Value Investing Algorithm: Can We Put Warren Buffett in a Box?

I talked to a friend some time back and he asked an interesting question - can Value Investing be automated? What is the Value Investing algorithm? I thought long and hard about this. It should be possible. In fact, everything can be automated. It is just a matter of inputs, processes and output. Some processes have a lot of complexity but in theory, it is always possible. As complex as life can be, our DNA is an algorithm, determining how we eat, love, sleep, reproduce, fall sick and die. So, the answer is yes, value investing can be automated. The question is how. How can we put Warren and Charlie's wisdom into a box?

World's greatest living investors: Warren Buffett, 91 and Charlie Munger, 97

Before we answer that though, let's think about why it hasn't been done yet. Well, maybe it is too hard. There are too many inputs. Market share, number of competitors, profit per employee (including part-timers), culture, CEO's ambition, regulator's scrutiny, branding, strength of eco-system etc. For most of these inputs, you cannot put them into numbers, like how do you transform Coca Cola's brand value into a quantifiable number? Or how can we quantify Costco's business model of using peoples' homes as inventory storage thereby reducing its own cost of business? So if there are ways to quantify these attributes and put them into an algorithm, then perhaps the true essence of Value Investing can someday be digital. We can then figuratively put the world's greatest living investors into an ultimate money-making box that anyone can use to make tonnes of money.

Until we can do that, human value investors will still have the advantage.

The other problem with the markets and not just value investing is that everything affects everything else. The algorithm is not run independently and is affected by "other inputs" which we have no control over. This could be interest rates, wars, pandemics, politicians, terrorist attacks, new discoveries, blockbuster games or movies that no one expected etc. How will our algorithm be affected by these and how can we model them in? It is not easy. To add to that complexity, stock prices and stock markets are also affected by what other people do. It is a psychological game.

The case studies that come to mind are Netflix and Peleton. Peleton is Netflix combining a gym class while cycling at home. It became the ultimate pandemic start-up play. But its share price is affected by how people buy it up and down depending on the mood of the day. I couldn't say it has a solid business model but the market believed it did one day, then not so the next day. So the stock did just that. However, Netflix does have a solid business, it has hundreds of millions of subscribers paying $10-20 a month. Most readers on this blog cannot cancel Netflix even if we want to because our kids will scream at us. I am sure some hard-core value investors out there have figured out the intrinsic value of Netflix and will be looking to buy at a certain price. But can we create an algorithm so strong that we can also churn out the right intrinsic value, for Netflix, Peleton and all the 10,000 listed companies in the world?

Courtesy of Google images: Netflix's CEO Reed Hastings and Netflix's recent sub numbers

Ultimately, it comes back to valuations. If we buy something expensive, then it is inevitable that when the market mood swings towards negativity, the stock trades below our buying price, which hopefully is below its intrinsic value. Then there is still hope it will go back up someday. Recall that intrinsic value is always a range, it is not an exact number. As such, investing is not a science, which implies that creating an algorithm is inherently difficult.

In its most basic form, the intrinsic value depends on the company's earnings or income and a multiplier. The multiplier is based on the industry dynamics, the companies' earnings power which is exemplified as margins and ROEs, interest rates and investors' sentiment, amongst other things. The right multiplier gets redefined depending on the times. When I started this blog around 15 years ago, something trading above 25x price earnings is considered so expensive that I would not touch with a ten foot pole. Then I found that there is nothing to buy. I started buying stocks above 25x price earnings. Now, it looks like my original rule based on prudence may come back in vogue again.

However it is possible to use screens and quant trading based on valuations to make money. There are many quant shops that have done it. They made good money. Renaissance Technologies have gone a few steps further to perfect the quant-based money making machine. It delivered annualized c.40% returns over 40 years! Even putting Warren Buffett in a box could not have generated those kinds of returns.

What's most important for me though is that Value Investing is a journey. As we read about interesting companies and learn about their businesses, we understand the world that we live in. I become a better person as I become a better investor. If I created an algorithm just to find value stocks and buy blindly, then where is the fun in all this? 

That said, investing is not for everyone. If you do not have the time, passion and gut to stomach painful losses, it is best just to buy the index. That is the next best thing to putting Buffett in a box.

Huat Ah!

Berkshire Hathaway in 2020-21

I have invested in Berkshire Hathaway for a decade or more based on the most simplistic investment thesis: this is Warren Buffett's company and he is the world's greatest investor. There was very little further due diligence after that. So is this investing or speculating?

