Magic Formula Investing

May be some of you already read about this.

Magic Formula Investing Performance

Gotham Capital. they manage to achieve average return around 30% yearly. The founder, Joel Greenblatt, has shared the secret of this fund manager. He is a professor on the adjunct faculty of Columbia business school.

Joel Greenblatt

He did share his investment wisdom on how to achieve this so-called "Magic Investing". However, his techniques so far has been tested for US Stock Exchange. Whether this formula has been tested or back tested in other stock exchange (particularly Bursa Malaysia), it is not yet proven. Some may be skeptical. It is up to you whether you want to believe or not. May be you want to test it out. I believe option 2 may be more applicable for Bursa Malaysia. Anyway, risk on your own if you decided to follow this formula 

Below is the excerpt from his book, "The Little Book that Still Beats the Market" (page 140-143)

Option 1: MagicFormulaInvesting.com

Step 1

Go to magicformulainvesting.com.

Step 2

Follow the instructions for choosing company size (e.g., companies with market capitalizations over $50 million, or over $200 million, or over $1 billion, etc.). For most individuals, companies with market capitalizations above $50 million or $100 million should be of sufficient size.

Step 3

Follow the instructions to obtain a list of top-ranked magic formula companies.

Step 4

Buy five to seven top-ranked companies. To start, invest only 20 to 33 percent of the money you intend to invest during the first year (for smaller amounts of capital, lowerpriced Web brokers such as foliofn.com, buyandhold.com, and scottrade.com may be a good place to start). 

Step 5

Repeat Step 4 every two to three months until you have invested all of the money you have chosen to allocate to your magic formula portfolio. After 9 or 10 months, this should  result in a portfolio of 20 to 30 stocks (e.g., seven stocks every three months, five or six stocks every two months).

Step 6

Sell each stock after holding it for one year. For taxable accounts, sell winners after holding them a few days more than one year and sell losers after holding them a few days less than one year (as previously described). Use the proceeds from any sale and any additional investment money to replace the sold companies with an equal number of new magic formula selections (Step 4).

Step 7

Continue this process for many years. Remember, you must be committed to continuing this process for a minimum of three to five years, regardless of results. Otherwise, you will most likely quit before the magic formula has a chance to work!

Step 8
Feel free to write and thank me.

Option 2: General Screening Instructions

If using any screening option other than magicformulainvesting.com, you should take the following steps to best approximate the results of the magic formula:

• Use Return on Assets (ROA) as a screening criterion. Set the minimum ROA at 25%. (This will take the place of return on capital from the magic formula study.)
• From the resulting group of high ROA stocks, screen for those stocks with the lowest Price/Earning (P/E) ratios. (This will take the place of earnings yield from the magic formula study.) 
• Eliminate all utilities and financial stocks (i.e., mutual funds, banks and insurance companies) from the list.
• Eliminate all foreign companies from the list. In most cases, these will have the suffix “ADR” (for “American Depository Receipt”) after the name of the stock. 
• If a stock has a very low P/E ratio, say 5 or less, that may indicate that the previous year or the data being used are unusual in some way. You may want to eliminate these stocks from your list. You may also want to eliminate any company that has announced earnings in the last week. (This should help minimize the incidence of incorrect or untimely data.) 
• After obtaining your list, follow steps 4 and 8 from the magicformulainvesting.com instruction page.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Investors

1. They read. And read, and read, and read ...

If you follow Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A, BRK-B), you've probably stumbled across his witty and equally brilliant first mate, Charlie Munger. He's a legend for his insights into successful investing, thought processes, and habits. He nailed a crucial one here: “In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time - none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren reads - at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”

2. They seek and demonstrate humility

Koch Industries may not command the recognition of its phonetic relative Coke, but it should. Koch is the second-largest private company in the United States and rakes in more than twice the revenue of the more familiar beverage-maker.

Koch Industries chief financial officer Steve Feilmeier is in charge of deploying the company's massive capital at a reasonable rate of return. When discussing what he looks for in a valuable acquisition for Koch, he said: "There is one in particular that I pay attention to when we're looking at another company, and that is humility."

Humility can be a rare virtue in an industry controlled by animal spirits, but it pays off.

3. They fail

Peter Lynch, the legendary manager of Fidelity's Magellan Fund, absolutely stomped the market over his career, averaging annual returns of 29 per cent. Here's what he had to say on picking winners: "In this business, if you're good, you're right six times out of 10. You're never going to be right nine times out of 10."

