Insightful Insights

  • Has 2010 been a good year for Value.able investing?

    Roger Montgomery
    December 7, 2010

    Christmas is about sharing and joyful memories. With just 18 days to go, I thought it would be educational, if not insightful, to share the performance of some of the securities Value.able Graduates have discussed here at my blog.

    Does the Value.able approach to investing, as advocated some of the world’s leading investors, have merit?

    First Edition Graduates may not be surprised by the results posted below. The higher quality businesses, those scoring A1 and A2 Montgomery Quality Ratings (MQRs), and those at larger discounts to intrinsic value have, in aggregate, beaten the index. Some have trounced it. And with the exception of QR National, the companies that were labeled as poor quality (C4 and C5 MQRs) and overpriced, have under-performed. Some of the maturing higher quality companies (think JB Hi-Fi) have indeed performed.

    The following tables present some of the blog posts and the stocks that I have listed, mentioned or discussed in them. I have consistently suggested investigating an approach that seeks the highest quality businesses and prices that offer the biggest discounts to value.

    Whilst the results are short-term (therefore nothing should be taken from them), they are nevertheless encouraging. The approach advocated in Value.able is worth investigating.

    Many Value.able Graduates have suggested I start a newsletter or a stock market advice service. Thank you for the encouragement. I do enjoy the cross pollination of ideas and look forward to 2011 attracting even more investors to the patient and rational approach shared here at my blog.

    Here are the tables (DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND RESEARCH. ENSURE YOU ARE COMPREHENSIVELY INFORMED. SEEK AND TAKE PERSONAL PROFESSIONAL ADVICE).

    Do these three companies represent the last of good value? Oroton, JB Hi-Fi, DWS, Cogstate, Cash Converters, Slater & Gordon, ITX, Forge, Decmil and United Overseas

    Which 15 companies receive my A1 status? CSL, Worley Parsons, Cochlear, Energy Resources, JB Hi-Fi, Navitas, REA Group, Carsales, Mondaelphous, Iress, Fleetwood, ARB, McMillian Shakesphere, Sirtex, Oroton.

    Is Apple an A1? What A1 companies does Roger Montgomery think are the best value right now? Apple, Forge and Decmil.

    Where are my valuations Roger? Cabcharge.

    JBH’s years of fast growth has slowed.

    What do you think of the QAN, JBH and ITX results Roger? Qantas and ITX

    Telstra profits will continue to drop

    Who is in front of the reporting season avalanche? Navitas, JB Hi-Fi, Cochlear and Matrix.

    Part II: What else has the reporting season avalanche uncovered? Ross Human Directions, Monadelphous, Forge, Carsales, DWS, Finbar, SMS Management, CSL, Consolidated Media, Integrated Research, McMillian Shakesphere, Count Financial, Domino’s Pizza, The Reject Shop, Credit Corp, Chandler Macleod, Primary Healthcare, Slater & Gordon, Noni B, Embelton and Tamawood.

    Retailing Maturity – Roger Montgomery now has reservations about JB Hi-Fi.

    Part III: The avalanche is over – where should you be digging for A1s? Lycopodium, REA Group, Fleetwood, K2 Asset Management, Acrux, Hunterhall, Macquarie Radio, Blackmores, ISS Group, Thorn Group, GUD Holdings, Webjet, Kresta Holdings, Kingsgate, Fiducian and Euroz.

    Foster’s turns down $2b bid.

    How does cash flow through Decmil?

    Part IV: Where should you focus your digging?

    Will Roger Montgomery invest in QR National?

    I thought the performance of Fosters after the wine bid was knocked back was interesting, but only another year or two will confirm whether the opportunity to add value was passed up. Some higher quality businesses also underperformed the market, thanks in part to deteriorating short-term prospects rather than deteriorating quality.

    Remember to look for bright long-term prospects. Of course, in the short-term prospects will swing around – that is business, but longer-term prospects of businesses with true sustainable competitive advantages tend to win out.

    Keep an eye on the blog before Christmas as I will be posting a couple of very handy lists (and possibly some homework) before the annual Montgomery Family Christmas break.

    Posted by Roger Montgomery, 7 December 2010.

    by Roger Montgomery Posted in Companies, Insightful Insights, Investing Education, Value.able.

