
This is not to say that you should go outside your area of competence… just the opposite. You should limit your investments to only those that you truly understand. Looking for businesses and investment situations that you can easily understand and can value is much more important than trying to fit all of your investments into a style box, just because that’s “what kind of investor you are”…
After all, to paraphrase what Alice Schroeder once said about Buffett: if you offered him a $1 bill for 50 cents, he would gladly accept it, despite the $1 bill having no competitive advantages over other dollar bills.
The reason this compartmentalization is counterproductive is because it can cause investors to make mistakes of omission (or failing to invest in a situation that is understandable and well within one’s circle of competence). Examples such as “I can’t pay 15 times earnings for this, I’m a value investor!” Or, “I wouldn’t buy that stock at any price because there is no moat!”
Instead, I think it’s helpful to understand that each investment is its own unique situation with unique risk/reward dynamics. I think portfolio management is an art form. There are no black and white rules that tell you when an undervalued stock should be sold, or how long a great compounding business should be held.
So although it’s helpful to understand what type of investment you’re in after you’re in it, I don’t think it’s a great idea to say “I’m looking only for net-nets”, or “only low P/B stocks, or “only great compounders with moats”, etc…
Just look for undervalued merchandise.
I prefer quality businesses, so I look for good businesses cheaply priced most of the time. But I too will happily accept a dollar from you if you are offering it at 50 cents.
To simplify everything, one of my favorite quotes is “Value investing is figuring out what something is worth and paying a lot less for it”. That’s the name of this game.
Buffett’s Disney Investment in 1966
These thoughts on investment tactics began percolating again this weekend, as I was visiting family and picked up my father’s copy of “Tap Dancing to Work”, a collection of Warren Buffett articles compiled by Carol Loomis.
I just happened to see the book on his end table, and opened it up randomly. The article that I opened to discussed Buffett’s investment in Disney. It was an article written in 1996, and describes how Buffett decided to accept stock in Disney (as opposed to cash) when Disney was buying Cap Cities/ABC.
The article got me thinking about how Buffett has often lamented the fact that he bought Disney at a bargain in 1966, only to sell it a year later in 1967 for a 50% gain. Not a bad gain in one year, but Buffett likes to point out that he bought the stock for $0.31 in 1966, sold for $0.48 in 1967, then watched it rise to $65 per share 30 years later in 1996.
He implies that selling Disney was a big mistake in 1967. However, I crunched some quick math yesterday. At the price Buffett sold at in 1967 (48 cents per share) until 1996 (when the article was written and Disney was trading at its then price of $65 per share), the stock compounded at 18.4% per year.
A fabulous compounder to be sure… but what’s interesting is that Buffett was able to compound that 48 cents per share much faster than Walt Disney. Buffett compounded Berkshire’s equity at around 24% in that 29 year period (and estimates show that his stock portfolio compounded at a rate even better than that).
So Buffett was able to compound the 48 cents that he received from selling Disney much faster in other investments over the 29 years between 1967 and 1996, suggesting that it was in fact a great decision to sell Disney (one of the all time great compounders) after a 50% gain.
The opportunity costs of owning Disney for that period instead of selling it were huge (Disney grew 135x during those three decades while Berkshire’s equity grew over 500x)!
So despite his appetite for buying and owning great businesses “forever”, Buffett outperformed one of the great compounders of the 20th century by occasionally trading fairly valued merchandise for undervalued merchandise.
To Summarize
These thoughts were mostly ruminations (a euphemism for ramblings) regarding some topics that have been on my mind lately. Maybe this post doesn’t have a hard conclusion, but one thing that comes to mind is “Invert, Always Invert”.
Buffett often talks about moats and great businesses, but he also was a great handicapper. He could do a decision tree in a few minutes and estimate the probabilities for various outcomes for many different investment situations. This led him to make investment decisions that don’t always match his general advice on holding great businesses. It’s not because Buffett is being cagey, I think it’s just because it’s impossible for him to explain to us mere mortals—in simple terms—all of the decisions he’s made (some of which might contradict one another).
So inverting the situation, I think you might be able to deduce that Buffett dealt with each situation differently, and he was very good at picking out a few simple things that mattered in each investment. Furthermore, he invested in things that he understood and knew how to value. And yes, they were primarily long term investments in quality businesses that were building value, even in the partnership days.
So I think the key is to focus on businesses that you understand and stocks that you can value. Worry less about trying to fit stocks into a specific subcategory.
I think understanding the business and the situation go a long way in investing.
John Huber is the portfolio manager of Saber Capital Management, LLC, an investment firm that employs a value investing strategy with a primary goal of patiently compounding capital for long-term oriented investors.
To read more of John’s writings or to get on Saber Capital’s email distribution list, please visit the Letters and Commentary page on our website. John can be reached at [email protected].