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


To: Wallace Rivers who wrote (61809)3/14/2019 9:20:35 PM
From: Graham Osborn  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 78715
 
Nothing in Burry's portfolio makes any sense to me. Not even Google or Facebook, even though those are the best businesses of the bunch - it was in fact Burry's analysis that made me adjust the free cash flow of these companies for stock-based compensation. When I look at Burry's portfolio I just think "Where's the alpha here? Why not just buy an index fund?"

TLRD is garbage IMO, particularly after the Jos A Bank acquisition.

Even the overall portfolio structure makes no sense to me. The diversification level just goes so counter to Buffett's whole 20-punch ticket concept. In my experience, if you don't have the level of confidence required to put 20% of your portfolio in an idea, you'd probably be better off in an index fund. At least there you won't miss the Amazons and Netflixes of the world.

Sometimes I wonder what Burry's investment thesis actually is. He just seems so all over the place sometimes. Buffett forgot his "wonderful business" thesis at times, but he always came back to it. Burry once said that Buffett couldn't be copied. That's true in the sense that what you invest in today isn't going to be the Washington Post or GEICO, or even the next Washington Post or GEICO. But in the larger sense, that statement does much more harm than good. The financial skeleton of a great business today is the same as it was back then.

Buffett's approach that he grew into at Berkshire - the great business approach - is not just some wishy washy thing that depends on your birth month and your favorite color. It is the unique solution to the problem of consistent compounding at scale. 95%+ of the world's self-made billionaires made their money using Buffett's blueprint - invest in businesses that gush cash and redeploy that cash when it cannot be retained productively. And concentrate intelligently.