Marty Whitman

Interesting book by Martin J. Whitman and Martin Shubik: The Aggressive Conservative Investor


You can get a taste of Whitman's writings from his
shareholder letters.

See Marty Whitman talking about his investment philosophy.

ETF Providers

Europe's Top ETF Providers

Manager	AUM (Bia $)	Change p.a. %	Market share %	Change p.a. %
Lyxor Asset Management	22.31	73.7	24.9	1.5
Barclays Global Investors	21.97	76.2	24.5	1.5
IndEXchange AG	21.26	70.9	23.9	1.1
AXA/BNP	5.57	128.1	6.2	1.8
Credit Suisse Asset Management	4.67	36.4	5.2	-1.0
Credit Agricole Asset Management	3.33	30.1	3.7	-0.9
State Street Global Investors	2.49	60.7	2.8	0.0
XACT Fonder	2.48	33.6	2.8	-0.6
UBS Global Asset Management	1.65	24.1	1.8	-0.6
DVG-Deutsche Vermögensbildung GmbH	1.07	-54.4	1.2	-3.1

Source: Schweizer Bank magazine, June 2007

Buffett's Income

From: Times Online

Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent.

This is interesting, as his salary as CEO of Berkshire used to be no more than $ 100'000 (might be doubled by now) and his billions worth of Berkshire stock yield zero dividend income.

Best Prices for Books in CH

http://www.billigbuch.ch/

The so called "Preisbindung" for books has been dropped in Switzerland (or so I heard). billigbuch.ch lets your compare book prices across all Swiss online sites.

You might still go and compare with amazon.de too, thought.

Indices Performances

Below is a selection of world indices and their performances for the last few years. Performance for 2007 (not annualized) is for the closing price as of 2007-04-03/4 (depending on the timezone).

No		Index	Ccy		2007	2006	2005	2004	2003
1.		BOVESPA	BRL	%	4.08	32.93	27.71	17.81	97.33
2.		SMI	CHF	%	3.05	15.85	33.21	3.74	18.51
3.		SPI	CHF	%	4.60	20.67	35.61	6.89	22.06
4.		Shanghai Composit	CNY	%	23.03	130.43	-8.33	-15.40	10.27
5.		Shenzhen Composit	CNY	%	57.04	97.53	-11.74	-16.59	-2.60
6.		DAX	EUR	%	6.80	21.98	27.07	7.34	37.08
7.		DJ EURO STOXX 50	EUR	%	3.07	15.12	21.28	6.90	15.68
8.		FTSE 100	GBP	%	2.34	10.71	16.71	7.54	13.62
9.		Hang Seng	HKD	%	1.23	34.20	4.54	13.15	34.92
10.		Mumbai Sensex	INR	%	-7.25	46.70	42.33	13.08	72.89
11.		Nikkei 225	JPY	%	1.85	6.92	40.24	7.61	24.45
12.		KOSPI 100 Index	KRW	%	3.56	4.52	52.51	9.25	31.57
13.		Bangkok SE Set Ind	THB	%	2.02	-4.75	6.83	-13.48	116.60
14.		DJ Industr Average	USD	%	0.38	16.29	-0.61	3.15	25.32
15.		EM	USD	%	2.68	29.18	30.31	22.45	51.59
16.		NASDAQ Comb Comp	USD	%	1.45	9.52	1.37	8.59	50.01
17.		S&P 500	USD	%	1.37	13.62	3.00	8.99	26.38
18.		The World Index	USD	%	3.29	17.95	7.56	12.84	30.81

A table with the absolute index numbers is located here.

Security Analysis

Security Analysis is a famous book by Benjamin Graham first published in 1934. Benjamin Graham is the so called father of "Value Investment" and teacher and mentor of Warren Buffett.

Another book by Graham, The Intelligent Investor, is even more famous. According to Kilpatrick in "Of Permanent Value":

Buffett has said, "I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.

Graham's Intelligent Investor is a popular version of Security Analysis, the classic study written by Graham and Columbia Professor David L. Dodd.

Nevertheless, it has been said, Buffett has red Security Analysis (and especially the 2nd edition from 1940) many times over.

I have heard him say, that he has read it from cover to cover more than a dozen times. He has read the other editions as well.

Security Analysis: The Classic 1940 Edition


The book plays also a major role (next to the bone scanner) in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness.