"An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative." - Ben Graham

To satisfy Ben Graham, Warren Buffett's teacher, this post is a quick dive into of Berkshire Hathaway.

Here's a few numbers which should be read as average over the past few years:

Revenue c.USD250bn

Cashflow from operations c.USD40bn

Capex c.USD15bn

Free Cashflow c.USD25bn

Total assets c.USD870bn

Total equity c.USD440bn

Based on news report, Berkshire has rebounded with a 7% increase in overall profits with some of its businesses exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Cashpile is close to USD150bn and total equity portfolio has also rose to USD308bn and its market cap is now USD650bn.

Berkshire is the lifework of the world's greatest investor. It has compounded its value over the last 50 odd years, and should continue to grow its intrinsic value beyond Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.

Merry Christmas and Huat Ah!

May the Force be with Omaha!

It's the Omaha weekend again and this year is special as it also started on May Fourth which is also knowns as the Star Wars Day. In Singapore, someone then decided to organize a Star Wars Run charging people S$80-85 to either join the light or the dark side of the race! The annual Berkshire run, for those investors who are spending this weekend in Omaha, cost roughly S$60 and all are encouraged to invest in ourselves i.e. our bodies, which would be the best investment ever. 

Star Wars Run Singapore!

Well, unfortunately, one run would never amount to any tangible investment that would change our bodies, or our lives. As with everything about value investing, it's about time and consistency, which leads to habit formation, the most important agent of lasting change. The Berkshire Hathaway AGM (annual general meeting) embodies these concepts and this is perhaps one of the reasons why it's so appealing to so many. This year marks the 53rd AGM and a crowd of 40,000 would have descended upon Omaha from all over the world. Many travelled long distances just to listen to the Yoda equivalent of the investing universe utter a few words of wisdom, with the hope that the experience would help internalize some of this wisdom.   

Alas, all sentient beings have a lifespan and Yoda eventually become one with the Force (and became capable of influencing the weather). Warren Buffett, mindful of his own time, used this year's AGM to pass the baton to two of his lieutenants: Greg Abel and Ajit Jain. At the same time, he emphasized that Berkshire Hathaway is a corporation and hence immortal and Berkshire Hathaway's culture had been well established and the firm would continue to thrive without him and his trusted #2 Charlie Munger. So, keep calm everyone!

Keep calm!

It could be said that Warren Buffett's success also boils down to time and consistency, which is essentially habits. The time to form a habit is surprisingly short - just 21 days, according to various research. But to consistently do it for decades would take effort, determination, grit. Warren Buffett pretty much did the same things for 53 years and hence got to where he is today. His essential habits were reading and thinking hard. These are exactly the habits that true value investors must acquire early on in life. Buffett probably spent six to eight hours reading everything from newspapers to annual reports, every day for half a century. 

Thinking is a slightly different exercise. While there are times we should sit down and think alone, most thinking require discussing with like-minded friends, writing down our thoughts and ironically more reading to better understand the issue at hand. It is also important to be calm while thinking and hence many astute investors practice meditation or engage in other activities to calm down our monkey minds. 

It is not clear how Buffett calm his mind from what we know about his lifestyle. Perhaps it's bridge that he plays every night, or simply his meals which is always the same (hamburgers or steaks) and hence maybe when he eats he is really just eating with his mind spacing out. Nevertheless, it's important for serious investors to really find an activity that can help preserve or enhance the clarity of our minds.

So, we are back to running. Running is an activity at its core, very similar to meditation. The mind is focused on breathing and bringing the body forward. There is nothing else. This has a similar effect of calming the mind as meditation does. Maybe that's why we have a Berkshire 5km run and Star Wars runs. Keep calm and keep running!

May the Force be with you always!

Book Lessons #1: The Snowball Early Chapters

As most regular readers might know. I had been amazingly slow in my reading. So, in 2018, I finally finished reading Alice Schroeder's 2008 masterpiece on Buffett's life titled The Snowball. This is the best book written on Buffett ever. It depicted his whole life from birth in 1930 all the way to events in 2007-2008. I think there are so many lessons we can learn that we should revisit these posts in the months and years ahead. But for today let's focus on a very practical today's common life issue that I gleamed from the earlier chapters in the book.

