Berkshire: Your Biggest Holding? March 6, 2006

Helloooo everyone!

Many great investors think Berkshire is undervalued...... Superinvestors like Ruane Cunniff (24% of assets are in Berkshire), Wallace Weitz, Tweedy Browne, Mohnish Pabrai, Whitney Tilson, Jim Chuong (13.6% of assets are in Berkshire), Charles de Vaulx and others own significant amount of Berkshire.

I truly believe that Berkshire is undervalued and has great potential for significant return over the medium to long term. Thus, I have invested a significant amount of my family investment fund into Berkshire, making it our biggest investment holding.

I'm wondering how many investors own significant amount Berkshire.

Is Berkshire your biggest holding? Or, is Berkshire your top 3 holdings?

To join this discussion, please visit:
http://groups.msn.com/berkshirehathawayshareholders/general.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=19504&LastModified=4675563033125150594

Warm regards,
Dah Hui Lau (David)
dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com

To read Whitney Tilson's presentation on Berkshire Hathaway, please visit:
http://dahhuilaudavid.blogspot.com/2005/12/our-favourite-stock-idea-berkshire.html

Berkshire Hathaway Annual Reports

Berkshire Hathaway annual reports are must read reports.....

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/annual.html

All the best,
Dah Hui Lau (David)
dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com

India Value Investing Conference; Jan 25, 2006

On a personal note:

There are a few things that I have learnt about investing from my own experience and from talking or reading about successful investors. There is nothing original in anything that I’m just going to say – its just that I’ve been a very slow learner.

1. Investing requires persistence, patience and practice.
2. Investing is like being in a fog and seeing things that others can’t. You have to be comfortable with vague outlines and imagine them to be real and then bet that your imagination is right.
3. Profits abound where wisdom prevails. Wisdom states that the first step toward making money is not losing it. And yet countless clever people forget this seemingly simple rule.
4. “You know less than what you think you do.”
5. “Try to focus on the facts, not the stories.”
6. “More information does not necessarily mean better information.”
7. “Look for people who disagree with you.”
8. “Don’t attribute your failures to bad luck; acknowledging mistakes and examining them are necessary to improving performance.”
9. “People often anchor on the irrelevant, so its important to have a valuation framework and the process and the discipline to stick to it.”
10. Always think probabilistically and judge future outcomes by how statistically likely they are.
11. “Don’t value something more, simply because you own it. “
12. Always think critically and play only when the odds are in your favor and lastly Never, never stop learning.

Thank you T-BoneJr and Dr. Brian Zen for this link.

To read more:

http://www.capitalideasonline.com/articles/index.php?id=1792

All the best,
Dah Hui Lau (David)
dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com

Buying Pessimism?

Paradox: A good business does not usually make a good investment.

To read more about buying into pessimism:

http://deepwealth.blogspot.com/2005/09/buying-pessimism.html

All the best,
Dah Hui Lau (David)
dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com

24 Buffet Ideas to win 365 battles every year

1. Choose Simplicity over ComplexityWhen investing, keep it simple. Do what’s easy and obvious.If you don’t understand a business, don’t buy it.

2. Make Your Own Investment DecisionsDon’t listen to the brokers, the analysts, or the pundits. Figure it out for yourself.Become a value investor. It’s proven to be a very rewarding technique over the long term.

3. Maintain Proper TemperamentLet other people overreact to the market.To succeed in the market, you need only ordinary intelligence. But in addition, you need the kind of temperament to help you ride out the storms and stick to your long-term plans. If you can stay cool while those around you are panicking, you can surely prevail.

4. Be PatientThink 10 years, rather than 10 minutesDon’t dwell on the price of stocks. Instead, study the underlying business, its earnings capacity and its future. If the question is, “How long will you wait?” – “If we’re in the right place, we’ll wait indefinitely” says Buffet.

5. Buy Business, Not StocksOnce you get into the right business, you can let everyone else worry about the stock market........

To read more:

http://deepwealth.blogspot.com/2005/10/24-buffet-ideas-to-win-365-battles.html

All the best,
Dah Hui Lau (David)
dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com

Assessing Your Risk Tolerance

By asking yourself a few simple questions, you may discover the type of investor that you should consider yourself.

Do market fluctuations keep you awake at night?

Are you unfamiliar with investing?

Do you consider yourself more a saver rather than investor?

Are you fearful of losing 25% of your assets in a few days or weeks?

If you answered "yes" to these questions, you are likely to be a "conservative" investor.

To read more:

http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/%7Eadamodar/New_Home_Page/invmgmt/ch2/risktol.htm

All the best,

Dah Hui Lau (David)

dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com

Investors Must Recall Risk, Investing's Four-Letter Word; Jan 23, 1998

By KAREN HUBE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

What four letter word should pop into mind when the stock market takes a harrowing nose dive? No, not those. R-I-S-K. Risk is the potential for realizing low returns or even losing money, possibly preventing you from meeting important objectives, like sending your kids to the college of their choice or having the retirement lifestyle you crave. But many financial advisers and other experts say that these days investors aren't taking the idea of risk as seriously as they should, and they are overexposing themselves to stocks. "The market has been so good for years that investors no longer believe there's risk in investing," says Gary Schatsky, a financial adviser in New York. "And when the market drops hundreds of points and rebounds immediately, that belief is confirmed."

To read more:

http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/%7Eadamodar/New_Home_Page/invmgmt/ch2/risk.htm

All the best,
Dah Hui Lau (David)
dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com

Small Advantages, Big Wins; Feb 28, 2006

By Seth Jayson (TMF Bent) February 28, 2006

One of the most sobering lessons you learn by watching the Olympics is just how small the difference is between winning and losing. In most timed events, there's less than a second between glory and anonymity. Italian speed skater Enrico Fabris beat American favorite Shani Davis by a mere 0.16 seconds over 1,500 meters. But that's a lifetime compared with other races. On the mountain, in the men's super giant slalom, Kjetil Aamodt beat Hermann Maier by 0.13 seconds. In the men's giant slalom, Benjamin Raich won by a mere 0.07 seconds.

To read more, please visit:

http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/2006/commentary06022818.htm?ref=foolwatch

All the best,
Dah Hui Lau (David)
dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com

Learning From Longleaf; Feb 28, 2006

By Warren Gump February 28, 2006

During 2005, Longleaf initiated substantial positions in four publicly traded securities: Dell for 7.7% of the year-end portfolio, Liberty Media for 4.8%, Anheuser-Busch for 3.9%, and Sprint Nextel for 2.6%. Other new positions are spinoffs, splits, private placements, or de minimus. These four new positions are all large-capitalization companies that were market darlings at one point in the past decade.

To read more, please visit:

http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/2006/commentary06022811.htm?ref=foolwatch

All the best,
Dah Hui Lau (David)
dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com

2 Things I Learned From Benjamin Graham; Feb 28, 2006

By Tim Beyers (TMF Mile High) February 28, 2006

Lesson No. 1: Buying stocks makes you an owner.

Lesson No. 2: Always buy with a margin of safety.

To read more, visit:

http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/2006/commentary06022819.htm

All the best,
Dah Hui Lau (David)
dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com