  • Where else has Value.able been?

    Roger Montgomery
    December 1, 2010

    It has been a month or so since I last shared with you photographs from Value.able Graduates. These pics are from Gary, who has been travelling through Europe. He wrote “Read the book while traveling through Europe. Have attached some shots you may be able to use in your where in the world has Value.able been? One at the Louvre and the other at a little coffee with the Eiffel tower behind. Enjoyed the book, hoping to pay for the trip with the knowledge, Gary“.

    I was in Perth last month to speak for the ASX and Australian Investors’ Association. This picture is from Dan (with his Mum).

    Dear Roger,

    I just wanted to give a big Thank You for your presentation at the Wembley Tennis Club in Perth recently! I wasn’t able to attend because I live 450km North of Perth and have been busy with work, but I told my parents to attend and they said they had a fantastic night! Also, a huge thank you for signing my copy of your book and for taking the time to have a photo with Mum! We all love the book and have benefited greatly from your wisdom. I’m relatively new to the stock market (I’m 26 years old) but I feel as though I have learnt a great deal during the last year. I started getting interested in the stock market approximately 5 years ago, and back then I had the desire to own things that were (are still) considered to be “Blue Chip”, e.g. Incitec Pivot, Westfield, Santos, Babcock and Brown, Virgin Blue, etc. Now I have a far greater sense of how to approach investing in a more rational way, and how to identify companies that are actually of high quality. Now I spend my spare time on focusing only on quality businesses and have done really well using your solid and sensible approach. Thank you for the Value.able education! Maybe one day I’ll have the courage to post a comment on your blog (which is fantastic). I hope to see you when you’re next in Perth for a presentation so that I can thank you in person. All the best, Dan

    And whilst Mark didn’t include photos of his Value.able journey, he has certainly impressed me with his enthusiasm.

    “Hi Roger, Loved your book. You may be distressed or impressed but I have underlined highlighted and read separate chapters often. Dog eared sections etc. etc. I feel like I’m back in school and I’m 53. Seriously tremendous. Well done. Congrats, Mark”

    A little ‘off topic’ was this email from Ken. Thanks Ken…

    Roger,

    Half the battle, getting started with any sort of analysis is being confident that one is not wasting one’s time going about things the wrong way.  You have indeed given me a ‘leg-up’ with a range of aspects of my investing and thank you. My early career (and still a component of my work) involved collecting field data to calibrate and validate a pasture model (I’m still collecting validation data each year – 25 years since starting and training people, although engaged in quite different work now). I have spent years working with this model and with the scientist who built the model. There was never, in the early days, a definitive manual – just a mutual sharing of insights, late hours, passion and pain.

    The modelling is now second nature and I’m more concerned with the flaws with the model than anything.  But there was a huge barrier to entry – no manual could ever replace that research and effort that I put in to become confident and eventually proficient with what I was doing. It helped though, to have a more experienced person there for guidance – often just pointing out a reference to read etc. In turn I try to help people with their efforts where I can but it is up to the individual to get their own hands dirty, begin their own journey but, in our case, now as part of a ‘college’ of users. You are right in your approach – offering us a generous ‘leg up’ with your book and a means to share insights (your blog).  By putting things into practice for ourselves, the keen will learn both the art and the science and, hopefully, slowly, become better investors and more value.able to both you and fellow bloggers.  In many respects, this is how our team at work has operated for so long. As a team, we have become well respected both nationally and internationally – the college itself knows no institutional boundary.

    In the preface to your book, Simon Hoyle notes:

    “By helping to equip investors with the right set of skills, Roger is, either consciously or unconciously, waging a war against those who would seek to profit from the naivety or misplaced trust of others”.

    Along the same lines, Alan Kohler, in “Why I started EUREKAreport” states:

    “But it’s important to understand that investing is work. It is not gambling, or wishing and hoping, or trying to get the inside dope: it is work; a second job. Nevertheless with the right kind of support, you can do it and you can beat the pros. Eureka Report is the beginning of an attempt to provide that support and to redress the balance – to give ordinary people the tools and the knowledge to become independent and reclaim the control – and the money! – that is rightfully theirs.”

    Roger, you are indeed forming an ‘investment college’ and it is good to be a part of it.  I look forward to your latest blog and happy for you to reference anything.

