2007-09年﹕市場先生的rock n roll (3) 之討論-2

讓我們研究前輩的智慧﹐“MARGIN+OF+SAFETY”Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for
the Thoughtful Investor--Seth A. Klarman。

雖然只是3個字“MARGIN+OF+SAFETY”﹐但是在前輩講解來源去脈的過程中﹐如果我們放下一切的主觀﹐以腦海一遍空白之下﹐我們是可以借前輩的智慧補充對價值投資知識的不足。

3個主題﹕

I	Where Most Investors Stumble
II	A Value-Investment Philosophy
III	The Value-Investment Process

I. Where Most Investors Stumble

“I have chosen to begin this book, not with a discussion of what value investors do right, but with an assessment of where other investors go wrong, for many more investors lose their way along the road to investment success than reach their destination. It is easy to stray but a continuous effort to remain disciplined. Avoiding where others go wrong is an important step in achieving investment success . In fact, it almost ensures it.”

想要成功的投資﹐首先要懂得避免做錯/犯錯。如何知道是錯的事﹖我們可以觀察大部份投資者不能成功的原因。“前車之鑒”﹐可以為師。

大部份投資者不能成功的原因是可以在以下範圍找到﹕
-Speculators and Unsuccessful Investors
-The Nature of Wall Street Works Against Investors
-The Institutional Performance Derby: The Client Is the Loser
-Delusions of Value


在此﹐我不詳細講解了。因為﹐大致上各位也應該知道的。


II. A Value-Investment Philosophy
a. Defining Your Investment Goals
b. Value Investing: The Importance of a Margin of Safety
c. At the Root of a Value-Investment Philosophy
d. The Art of Business Valuation


a. Defining Your Investment Goals
“Many investors mistakenly establish an investment goal of achieving a specific rate of return. Setting a goal, unfortunately, does not make that return achievable. Indeed, no matter what the goal, it may be out of reach. Stating that you want to earn, say, 15 percent a year, does not tell you a thing about how to achieve it. Investment returns are not a direct function of how long or hard you work or how much you wish to earn. A ditch digger can work an hour of overtime for extra pay, and a piece worker earns more the more he or she produces. An investor cannot decide to think harder or put in overtime in order to achieve a higher return. All an investor can do is follow a consistently disciplined and rigorous approach; over time the returns will come.”

“The focus of most investors differs from that of value investors. Most investors are primarily oriented toward return, how much they can make, and pay little attention to risk, how much they can lose. Institutional investors, in particular, are usually evaluated-and therefore measure themselves on the basis of relative performance compared to the market as a whole, to a relevant market sector, or to their peers.”

“......many individual investors have adopted a relative-performance orientation. They invest with the goal of outperforming either the market, other investors, or both and are apparently indifferent as to whether the results achieved represent an absolute gain or loss. Good relative performance, especially short-term relative-performance, is commonly sought either by imitating what others are doing or by attempting to outguess what others will do. Value investors, by contrast, are absolute-performance oriented; they are interested in returns only in so far as they relate to the achievement of their own investment goals, not how they compare with the way the overall market or other investors are faring.


價值投資的開始于對回報的正確態度。

大部份投資人的錯誤﹕
-以為設定回報目標後﹐就能得到/達到目標。
-只顧著得到/達到目標﹐而忘了避免風險。
-顧慮市場的走勢﹐猜測別人的想法﹐以短期的眼光不停做買賣﹐無時無刻要保持第一。


價值投資人的態度﹕
-在其他時候﹐當然也是大多時候﹐買進股價被低估的股票是有利可圖的。
-一段時間過後﹐有沒有達到設定的目標﹖


b. Value Investing: The Importance of a Margin of Safety
在此﹐我不詳細講解了。因為﹐大致上各位也應該知道的。

c. At the Root of a Value-Investment Philosophy

There are three central elements to a value-investment philosophy.
1. value investing is a bottom-up strategy entailing the identification of specific undervalued investment opportunities.
2. value investing is absolute-performance-, not relative performance oriented.
3. value investing is a risk-averse approach; attention is paid as much to what can go wrong (risk) as to what can go right (return).


d. The Art of Business Valuation
“business value cannot be precisely determined.”

“it also changes over time, fluctuating with numerous macroeconomic, microeconomic, and market-related factors.”

“Businesses, unlike debt instruments, do not have contractual cash flows. As a result, they cannot be as precisely valued as bonds.”

