VALUE INVESTING
Successful Value Investing

By Stephen Bland (TMFPyad)
March 22, 2002

You may well have seen the adverts around the site promoting the first value investing course I intend to deliver on 19 April, assuming I don't in the meanwhile fall off the distinctly old fashioned (and hence possessing somewhat odd controls by current standards) new motorcycle I purchased recently and render myself incapable of so doing.

It has been a while since I did much lecturing. Not that I ever did much anyway but I used to do an occasional specialised tax course several aeons ago. With this in mind I discussed matters with a close friend of mine, an experienced teacher and also psychologist amongst her many talents, who leads seminars regularly, with a view to getting some tips regarding public speaking on courses.

"What sort of image should I project?" I asked her. "Do I open with a joke perhaps?" Something like "a funny thing happened on my way to the seminar today, I decided that I am going to switch strategies to growth shares using TA as the key indicator."

She knows me well, unfortunately for her I guess, and she said that I should just be myself. "Well that would be fine" I said "if I knew who I am". I'm not sure I want to find out either but that's another story.

So what am I going to talk about? Well, there is a brief programme shown on the course website. People attending are assumed to have an understanding of fundamentals beforehand because the course is not intended to be an introduction to general investing for complete beginners. It is intended to convey a good idea of the value strategy for those who feel they are attracted to the style or who just want to learn more about it before committing themselves with real money.

Although it is not at all essential, it is quite likely that most of those attending will probably have done a bit of reading up on the subject around the Motley Fool and maybe elsewhere, simply because they will have become interested in the subject at some earlier stage. Again, though not at all essential, I suspect that some participants may have already made some investments using value ideas.

The seminar will be slanted, but not exclusively, towards my particular brand of value. This does not mean in any way that I think that other peoples' variations are inferior. Simply that, as I have repeatedly commented on the value board and elsewhere, each investor has to find a style that suits them, that makes money consistently for them. My style suits me and therefore that is, in the main, what I will be talking about.

There will be plenty of discussion I am sure on variations of the value approach of which there are a large number, within the basic concept. For example if a value investor wishes to stick to blue chips, then full pyad shares will hardly ever appear. Consequently it would be necessary to weaken some of the four basic pyad criteria so as to bring in some potential selections.

Note though that I intend generally to limit the discussion to value as it is understood on the value board here at TMF, that is a cheap fundamentals based approach, and not to other definitions of value such as discounted cash flow or other so-called value methods in which I personally have little faith.

I intend also to include value-related approaches such as crisis plays and perhaps my other main strategy featured on Motley Fool, the long term high yield portfolio, particularly if people feel they would like to discuss these at the time. Depending how things progress, I hope to get some useful discussion going between us all at some point on the seminar. There may well be people there with some interesting views they wish to share and I am sure there will be lot of questions from people too, which may assist other participants.

I look forward to meeting those attending.

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