The benefit of a concentrated portfolio

Today is my portfolio's biggest one day change: 16.33%. The S&P 500 barely moved up 0.66%, so my gain came from the stocks I happen to hold. First Marblehead shot up 64.71% because, I suppose, of news that Leslie Alexander (the company's largest investor) bought more shares. Random fluctuation sent Select Comfort up 28.57%. (When a company costs a quarter a share, a few pennies change in price makes a big relative difference.) Berkshire Hathaway is up 8.95% as investors figured out the company is not going to fail after all. So just a few big moves in companies I happen to own make a huge difference.

Of course, there's a cost as well. On the year, my IRA has lost more than half it's value due almost entirely to awful results from First Marblehead (down 91%) and Select Comfort (down 96%). Digging out of a hole like that will be very tough even with days like today. Both these stocks represent value traps that should have been sold long ago. I'd sell Select Comfort today except it will cost too much in commission. (I am shopping some December call options, but my limit price won't be filled any time soon, I think.)

Why I sold Canon

I'm pretty far behind in updating my transaction diary. Partially that's because I don't want to think about the carnage done to my portfolio in recent weeks and partially because I got busy with other things (i.e. buying a house). Because I need some cash to use as a down payment, I sold off my Canon shares at a price less than what I consider to be their value. On August 6, I got $46.49 a share. The first lot (bought in December, 2003) returned 62% compared to 6% for the S&P 500. The second lot (bought in December, 2004) returned 47% compared to 7%. The annualized return was about 11% for both lots. Needless to say, both lots were excellent investments.

Canon has lost a lot of market cap since I sold, so I lucked out there. Since Berkshire had about the same price to value ratio, I was tempted to sell it instead. But I resisted in part because I assumed consumer electronics will be harder to sell in the next few years and Berkshire will be able to pick up some good deals over the same time period. Like Oracle, I suspect Canon will be a compelling value and on my investment radar in the future.

Price/Value ratio

Reading the latest Longleaf Partners Funds report, I was inspired to calculate the Price/Value ratio for my holdings:

Company          P/V
-------          ---
Canon            86¢ 
Select Comfort   36¢ 
Berkshire        82¢ 
Sally Beauty     59¢ 
First Marblehead 23¢ 

I recently sold Oracle for somewhere between 90¢ and $1 to the dollar. Cash is always worth $1 to the dollar and I used the same rate for Alberto-Culver, since I haven't put a value on that company. My composite P/V for the portfolio is roughly 66¢ to the dollar.

Select Comfort and First Marblehead still seem insanely cheap to me even after slashing my value estimate. I expect these will be truly outstanding investments for those who purchase today, but both have been classic value traps for me. (A value trap is an investment that looks cheap, but whose value falls as fast or faster than the price.) First Marblehead in particular has been a head-scratcher, since it operates in a great business that has been abandoned by other companies due to short-term problems. Both companies now include a free option on any future growth.

Of course, the value portion of the ratio is my conservative estimate of the present value of all future earnings. Further, there's no way to know when or if the price will converge on the value, assuming I estimated it correctly.

2007 Look-through earnings

As usual, I have to wait for Warren Buffett to release Berkshire's earnings before I can tabulate mine:

EPS              2008* 2007  2006  2005  2004  2003  2002
Oracle           0.15  0.27  0.13  0.21  0.30  0.44  0.34
Canon            0.37  0.31  0.28  0.49  0.34  0.08 
Select Comfort   0.18  0.19  0.19  0.27   
Berkshire        0.22  0.30  0.25    
Alberto-Culver   0.02  0.02  0.08    
Sally Beauty     0.05  0.04  0.00    
First Marblehead 0.41  0.14     
Look-through     1.00  1.13  0.93  0.97  0.64  0.52  0.34

* 2008 numbers are consensus analyst estimates.

I keep track of my IRA like an open-ended mutual fund and this is the look-through earnings per "share" of my IRA "fund". As I buy and sell stocks, my portion of their earnings fluctuates and when I add cash, it alters the percentage of portfolio's total value comes from look-through earnings. So when I sold Oracle shares over the year, I reduced the earnings I give myself credit for and when I bought Select Comfort, I increased my share of earnings.

Thanks in very large part to Oracle, my look-through results actually improved. When you add in call option premiums and capital gains on selling shares, my results are even better. But my relative share of the company has been reduced and I won't get anywhere near those returns in 2008.

My two troubled positions look ok in this table, but that is mostly an illusion because I've increased my holdings to a large degree. In his just released letter, Mr. Buffett lays out four criteria he looks for in buying a business: "a) a business we understand; b) favorable long-term economics; c) able and trustworthy management; and d) a sensible price tag." The CEOs First Marblehead and Select Comfort have earned my respect anew by taking voluntary pay cuts for poor results that are largely out of their control. Also, the stock market has cut share price of these companies from cheap to practically free, in my opinion. The reason in both cases is largely a result of worsening economic conditions. In both cases, there are internal changes that need to be made if the companies are going to thrive, but they continue to have advantages compared to competitors that are not likely to disappear. If I weren't already up to my ears in these companies, I'd be buying at these prices.

Canon and Berkshire continue to earn about what is to be expected. They are both too large to grow quickly, but have very wide and clear moats that ought to preserve the businesses for decades to come. Unlike Oracle, the market has not come close to recognizing these company's intrinsic values, so I have not been tempted to sell.