However, according to Wikipedia:

The film prominently showed the 5th edition of Security Analysis — black jacket, white, gold, red fonts — as the one that Dean Witter Reynolds required 60 unpaid interns to study for six months. The intern portion of the story is circa 1981; the 5th edition of Security Analysis was published in 1988; ergo, the film production prop department used the wrong edition.

The Pursuit Of Happyness


Oh yeah, and just for the record, the movie IS cheesy:)


Here is the real Chris Gardner (not so cheesy):
Chris Gardner - Excerpt from "The Pursuit of Happyness"

The Pursuit of Happyness Part 1

The Pursuit of Happyness Part 2

Warren Buffett on Video

Update 2007-03-31:

Unfortunately you now have to pay for the videos with Buffett and Charlie Rose, even thought they are well worth the price. Nevertheless the last video below of the speech to students is still available, which actually is just as good:

Warren Buffett MBA Talk

---------

An absolute must watch!

Google Video: Charlie Rose - Warren Buffett: The Man - Part One in a Three Part Series

Charlie Rose - Warren Buffett: The Business - Part Two in a Three Part Series
Charlie Rose - Warren Buffett: The Gift - Part Three in a Three Part Series

Last not least: Warren Buffett MBA Talk (Buffett starts at 00:03:16)

BILANZ iPod Shuffle

Pay CHF 140 for an anual BILANZ magazin subscription and get an iPod Shuffle for the Swiss retail price of CHF 119 for free (till the end of the year).

Actually BILANZ has sometimes excellent background stories.

Here is the link: http://www.bilanz.ch/ipod/

This Is China! Weblog

This Is China! Weblog
Business, IT outsourcing, culture... lot's of interesting and personal episodes from a foreigner doing consulting work in China.

Apple's Music Business

Apple makes 42% of its revenue in the music business.

Revenue source                      4th Quarter 2006
Macs                                $ 2'213 million 
Peripherals and Other Hardware      $   297 million 
Software, Service and Other Sales   $   316 million 
Computers total                     $ 2'826 million    58%
iPods                               $ 1'559 million 
iTunes                              $   452 million
Music total                         $ 2'011 million    42%
Total                               $ 4'837 million   100%

Google's Shopping Tour

From Wikipedia: List of acquisitions by Google (here is the same list for Microsoft)

For reference, here is a list with a description for all Google Acquisitions.

The following list is copied from Google Blogoscoped: The Acquisition Price Guide

Company	Acquired by	Price
Skype	Ebay	$2.6 billion
YouTube	Google	$1.65 billion
5% investment in AOL	Google	$1 billion
MySpace	News Corp	$580 million
dMarc Broadcasting	Google	$102 million
Grouper	Sony	$65 million
Flickr	Yahoo	$30-35 million (rumored)
del.icio.us	Yahoo	$30-35 million (rumored)
Bloglines	IAC (Ask)	$25 million (rumored)
Weblogs Inc.	AOL	$25 million (rumored)
Blogger	Google	$20 million (rumored)
Oddpost	Yahoo	$20 million (rumored)
Jumpcut	Yahoo	$15 million (rumored)
LiveJournal	SixApart	$20 million (rumored)
Rojo	SixApart	$10 million (rumored)
Picasa	Google	Under $5 million (rumored)
MeasureMap	Google	Under $5 million (rumored)
2.6% ownership of Baidu	Google	$5 million
weblogs.com	Verisign	$2 million
Writely	Google	Around $2 million (rumored)
Dodgeball	Google	Around $1 million (rumored)
Upcoming.org	Yahoo	Around $1 million (rumored)
WebJay	Yahoo	Around $1 million (rumored)
Urchin	Google	$???
Keyhole	Google	$???
Deja News	Google	$???

BTW, Google sold their 2.6 % share in Chinese search engine Baidu for USD 60 million (source).

Chinese Banks

Source: Bloomberg Markets, 2006 September p. 11.

Total assets and foreign investors:

• Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, USD 814 billion, Goldman Sachs, Allianz, American Express: 10%


• Agricultural Bank of China, USD 611 billion


• Bank of China, USD 593 billion, Royal Bank of Schottland Group consortium: 8.5%


• China Construction Bank, USD 574 billion, Bank of America: 8.5%

Compare to other banks world wide: Bank Market Caps

Millionaires 2004

in USD, source Bloomberg Markets, July 2006 p. 44:

Country   Millionaires   % of      Population
USA          2,498,000   0.85     293 million
Japan        1,334,300   1.06     127 million
China          300,000   0.02   1,300 million