The Snowball

In describing both Buffett's childhood and his own early career when his kids were very young. I realized how their lives and ours were related. Both Howard Buffett (Warren Buffett's father) and Warren himself dealt with the markets. His father was a stockbroker before he became a senator. The big revelation reading about their lives was that they had no time to deal with domestic issues, or rather, anything else outside their work. A career in the financial industry was so mentally draining and time consuming that they had no time to deal with wives, kids and the rest of the domestic chores (as with being a senator later on for Howard Buffett). As such, both housewives find it very hard to raise many kids. Both Howard and Warren had three kids and the mums had a really hard time. In fact, Buffett's mum went into a crazy rage with her kids so much so that her eldest daughter and Warren himself resented her for the rest of their lives. It was very sad.

Ironically, modern societies are not suited to raise children. There's a saying, "it takes a village to raise a child" but with the rise of nuclear families in the 20th century, we no longer live in villages. One father and one mother have to raise multiple kids. America experienced this decades ago and now we are the first or second generation in Asia going through this. The results are not encouraging. From the book, we also realized that Buffett was a delinquent in middle and high school until he finally woke up one day to improve his studies. His kids also didn't do that well in school. This is an important reflection point for Singaporean parents today, which is made worse by our education system. We shall revisit this point later.

Back to Howard and Warren's daily lives. Their work consumed almost all the hours. They wake up early in the day to read up on market news, spend most of their time in the office on the phones, in meetings or more reading. At 6 or 7pm, they get off work and go home for dinner, which is the only family time during weekdays and then it's more reading late into the night or playing bridge. Reflecting on my own life, it has been pretty much the same routine. We spend so much time working, reading and thinking that we are mentally exhausted. There is very little energy left for anything else.

Brutal markets: STI fell 7% in 10 days

The markets are brutal. The participants are all smart. When everyone competes at the highest level, that’s where it’s always super tough. It takes Joseph Schooling to swim 8 hours every day to win an Olympic gold. It is not too different in order to become the top 10% of all investors who can beat average market returns. Warren Buffett reads two newspapers everyday, magazines, annual reports of potential investments, on top of all the other stuff he has to read. He probably spends 8 hours reading everyday. It's just crazy. On top of that, he did his fair share of travelling all over USA in his younger days. He was always in New York, not mentioning a two year stint at Graham and Newman. Then later on he needed to be everywhere: Omaha, California, New York, Sun Valley (Idaho), Washington etc. That was his life then, this is our lives today. 

When he is out on the road, his wife and also his mum during Howard Buffett's days dealt with the three kids. All by themselves. No domestic helper, no iPad, for distracting the younger kids. Not even TV for Howard's wife as it wasn't invented yet. It was unimaginable how they survived. I truly appreciate another adage, "Behind every successful man, is a very successful woman." There can be no Warren Buffett without Susie. There can be no Lee Kuan Yew without Kwa Geok Choo.

To be outstanding in our careers, our wives sacrificed. This is usually not very visible. In fact we resent why they couldn't be more. Why couldn’t they become Mrs Lee Kuan Yew. Why they couldn't understand we are working our asses off in the trenches from 8am to 6pm and when we reached home, we are not ready to juggle kids and wash dishes. We just want to switch off.

But today is 14th of February. Today is the day to put aside our complaints and give our loved ones a  big hug. Thank them for making our lives easier, for doing the chores, for taking the kids to the playground despite being totally drained.

Cupid did shoot the good arrow, right?

This cupid (Ying Tze) would be good yah?

Then, we have our education system...

I am convinced that 80% of all parents in Singapore cannot win against our education system. But that is actually ok. Our education system is a pressure cooker destined to churn out maybe 5% pristine students and maybe 35% damage products. There's 20% of okay students who would eventually find their way to success just like how Warren Buffett did and how his kids did. There will always be the average and below average students which makes up remaining 40%. A big proportion of these students get on with lives, but some would also get demotivated and become damage products. This damage is done every year and is usually irreversible. This is the sad truth. Our education system does not lift up the average, it destroys the average. But this is kept invisible. As for the bottom 20%, our system failed them, utterly.

How to win against this system? We almost need to be superheroes. Like Mr and Mrs Incredible, two superheroes married. One can take care of work, investments, annual holiday trips, on top of earning the dough. The other becoming a full-time schoolwork CEO, COO and CPO - Chief People Officer, managing all the different tutors, enrichment, as well as schoolwork. Yup, in short, become as good as one of the Avengers, save the world while looking damn cool. 