    Cheers

    Ken

    Thank you to everyone who has gone to so much trouble to demonstrate just how profound an effect my book has been having on your travel plans – if not your investing plans. I am genuinely encouraged and humbled at the same time by your support. Thank you again.

    Posted by Roger Montgomery, 1 December 2010

    by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights, Value.able.

  • How many of your Chips are Blue?

    Roger Montgomery
    November 26, 2010

    If you are new to the stock market, I believe it is possible that you have been lulled into a false sense of security. I say this because I regularly hear well-meaning advice that goes something like this; “just buy a portfolio of blue chips and hold for the long term”

    But what is a blue chip? Here are some of the definitions I have found around the place:

    “a common stock of a nationally-known company whose value and dividends are reliable; typically have high price and low yield; blue chips are usually safe investments”

    “A blue chip stock is the stock of a well-established company having stable earnings and no extensive liabilities. Blue chip stocks pay regular dividends, even when business is faring worse than usual. …”

    “A large company. Blue chip shares are generally lower risk. FTSE 100 constituents are generally considered blue chips”

    “Shares of companies that are considered to be particularly solid and with a high capitalisation level. Their purchase is presumably associated with minor risk when the Stock Exchange falls”

    And my new favourite definition;

    “Blue Chip is the third album by Acoustic Alchemy, released under the MCA Master Series label in 1989, and again under GRP in 1996.”

    Clearly there is only rough consensus around what a ‘blue chip’ actually is, but I get the distinct impression that a lack of understanding about what truly constitutes ‘high quality’ has meant the resultant definitions are clumsy at best. And if advisors can’t define quality/blue chip with some consensus, then its quite possible new investors are plunging into a blind-leading-the-blind situation.

    Here at my Insights blog, I don’t talk about blue chips. Why? Because they don’t exist. There is no such thing.

    I define quality through my A1-C5 Montgomery Quality Ratings (the MQRs) using a raft of measures and scenarios, combined with measures of the financial relationship a company has articulated over the years with its shareholders and its competitive position.

    Warren Buffett once observed that time is the friend of the wonderful business but the enemy of a poor one. You don’t want to put the shares of a bad business, even if it’s a big one, in the bottom drawer and forget about them. Long term buy-and-hold investing then should only apply to the truly high quality companies – A1 companies.

    To that end I would like to share with you an early Christmas gift (until Value.able arrives under your Christmas tree).

    One of the definitions noted above and a commonly held one is that blue chips have to be large companies. Companies that inhabit the S&P/ASX 50, for example, may be considered Blue Chips. Putting aside for a moment the fact that there are plenty of large companies that have gone to the wall, it is possible to re-rank the so called Blue Chips – the large capitalisation companies – and find out if any are more blue than the rest.

    So in the pursuit of ‘blueness’, below you will find all companies with a current market capitalisation of more than $10 billion sorted by my MQR (followed by Safety Margin for good measure). I have also included my current expected (annual) rate of change in Value.able Intrinsic Value over the next three years and thrown in dividend yields because I know how adored they are.

    Of course, all of this is purely didactic and not intended as advice. YOU MUST SEEK AND TAKE PERSONAL PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. Also remember that I do not know what share prices are going to do, they could all halve or double and my MQRs andValue.able Intrinsic Values could all change tomorrow, possibly by a lot. They could go up or down and I am under no obligation to keep you updated. So please DO NOT RELY ON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED.

    Having made that clear, and I am not joking about such serious matters, here is the list:

    So its seems not all blue chips are entirely blue. As one of my friends – who likes to occasionally catch the amber light – says, “there’s still a bit of green left!”

    Lumping all large companies into the ‘Blue Chip’ camp may not lead you to secure returns. Indeed, it could more likely see you merely lurch from one crisis to the next. If that is an experience you would like to change or avoid, then understanding the factors that indicate good quality is vital.

    Value.able Graduates would have read the chapters about identifying extraordinary businesses in my book. If you haven’t yet secured your copy of Value.able you can do so at my website, www.rogermontgomery.com.

    Posted by Roger Montgomery, 26 November 2010.

    by Roger Montgomery Posted in Companies, Insightful Insights, Value.able.

  • What A1 stocks am I looking at right now?

