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| A simple method for investing: Ask questions
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, August 14, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor.amandelman@venator.caA few weeks ago, The Globe and Mail ran an article where a management coach cautioned top managers and directors against helping too quickly those who report to them, and to avoid providing ready-made answers to problems. Instead, directors and CEOs should ask probing questions to develop their managers' ability to come up with better answers on their own. There was even a sampling of such probing questions.
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| When assessing a company, check the sparkplugs
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, July 31, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor.amandelman@venator.caTwo months ago, I visited BookExpo America, the annual publishing industry gathering, to schmooze booksellers and sign copies of my latest book. No, not Sleuth Investing II, but a mystery-thriller I began years ago called The Debba. The Javits Center in New York, where the shindig took place, was bustling with thousands of people - book sellers, marketing managers, public relations personnel, CFOs, printers - all important to the publishing business.
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| With the war drums beating, prepare your stock list
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, July 17, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor.amandelman@venator.caA good fisherman knows both how to fish and how to avoid those times when the weather is so bad that all fish hide. Ditto investing: Good investors know both how to pick stocks and how to recognize the times when the investment climate is so bad that they'd better stay cautious and hedged.
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| Beaten up industries worth a second look
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, July 03, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor.amandelman@venator.caSince April I've been harping on the market being precarious, and on the need to be cautious and to make a list of bargain prices for mainline stocks. Because no matter the environment, long-term investing relies on ''reversion to the mean,'' which means buying good companies below their fair value, if and when the market hands them to you. To do this, however, you should be able to answer the following three questions:
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| Indicators point to one investing approach: Caution
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, June 19, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor.amandelman@venator.caYears ago at Gordon Capital, Don Coxe, who was our research director, set out to prove you can run money by asset mix changes alone. At each quarter's end he sent our new portfolio weights of stocks, bonds, and cash to Royal Trust, which audited our performance. It proved superb. So when a year later Don moved to the U.S., yours truly, who became research director, continued the asset mix shifts for two and a half years, when the practice was discontinued.
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| A meek America bad news for greenback, stock markets
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, June 05, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor.amandelman@venator.caFor the last three months I have been urging caution, and recommending you hedge your longs with shorts; then came May's plunge - which was the worst May performance for the Dow since 1940. Have stocks reached their buying point? And is the time for caution over?
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| Austerity in the West? Not if the generals can be useful
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, May 22, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor.amandelman@venator.caA Wall Street wit recently said: if Greece is Europe's Bear Stearns, Britain is its Lehman Brothers. Meaning, the first bankruptcy presages the second.
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| Using the panic button to your advantage
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, May 08, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor.The world once again seems to be plunging into crisis.Just a year ago Wall Street was going broke, taking the U.S. banking system with it. Now it's Greece, Spain, and Portugal about to bite the dust, taking European banks with them.
FULL STORY
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| The human element, classified
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, April 24, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca Warren Buffett said he prefers terrific businesses that even mediocre managers can run. But, since not all businesses are terrific, shouldn't you require better than mediocrity in management? So perhaps besides businesses analysis, you should also do manager analysis.
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| China mania: A wired bus that must keep speeding
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, April 10, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca After a bubble pops, everyone knows a mania has occurred - but what about while it is taking place? I wrote before about the Chinese bubble - and have not been the only one to point it out - but China bears are still too few. Now, one more serious voice has joined the choir: GMO.
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| Getting physical (facts) can boost your sleuthing prowess
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, March 27, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca Some months ago I got a letter from Brandt Blimkie, a Canadian MBA student at Columbia University, inviting me to speak to the value investing class. They had read my book, found it unlike anything they had been taught, and decided to invite me. I was tickled.
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| Reading people is the real competitive advantage
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca Before I switched to investing I used to be an engineer, so for a long while I had the engineer's bias for data: The more of it I had, the better investments I'd find. So I collected documents, numbers, graphs, filings, and created my own databases and also subscribed to commercial ones - all of which I browsed happily. It went well. But one day something happened that made me realize an important part of business couldn't be captured in text and numbers. This was when Steve Jobs recruited John Sculley to Apple.