Sally Beauty earned very little this year because it has needed to pay so much in interest expenses since splitting with Alberto-Culver. This year and next ought to be pivotal for the company, so it's very encouraging that directors have bought $3 million of shares to the $1 million worth they purchased with their own money last year. When the restrictions on selling agreed to by the principals of the spin-off transaction expire at the end of the year, I expect management will begin to trumpet business growth instead of underplaying it. I've noticed there are plenty of mom-and-pop beauty supply shops here in Southern California, and I expect there will be plenty of opportunities to consolidate the industry while paying down the debt.

Interestingly, 2007 looks similar to what analysts predicted last year, but that result is misleading because I'm more invested in these stocks than I was at that time. Looking at operating earnings, which includes various cash returns and costs, shows a fuller picture of my results:

Interest    0.01    0.03    0.16    0.01    0.03    0.02    0.00
Dividends   0.00    0.08    0.06    0.08    0.03  
Costs      (0.01)  (0.14)  (0.19)  (0.04)  (0.06)  (0.22)  (0.12)
Arbitrage   0.00    0.50    0.41    
Options     0.07    0.14     
Operating   1.07    1.79    1.37    1.01    0.65    0.32    0.23
Gain      -38.18%  25.76%  35.66%  56.70% 100.59%  41.50% 

I'm fairly pleased with these results, but I can't expect them to continue into the future. In particular, I likely will not have any arbitrage earnings this year, since I've invested most of my cash into businesses that I feel are too cheap to pass up and which might not pan out for a few years. Finally, here are my net results juiced by large realized gains that will not be repeated this year:

Realized Gain           2.88                            1.79 
Special dividend                2.99    
Net              1.07   4.60    4.37    1.01    0.65    2.11  0.23
Gain           -76.79%  5.41% 331.08%  56.70% -69.39% 827.21% 

Four types of moats

Recently on the Motley Fool, there was an article highlighting four different moat types:

1. Economies of scale
2. The network effect
3. Intellectual-property rights
4. High switching costs

Personally, I'd divide IP rights into: patents/secrets and brands, which is to say: what you know and what your customers know. Also, economies of scale and network effect are really two sides of the same coin. Size can give a company advantages or it can give customers advantages or both. I think high switching cost has an analogue as well: monopoly. Regulated monopolies are especially impervious to assault.

1. Size
   1. Economies of scale
   2. The network effect
2. Knowledge
   1. Intellectual-property rights
   2. Brand
3. Stickiness
   1. Monopoly
   2. High switching costs

In each case, the moat is developed by created an advantage that other companies can't steal. Bigger companies, like bigger ancient cities, are more likely to have established moats. For instance Oracle, Canon and Berkshire Hathaway have multiple and deep moats in nearly every category. First Marblehead mostly fends off competition with intellectual property. I'm worried that Select Comfort might have lost their primary moat—their brand. Those are much smaller companies that have not completely staked out their territory.

So for smaller, fast-growing companies, the question is what moats can they develop?

2007 Year in review

On the last day of 2007, my IRA ended the year down 13.3%, which was the first down year I've had and substantially worse than my benchmarks, the S&P 500 and Berkshire Hathaway. These things happen and especially with an ultra-concentrated portfolio. Here are my core positions:

Stock               2007 Return
-----               -----------
Alberto-Culver      20.83%
Berkshire Hathaway  29.19%
Canon              -17.74%
First Marblehead   -87.43%
Oracle              34.23%
Sally Beauty        16.03%
Select Comfort     -57.70%

Select Comfort has been the biggest disappointment of my short investment career. I certainly misjudged the business though I still think my initial purchase was a good decision. I now believe my follow-on purchase last year was a mistake, because I did not recognize the danger of air mattresses becoming a commodity. Select Comfort is built from the ground up to be a specialty bedding company, so if it ever needs to compete on price, quality and service alone, it must be revalued. That said, I think the current price is actually less than what the company would be worth as a commodity manufacturer. So any future turn-around comes as a free option at prices less than about $7 a share. As I mentioned when I made my third purchase, I plan to aggressively sell covered call options until the future becomes more clear.

First Marblehead has always looked stunningly cheap to me. Incredibly, the price has dropped to just over book value because of worsening conditions in the student loan paper market. Basically the market assumed for a while that the company would just close up shop. Since the supply (or from the perspective of students, the demand) of private student loans is growing at breakneck speed, walking away from the business would be crazy. Instead, First Marblehead has entered into an agreement with Goldman Sachs that will allow it to hold the loans it currently sells off in exchange for nearly 17% of the company's equity. I haven't had time to dig into the details of the deal yet, but it does seem like First Marblehead simultaneously removed short-term risk, reshaped its business model, and bought a powerful ally with a vested interest in its success. Buying more shares is a definite possibility, though I don't like the message sent by the dividend cut.

Canon became cheaper in part because of a delayed entry into the TV business due to patent problems. In the meantime, the company's core camera and printer products have sold well and profitably, and it is working on other entries into the display business. The dividend for 2007 was raised another 10% without seriously eating into cash flows. Canon's dividend is important because it is a signal from management that the business is doing well and it provides me with another reason to keep holding. Based solely on the dividend, Canon is trading below its fair value.

Outside of these three stocks, my investments performed quite well. Unfortunately, my losers made up a larger portion of the portfolio than the winners did. Options and arbitrage transactions worked extremely well for me on the whole, but I'd have to dramatically increase my trading activity to come close to making up for any one of the losing positions. On the other hand, my returns would undeniably be worse without these small, short-term, trading successes. Along the same lines, Alberto-Culver helped, but is a portion of my portfolio too tiny to profitably sell. Its performance barely matters.