    Roger Montgomery
    November 17, 2010

    If you saw my post titled ‘Are you drowning in a sea of complexity‘, you will recognise the A1 businesses I shared with Peter’s viewers on Monday night. Whilst the list of A1s isn’t new, I did share some fresh insights into my Montgomery Quality Ratings, and my thoughts about Oroton CEO Sally Macdonald selling shares.

    Part I: What is the secret of Roger Montgomery’s A1 Montgomery Quality Rating?

    Part II: What are Roger Montgomery’s Top 20 A1 stocks?

    Part III: What are Roger Montgomery’s cheapest A1 businesses?

    Visit Roger Montgomery’s YouTube Channel to watch more of his TV appearances.

    Posted by Roger Montgomery, 17 November 2010.

    by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights.

  • Have you been getting your daily dose?

    Roger Montgomery
    November 9, 2010

    If only it worked that well all the time!

    Last Thursday evening (4 November) on Peter’s Switzer TV I listed, amongst other companies, Credit Corp and Forge Group as two I would have in the hypothetical Self Managed Super Fund Peter challenged me to set up that day.

    Why did I nominate CCP and FGE? Both receive my A1 or A2 MQR and both have been trading at a discount to their intrinsic value.

    If you are a regular reader of my blog you would have read my insights for some months on these companies. And if you saw today’s announcements, you can imagine why I am a little happier than usual.

    Credit Corp’s previous 2011 NPAT guidance was $16-$18 million. Today the company announced FY11 would likely produce an NPAT result of $18-$20 million.

    Forge Group’s announcement states “The Board wishes to advise that the company forecasts net profit before tax for the half year ending 31st December 2010 to be in the range of $25-$27 million. This represents an improvement on the previous corresponding period (pcp $19.04m) of up to 42%.”

    As I fly to Perth for a presentation and company visit, I am encouraged that several of the companies Value.able graduates mentioned in our lists are also hitting new 52-week highs. In a rising market that lifts all boats, it is perhaps unsurprising, but nevertheless it should be an encouragement to Value.able graduates and value investors that companies like FLT, DCG, MIN, FWD, FGE, CCP, NCK, DTL, MCE, MTU and TGA have all hit year highs – some of them yesterday. More importantly those prices are perhaps justified by their intrinsic values.

    Of course I am not here to predict where those prices will go next, because I simply don’t know. Short-term prices are largely a function of popularity and the market could begin a QE2-inspired correction, an Indian infrastructure-inspired bubble or a China liquidity-inspired bubble tomorrow. I have no way of telling and instead, I focus on intrinsic values and only pay cursory attention to share prices.

    So, as I always say, seek and take personal professional advice before taking any action and remember that 1) I don’t know where the share price is going 2) I am under no obligation to keep you up-to-date with my thoughts about these or any company, my Montgomery Quality Ratings or my valuations and I might change my views, values and MQRs at any time so don’t rely on them and 3) I may buy or sell shares in any company mentioned here at any time without informing you.

    And so I remind you one more time. Please seek and take personal professional advice and always conduct your own research.

    Posted by Roger Montgomery, 9 November 2011.

    by Roger Montgomery Posted in Companies, Insightful Insights, Investing Education, Value.able.

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  • How will the New Lease Accounting Standards impact my view of retailers?

    Roger Montgomery
    October 29, 2010

    Joab is a regular visitor and commentator on my Insights blog and he’s a Value.able PHD graduate. Joab has put together an elegant summary of the impact – on retailers particularly – from the proposed changes to accounting standards for reporting lease liabilities to better reflect the contingent liability that is an operating lease.

    No need to thank Joab. He’s delighted to help and I am delighted he went to the very great effort and time to contribute.

    Why are the changes important? The impact of a bigger asset and a bigger liability will have no change on equity, but when you compare a bigger debt to the same equity, you will get a higher Debt to Equity figure. This will impact my Montgomery Quality Rating (MQRs) next year.

    So here are Joab’s thoughts (with the community’s thanks):

    Current State:

    A draft proposal on accounting standard for leases was issued recently. This proposal could still be subjected to change as it is not yet finalised. That said, the principle of what it is trying to achieve is not expected to change.

    Estimated timing:

    Target date is to issue a finalised standard in 2011.