“The essential point is that security analysis does not seek to determine exactly what is the intrinsic value of a given security. It needs only to establish that the value is adequate-ee.g., to protect a bond or to justify a stock purchase-or else that the value is considerably higher or considerably lower than the market price. For such purposes an indefinite and approximate measure of the intrinsic value may be sufficient.”---Benjamin Graham

“Indeed, Graham frequently performed a calculation known as net working capital per share, a back-of-the-envelope estimate of a company's liquidation value. His use of this rough approximation was a tacit admission that he was often unable to ascertain a company's value more precisely.”

“In each case Wall Street's value estimates ranged widely, with the highest estimate as much as
twice the lowest figure.”

Business valuation method :

1. analysis of going-concern value, known as net present value (NPV) analysis. NPV is the discounted value of all future cash flows that a business is expected to generate. A frequently used but flawed shortcut method of valuing a going concern is known as
   private-market value. This is an investor's assessment of the price that a sophisticated businessperson would be willing to pay for a business. Investors using this shortcut, in effect, value businesses using the multiples pa id when comparable businesses were previously bought and sold in their entirety.
2. The second method of business valuation analyzes liquidation value, the expected proceeds if a company were to be dismantled and the assets sold off. Breakup value, one variant of
   liquidation analysis, considers each of the components of a business at its highest valuation, whether as part of a going concern or not.
3. The third method of valuation, stock market value, is an estimate of the price at which a company, or its subsidiaries considered separately, would trade in the stock market. Less reliable than the other two, this method is only occasionally useful as a yardstick of value.

“Each of these methods of valuation has strengths and weaknesses. None of them provides accurate values all the time. Unfortunately no better methods of valuation exis t. Investors
have no choice but to consider the values generated by each of them; when they appreciably diverge, investors should generally err on the side of conservatism.”

“Investors must remember that they need not swing at every pitch to do well over time; indeed, selectivity undoubtedly improves an investor's results. For every business that cannot be valued, there are many others that can. Investors who confine themselves to what they know, as difficult as that may be, have a considerable advantage over everyone else.”


III. The Value-Investment Process
這篇幅﹐主要是講解如何尋找不高估/低估的股票﹐在此﹐我不詳細講解了。因為﹐大致上各位也應該知道的。



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一只牛﹕

對于這次的討論﹐我主要是要參考Seth A. Klarman 對以下的演義﹐
1. 投資的正確態度(Where Most Investors Stumble﹐Investment Goals)
2. The Art of Business Valuation

在這篇文章﹐我專著在Investment Goals和The Art of Business Valuation﹐希望對過去幾天的討論得到有益的補充。

作者強調﹐要精准計算出企業的價值﹐是不實際的。

這點吻合了巴黎先生所說﹕“這個區是沒有一條實實在在的線，但你應該以肉眼就能判斷去指引你什麼才是不合理。”


2007-09年的﹕市場先生的rock n roll (3) 之列表﹐我的推論是﹕

第1)
不管單一股票或合併組合都能 吻合Graham所說的﹐PExPB低于22.5可以確認是“不過份高估或低估”。風暴最強烈的時候﹐PExPB是可以低于7。

第2)
對于“不過份高估或低估”﹐再以PExPB‹15或7來劃分﹐是不合邏輯﹐是矛盾的。因為它顯示7以下買入是極聰明﹐而15以下買入是聰明的﹐這是沒有意義的。而且也造成我們傾向預測股價的走勢﹐或自認有能力預測股價。況且兩者之間的有益心態是一樣的﹐而且“分段買入”能補充。

我個人認為﹐以PExPB‹15為指標﹐已經充足。

第3)
對于“便宜區”﹐我認為“自己的標準”和“市場的標準”﹐方向是一致的﹐即係PExPB低于22.5。

我認為不需要再以行業劃分﹐就好像長江資產的水份﹐在合併效應下已經顯得不重要了。


第4)
對于“昂貴區”﹐我就認為“自己的標準”和“市場的標準”﹐方向就不一致了﹐而且之間的差異令人矚目。列表顯示樂觀期間﹐高低的數字如23(新鴻基)~2008(港交所)﹐差別可真夠大。

我認為不需要再以行業劃分﹐就好像長江資產的水份﹐在合併效應下已經顯得不重要了。

第5)
不管同或不同行業﹐我認為它的重要性限于單一股票的估價的補充。而且我認為﹐同行業之間的比教才管用。

例子﹕今年三月我對越秀交通(1052.HK)的分析﹐就是以同行業的企業作互相比較﹐然後推論越秀交通的低估價是因為資產分配低效率造成。