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(Buffett's Reverse Signals stocks picks buy/sell signals)
Warren Buffett, a.k.a. the “Oracle of Omaha”, is the second richest person in the world, preceded in his wealth only by Bill Gates. Besides being one of the most successful investors in the world, as well as the primary shareholder, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett is also known to be a down-to-earth, wise and even frugal man. When asked about what the secret of the "Warren Buffett investing" is, he doesn't usually give you a straight answer. More often than not you would receive a smaller scale answer, related to something else in life. For example, he says the best advice he ever received, came from his dad, and it was teaching him the power of unconditional love. A more financially oriented advice is - if you have savings, invest money in index funds every month; don't listen to financial advice - that is - guys like him. For the majority of middle class folks who can't afford to invest a lot, he recommends setting a good example for your children, being the kind of person you want your child to be. In regards to the economy recovering, he says: In a period of 100 years, usually 80 are good and 20 are bad. We just can't predict exactly when those 20 are going to happen. But in an interview for the Huffington Post from July 2010 he says he sees a recovery and thinks the economy is coming back.
Buffett graduated with a B.S. in Economics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1950, at the age of 19, and an M.S. in Economics from Columbia Business School in 1951. He also attended the New York Institute of Finance. Buffett worked from 1951 to 1954 as an Investment Salesman at Buffett-Falk & Co. in Omaha, from 1954 to 1956 as a Securities Analyst at Graham-Newman Corp. in New York, from 1956 to 1969 as a General Partner at Buffett Partnership, Ltd. in Omaha, and from 1970 to this day he is the Chairman and CEO at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in Omaha.
(Pickens' Reverse Signals stock picks buy/sell signals)
T. Boone Pickens is an American financier and the chair of the hedge fund BP Capital Management; he used to be a famous corporate raider in the 1980s. In 1951 he graduated from Oklahoma State University where he majored in Geology and was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. In 1956 he founded a company that would later become Mesa Petroleum. His corporate acquisitions in the 1980s made Pickens a celebrity. He briefly considered running for president in 1988. In 1997 Pickens founded BP Capital Management (the initials standing for Boone Pickens and not British Petroleum), then called BP Energy Fund. He holds 46% interest in the company which runs two hedge funds - Capital Commodity and Capital Equity.
In June 2010 T. Boone Pickens announced that he is working with congressman Sullivan to push for new legislation focusing on home grown natural gas instead of foreign oil. In an interview he remarks that “we do have more natural gas than any country in the world [and] that's good. […] 70% of all oil we transport every day is for transportation fuel.”
Pickens has given more than $700 million away to charity including nearly half a billion dollars to his alma mater Oklahoma State University. He’s among the billionaires who have made the Giving Pledge – a commitment to give half of their wealth for charitably purposes. He has also donated to the University of Texas, Happy Hill Farm/Academy Jubilee Park in Dallas, the University of Calgary, the Downtown Dallas YMCA. He has also been highly involved with alternative energy and wind power projects.
(Icahn's Reverse Signals stock picks buy/sell signals)
Carl Icahn is an American private equity investor, financier, and corporate raider. He attended Princeton University for a B.A. in Philophy (1957), and New York University School of Medicine which he left prior to graduation. Icahn started working on Wall street in 1961. In 1968 he founded Icahn & Co. - a securities firm focusing on risk arbitrage and options trading. In 1978 Icahn began taking control of positions in individual companies and since then has taken such positions at corporations such as RJR Nabisco, TWA, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Uniroyal, Dan River, Marshall Field, E-II (Culligan and Samsonite), American Can, USX, Marvel Comics, Revlon, Imclone, Federal-Mogul, Fairmont Hotels, Blockbuster, Kerr-McGee, Time Warner, and Motorola. Recently he’s shown interest in the takeover of Yahoo! and the ousting of Jerry Yang from his current CEO position to allow Microsoft to purchase the web company. In June 2008 he launched The Icahn Report which campaigns for shareholder rights. It hosts United Shareholders of America where individual investors can sign up and take part. In July 2010 Icahn acquired 14% of Mentor Graphics. Because of this the company signed a Poison Pill provision and as of September 2010 Icahn owns just less than 15% of Mentor Graphics.