Sally Beauty meets my current expectations. Everything seems quiet at the moment, but that will change as the company pays down debt and the restrictions on insider sales expire over the next year or so. I'm contemplating increasing my exposure in what amounts to a publicly-traded, private-equity investment (if you can imagine).

I'm in the process of wishing Oracle, my first and most successful investment, a fond farewell. On an annualized basis, my return on shares sold in 2007 has been over 20%. I've decided to end this investment because I believe the company is trading at a fair value. For the last few months it seems that Larry Ellison agrees with me as he has been exercising options for and selling a million shares a day. He has plenty of shares left to keep his financial future firmly tied to the company he founded, but I'm guessing he is more excited about other investments such as NetSuite. I'll keep my eye on the price in case it falls below its fair value again, however.

Berkshire Hathaway remains the anchor of my portfolio for the foreseeable future. This year will almost certainly be the moment when the company can finally use its dry powder. There are certainly plenty of quality assets available for pennies on the dollar due to "lack of liquidity" (i.e., over-leveraged entities that can no longer refinance). No doubt we will see some buys in the months to come.

Perhaps I'm foolish, but I feel fairly optimistic about 2008. Besides Select Comfort, the portfolio has improved financially and the businesses are stronger than ever. I have no urgency to sell until the future becomes clear, so the market price isn't all that important in the short run. Further, lower prices for stocks in general ought to present me with better opportunities for future purchases.

A losing year

2007 will almost certainly be a losing year for me. Here's where I stand as of this morning:

Date       S&P 500   Delta     IRA   Delta   BRK A
12/06/07      5.27% -10.95%  -5.68% -39.97%  34.28%
Total Gain   50.40%  74.55% 124.95%  20.38% 104.57%
Annualized    7.77%   8.25%  16.01%   2.00%  14.01%

Remember that I own Berkshire stock, so part of my portfolio is supported by this year's 34% gain. Berkshire is now well above the "inflation +10%" benchmark since the opening of my IRA. Select Comfort and First Marblehead have cost my portfolio the majority of the underperformance its experienced this year.

Select Comfort has not performed well in over a year in business terms. I think the company has been disproportionally impacted by the housing slump and management has made some disastrous mistakes. At this point, however, the market seriously undervalues the company even after accounting for very real degradation of fundamentals. There's no guarantee management will right the ship, but Wall Street is treating the mattress retailer as if it has no upside. I made a mistake by not selling a year ago, but I would be a buyer at this price if I didn't already own shares.

First Marblehead, which is down another 8% today, has not had any business problems to speak of and has plummeted almost from the moment I bought it. This is pretty clearly a case of Wall Street blinded by the company's association with other, more troubled financial stocks. As I've been pointing out, unless there is fraud we haven't heard about, this stock should not trade less than $30 a share. My hope now is that the low prices stick around until the next few dividends can be reinvested for me.

Earnings yield of my IRA

Currently, my IRA is flat on the year compared to an 8% or so gain for the S&P 500 and a 17% gain for Berkshire. Select Comfort (-37.5%) and First Marblehead (-28.25%) are the primary culprits, though Canon is somehow down 11% on the year too. Now I don't like the idea of seeing my portfolio stagnate, but there is a ray of hope here: my IRA's earnings yield is improving.

Here's how I calculate yield for my portfolio. Each quarter, I multiply the EPS for each company I own by the number of shares I hold at the end of the quarter. I add up those numbers and at the end of the year I have a value for "look-through" earnings. That's how much my stocks would have returned if they had paid out 100% of earnings in the form of a cash dividend. For 4^th quarter earnings, I use analyst or company estimates which are decent first-order guesses. Then I divide by the total value of my portfolio to get look-through yield.

Yield         2007   2006   2005   2004   2003   2002
-----        ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
Look-through  4.57%  3.90%  5.22%  3.65%  3.20%  2.59%

Since my account value has not changed significantly since the beginning of the year, the increase in yield is entirely due to increases in my companies' earnings. This measure does not include income from cash in the numerator, but it does include cash in the denominator. That means, cash-heavy portfolios are penalized. One solution would be to subtract cash from the denominator. A better solution is to add in interest earned to the numerator. I also add in premiums from call options, profits from short-term arbitrages, and cash dividends, while subtracting commissions, fees, and option losses. This produces a sort of operating earnings yield:

Yield         2007   2006   2005   2004   2003   2002
-----        ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
Look-through  4.57%  3.90%  5.22%  3.65%  3.20%  2.59%
Operating     6.21%  5.76%  5.46%  3.70%  1.97%  1.74%

I know this double counts cash dividends, which are also reflected in look through earnings. Notice that my cash position has added to earnings in the last two years thanks to a number of arbitrage opportunities.

Higher yields indicate a sort of potential energy for a portfolio. Like the spring in a windup toy, increasing earnings give a portfolio a chance to run. Over a long period of time and given more or less efficient markets, an increase in earnings would represent a corresponding increase in price. Imagine what would happen to a company that earned 50¢ a share and sold for $10 were to increase earnings to $1 a share. If the yield remained at 5%, the stock would also double to $20. But until those gains are realized by selling the stock, that $10 a share increase will not be released. In order to calculate the effects of buying low and selling high, I add in realized gains and special dividends (like the one Sally Beauty distributed last year).

