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Many books have been written about Warren Buffet's way of picking the right stocks at the right time, but the books of Mary Buffett and David Clark are the most sound, concise and actionable. The audio version discloses the most important factors of Warren Buffet's investment principles pretty well. But please note that "Buffettology" is not a replacement of the book by Roger Lowenstein, I highly recommend reading both of them.
Hagstrom) similar to Mary Buffett's writings: "The Warren Buffet Way", but it misses the important topics laid out in the Mary Buffett's publications. Hagstrom, above mentioned. There is another book by different author (by Robert G.
What is you can omit is the book by Robert G. These major topics are: what are the differences between a "consumer monopoly" and a "commodity"; how to calculate the rate of return over a long period of time before choosing the investment; and so on. There is another great book about Warren Buffet and his investment strategy - "Buffet: The Making of an American Capitalist" by Roger Lowenstein, but it better describes Warren Buffet's biography and his relations with family, friends and the society, rather than how did he evaluate the companies.
I would recommend an abridged audio version of the Mary Buffett's work, instead of the printed book. Some of the background information is available on free letters to shareholders and Warren Buffet's lectures, but you might not want to crawl thought all these; you might want to save time and just listen or read the Mary Buffett's work, where all this information is perfectly summarized and laid out in a consistent way.
as bUffett books go this was better than most, but certainly not the best of the lot. If you follow Warren's value investing ways then right now you're out of sync with the market. bUt that's usually not stopped Warren.Value investing will never go completely out of style and thus this book is still worthwhile. I've read better books about Buffett, and I've read worse.
Written in simple, easy to understand language, the target audience of this book is most likely that individual who depends on the Internet for all of her information on companies, as such sites as Yahoo, MSN and Value Line are routinely cited in the text as sources of information. The workbook covers both the qualitative and quantitative sides of Buffett's value investing approach, and provides the basic techniques one can implement in order to invest with a reasonable amount of success.The workbook is not exactly the best book on investing that I have read (that title goes to Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor), but in its defense, it does provide a simple to implement investment strategy. Although it provides some theory and rationale for the techniques it attempts to teach, this is kept to a minimum, and the book focuses almost exclusively on application of the techniques. Additionally, most of the limitations associated with the techniques are clearly and simply stated.The book has several merits.
But then, this is how much of the information that is easily obtainable through such channels as Value Line and other sources is presented. The chief merit of the book is that its approach to investing is self-contained, and emphasizes the qualitative aspects more than the quantitative aspects. In passing, readers that focus more on Part One of the book and skip Part Two, the quantitative part, could easily obtain a dramatic improvement in their investment results. For those of you that are time-pressed, this is the best book in the Buffettology Series to read in order to glean a few secrets on the investment techniques of the Oracle of Omaha. It presents a simple and straightforward investment approach, and does not require an advanced degree in rocket science to implement it. The title of each chapter basically states the key concept to be learned, and key points are highlighted at the end of each chapter.
Those readers that are only interested in the methodology can simply skip to the 22nd Chapter titled 'Doing It Yourself: Buffettology Worksheet'. Thus, the book makes every effort to make learning, and ultimately using, the techniques as painless as possible.The major demerit of this book rests in its insistence on doing all calculations on a per-share basis.
All it really requires is a basic understanding of fractions, decimals and percents, and most important, a willingness to think and reason through the investment proposition. Most of the techniques hinge on a few simple ratios and knowledge of simple present and future worth.
One minor demerit is that the authors do not seem to be aware of the virtual ubiquity of MS Office, making it possible to perform all of the calculations in the book in one Excel spreadsheet, but then again, this is a minor demerit. The book is very well organized, quite possibly with the idea that it would fit the mold of a chapter-a-day format.
Most chapters are usually no more than five pages long, with easy, cheesy word problems and true/false questions at the end of most every chapter to reinforce key concepts. Although there were a number of minor typographical and mathematical errors in the book, I am willing to overlook this, as the thinking and reasoning behind any investment proposition is more important, and is clearly presented throughout the book.Overall, I rate the book to be worthy of reading.
However, those of you with strong quantitative backgrounds will be very dismayed with this book (as I was initially), but as I said before, if you focus exclusively on Part One of the book and Chapter 22, then you will see a dramatic improvement in your investment results going forward.
And get on the program. Tim Vick, who wrote "Wall Street on Sale", loves the Buffettology series so much he wrote the cover recommendation.
In regard to the reader from TX Buffett uses growth of book value to determine the relative performance of Berkshire Hathaway - just check out the annual report. This is a good book and it is an even better book if it is used with their other book entitled The New Buffettology - which is better than the first edition entitled just Buffettology.
As far Ben Graham is concern Buffett and Munger are both on record saying that they no longer use the Graham's method - still worth the read though. And Buffett is on record saying that a company is worth its future income stream discounted to present value - though Charlie Munger and I have never seen him do it.
This was brought up at the 2001 Berkshire annual meeting. Check it out.
You won't be sorry you did.
The Oracle of Omaha was quoted at a Berkshire Hathaway meeting as saying he NEVER uses discount future cash flow.Even worse, this book promotes "book value growth" as a method for evaluating a stock's worth. This is one of the worst investing books I have ever seen. Not only does it have absolutely nothing to do with the way Warren Buffett actually invests, it completely makes up investing methods.For instance, the book talks about discounting future streams of income. Book value is an accounting term representing the net equity for a firm on ONE PARTICULAR DAY IN TIME. Change the date of the balance sheet and the value calculated by book value growth may change dramatically.If you want to invest like Warren Buffett, check out The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.
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