Well, the saving grace is that we don't really have to win in the system because the system is totally not preparing our kids for the future. The classroom was invented 100 years ago and had failed to improve with the times. There is not much point in learning how to write essays using bombastic words and flowery phrases or in solving three variable simultaneous equations in primary school. The former is a reflection of the outdatedness of our system, the latter the incomprehensible mentality of trying to squeeze over-abstracted concepts into young brains when they are not ready.

The most important lessons our kids have to learn would not be taught in schools. Especially Singapore schools. They are:

1. Learning to relearn everything, not rote memorizing.

2. Learning the soft skills, dealing with people, presenting, talking well.

3. Learning to use all different available tools, which is easily available today via the internet and other means, and not always relying on fixed methods or formula.

Wishing all couples a very Happy Valentine's Day! 

To my dearest wife, thank you for your love for the past 15 years! 

Habits and Snowballing

The Snowball, the much talked about book on Warren Buffett sits on my shelf waiting to be read. It would probably take me some time to get to it, as my reading list is so damn long, with at least 10 books on it. Not to mention the other big book that also lies in waiting: Poor Charlie's Almanac.

The concept of the title was made known by its author, again both simple and insightful and really apt to describe Warren Buffett. Perhaps you might already have heard of it. Anyways, here is my interpretation of it.

Basically, the idea is that something which starts small can grow very big given enough time, consistency and momentum, just like a snowball. When you first push a small snow ball, it rolls and gathers a bit of snow with every turn but stays small. It takes a while for the consistency to set in, more effort, and finally the momentum kicks in and it can cause an avalanche if you want it to.

It also reminds me of this mass email that basically transpired the same concept. A picture showed a beautiful field of tulips, or was it lavender? But anyways, what was interesting was the signboard next to the field which says:

Who: A woman
How: 1 tulip a day for 60 years
Why: For everyone

Or something like that.

Value philosophy shares the same idea. It is not about quick profits or the next trade of the year. It is consistency, patience, effort and time. One angle of it is about identifying companies that are basically doing that. These are the great consumer staples that basically keep growing their markets by selling the same products with the same strategies. Look at Coke, just do the same thing over and over again in different parts of the world, and the earnings will follow. They were in Asia long before we started talking about it. Now they are in Africa!

One big plus why these companies can do it is because they have planted enough seeds such that their brand is entrenched. Just like the field of tulips that take our breath away when we see it. It is also about mindshare - market share of people's minds. When it's as big as Coke or the tulip field, it's difficult for you and I to start a new drink today to compete. The snowball just keeps rolling until it causes an avalanche.

The other angle is how we as investors exercise and implement this idea thoroughly. That is how we consistently implement the same investment process, find good stocks, at a very cheap price, wait for them to grow and see the return compound to some astronomical number. It is not as easy as it sounds. The big hurdle is, as usual, ourselves. Or more specifically our emotions which inhibit our ability to make rational decisions.

This is the habits part. Good habits adopted at an early stage bring profound results over time. Think about exercising just 15 mins a day, or saving just $20 a day. Bad habits ruin lives: smoking, drinking alcohol. Investing is then also about adopting good processes or good habits.

I would say some important do's would be like reading a couple of newspapers daily, talking to at least a few experts per week. Specifically when looking at stocks, it would involve pouring through at least of couple of years of the firm's financials, trying out the products, talking to other users and finally waiting for the right price.

Don't's would naturally be don't buy on tips/rumours, don't look at the share price daily, don't sell to take 20% profits.

With good habits cultivated, it would then be applying the same processes over and over again when buying each and every stock or investment, for many many years, and hopefully the returns will snowball into something big and meaningful.

Did Buffett underpay Mrs B?

I did a post some time back highlighting that perhaps the acme of investing might actually be not to short-change anyone in any transaction. ie to buy a stock at its intrinsic value while waiting for the intrinsic value to grow. This is a very sensitive point when we are dealing with day-to-day business owners rather than the stock market.

Obviously buying at intrinsic value is also different from buying a company at a huge discount and then waiting for it to revert back to its intrinsic value, which is the original thesis of value investing.

I thought that Buffett might have just pulled this off, and that is why he is the greatest investor on Earth.

Recently I did some study on the exact transaction that he did: buying over Nebraska Furniture Mart from its long-time founder and operator Mrs B.

