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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Senior who wrote (46607)	2/15/2012 6:36:38 PM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Respond to of 78770

Good advice. :) "3-10 positions" is also IMHO a good advice when you want to show someone what investing is about and how it works (or doesn't). I.e. your kids, relatives, friends, enemies... ;) 1 position is too much a dice roll. It either succeeds and then the person thinks that it's very easy or it fails and the person thinks that investing is rigged/foolish/does not work, etc. >10 positions and they are lost in too many companies, news, price swings, etc. Too overwhelming, boring, etc. 3-7 (OK, I'd say 7, not 10 ;)) - prices fluctuate. Some go up, some come down. It's potentially interesting and not overwhelming. Smart people start learning from there. Not so smart ones provide you with the humor value in their explanations or drama. :)

To: Paul Senior who wrote (46607)	2/15/2012 10:31:22 PM
From: paulelgin	Respond to of 78770

Thanks for all of your thoughts re: position sizing within a portfolio. I've found that I typically initiate positions at 2.5%, then add from there, unless it's a total speculation, in which case I start at 1%. Let's just say, at this point, I'm very conservative (aren't we all, as value investors?). Maybe it's all of the "macro headwinds." Does anyone have thoughts about American Greetings (AM)? I'm new to the thread, so sorry if there's been discussion in the past. It's attractive to me, currently trading at 76% of tangible book value, 4% yield, P/E 7. At $14.75, AM's within 15% of its 52-week low. Anyone else looking at AM? Debt level gives me a slight pause ($235 million). - Paul Elgin