That's right. If you're king of the investing mountain, you may narrowly beat a coin toss in the long run.

4. They steal

Maybe "steal" isn't the best word for it. In investing it's called "cloning", or basically borrowing already great investment ideas and making them your own.

When it comes to cloning, no one is a bigger advocate than fund manager Mohnish Pabrai - and few are so successful at it. After managing his fund for more than 18 years and weathering two recessions, his average annual return is 25.7 per cent.

Pabrai breaks his approach down to three strategies, and one of them is, indeed, cloning. It's no coincidence that he has had this idea affirmed by someone else too: Charlie Munger.

5. They evaluate internally

A lot of investors are aware of the need to go against the grain to find success, but the judgment and evaluation of others can be a big psychological weight. It can cause doubt and insecurity in your approach.

Buffett knows this best. He was chastised for trailing the moonshot returns of the tech bubble while he stuck with boring insurance and paint manufacturers.His advice for weathering the storm? An "inner scorecard". As he said in The Snowball, a book about his life: “The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard ... If all the emphasis is on what the world's going to think about you, forgetting about how you really behave, you'll wind up with an Outer Scorecard.”

6. They practise patience

We got a wonderful reminder of the power of patience here at Fool HQ when co-founder David Gardner's 1997 recommendation of Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) became a 100-bagger. That return – a gain of 100 times the original investment – is absolutely stunning, but even more impressive is that David was an owner the whole way through.

In his original Amazon recommendation, David wrote: "We're patient investors who buy with the idea of holding on to our latest pick for at least a year or two - if not indefinitely."

He's still holding.

7. They're decisive

Don't confuse patience with indecision. The best investors are poised to act when the right opportunity comes across their radars.

John Paulson and Michael Burry didn't participate in The Greatest Trade Ever by sitting on their hands. When they saw a clear opportunity, they backed up the truck. For Burry, that often meant battling his own investors' anxiety. His fund Scion Capital returned nearly 500 per cent in less than eight years.

Foolish takeaway

Taking the time to cultivate good habits will yield incredible results. As one popular saying goes:

Your actions become your habits,

Your habits become your values,

Your values become your destiny.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-seven-simple-habits-of-the-best-investors-20131112-2xe2o.html#ixzz2kQj29J7f

How To Calculate A Stock Intrinsic Value

In the previous articles, we have covered on buying a stock that is below its market value. There are 1001 ways on how to define an intrinsic value of a stock. As you know, stock market price is fluctuated every now and then. You will never know at what price that market reflects a stock true value.

I will share on how to come out with intrinsic value. I may not be possible to cover all methods of the stock valuation in one article but will try to cover it as many as I can in the next series of articles.

Intrinsic Value Illustration

Just remember, calculating an intrinsic value is not an exact science. It is a projection or estimation on the future value of a stock price based on business historical performance. What determine a future value is subject to a lot of factors, variables and parameters:

• Business performance - can a company sustain its current performance in the next 10 years?
• Business trend - Will the trend change? (best classic example, Nokia used to be a leader in Cellular phone  but it has been knocked down once Apple Inc.  introduce Iphone. Now Apple Inc. faced the same cycle where Samsung has slowly become No.1 in Smart Phone Industry)
• Economic condition (country, regional and global)
• Company's financial condition (debt, cash flow, Earning, future expansion and capital expenditure etc)
• Talented CEO or Board of directors

For the above criteria, you need to be really conservative in your stock valuation. One of the stock investor legend (Benjamin Graham and Seth Klarman), they factor in the so-called Margin of Safety (MOS). On the other hand, coming out with Stock Intrinsic Value, it is an estimation. Famous saying by Warren Buffett, "It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong." An intrinsic value of a stock will give a hint or gut feeling whether a stock value can be undervalued or overvalued.

Why do we bother to find an intrinsic value? Here's the reason why. Assuming a company's earning growth 15% on yearly basis. Current Earning is RM100 million. Next 10 years, if a company accumulated RM100 million every year, by year 2023 company has accumulated RM1 billion. Next step is, in the next 10 years [2023], will the value of RM1.00 in 2023 be equivalent to RM1.00 in 2013. You never know what is the inflation rate like, interest rate, BLR rate etc. What do you need to do? You need to factor in Discounted rate.

Let's use a real company information and come out with intrinsic value. I choose Tomypak Holding Berhad.

Tomypak Counter

In the previous article, I have shared where to find all the relevant information (http://zayedzulkifli.blogspot.com/2013/04/where-to-find-wtf-investment-tools.html). This will help you to estimate intrinsic value of a stock.

