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Geoff Gannon's Articles

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The Danger Of Inflexible Enterprises Whenever a large investment has been made in a particular area, whenever there is a lot capital, people, and ego tied up with some operation, the transition away from that operation is apt to be far slower than what an objective observer would have expected. As an investor, it’s easy to look at a corporation from afar and see the business the way a rational capital allocator would see it. But, very few people within the organization are able to take such a farsighted view.... Mismanagement At The New York Times The New York Times Company (NYT) isn’t just reporting the news – it’s making the news. At yesterday’s annual meeting, shareholders withheld 28% of their votes for the four directors elected by holders of the company’s common stock. Nine other directors are elected by holders of the Class B shares, effectively granting control of the company to a group holding less than a 1% economic interest in the business. Most of the large newspaper companies have not done a great job o... Investing With Confidence Most people’s beliefs about investing are very tenuous. There are, of course, people who are very passionate about investing. They don’t view investing as some esoteric subject, but rather as a field intimately connected to the human behavior they observe in their everyday lives. For everyone else, however, beliefs about investing come in the form of passive knowledge. The tendency is simply to accumulate an inventory of conventional dictums. Investing beliefs are formed m... Stocks Look Pricey The first quarter of 2006 is over. Now is a good time to reflect on stock prices and the opportunities they present. Bargains are scarce. Equities are expensive. In recent weeks, I’ve heard several fund managers say valuations are still attractive. I don’t agree. Generally speaking, valuations are unattractive. Returns on equity are higher than historical levels. A market-wide return on equity of 15% is unsustainable. Price-to-earnings ratios may not fully reflect how expe... Buffett's Big Bet Over the past few days, there have been several stories written about Warren Buffett’s $14 billion bet on global stock markets. I believe these stories are all in reference to this excerpt form Berkshire Hathaway’s annual report: “Berkshire is also subject to equity price risk with respect to certain long duration equity index put contracts. Berkshire’s maximum exposure with respect to such contracts is approximately $14 billion at December 31, 2005. These contracts genera... What Is Value Investing? Different sources define value investing differently. Some say value investing is the investment philosophy that favors the purchase of stocks that are currently selling at low price-to-book ratios and have high dividend yields. Others say value investing is all about buying stocks with low P/E ratios. You will even sometimes hear that value investing has more to do with the balance sheet than the income statement. In his 1992 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, War... The Wonders And Horrors Of Compounding Google Price Target: $16,578.90 Some of you will immediately recognize this headline is a joke. For the rest of you, I was kind of hoping the ninety cents part would give it away. If you’re reading this because you’re interested in what I have to say about Google (GOOG), you can stop now. I’m not going to say anything interesting about Google. Rather, I’m going to say something (that I hope is) very interesting about the wonders of compounding. Warren Buffett’s annua... Some Lessons From Warren Buffett's Annual Letter Warren Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders was released over the weekend. Readers will find plenty of investing lessons among the twenty-three pages. Warren began this letter as he begins each letter, by stating Berkshire’s change in per-share book value: "Our gain in net worth during 2005 was $5.6 billion, which increased the per-share book value of both our Class A and Class B stock by 6.4%. Over the last 41 years, (that is, since present managemen... Return On Assets Is The Hit By Pitch Of Investing Despite all appearances to the contrary, this is a post about investing – not baseball. So, to those of you who love reading about investing but hate reading about baseball: don’t be deterred. It’s worth reading all the way through. Return on assets is the hit by pitch of investing. Common sense suggests it isn’t a very important measure. Why would any investor care about return on assets when return on equity and return on capital tell you so much more? You don’t have ... An Analysis Of The Journal Register Company (JRC) Let me begin with some of the eye – catching metrics that might lead an investor to consider purchasing shares of the Journal Register Company (JRC). This newspaper company has a price – to – earnings ratio of 11.3, a price – to – sales ratio of 0.93, a 5 year average return on capital of 17.6%, and a five year average pre-tax profit margin of 27.4%. Now, for the bad news. The Journal Register Company has an enterprise value – to – EBITDA ratio of 9.07 and an enterprise v... An Analysis Of Journal Communications (JRN) Journal Communications (JRN) is comprised of seven essentially separate businesses: The Milwaukee Sentinel, Community Newspapers, Television Stations, Radio Stations, Telecommunications, Printing Services, and Direct Marketing. The company’s five reportable segments do not exactly match these seven businesses; however, I believe an investor should analyze JRN on the basis of these seven businesses and their constituent properties, rather than as a single going concern with fi... The Logic Behind Technical Analysis Let me first say that I do not now engage in technical analysis; nor, have I ever engaged in technical analysis. I do not believe doing so would be a productive use of my time. Having said that, I do not claim technical analysis has no predictive value. In fact, I suspect it does have some predictive value. The Efficient Market Hypothesis is flawed. It is based upon the (unwritten) premise that data determines market prices. As Graham so clearly put it in “Security Analysi... An Analysis Of Overstock.com (OSTK) Why is a value investor writing about an unprofitable internet company? Because value investing is about finding dollars that trade for fifty cents; with a market cap of less than 75% of sales, Overstock.com (OSTK) looks like it may be exactly that. But isn’t it too risky? The greatest risk in any investment is the risk of overpaying. So, the real question is: what is Overstock worth? I think it’s worth at least $1.5 billion. With Overstock’s market cap currently sitti... Why Are Duopolies So Competitive? A duopoly is a situation in which two firms control nearly all of the market for a product or service. Duopolies can be surprisingly competitive. If you remember that the price of a product or service is determined solely by the highest losing bid price and the lowest losing ask price, you’ll realize why a duopoly can be so competitive. A large number of inefficient competitors will have almost no affect on prices in the long run unless someone (either a government or a g... Is There Really A Magic Formula For Investing? One question almost every investor asks at some point is whether it is possible to achieve above market returns by selecting a diversified group of stocks according to some formula, rather than having to evaluate each stock from every angle. There are obvious advantages to such a formulaic approach. For the individual, the amount of time and effort spent caring for his investments would be reduced, leaving more time for him to spend on more enjoyable and fulfilling tasks. For... Against The Top Down Approach To Picking Stocks If you have heard fund managers talk about the way they invest, you know a great many employ a top down approach. First, they decide how much of their portfolio to allocate to stocks and how much to allocate to bonds. At this point, they may also decide upon the relative mix of foreign and domestic securities. Next, they decide upon the industries to invest in. It is not until all these decisions have been made that they actually get down to analyzing any particular securitie... Comparing Google's Search Franchise To Mccormick's Spice Franchise Google has a competitive advantage. In fact, one might even say it has a franchise in web search. I wouldn’t say that. I mean, Google does have a franchise; but, it doesn’t have a monopoly on web search and never will. There are real problems with Google’s model that are often overlooked. It does a poor job of finding certain sites that are difficult to describe in keywords. For this reason, there may still be a market for web search in the form of specialized niche directori... An Analysis Of Lexmark In 2005, Berkshire Hathaway bought about a million shares of Lexmark. I haven’t followed this story closely, but I assume the stock was purchased by Lou Simpson rather than Warren Buffett. I have only two reasons for believing this: the total purchase was small relative to Berkshire’s investable assets and the Lexmark purchase is typical of Simpson’s investment philosophy (or at least, what little I can glean about his investment philosophy from his past purchases). Regardles...

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