Yield         2007   2006   2005   2004   2003   2002
-----        ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
Look-through  4.57%  3.90%  5.22%  3.65%  3.20%  2.59%
Operating     6.21%  5.76%  5.46%  3.70%  1.97%  1.74%
Net          12.84% 18.31%  5.46%  3.70% 12.92%  1.74%

Unfortunately, the net yield is extremely choppy. The simplest solution is to take the geometric mean, which is the best way to get an average of rates or percentages:

Yield         2007   2006   2005   2004   2003   2002
-----        ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
Look-through  4.57%  3.90%  5.22%  3.65%  3.20%  2.59%
Operating     6.21%  5.76%  5.46%  3.70%  1.97%  1.74%
Net          12.84% 18.31%  5.46%  3.70% 12.92%  1.74%
Geomean       6.89%  6.08%  4.62%  4.36%  4.74%  1.74%

This smooths the data to show that net yields are also creeping up for my portfolio.

So what does all this mean? In my opinion, these yields are a rough estimate of potential. As I make good investments in companies that are cheap and have high earnings, my portfolio potential goes up. When I'm able to make money with the cash potion of the account, as I have over the last few years, I increase my portfolio's potential a bit more. When I harvest some of that potential by selling positions or receiving special distributions from a position, I have a chance to reinvest in companies with increased earnings potential. As I make good choices in allocating assets, my portfolio's yield and potential increase.

It's important to look at measures besides stock value when considering changes in investments. At the moment, First Marblehead and Select Comfort have the highest earnings yield, but are my worst performers. Oracle has the lowest yield, but is also one of the bright spots in terms of price performance. A narrow focus on recent price movement (momentum investing) would lead me to cut my losers and ride my winners. But as a contrarian investor, I'm looking to sell Oracle (low potential) and buy First Marblehead (high potential).

My miserable July

This is the portion of the show where I normally discuss my exceptional portfolio return and modestly claim the results were the result of "good luck" or some one-time event that can never be repeated. My IRA was down 5.20% in July, which was on top of a -1.92% return for June. So which stocks ought I to have sold to avoid this calamity? Oracle, my largest holding, was down a modest 2.99%. Canon clocked down 9.48%. Select Comfort only lost 1.73% in July but for the last 3 months it has lost 14.02%. Berkshire nearly held steady at -0.66%. First Marblehead was the biggest loser: trimming 14.7%. Sally Beauty lost 10.78% and its brother, Alberto-Culver, lost 0.84%. So it was a clean sweep—everything lost market capitalization in July. Here's how I compared to my benchmarks so far this year:

Date     S&P 500 Delta   IRA   Delta  BRK A
07/31/07   2.61% -3.32% -0.71% -0.72% 0.01%

To be honest, I don't feel that holding onto these positions was a mistake. Each of these companies have performed well in my opinion and will likely rebound when the market starts to calm down a bit. First Marblehead in particular is wildly undervalued because of its perceived connection to mortgage bonds and other asset backed securities.

Eveillard's tax device

I just came across an interview with Jean-Marie Eveillard, who manages one of my 401(k) mutual funds—First Eagle Overseas. There is one little answer that immediately caused me to open the spreadsheets of each of my core holdings.

Fortune: You pay a lot of attention to companies' tax rates. Why? Particularly in the U.S., I don't like companies with very low tax rates, because it's a sign either that the Internal Revenue Service will catch up with them someday or that the profits they report are overstated. The average corporate tax rate is 35%. Any company that has a tax rate of 15% or 20% looks suspicious to me.

This suggests a simple device for estimating how much risk a company has because of trying to game the tax system. Companies with overly low tax rates are like ticking time-bombs. There aren't a lot of positive reasons for a company to pay low taxes. The device also warns of companies that exploit the US system that allows companies to use two sets of books. Oracle has the highest rating and it isn't exactly a blaring fire alarm.

Company        Tax     Device     
-------        ---     ------
Oracle         29.71%   5.29%
Canon          34.52%   0.48%
Select Comfort 37.78%  -2.78%
Berkshire      32.81%   2.19%
Sally          38.82%  -3.82% 
Marblehead     38.51%  -3.51%

Raytheon       31.79%   3.21%

Cost of complexity

I've been listening to Aswath Damodaran's valuation class online, which has been very informative. Near the end of Lecture 10, Professor Damodaran suggests an interesting adjustment to "punish" companies for having complex structures that are hard to understand and analyze. The argument goes the more complex a company is, the more places it can hide information about itself and the more likely some of those details will turn out to be bad news. The professor suggests counting the number of pages in a companies 10-K as a simple way to measure complexity.

I sort of assume my companies are more transparent than their peers, but I didn't have any way of measuring that. Now I do. Here are my core holdings with the first competitor I thought of for reference:

Company        Pages
-------        -----
Oracle         103
Canon (20-F)   122
Select Comfort  72
Berkshire       84
Alberto         99   
Sally           99
Marblehead      71+38F

SAP (20-F)     121+70F+1S
HP             152
Tempur-Pedic    48+30F
Citigroup      180
P&G             23
Regis          117
Sallie Mae     118+84F+12A

I don't know how to treat the extra pages (F-38, A-12 and so on), but my sense is that these are a sign of even more complexity than regular pages. Proctor & Gamble walk away with the prize in this group, but overall, the companies I own are objectively less complicated than the ones I don't. I had actually picked Citigroup as a foil to Berkshire because I expected it to have over a thousand pages. Perhaps that number includes all the supplementary documents that I don't plan on even opening. I only included the main 10-K.

One other reason to use this sort of test is that if a company's filings are too long or complicated, chances are you won't read it. My Alberto-Culver investment relied on that principle, since I hoped as few people as possible would have worked though the sum-of-the-parts valuation and I could buy in at a low price. Now that I've bought, I hope the Sally reports at least are going to become more clear and simple so that other investors can begin to appreciate the company's true worth. And since insiders have had these same goals, I'm pretty sure my wish will be granted.

