63 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book, now improved, April 1, 2003
This review is from: The New Buffettology: The Proven Techniques for Investing Successfully in Changing Markets That Have Made Warren Buffett the World's Most Famous Investor (Hardcover)
This book is an improved version of their original. Particularly better was the coverage on what makes a durable competitive advantage. Also, the formulas and approach was organized better.
By reading the negative reviews of this book and its original you will find that this is a book written to be easily read. The authors did a great job of cleaning up the the "I knew Warren" tone of the first book.
The only drawback of this book is its over-simplifying the complications that can occur when you do a value approach - particularly when you look at real data. Still, this new book gives many examples to walk the reader through the methodology.
There is no statistical results shown that this method does indeed beat the market. You have to take it on faith that this methodology is used by Buffet, that it is what produced his great success, and that it can be duplicated in today's market.
Still, this is a great book, and I recommend it to investors, and to businessmen who need to understand more about "durable competitive advantage" and the kinds of businesses they should be creating. There is much more that needs to be said about competitive advantage. There are several books on this (starting with Michael Porter). This book gives a simplified version.
I think it is important to know that Buffet is not a Jack Welch type of manager. I would say he is closer to a Harold Geneen in that he is more of a "rentier" than a get-in-the-trenches manager/leader like Welch. This effects his choice of businesses. His approach is to own the only gravel pit in the county, and milk it for many years. This is certainly a good approach, but one that is difficult to pull off because a competitive advantage is difficult to hold on to.
It appears that significant monies were made by Buffet using investments not following this method (hedging, speculating on interest rates). These have provided buffers against when the value investing techniques didn't work.
Perhaps most important in the author's and Buffet's approach is the use of stock selection criteria that are outside of the radar of the average investor. And, that criteria is the screening on "durable comepetive advantage." Few investors screen stocks on this qualitative data. If this criteria indeed selects successful companies then you will do better than those without this information (assuming you buy right).
After reading this book, you can find out more on competitive advantage and stock prices by reading the books by A. David Silver (Quantum Companies). He is one of my favorite authors on durable competitive advantage. You should also read some of the recent books on how to research companies, like the one by Hoover.
There are many books on value investing. There is even a "Dummies" book on it. All of these are recommended because you will find that there can be a lot more to it than presented in this book. I would think that some kind of value investing test should be a requirement for all CEO's. Hopefully such a focus would keep certain CEO's and their partners-in-crime (CFO's) from focusing on hyping up the stock price through fraud, and get back to producing real business results. This book does not tell you how to detect puffed up earnings and fraudulent balance sheets. You'll need to read other value investing books for this.
Overall, I believe that if you follow the simple formulas in this book, you will find good value stocks. Buy this book, rather than the other previous ones.
John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX
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38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
More Buffettology, March 5, 2003
This review is from: The New Buffettology: The Proven Techniques for Investing Successfully in Changing Markets That Have Made Warren Buffett the World's Most Famous Investor (Hardcover)
Please see my review of the original Buffettology. The comments there largely apply here also. This second book is supposedly written with a down market in mind whereas the first was more bull market oriented. Actually, the second book is a very slightly more sophisticated version of the first where the authors have expanded and clarified several topics. For choosing strong consumer oriented companies with durable competitive advantages the authors include the return on total capital in the selection process. This is simply an additonal filter to what was in the first volume. There is also a more sophisticated study of when to sell a stock and a discussion of what makes a company profitable. This info and a reworded rehash of several chapters of the original are what make up the first 168 pages. There is some new information here that was not in the original. The writing in this first section is better than in the original Buffettology. Most of the remaining holes the reader can fill in with some additional research. Pages 169-189 are a discussion of "Where Warren Is Investing Now." There is definitely overlap with the first book here and a lot of it. There are a few additions however and some are worth noting. The section on arbitrage remains lightweight in this version although that may be good for the average investor. The final sections which deal with the mathematical equations are virtually reproduced from the original Buffettology and the workbook. This is sad for that is the portion of the book which could have used rewriting the most. My comments from Buffettology are still true. The math is not as terrible as some believe but the sections could have been written better. Frankly this is just laziness on the authors' part and nothing else. In the final analysis what is probably most useful to note about both books is that they could have used a good financial appendix and a good financial glossary. The value of these already excellent books would have doubled.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Illuminating Peek Into The World Of Warren Buffett, December 11, 2006
This review is from: The New Buffettology: The Proven Techniques for Investing Successfully in Changing Markets That Have Made Warren Buffett the World's Most Famous Investor (Hardcover)
This book is a "most of what you need to know about value investing but didn't know what to ask" approach to the investment philosophy of Warren Buffett. I also own the first book, but didn't review it. This one is much better.
The New Buffettology is a book of examples. I think that's what I like most about it. It has plenty of theory about the importance of a company having a durable competitive advantage, honest and able management, staying within a circle of competence, ensuring a margin of safety exists, how interest rates affect stock prices, and more. That's great, but the rubber hits the road with the numerous case studies of actual Buffett investments and how he applied the above concepts to help him decide to invest in Coca Cola, Gillette, the Washington Post, and Geico, to name a few.
Along with the case studies come the formulas. Lots and lots of formulas. Does the company have strong earnings with an upward trend? Plug 10 years worth of earnings into your spreadsheet and calculate the annual earnings growth rate. Does the company return an above average Return-On-Equity? Mary Buffett & David Clark show you how to break out those Value Line reports and plug in 10 years worth of ROE numbers into your spreadsheet to calculate the average annual return on shareholders equity for the last decade. What's the stock's value relative to a Treasury bond? You'll learn how to calculate the answer here.
The exercises go on case study after case study. I love it. Roll up your sleeves; dust off your BA-35 solar calculator and get ready to rock. If you want the skinny on value investing ala Buffett style, you had better be prepared to get your hands dirty because this is a thinking investor's book.
This book doesn't just TALK about financial analysis. It shows you how to DO it. Nothing is more boring than long windy theories with no "meat" to back them up. This book serves up the meat in Texas sized portions. Exactly where does one go for 10 years of financial information? Where do you find the current government bond rate? What's important in an annual report? Just how do you find companies that make products with a durable competitive advantage? What should you read? What should you watch? What habits should you develop? How do smart investors use "scuttlebutt" to help them form an opinion about a company? The answers may surprise you.
If value investing is what you want to do, then you have much to learn. And indeed, this book is a great place to start. It's not the only value investing book you should ever read, but is should definitely be one of the first.
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