VALUE INVESTING
The Value Partnership

By Stephen Bland (TMFPyad)
April 1, 2005

Following the most recent and incidentally most successful trade in my Value Investor newsletter, namely Camellia (LSE: CAM) sold for a 58% profit (the average gain for all tips since January 2004 is 10.8%), I am thinking of extending its scope to include other activities in addition to stock market investing. What I'm suggesting is that value is much more than just a stock market strategy, it is a way of life. For the true follower the contrarian approach extends to the whole way you conduct your life in that you will frequently feel uncomfortable doing what the majority are doing. Instead you will feel far happier doing precisely what the majority are not doing.

Following on from that it struck me that readers without partners or those unhappy with their present ones may have some difficulty in discovering others in whom they find spiritual value compatibility. For those readers who have a partner at present, I want you all to take a good look at them, right now. Go on do it. Now try to imagine you have just met that person. What is your reaction? Is it "Yeah, I fancy some of that" or "Yeah, well, nice to meet you but I'm /washing my hair/climbing Everest/having a sex change op next Tuesday/ so I can't see you"

If it's the former then fine, but if it's the latter or you haven't yet found that one value person, that contrarian thinker who will make your life whole, then Value Investor intends to provide the answer.

Welcome to VI Dating, the new service for readers of Value Investor. 

Starting soon I am introducing a lonely hearts column in Value Investor to enable contrarians to meet each other, knowing that compatibility is almost assured from the word go. Think about it, on your very first date you could murmur words like 'low price to book' in his or her ear and the person will not regard you as slightly pervy. On the contrary they will respond with equally stimulating talk of yields and pee-ees. You can do contrarian things with impunity like taking her to the pub and ordering her half a water and she won't find you at all odd, she'll love you for it.

And ladies, what could be more attractive to you as a value player than a man with long hair, flares and a kipper tie when shaved heads, straight cuts and no ties at all are in fashion? Not that we'll restrict ads to heterosexuals of course. I don't care which way anyone swings so we'll cater for all tastes, the only prerequisite being that you are one of life's contrarians and value players. Our male gay contrarians hate Shirley Bassey and don't have 'taches, our female ones wear their hair long and can't put the shot to save their lives.

I'm really excited about this VI Dating development. It marks the transition of the magazine, the start of its maturity from a mere share tipsheet into a whole lifestyle journal. In the beginning I hadn't seen it this way, I regarded it then as purely an investment publication. But as time goes on and I read the reactions from readers on the dedicated message board and elsewhere, I have become aware that there is something more out there. A common cause amongst the value investors that extends much deeper than mere shares.

So I see our new dating service as just the first step on this expansion of services to value lifestylers. One further idea already under serious consideration is contrarian holiday packages .These fit very well with the dating service so that you can take along your new value partner. On our trips we'll arrange to boldly go where most other people don't. So instead of that passé stuff like rafting down the Amazon or dog sledding to the North Pole, which everyone does now, we'll be doing a couple of weeks in Benidorm for our readers.

Your straight uncontrarian, non-value playing friends, in the unlikely event you have any friends, may find all this odd but bear in mind if they didn't find it odd you would find them odd for not seeing you as odd. Odd how if you keep repeating a word like odd it seems to become meaningless.

I have a lot of other ideas too for the expansion of Value Investor but will be taking it one step at a time. I don't want it to become too popular just yet. It might start attracting uncontrarian contrarians.