First Quarter results

All of my companies have reported earnings for the first quarter of 2007 (though some of them call it Q2 or Q3). With a single exception, I'm quite happy with the results. Here are the earnings per share adjusted for splits and spin-offs:

1st Quarter EPS      2007  2006  Change
                     ----  ----  ------
Oracle                .20   .14  42.86%
Canon                 .84   .69  21.74%
Select Comfort        .21   .21 -00.66%
Berkshire Hathaway  56.07 50.03  12.07% 
Alberto-Culver        .23   .16  43.75%
Sally Beauty          .06   .17 -64.71%
First Marblehead      .75   .62  20.97%

One quarter isn't really enough to give a clear picture of a company. But with the exception of Select Comfort and Sally Beauty, these companies are performing well on a multi-year basis. I've talked about Select Comfort's issues, so I won't go into them too much more. This Sunday, they ran a clever ad in Parade magazine that gets delivered with many paper in the US, which confirms my basically good opinion of the new campaign.

Sally Beauty is a more interesting story. Remember that I bought it before the split with Alberto-Culver. After the split, I owned one share of Sally, one share of New Alberto, and $25 for each share of Old Alberto. The $25 special dividend was paid for by borrowing huge amounts—in essence prepaying future earnings of Sally. I haven't seen the latest cash flow statement or balance sheet, but you can get a pretty good idea of the effect of the transaction from this portion of the income statement:

3 months ending March 30     2007    2006
                             ----    ---- 
Operating earnings         60,771  51,313
Interest expense           44,947     321
Interest income               300     300
Market interest rate swaps  1,700       -
Net interest expense       42,947      21
   
Earnings before taxes      17,824  51,292
Provision for income taxes  6,785  20,117

Net earnings               11,039  31,175

Operating earnings are up because of growth in the business and cost savings from no longer being part of Alberto-Culver. Interest expenses are up dramatically even after income from interest rate swaps because of the massive debt load. Sally shareholders owe roughly $12.45 a share to Sally bondholders after the special dividend. Fortunately, there is plenty of cash flow to cover the payments and plenty of growth to grow out from under the debt. You'd be forgiven for thinking the whole thing is a pointless exercise if I hadn't included the impact of taxes. Since interest payments are tax-deductible to Sally, net earnings are not as small as you might imagine. Over the life of the debt, this will amount to significant tax savings.

Although the market value of my companies have increased at a healthy rate, I'm not currently interested in selling any of them because I believe their potential has increased even more. That's the reward for buying good companies at a cheap price.

Update May 14

Sally released the balance sheet with their 10-Q and the debt is closer to $10 a share. Book value is about -$5 a share, which makes life a bit tough from a relative valuation perspective.

Value investing is arbitrage

The other day, I talked about the reverse-split arbitrage I've been been engaged in for the past year. Thinking about the methods I use to evaluate the opportunities, I started to wonder if they could be applied to other investments. Certainly the concept of arbitrage can be extended to other realms such as sports betting. The key element is that there must be multiple markets for the arbitrageur to exploit. In the case of a reverse-split, the two markets are the open market where one normally purchases the shares, and the company market where the company buys the shares. The reason this arbitrage is profitable is that the second market is only available to those who hold a small number of shares. In mergers and tender offers open to unlimited amounts, the market adjusts almost immediately to the offered price.

Value investors do something similar when we attempt to profit on discrepancies between the price and the value of a stock. Of course, the value market is a theoretical one, at least in the short term. But the purpose of buying an "undervalued" company is the hope that eventually the market will change in such a way to properly value the position.

Let's take a look at Berkshire Hathaway, the classic value stock. First, we need an estimate of the payout if a bet on Berkshire is successful. The Berkshire Hathaway Intrisivaluator is as good a place to start as any. Currently, the "Cost of Capital" estimate puts BRK.B shares at $4754. This estimate assumes a healthy growth rate discounted at Berkshire's cost of capital. For an estimate of the minimum value, we'll use the "Liquidation" scenario of $3114 a share. Here the assumption is Berkshire sells off all its assets, settles all its debts, and distributes what's left to shareholders. There are other choices offered by the model, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that these are the payouts for success and failure.

The market values BRK.B at $3628 as of today's close. Using the method I described last week, that implies the market thinks there is roughly a 45% chance Berkshire will perform well enough in the future for "B" shares to be worth $4754 today. By elimination, that means there's a 55% chance Berkshire will stall out and only pay out $3114. Obviously any rational view of a company's future will be more nuanced and complicated than a simply success/failure trial. But it does provide a dead-simple method of calculating the odds of a stock investment. In this case, the market seems to think Berkshire doesn't have much gas left in the tank.

One issue with thinking this way for ordinary stocks is that there is no finite termination date. It's as if the coin keeps spinning and never comes down—or maybe the coin is flipped over and over again as shares are traded. But that's not a bad thing from a practical standpoint, since the company's value doesn't stop moving either. Each quarter there is new input into the value calculation, which often makes a good deal look even better. If you flip back in the Intrinsivaluator to 1981 ("B" shares, if they existed, were valued at $40), the value keeps climbing as you step through the years. Even in 1995, when Berkshire seemed most overvalued, a long-term investor would probably regret selling.

Look-through earnings

"Merry Christmas!" At least that's what I feel like saying every year around this time. Warren Buffett likes to publish his annual report to shareholders on a Saturday, but we get Christmas a few days early thanks to new SEC regulations. Needless to say, Berkshire's actual results were almost as good as its Chairman's commentary and advice.

