Slicing and dicing up indexes are what fund companies do best these days because most can’t compete with the low-cost leader in the industry. A new story is told, almost daily, about how you might make money or avoid losing money with some new fund – then you get charged an arm and leg for that narrative. And that is how fund companies try to create demand out of thin air.

The new yarn being spun is the need to avoid one specific sector in the market. To tell the tale, the fund company uses hindsight to weave its story. Continue Reading…

Business Insider has a write-up on the latest Baupost quarterly letter. There are several great quotes in the article on the Dotcom bubble, doing nothing, the importance of cash, and a little bit about their process.

I pulled a couple quotes below that describe what it was like being a value investor during the Dotcom crash. Continue Reading…

In case you missed it, the latest Marks Memo (pdf) was released last Friday. It’s an homage to Yogi Berra specifically and sports generally. The comparison between sports and investing are used widely because it’s an analogy most of us can relate to on some level and the lessons learned tend to overlap.

Much like Buffett uses Ted Williams to explain his investment philosophy, Marks uses bits of Yogi, baseball, football, fantasy sports, and tennis to explain his. Continue Reading…