Fortune Watch

The torrent of earnings releases set to hit this week could only exacerbate volatility moves, analysts say. Volatility has knocked around stocks on Wall Street in record ways. Buckle up for the coming week.

News and concern over inter-bank lending, credit spreads and declining oil prices, the major averages managed to piece together a strong week that built on the lowest levels in five years.

So far in October, each day the Dow in ranges of no less than 250 points. In fact, the index saw the first 1,000-point swing in its history just over a week ago on Oct. 10. Most of this volatility has been blamed on the liquidation of assets of hedge funds and mutual funds. Rumors of poor performance at major players intensified the effect.

“No doubt the indiscriminate selling we’ve seen has been liquidation, no doubt. Everything is for sale,” says Art Hogan, chief market analyst with Jefferies. Hogan points out that all the indexes have fallen by roughly the same percentage, which indicates that funds are not selling stocks in one industry to invest in another.

The news about the deleveraging of the hedge fund industry is already behind the event, to a certain extent. A lot of hedge funds have a very high level of cash right now. As we come into next week, the question now is whether cash levels are high enough for everyone’s comfort and is the indiscriminate selling is behind us or not, and can we start focusing on fundamentals.
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The undeniable truth is that making a lot of money doesn’t require a high IQ, either in the market or in business. It takes ruthless disciplined routine, and a focus on doing what is right for the long-term.

You can just feel it, can’t you? People are terrified about how the market has acted over the past month, to be more precise since the last one week. Watch the news — watch if you dare. The “boo-yahs” seem more restrained.

This is the time to buy andd hold on to solid blue-chips. Buy shares of good businesses that generate real profits, attractive returns on equity, have low to moderate debt to equity ratios, improving gross profit margins, a shareholder-friendly management, and at least some franchise value. Everyone is thinking this is a terrible time to be invested. But when everyone is thinking the same thing, no one is thinking much at all. That means ….OPPORTUNITY.

If you have been wanting to change your financial future for the better, then now is the perfect time.  The invetory of cash producing, equity filled homes is at an all time high!  Did you know that most retirees single most lucrative investment during their working years was the home that they lived in.  Imagine if they had bought just one or two more properties (that supported themselves of course) and then retired.

Those are the moments when fortunes are made. You might not recognize it at the time. You might not know it for years. But it’s true. When everyone is down on a stock, or a sector, or a country, you might as well take a look. Usually, the negativity comes with good reason. But the over-negativity can provide plenty of opportunity. It’s been that way forever, and it will always be so.

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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which has avoided major acquisitions in the financial sector in recent months, may have had a $3.5 billion two-day paper profit on six major banking and financial services investments.

The two-day rally in financial shares, which drove the broad S&P Financials Index 24 per cent, came as the government announced sweeping measures to rescue the financial system and restore confidence in shaky markets.

Shares of Wells Fargo & Company, the fifth-largest US bank and Berkshire’s second-largest investment as of June 30, rose 19pc over the last two days and touched a record high. That would have given Berkshire a $1.85bn paper profit on its reported 290.7 million share stake.

Berkshire would also have had a $1.12bn profit on its reported 151.6m share stake in American Express Company, the credit card and travel services company. Stakes in Bank of America, M&T Bank, SunTrust Banks and US Bancorp also gained value.

Buffett has long favoured investments in undervalued businesses with strong earnings and management. That has helped him transform Berkshire since 1965 from a failing textile maker into a conglomerate with at least 76 companies.

“He’s always felt Wells was very well-managed,” said Frank Betz, who oversees more than $800m at Carret/Zane Capital Management in Warren, New Jersey. “Why does he like banks? Like Willie Sutton said, it’s where the money is.”

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• You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.

• We do not view the company itself as the ultimate owner of our business assets but instead view the company as a conduit through which our shareholders own assets.

• When Berkshire buys common stock, we approach the transaction as if we were buying into a private business.

• Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.

• Never invest in a business you cannot understand.

• Unless you can watch your stock holding decline by 50% without becoming panic-stricken, you should not be in the stock market.

• The critical investment factor is determining the intrinsic value of a business and paying a fair or bargain price.

• Risk can be greatly reduced by concentrating on only a few holdings.

• Stop trying to predict the direction of the stock market, the economy, interest rates, or elections.

• Buy companies with strong histories of profitability and with a dominant business franchise.

• Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.

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“It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.” If you can grasp this simple advice from Warren Buffett, you should do well as an investor. Sure, there are other investment strategies out there, but Buffett’s approach is both easy to follow and demonstrably successful over a period of more than 50 years. Why try anything else?

For anyone who is not an accountant, annual reports of companies are dull things indeed. Once you know how much money a company has made (and you don’t need the annual report for that), there isn’t anything much that’s worth reading. However, there is one company in the world whose annual report is eagerly awaited for the interesting reading material that it has and that’s the American company Berkshire Hathaway.

The reason? The annual letter to shareholders that is written by the great investor (and Berkshire Hathaway’s Chairman and CEO), Warren Buffett. Buffett is perhaps one of the most respected businessmen of the world. His ideas on business and investing are full of a simple wisdom that would have sounded naive and unworldly had it not been for Buffett’s fantastic track record. Buffett’s 2007 letter, which was released on February 29, is as interesting to read as any of the earlier ones.

The central tenet of Buffett’s investment philosophy is that one should not invest in anything that one does not understand and that one should be unremittingly focused on long-term value. Buffett is also deeply skeptical of financial engineering and ‘innovative’ financial instruments. In today’s situation, when volatility rules and people are investing day-to-day and sometimes hour-to-hour, it’s worthwhile to take a cool look at what people like Warren Buffett have achieved and how they’ve achieved it.

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