This year, I thought it would be fun to present my investment's results using one of Mr. Buffett's favorite tools—look-through earnings. Essentially, I calculate my share of each companies earnings by multiplying the quarterly earnings per share by the number of shares I hold each quarter. Then I aggregate four quarters into a year and divide by the number of "shares" in my IRA. (For an explanation, see this article). This way, I can focus on the economic value the various businesses have added as if I owned each one outright. All 2007 numbers exist only in the imagination of analysts; I use them as placeholders to get an idea of what the future holds.

Earnings         2007*   2006    2005    2004    2003    2002
Oracle           0.19    0.13    0.21    0.30    0.44    0.34
Canon            0.31    0.28    0.49    0.34    0.08 
Select Comfort   0.26    0.19    0.27   
Berkshire        0.19    0.25    
Alberto-Culver   0.12    0.08    
Sally Beauty     0.04    0.00    
Look-through     1.12    0.93    0.97    0.64    0.52    0.34

* 2007 numbers are consensus analyst estimates.

The 2006 results are down in part to my purchase of Alberto-Culver and its spun-off subsidiary, Sally Beauty. I bought these shares more for the value I hoped would be unlocked by the spin-off and for the large special dividend (see below). Oracle has slowly been losing its share in my personal look-through earnings because it is a smaller part of my overall portfolio. On an absolute basis, its earnings have increased smartly.

Last year was the first in which I made more than 2 trades. Besides three new positions, I added to one of my old positions, executed three going-private, arbitrage transactions, initiated two more and sold one option. Plus I left substantial (relatively speaking) sums in cash. So my non-look-through earnings and costs were significant for the first time. In the following chart, I've included actual year-to-date results in the 2007 column.

Interest         0.01    0.16    0.01    0.03    0.02    0.00
Costs           (0.05)  (0.19)  (0.04)  (0.06)  (0.22)  (0.12)
Arbitrage        0.39    0.41    
Options          0.06     
Operating        1.47    1.32    0.94    0.61    0.32    0.23
Gain            11.28%  40.94%  52.78%  89.99%  41.50% 

My "operating" earnings are more impressive, smooth and meaningful when presented this way. The market value of my IRA is substantially more lumpy due to market fluctuations. Note that while the arbitrage earnings are quite significant for last year's results (not to mention this year's), they would be partially offset by a tax cost if this were a taxable account. I'm also batting 1.000 with a pitifully small sample size. One day I will experience a setback and the loss may very well wipe out significant gains.

Finally, if you add in my sale of Oracle a few years ago and the large special dividend from Sally Beauty, you will arrive at some very lumpy net earnings. Once again, these earnings benefit greatly from the tax-deferred status of the traditional IRA.

   
Realized Gain                                    1.79 
Special dividend         2.99    
Net              1.47    4.31    0.94    0.61    2.11    0.23
Gain           -65.97% 360.84%  52.78% -71.01% 827.21% 

The fun part about looking at results this way, is that it's easy to imagine being at the helm of a large conglomerate controlling an array of subsidiaries. But this approach ought to also aid an investor's thinking about the businesses he partially owns. Clearly, I will need to consider eliminating my Alberto-Culver and Sally Beauty stakes in the next few years if they do not improve performance. I might want to increase my investment in Oracle instead. Arbitrage and option activities have added considerably to my bottom line.

January performance

I haven't written in a while, but my IRA portfolio turned in a spectacular January:

Date      S&P 500  Delta   IRA    Delta  BRK A  S&P 500   NAV    BRK A
01/31/07  1.41%    1.07%   2.47%  2.42%  0.05%  1,438.24  24.44  110,050.00

Here are a few highlights:

• Sold Pegasus Communications for $3.25 a share.
• Bought Eupa for 35¢ a share.
• Sold Meritage Hospitality for $5.50(!) a share. (That works out to a 295.71% annualized return.)
• My Oracle call option expired. The good news is that I was not forced to sell my Oracle shares. The bad news is that Oracle lost more than 12% of its value in that time. Fortunately, I didn't want to sell anyway.
• Select Comfort gained nearly 6% for the month. I guess the shock of bad news in December wore off.
• Sally Beauty gained 9% for the month. I guess the shock of bad news in December wore off.
• Alberto-Culver gained nearly 5% for the month based, I suppose, on a 5.5¢ a share quarterly dividend.
• Oracle and Canon had poor Januaries based on being large companies with little real news.
• Berkshire Hathaway, as you can see above, ended flat.
• Earned 4.85% (annualized) on any cash I had lying around.

All of this is to say that my stock prices bounced around randomly. I'd say the going-private transactions that I've participated in show true skill since they've worked exactly as I expected. My other investments have did well in January mostly due to luck. Long term, I expect to have more good months than bad ones and make more good decisions than bad, but one month isn't a big enough sample.

February is turning out to be my best month yet. My IRA balance right now is over $5 million. That easily surpasses the half million dollars I "had" back in September. But I expect my balance will return to earth shortly when my Eupa are cashed in.

2006 in review

2006 was a great year for my IRA portfolio (up 28.50%). Not only did I outperform both the S&P 500 (13.62%) and Berkshire Hathaway (24.11%), I also posted my best calendar year performance. After 4 1/2 years of out-performance, I feel confident that my results so far are not a fluke.