Icahn’s hedge funds currently own 5.6% of the biotechnology company Biogen Idec. Starting 2007, Icahn has been steadily increasing his stake at Biogen and as of June 2009 he has been able to seat two of his allies on Biogen’s board. Also between September 2007 and January 2008 Icahn pushed his ownership of the business software company BEA Systems from 8.5% to 13.22% before Oracle Corporation announced it was purchasing BEA Systems.
In terms of philanthropy, Icahn has many establishments, where he donated substantial amounts of money, named after him: Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island in NYC, the Carl C. Icahn Center for Science and Icahn Scholar Program at Choate Rosemary Hall New England prep school, the Carl C. Icahn Laboratory at the Princeton University Institute for Integrated Genomics, the Icahn Medical Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. His foundation – Children’s Rescue Fund – built the Icahn House in The Bronx for housing homeless single pregnant women and single women with children.
(Soros' Reverse Signals stock picks buy/sell signals)
George Soros is a Hungarian-American financier, businessman and a notable philanthropist. He is the Cahirman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute, and former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. During the Black Wednesday UK currency crises Soros made $1 billion thus becoming known as “the man who broke the bank of England”. He provided Europe’s highest endowment in support of higher education to Central European University in Budapest between 1984 and 1989. In the United States he’s famous for donating large amounts of money in the attempt to defeat George W. Bush from re-election in 2004. Also, in 2010 he donated $1 million in support of Proposition 19 which would have legalized marijuana in the state of California.
Soros immigrated to England in 1947 where in 1952 he graduated the London School of Economics with a B.S. in Philosophy. He moved to New York City in 1956 where from 1956 to 1959 he worked as an arbitrage trader with F. M. Mayer, and from 1959 to 1963 as an analyst with Wertheim & Co. During this time he developed the philosophy of reflexivity, according to which the action of beholding the valuation of any market by its participants affects said valuation of the market in a pro-cyclical virtuous or vicious circle. However, he soon realized that this concept won’t earn him any money unless he goes into investing on his own.
Some of Soros’ learnings and beliefs include starting with smaller amounts of money and then building a portfolio with increasing profits; trying to do what you are good at; keeping in mind that perceptions change events which in turn changes perceptions; realizing that stocks prices are determined on the basis of Fundamental analysis, and the problem lies in grasping the internal dynamics of the fundamentals of a company since they keep changing very often. Soros questions the foundation on which Technical analysis of stock was built and thus considers Technical analysis to be an utter waste. In fact the "fundamental analysts" from Wall Street lost 47% in 2002 and another 55% in 2008... of YOUR money.
On charity, Soros says that it is a very corrupting activity – corrupting to the receiver because he gets spoiled, and corrupting to the giver because others start sucking up to him. Soros’ most famous quote: “Short term volatility is greatest at turning points and diminishes as a trend becomes established […] By the time all the participants have adjusted the rules of the game will change again.”
Robert Rodriguez is one of the few who warned investors about the upcoming financial crisis a few years earlier. He has been managing the FPA Capital Fund (FPPTX) and the FPA New Income Fund since 1984. During that time, and as of 9/30/2007, he has achieved a 16.91% return whereas S&P 500's return for the same period has been 13.17% annually.
Rodriguez's investment strategy is primarily to invest in the stocks of smaller companies. He selects stocks based on specific fundamental criteria: strong balance sheets, free cash flow, a successful and understandable business strategy, capable management, unique business characteristics. Rodriguez looks for companies with long history and a track record of high returns on equity. He sells stocks when the basis for an investment has been revised; when the stock is selling at a significant premium P/E to the market; when profitability recovery has been attained; when a management disappointment has occurred without expectation for recovery; or when a superior alternative value has presented itself. His portfolio holds between 25 and 45 equities and his investment outlook is 3 to 5 years, not afraid to sit on the sidelines and wait for the right opportunity.
On the Treasury debt, Rodriguez comments that its predicted growth to between $14.6 trillion and $16.6 trillion by the end of 2011 is “outrageous and fiscally irresponsible”, and adds that “it is not right and is morally reprehensible that one generation would do this to another.”