The story goes something like this. In 1983, Buffett on his birthday, simply went in to the Mart and asked Mrs B. if she would like to sell, and at what price?

Here are some no.s at the time the transaction was done.

NFM
Sales 100mn (reported)
NP 5-10mn (estimate by 8%pa)

GPM of NFM 60% (reported)
Furnture mkt OPM 10% (industry average)

$55mn of 80% stake (reported)
$69mn for 100% stake (reported)

Buffett paid 7-14x PE

Based on my estimate, Buffett probably paid 7-14x PE for NFM. Now this is a huge range. If he paid 7x, he would have obviously underpaid Mrs B. If he paid 14x, then it's probably fair. So did he underpay Mrs B?

Well, sadly we will never know for sure, but chances are Buffett probably did underpay somewhat, judging by his track record and considering how the firm grew over the past 30 years. However we must also note that Mrs B was a willing seller at $69mn. She quoted Buffett that price.

Also, Mrs B probably would not have gotten much more if she were to list her company in the stock market. The brokers will take a cut. She has to pay for some auditors. Perhaps hire a few more staff to handle Wall Street people etc. With Buffett, she got her $55mn check on that day. And the best part, she continues to do what she does bcos Buffett wanted her to continue to run the business. No Wall Street analysts on her back every quarter!

I guess the conclusion here is that Buffett might not have been as noble as I thought. He did underpay his acquaintance somewhat but judging from the circumstances, Mrs B didn't mind that she got a couple of millions less (that is assuming she actually bothered to go and do a thorough valuation of her own co.) and she gets to do her job exactly the same way she liked it.

In fact, a couple of years later, Mrs B sold another business to Buffett. If she felt cheated, would she had gone back to Buffett?

The real lesson learnt for me here would actually be thinking about the best solution for both parties in every transaction. This means disclosing all the pros and cons to each party about the transaction, not witholding any information at all and working out the seek the win-win situation. I think this is very possible if both parties are rational, honest and committed to a long term relationship.

Wisdom from the Guru

The following is taken from the latest Berkshire Hathaway Chairman's letter.

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In good years and bad, Charlie and I simply focus on four goals:

(1) maintaining Berkshire’s Gibraltar-like financial position, which features huge amounts of excess liquidity, near-term obligations that are modest, and dozens of sources of earnings and cash

(2) widening the “moats” around our operating businesses that give them durable competitive advantages

(3) acquiring and developing new and varied streams of earnings

(4) expanding and nurturing the cadre of outstanding operating managers who, over the years, have delivered Berkshire exceptional results.
------------------------------------------------------------
Undoubtedly good advice for retail value investors as well. In this post, I shall add my two cents brief commentary on each of the following points raised from the guru. (The link here: Just in case you are new here and wondering which guru we are talking about.)

1. As individuals, how much cash should we have in hand? There are many rules to live by. Going by portfolio construction, 5-10% in cash. In times like this, some would say 100%. But I would live by Graham's rules of not trying to time markets, ie maintain a fixed proportion in certain asset classes regardless of what happens, and rebalance that ever yr - ie if it becomes 20% bring it back down to 10% or vice versa. However, one other rule that I live by would be 6-12 mths of living expenses. Unemployment rate can hit both the headlines and us! So for me, it would 10% of portfolio or 12 mth living expenses whichever is more.

2. For this, since small time retail investors like us can't really help to enhance the moat of our companies, we should focus on buying co.s ALREADY having a durable competitive advantage. This would be big brands, strong companies. In Singapore, as mentioned in my past posts, probably less than 30 of them around. However, as individuals, we can and should focus on expanding our personal moat: something that we can do exceptionally well, much better than most people. This takes great effort and a hell lot of time, and most people never achieve anything of significance. Well, still need to try though, just be the best that we can be!

3. This came as a surprise. Buffett is not known for diversifying his bets. Anyways, I have always advocated not to put all our eggs in one basket. This, I think is a universal truth. Of course it does not make sense to have 100 bets as well. Probably a dozen of new and varied streams of earnings will earn the praise from the Guru himself!

4. Again as individual investors, we cannot really get to know top management well enough. We can only get to know them from media and from their actions (like whether they suka suka do RIGHTS issue! - which btw is super duper bad for existing shareholders, and not a free treat to buy stocks cheap as most aunties and uncles would like to think). In the context of personal networking, this means to mingle with people with the correct mindset, with honesty and integrity.