Date      S&P 500  Delta     IRA   Delta BRK A  S&P 500   NAV    BRK A
06/23/02                                         992.72 10.00  72,200.00
12/31/02   -11.37% 42.32%  30.95% 30.18%  0.76%  879.82 13.09  72,750.00
12/31/03    26.38% -1.49%  24.89%  9.08% 15.81% 1111.92 16.35  84,250.00
12/31/04     8.99% -2.16%   6.84%  2.49%  4.34% 1211.92 17.47  87,910.00
12/31/05     3.00%  3.23%   6.23%  5.42%  0.81% 1248.29 18.56  88,620.00
12/31/06    13.62% 14.88%  28.50%  4.39% 24.11% 1418.30 23.85 109,990.00
Total Gain  42.87% 95.63% 138.50% 86.16% 52.34%    
Annualized   8.20% 12.97%  21.17% 11.43%  9.75%    

A significant factor in my success this year was that my patience with Oracle finally paid off. I bought at a ridiculously low price and Oracle proceeded to perform quite well and account for nearly all of my IRA's gain for the second half of 2002 and all of 2003. 2004 and 2005 represented a fair amount of uncertainty for Wall Street, which refused to believe that "tech mergers" worked. This year, the various acquisitions started contributing to the bottom line and Oracle's shares followed (up 40%). The interesting thing is that Wall Street still undervalues Oracle. Too many analysts focus on new database licenses to the exclusion of higher margin renewals. Also, I think the Oracle database is under-appreciated as a platform for other businesses to develop new products on. It's nice that Oracle the company is standing in the wings to buy startups that succeed.

Canon, at 23% of my portfolio, is tied for my largest holding in large part due to its exceptional performance during 2006 (up 44%). Once again digital cameras and printer-related consumables continue to be the mainstays of Canon's business. The digital camera revolution is nearly over in my opinion—most people have a digital that meets their needs. Canon is going to have to have a new product boom in the next year or so to keep up their revenue growth. Perhaps YouTube will do for digital camcorders what Flickr did for still cameras. I think Canon's management is counting on its new flat-screen TV product to drive revenue growth.

Select Comfort endured a rocky ride this year and ended down 4.6%. Operationally, nothing much changed in my opinion. They are still the same company with the same management operating in the same business as when I first bought shares nearly two years ago. It's entirely possible that macro factors such as the slowing housing market and credit tightening will make 2007 a disappointment, but over the next ten years Select Comfort ought to do very well. After buying more shares, it is now tied for my largest holding.

Berkshire Hathaway is up 23.5% since I bought it. 2006 was a spectacular year to be a reinsurer since claims were low and premiums high. (The catastrophes of 2005 are largely to blame so its possible premiums will head down in 2007.) Auto insurance continues to be a good business since cars continue to be built safer. Berkshire's other lines of business seemed to perform well during the year. From now on, a portion of my portfolio will match Berkshire's results, which is something to keep in mind when I compare my results to it.

The year end spin-off math for Alberto-Culver is Alberto-Culver ($21.47) + Sally Beauty ($7.86) + the special dividend ($25) = $54.33. Given that I bought at a dollar-weighted average of $49.34 a share, I've made nearly $5 a share or 10% on the spin-off. Alberto-Culver and Sally Beauty together make up 15% of my portfolio, which is fairly significant. But I haven't yet decided if they will become core positions. Both companies have now released initial 10-K reports, which I hope to have a chance to read in-depth soon. But I think I'll have a better idea of how the new companies operate after a quarter or two. Also, I'd like to know what Alberto's dividend will be.

The rest of my portfolio is a smattering of going-private transactions and cash. I'm also short January 2007 options on Oracle at $20, which should expire without value. In some ways, this "short-term" portion of my portfolio is the least important. By their nature, going-private transactions are very profitable, but also very small. Last year I completed 3 and initiated 2. But if they were to make a significant impact on my portfolio, I would have had to have completed something like 10. This year, I'll need to complete even more, since my total portfolio has grown considerably. On the other hand, since they require little in the way of effort, risk or capital, I see no reason not to continue attempting to make a little profit there.

American Education cashed out

My shares of American Education were cashed out this morning at 55¢ a share. Including the commision of my purchase, that's a 12.27% gain versus 0.33% if I had invested in the S&P 500. On an annualized basis, that's 78% which easily exceeds the 5% hurdle I use for these relatively safe going-private investments.

This sounds great, but I only made $30. Even if I were able to buy the 1999 shares I wanted to buy and didn't pay a commission, my grand total would have been $199.90, which isn't all that much. On the other hand, now that I've survived a few of these deals, I don't think it will take more than an hour or so to research new going-private situations. Mostly, I just need to read the proxy on the SEC's website and do a little math. If commissions continue to become a less important cost (because of inflation or my broker becomes more generous), these little investments could be even more profitable (though at no larger scale).

I've been reading Warren Buffett's Partnership letters, which provide an interesting "pre-history" to the Berkshire Hathaway letters. (Berkshire first appears in the January, 1966 letter, but Buffett has made purchases of its stock as far back as 1962.) One repeated theme in them is the categorization of investements into "general", "workout" and "control". General investments are purchased because they are cheap (either compared to their liquidation value or relative to similar companies) and tend to move in the same general direction as the market. Workout investments are purchased because some future event (not just rumored, but published in the paper) will unlock hidden value. Control investments are companies that the Partnership had influence over by reason of a large ownership stake. The last two investment types are largely uninfluenced by the general market.