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| An ill wind for stocks is blowing from central bankers
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, February 27, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca ***After I got my bachelor of science in aeronautical engineering, I had the good fortune to land an engineering apprenticeship in Paris, at Avions Marcel Dassault (now Dassault Aviation).
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| Will books evolve into a growth business? Possibly
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Avner Mandelman
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Saturday, February 13, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca My full time job (and passion) is investing; but everyone must have a hobby. So, whereas my friends and colleagues play golf, I write the occasional book. That's why last week I spent two days at the American Booksellers Association convention in San Jose, Calif., both helping to pitch my next book, and chatting with booksellers and publishers about their industry.
FULL STORY
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| Where is the next bubble going to burst? I bet on China
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, January 30, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca ***Every now and then an obvious bubble appears, and after it bursts you always wonder how you'd missed it. In 2001, it was the Nasdaq; in 2008, commodities; in the early 1980s, gold. In my view, China is just such a bubble.
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| Revisiting two market models for some sleuthing clues
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, January 16, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca *****Last year, I gave a speech to the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals. Until SCIP invited me I didn't even know such a group existed. It's composed of internal corporate sleuths who seek information about their competitors, customers and suppliers.
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| Dogged sleuthing can turn the tables on that sure thing
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, January 02, 2010
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca When someone recently asked for an example of sleuthing that changed my mind, I recalled two. The first could be told with names intact, but was bland and boring; the second would require obfuscation, but was fun. So, of course, I chose the second.
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| A mea culpa or two in the art of sleuthing
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, December 19, 2009
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca *****In every year's final column I usually offer up a mea culpa for my errors, while pointing shyly at my lucky forecasts. How did my picks and forecasts do in 2009?
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| Don't let 'Climategate' melt down your portfolio
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, December 05, 2009
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor amandelman@venator.ca I've said before that you are more vulnerable to skillful rhetoric than you think. Well, the past week proved it.
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| Cool it. Slow down. Don't buy the rhetoric
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, November 21, 2009
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@venator.ca Most investors assume that Bay Street or Wall Street careers are built on being right, but that's only partly true.
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| Even a talented know-it-all can use a second opinion
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, November 07, 2009
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Avner Mandelman is a director of Venator Capital Management and author of The Sleuth Investor amandelman@venator.ca Readers may notice that the description under my byline has changed. Pending approval by the Ontario Securities Commission, I will soon be toiling alongside partners in Venator Capital Management, where Brandon Osten and Steve Anderson do due diligence just as meticulously as I do, and have lovely detailed models and computerized databases similar to Giraffe Capital's.
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| Digital due diligence helps you make the right move
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, October 24, 2009
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Avner Mandelman is president and chief investment officer of Giraffe Capital Corp. and the author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@giraffecapital.com As a research director on Bay Street I always sought analysts who had an artistic hobby. What I looked for was the ability to see a pattern, not just details. One of my top-ranked analysts played the piano; another played poker professionally (yes, it's an art); a third played chess. And it's from the latter that I learned of computerized chess programs - and how they paralleled modern investing methods.
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| A tale of two hedges: Playing safe and playing for profit
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, October 10, 2009
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Avner Mandelman is president and chief investment officer of Giraffe Capital Corp. and the author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@giraffecapital.com ***During the decade that I've been involved with hedge funds, I've heard many arguments for and against them; but I also found that many investors still do not fully understand what a hedge fund is, and what hedging is for. Indeed, many so-called hedge funds are little more than levered long-only funds, where customers are really buying risk.
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| Risky leverage: If it's operational, look for an opportunity
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AVNER MANDELMAN
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Saturday, September 26, 2009
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Avner Mandelman is president and chief investment officer of Giraffe Capital Corp. and the author of The Sleuth Investor. amandelman@giraffecapital.com If you have been reading this column for a while, you know my opinion that risk is not just price volatility (although it's good to minimize it, to sleep well). Rather, the biggest investment risk is ignorance. Not doing your own due diligence often makes you substitute ''opinion'' for facts, and is, in essence, gambling rather than investing.
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