Well always refreshing to read letters from the Guru himself. Hopefully Berkshire's stock price can recover soon!

Hurray! Buffett is World Richest!

This is a time for the world's value investors to rejoice. Our hero, Warren Buffett has become the world's richest man, overtaking Bill Gates, Founder of Unpopular Vista and Insecure Windows and Carlos Slim, Monopoly Tyrant oops Tycoon of Mexico. Of course, Lady Luck has got a lot to do with this, here are a few facts to support the thesis:

1) Microsoft has eaten full full and got nothing better to do, so decided to launch a bid for Yahoo! which aggrevated a lot of investors bcos it's quite a stupid move given that Yahoo! is like yesterday's darling (ie like Demi Moore or Alicia Silverstone, does anybody remember them anyways?). Hence Bill Gates lost like 20% of his net worth in a couple of days and got relegated to No.2. Or was it No.3?

2) Thanks to the sub-prime crisis, investors are desperately looking for safe haven to park their money to hide away from the storm, and where's a better to place than to hide with the Guru? So Berkshire stock rallied like nobody's business and our hero became No.1.

So that's that, fellow value investors buck up and follow your idol and the road to riches will be short ride.

Er, wait a minute, although this blogger believes that value investing is a good way to help you grow your wealth, there are a few things that Buffett can do while most of us cannot. So the road ahead is always not that short I'm afraid. The philosophy is important, but it may not reach the same destination depending on the execution. Here's a few tricks that Buffett can use but we cannot:

1) Buffett can buy over whole co.s and ask mgmt to pay out excess cash to Berkshire. This is a very powerful tool as we all know that mgmt simply cannot be trusted to handle shareholders' money. We have seen so many examples of good co.s generating good cashflow only to see it squandered away on useless ventures. I think the most aped example would be Microsoft. Bill Gates must be cursing Steve Ballmer to death now for doing the Yahoo? deal. Shareholders are so much better off if Microsoft just generate cash and return them to shareholders.

Well this trick is something that you and I cannot do. But it is a good philosophy to bear in mind and remember to apply this, if it is ever applicable in our lives. I guess one example would be property. If you are holding a property that can generate rental yield of 15%. I guess you should never sell this property unless it's like a super real estate bubble in which your property will fetch as much price as the whole of Bintan or something. Except for that scenario, you should never sell something that gives you 15% yield bcos in 6 yrs you get back your principal and the ppty will continue to generate 15% per yr for as long as you own the property!

2) Buffett's investment actions follow the self-fulfilling prophecy. There are websites, blogs, analysts, TV programs, cell groups following Buffett's every investment moves and hence whenever Berkshire makes a move, a lot of people will simply charge and buy with the Sage of Omaha. So is it a wonder why whatever Berkshire buys always goes up? Of course, this is also due to Berkshire's brand name. ie whenever Berkshire buys something, it is a stamp of recognition that the stock or investment is undervalued and money is to be made.

In other words, at a certain stage when a famous investor or fund manager becomes so successful, his success will simply feed onto itself bcos a lot mindless followers will simply support him and validate his investment decisions. Again this is something that we cannot do, yet. You see, this blog will become a sensation in time and start recommending stocks which will then send its own army of mindless followers to buy and the early birds here will reap the rewards. Haha fat dream right?

Well hope is a good thing, and all good things never die. (taken fr Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King) So keep hoping!

The Guru = Warren Buffett (a.k.a. Sage of Omaha)

With numerous references to The Guru on this blog, I reckon I should give a proper introduction to the person who made this blog's existence a reality. This is really for those who are asking yourselves, "What the heck is Warren Buffett?".

Warren Buffett is not a kind of eat-all-you-can buffet typically charged at $25+++ in Singapore restaurants. Warren Buffett is the world's 2nd richest man and the world's first person to donate 85% of his enormous wealth (which is roughly USD 40bn or 40% of Singapore's GDP) to charity. Imagine the whole of Singapore donating 40% of their salary to NKF.

He is also a practitioner in a style of investing known as Value Investing which has made a handful of people very rich. This is the reason why it is promoted on this blog.

For a detailed biography of Warren Buffett, try googling him or alternatively you can go to this link at Wikipedia on Buffett. No, I am sorry, Warren Buffett does not have a blog. He only tried going online a few days ago to play bridge with other people not living in Omaha, which is somewhere in the middle of nowhere in US.

See also Mr Market
and Margin of Safety