Tomypak Balance Sheet 2012

Tomypak Profit & Loss Statement

Tomypak Cash Flow Statement

Tomypak Cashflow Statement

Don't worry on how-to formula. I have developed excel sheet formula, you just need to plug-in:

1. Current year net profit (from Profit & Loss statement)
2. Total outstanding share in the market
3. Cash and Equivalent (from Balance sheet statement)
4. Total debt (From balance sheet statement)
5. EPS growth rate is standardized though some investment analysts give 26% CAGR-3 years-EPS growth rate. (remember: be conservative)

Tomypak Intrinsic Value

Tomypak current market price as of last week was RM1.41. Comparing its intrinsic value RM3.04, our entry price should be at RM1.52 or below (the lower the better it is). So, does that mean when we buy RM1.41 we will immediately get RM3.04? It will take time for the market to realize tomypak market value. if lucky enough, we may see the realization in 2-3 years. To be successful in investing, you need to have 3P Persistent, Perseverance and Patience.

3P: Persistence, Perseverance and Patience

Some additional information on Tomypak. On top of margin of safety price, a dividend will be a safety net for your investment while waiting for market to realize a stock value. At least, you have passive income plus capital appreciation.

Tomypak EPS Historical

Tomypak Dividend History

Another factor to decide:

• A company has been consistently and continuously paying dividends to stock holder
• A company has recorded uninterrupted net profit for many years
• A company's operating cash flow
• Proven record on ROE (Return on Equity) that company has efficiently used capital and provide reward to shareholders.
• Conservative debt management - net cash is preferred

Disclaimer: the above is just for education purpose. Not intended for buy or sell call.

Investing School of Thoughts

There's a saying, "Tactic wins the battle, strategy wins the war"

To win the investment war, you need to strategize your investment approach. Else, you will have high chance of losing the money. There are 3 popular school of thoughts in investing strategy. There are many more but I just want to highlight 3 strategy that commonly used and successfully generate return as well. The three strategies are

1. Fundamental Analysis Strategy

Fundamentalist will look at the business fundamental, looking at quantitative value at  a report (Ratios, Financial reports like Balance sheet, Cash flow statement, Profit and loss etc) as well as qualitative characteristics of a business - moat, durability, management, business prospects etc.). The fundamentalist will try to buy and hold a stock as long as they can. the buy call will be triggered when a value of a stock is extremely undervalued using margin of safety valuation. The sell call will be executed if the business fundamental is deteriorated like increase of debt, consecutive losses, bankrupt, no durability. Best example in trendy and hot product like Polaroid Camera (now that it is being obsolete in the market), Nokia Handphone use to become market leader in 2000's, now being cannibalized when Apple and Samsung introduced smart phone.

Fundamental vs Technical

2. Technical Analysis Strategy

This strategy will only look at price and volume action. believe that the historical performance of stocks and markets are indications of future performance. This can be tracked using chart and graph. The technical analyst tend timing to buy entry and sell exit based on pattern of price and volume. They sometimes don't call themselves as investors but known as traders or chartists. Sample chart below is MYEG (Company listed in Bursa Malaysia who provides E-Government Services), the arrows are the trigger of buy and sell call. It is not holy grail as they said. Profitability of you being correct is 60-70%.

MYEG stock from the perspective of Technical Analyst

3. Hybrid of Both Strategies

The hybrid of both will only select strong fundamental companies to be traded when there's a buy or sell signal using price and volume action based on historical performance of chart pattern. Some said the hybrid can’t mix as both are opposed to each other like oil and water. The hybrid uses most important reports and ratios like Profit & Loss (earning report), P/E (Price Earning Ratio). Mostly, the hybrid will not try to keep a stock for a long term. Most popular strategy that people talk a lot is CANSLIM Method invented by William O' Neil (Will discuss separately on this in different topics).

Which one should be your choice?

Which one fits your investment objective, time frame, your psychological mind, your full time job etc. Both can be right or wrong. If you think you can consistently make money with either strategies; stick to it, be discipline, have perseverance, patience and may the success be always be with you.

My take (personal bias): is the one who stay in the market the longest and become successful of all time like Warren Buffett, John Neff, Benjamin Graham, Philip Fisher, Peter Lynch, John Templeton (just t0 name a few). Of course, some successful trader like Dan Zanger,  Richard Dennis, William Eckhardt etc. The question is who can sustain longer in the market and becoming more richer. If you look at the Forbes top billionaire, who are they?