Until this year, 100% of my investments have been in the general category (or cash), so my results ought to have followed the market. This year, I've been working in some special situation investments (workouts), so my results ought to be better in down markets and keep up (maybe) in up markets. (Joy and I do have "control" investments in a sense because of our careers and Joy's Pampered Chef business. It's difficult to assign a value to them, but they will provide far more earnings to us than our retirement accounts for a great many years.)

Here are my results since I opened my self-directed IRA:

Date       S&P 500   IRA    Difference   
12/31/02*  -11.37%  30.95%  42.32%
12/31/03    26.38%  24.89%  -1.49%
12/31/04     8.99%   6.84%  -2.16%
12/31/05     3.00%   6.23%   3.23%
09/29/06     7.01%  23.32%  16.30%
Total Gain  34.56% 128.88%  94.31%
Annualized   7.20%  21.39%  14.19%

* First reporting date is 06/23/02

The first "year" (actually closer to 6 months), was entirely the result of a single stock—Oracle. 2003 and 2004 were poor years as Oracle and Canon lost ground. In 2005, the addition of Select Comfort made up for the flat performance of the other two holdings. So far this year, the situation has reversed. In addition, I've purchased Berkshire, which has not done much so far, and some special situations, which have added to the account's returns. Beating the market by 14% a year isn't a realistic goal, but the wild swings are likely for a concentrated portfolio.

Investment returns redux

I discovered an error with the spreadsheet I used to generate my investment returns. It turns out I hadn't adjusted the S&P 500 index price for some of my purchases. The effect was to make the Benchmark column wrong:

Stock             Opened  Price  Closed   Price Annualized Benchmark
Oracle           6/24/02   8    5/28/03   13.35     67.05%    -9.94%
Major Automotive 2/28/06   1.75 3/29/06    1.90    144.21%   -11.13% 
Oracle           6/24/02   8     4/4/06   13.84     14.99%     6.80%
Canon            12/9/03  45     4/4/06   68.56     19.04%     2.19%
Canon            12/1/04  49.66  4/4/06   68.56     26.38%     5.34%
Select Comfort    2/9/05  19.95  4/4/06   39.80     80.44%     6.60%
Berkshire (B)    1/31/06   2920  4/4/06    3001      8.29%     2.57%

Now I'm 100% both on absolute and relative terms. Obviously this was a pleasant surprize. Even better, I've been tracking my time-weighted internal rate of return and my IRA is earning about 20% annualized. Since I've held a lot of cash earning less than 4% most of that time, I feel pretty confident in my ability to make good investments over time. If anything, I ought to be making more trades.

Investment returns

After selling Major Automotive, I started to wonder how well the other positions in my IRA have faired. After cosidering commissions, my two closed positions are:

Stock            Opened   Price Closed   Price Annualized Benchmark
Oracle           6/24/02  8     5/28/03  13.35  67.05%     -9.94%
Major Automotive 2/28/06  1.75  3/29/06  1.90  144.21%    -59.70% 

And here are the open positions assuming commissions, dividends, and today's closing price:

Stock            Opened   Price Closed   Price Annualized Benchmark
Oracle           6/24/02  8     4/3/06   13.79  14.89%      6.68%
Canon            12/9/03  45    4/3/06   67.41  18.20%      2.00%
Canon            12/1/04  49.66 4/3/06   67.41  24.85%     20.25%
Select Comfort   2/9/05   19.95 4/3/06   39.73  80.41%     24.32%
Berkshire (B)    1/31/06  2920  4/3/06   3012   10.78     332.30%

As you can see, all of my investments are currently in the black and I'm 6 of 7 against the S&P 500. Obviously this won't hold up in the future.

Why I bought Berkshire Hathaway

Actually the question might be why I didn't buy Berkshire Hathaway earlier. After all Mr. Buffett's annual letters taught me how to value businesses and inspired me to try my hand at investing in individual stocks. The basic insurance business is one of the all-time great business models. Shortly after my wife started her Pampered Chef business, Berkshire bought the company. I've known about GEICO since long before it advertised in earnest. And of course, I'm a big fan of Dairy Queen and See's Candy.

But the strange array of assets that make up the company is a bit hard to value. Thankfully other people are interested in that question as well. A little while ago, I discovered the Berkshire Hathaway Intrinsivaluator. Of course, I've substituted a complicated set of models that I don't completely understand for a business that was complicated, but explained in relatively simple terms by Mr. Buffett. But the nice thing about the models is that we have an objective judgment that extends back through the years.

Currently, the models suggest that the shares are fairly cheap, but not at "cigar butt" level. And going back in time, the intrinsic value for the various models seems to grow by fits and starts. But the price jumps all over the place—far too cheap in 1981, over valued in 1996, and everywhere in between. Lots of times, the market seems to have a handle on the value as calculated by the models.

The real problem with an accurate evaluation, is the nature of the insurance contracts Berkshire writes. Someday there will be one or more super-catastrophes that could threaten the solvency of Berkshire Hathaway if it became undisciplined. In his 2002 letter, Mr. Buffett said, "Had Gen Re remained independent, the World Trade Center attack alone would have threatened the company's existence," in reference to a recently acquired reinsurance subsidiary. But unless and until such a disaster occurs, an insurance company can use the premiums it hasn't yet needed to pay claims (called float) to invest as it sees fit.

In some ways, investing in Berkshire Hathaway is like investing in a large and sucessful mutual fund. On the one hand, the past returns look outstanding. On the other, it becomes harder and harder to find good investments for the cash that keeps rolling in. Unlike a fund manager, Warren Buffett isn't restricted by investment style or SEC restrictions on funds. He may buy whole companies—even privately held companies. And so far, he's managed to get a good return.