David F. Swenson has been the Chief Investment Officer at Yale University since 1985 where he is responsible for managing and investing the university's endowment assets and investment funds which total about $16.3 billion. He is responsible for inventing "The Yale Model" which has become an application of Modern Portfolio Theory.
Swensen received a B.A. and a B.S. from the University of Wisconson - River Falls in 1975. He pursued a Ph.D. in Economics at Yale University, writing his dissertation A Model for the Valuation of Corporate Bonds. Prior to joining Yale in 1985, Swensen spent six years on Wall Street as Senior Vice President at Lehman Brothers, and as an associate in corporate finance at Salomon Brothers.
The Yale Model (aka The Endowment Model) is described in Swensen's 2000 book Pioneering Portfolio Management, and was developed by him and Dean Takahashi. The Yale Model consists mainly of dividing a portfolio into five or six roughly somewhat equal parts and investing each in a different asset class. A central part of The Yale Model is broad diversification and equity orientation thus avoiding classes with expected low mutual fund returns such as commodities and fixed income. This type of investing where stress is put on allocating only a small amount of tradition U.S. equities and bonds and more to alternative investments, is being followed by many large endowments and foundations and is therefore also known as The Endowment Model or The Endowment Model of Investing.
Swensen is also popular for his book Unconventional Success which came out in 2005 and is targeted toward the individual investor. From a guest lecture: "We spent all this time in Intro Econ learning how there's no free lunch, but Markenwoods tells us that diversification is a free lunch. For any given level of return you can reduce the risk; for any given level of risk you can increase the return."
A widely known economist and professional investor, Benjamin Graham was the first proponent of value investing which he began teaching at Columbia Business School in 1928. He made a fundamental distinction between investment and speculation arguing that in the short term the stock market behaves like a voting machine but in the long term it acts like a weighing machine (i.e. its true value will in the long run be reflected in its stock price). Graham distinguishes between the passive investor (defensive investor, cautious investing, looking for value stocks, buying for the long term) and the active investor (has more time, interest and probably specialized knowledge to seek out exceptional buys in the market). Graham recommends that investors spend time and effort to analyze the financial state of companies - when a company is available on the market at a price lower than its intrinsic value, then a margin of safety exists which makes it more suitable for investment.
Warren Buffett speaks fondly of Graham who was his professor at Columbia and later an employer and a friend. Buffett describes Graham as the second most influential person in his life, after his own father. It was Ben’s ideas that sent Buffett down the right path and he would be a different person today if he hadn’t picked up Graham’s book The Intelligent Investor back in 1949 when Buffett was 19. Buffett continues to describe him not only as having brilliant ideas about investing but also as being a generous man whose name he gave to his son. Graham was born smart and he didn’t have a choice but to be an intelligent human being. However, he could’ve behaved in an arrogant manner or had total superiority but instead he chose to be a wonderful human being even though he knew he was smarter than 99.99% of the people around him. It didn’t bother him sharing knowledge with his students that in affect was going to make them his competitors.
Ronald Muhlenkamp is the founder and president of Muhlenkamp & Company, Inc., and a portfolio manager for the company's self-named mutual fund (MUHLX). With stocks in his portfolio staying an average of ten years, Muhlenkamp is famous for his patient value investing style. He's a value guru who believes that in the long run stock prices reflect the value of the underlying businesses. When he's picking stocks he's looking for companies with solid balance sheets and a ROE of 15% or higher.
Ronald Muhlenkamp graduated from MIT in 1966 with a B.Sc. degree in Engineering, and from the Harvard Business School in 1968 with an MBA. Additionally he holds a CFA designation. He and his wife Connie live on a farm near Pittsburgh but travel extensively to meet with clients across the country.
Mr. Muhlenkamp's entire business career has been devoted to the professional management of investment portfolios. He's an award-winning investment manager, a frequent media guest, and a featured speaker in investment shows across the USA. His work since 1968 has been focused on extensive fundamental and technical studies of investment management philosophies, a result of which was the development of a proprietary method of evaluating equity and fixed income securities. Muhlenkamp is also the author of Ron's Road to Wealth: Insights for the Curious Investor.
Steve Mandel (Stephen F. Mandel Jr.) is the Managing Director and long/short equity money portfolio manager at Lone Pine Capital (LPC) which he founded in 1997. He graduated with an A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1978 and an MBA from Harvard University in 1982. From 1990 to 1997 Mandel was managing director and consumer analyst at Tiger Management Corporation, a mass-market retailing analyst at Goldman Sachs from 1984 to 1990, and a consultant at Mars and Company from 1982 to 1984. He is a trustee of Teach for America and a founder and board member of Lone Pine Foundation. Mandel lives in Greenwich, CT with his wife; they have three children.
According to the most recent filings of his company Lone Pine Capital, Steve Mandel owns 52 stocks with a total value of $11 billion. His top five holdings are JPMorgan Chase & Co., QUALCOMM Inc., Cognizant Technology Solutions Inc., Apple Inc., and Accenture Ltd. Other recently acquired new stock purchases include Davita Inc., UPS, Ameriprise Financial Inc., The Cocacola Company, Activision Blizzard, Amazon.com, Amphenol Corp., Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., Walter Industries, Salesforce.com, Live Nation, Longtop Financial Technologies, The Pnc Financial Services Group, O’reilly Automotive, Apollo Group, Invesco Ltdshs, Wyndham Worldwide, and Umpqua Holdings. The list of newly added stocks includes the names of companies such as Yum! Brands, New Oriental Education & Technology Grou, Wells Fargo, Mead Johnson Nutriti, Autodesk Inc., Pactiv Corp., The Estee Lauder Companies, Cvs Caremark, and Bank of America.
Mandel is a trustee of The Children’s School in Stamford, CT and Phillip Exeter Academy which he also graduated in 1974. He is the founder and board member of the Lone Pine Foundation whose mission is helping childrenand families in the greater NYC area.
David Dreman - a popular investor - is the founder and Chairman and Chief Investment Officer at Dreman Value Management. The investment company focuses on mutual funds, pension, foundation, endowment funds and high net-worth individuals.
Dreman was born in 1936 in Canada. He graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1958. After graduation he worked as Director of Research at Rauscher Pierce, Senior Investment Officer at Seligman, and Senior Editor of the Value Line Investment Service. In 1977 he founded his first investment firm - Dreman Value Management - and has served as its president and chairman ever since.
Dreman has published many scholarly articles, he writes a column for Forbes Magazine, and has written three books - Contrarian Investment Strategy: The Psychology of Stock Market Success (1980), The New Contrarian Investment Strategy (1982), and Contrarian Investment Strategies: The Next Generation (1998). Dreman was awarded a Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Manitoba in 1999 and is a member of the university's board of trustees. August 2009: "We're in a market that will go much higher over the next 3 to 5 years."
Bill Miller is famous for being the only fund manager that has been able to outperform S&P500 for 15 years in a row. He is the Portfolio Manager at Legg Mason Value Trust (LMVTX) and since the beginning until 2008 his fund has earned 15.25% annual average total mutual fund returns. A buy-and-hold investor, Miller invests primarily by purchasing large-capitalization stocks at large discounts to his assessment of their intrinsic value. When valuing companies, Miller looks at the present value of future cash flows. He uses his multi-factor valuation analysis to buy securities priced by the market at significant discounts to their intrinsic value. He keeps his focus more on cash earnings rather than accounting-based valuation measures.
In a CNBC interview from Oct 20, 2010 he comments that he'd be surprised if the market isn't 20% up within the next 12 months. When asked to compare the current situation with that in 1981 he says it is worse now. It is worse not only because we haven’t had 10 years of no return but also because we’ve had two recessions and the biggest financial collapse and that has shattered people's confidence. The public is not interested in lower prices, he continues, and the lower the prices get the less interested they will be. Miller advises that this is the best time to invest since the early 1980s: “The last 10 years have conditioned people to think short-term and tactically as opposed to long-term; everybody wanted to think long-term in 1999 and that was the wrong time to think long term because things were expensive; now things are cheap and it's time to go back to thinking long term. […] The demographics is an important part of where the market is going to go. [...] I think what you're looking at in the stock market over the next 10 years is real rates of return - somewhere between 6% and 10%. Every time you've had the market down on a ten year basis, the average rate of return has been 50% higher than the long-term historic rate of return.”