    Key changes:

    The information below focuses on the lessee’s perspective and has been simplified to highlight key impacts.

    1. Operating leases will be on balance sheet as a lease liability (there will no longer be a distinction between operating and finance leases);

    2. A corresponding asset will be recognised, separately on balance sheet, which offsets the operating lease liability;

    3. Rent expenses will be replaced with depreciation and interest expenses;

    4. Operating cash flow will no longer include cash outflow on rent. Instead, rental cash flow will be in the Financing Activities category as ‘Principal and Interest repayment’.

    The table below compares the current and the new accounting rules on the financial statements.

    Standard setters are open to feedback before end of this year.

    Key Impacts:

    – Financial ratios on gearing will suffer with more debt on balance sheet. For example: debt/ equity ratio, gearing ratio, interest cover ratio.
    – Cash flow from operating activities will improve because rent will be presented in financing activities
    – EBIT or EBITDA will improve as rent expense is replaced with depreciation and interest.
    – Operating earnings will have a slightly different profile. Rentals expenses will no longer be a straight line expense.

    Using JB Hi-Fi as an example

    Note:

    –   I have excluded discounting on Operating lease commitment to simplify the calculation
    –   Debt/ Equity = Debt / Equity
    –   Net Gearing = (Debt – cash) / (Debt + Equity)

    Posted by Roger Montgomery, on behalf of Joab, 29 October 2010.

    by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights, Investing Education.

  • Never too young to start learning?

    Roger Montgomery
    October 28, 2010

    The ASX established the Schools Sharemarket Game to teach high school students about investing and give them the opportunity to put their learning into practice.

    Ron feels high school is too late to start his newborn son’s investment journey so has taken Warren Buffett’s advice…

    I remember reading that Warren Buffett started investing around the age of 11 and he always mentioned that he wished he started 11 years earlier! Therefore I thought my 4 month old son, Lior, shouldn’t waste any time and start reading Value.able!

    All the best,
    Ron

    And from Graduates already in the field…

    Matt: Value.able and a glass of Chateau St Jean 2006 Cinq Cepages


    John: The best book in the world

    Thank you Jesse, Michael, Young Les, Justin, Michael V, Matthew, Rad, Ron, Matt and John for sharing your Value.able adventures with our community.

    Posted by Roger Montgomery, 28 October 2010.

    UPDATE: posted 3 November.

    Hi Roger,

    This is Max my nephew, he is not quite ready for your book but he is heading in the right direction.

    Gavin

    by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights.

  • Where will Value.able appear next?

    Roger Montgomery
    October 11, 2010

    We have seen Value.able being applied on an offshore oil rig, in a deck chair on one young man’s private island and also a plunge pool in Bali. Here are two more stories from Graduates showing how they are applying Value.able in practice.

    Roger,

    I was recently in Galle, Sri Lanka, and was able to share some of your insights with a local spice trader, Yasiru. He was particularly interested in your comments on quality businesses and was happy to say that he maintained a competitive edge by controlling costs – he grinds and mixes the spices himself. I can report that his product is excellent and sells at bargain prices (I have no shares or other interest in his business).

    Justin

    And from Michael…

    I felt compelled to shine light the legion of your followers that are not simply reading Value.able while sitting in lazy pacific island deck-chairs, exotic pools-with-a-view or even far reaching oil rigs. I give you the Montgomery Aussie Battler: An 8am-6pm, 5-day-week worker, traveling to and from work via a crammed and smelly public transport system (namely Brisbane’s CityCat). Who smiles to themselves knowing ‘the final salvation’ is possible – an early retirement thanks to Value.able, intrinsic value, margin of safety and high ROE to name a few. Thanks for starting a revolution!

    Michael

    P.S. Note the studious working scribbles underneath Value.able.

    Please keep sharing your Value.able adventures with our community. We are enjoying the journey.

    Posted by Roger Montgomery, 11 October 2010.

    UPDATE: 13 October 2010

    Here is another pic from Matt I received today… ‘Operating Value.Able’


    Hi Roger, I don’t have a tropical or relaxing environment from which to share my experience of Value.Able – I send you this picture from the Trauma theatre at 2am after an emergency operation on a car accident victim. Not a place normally associated with relaxing thoughts. However, you may not know how good an operating theatre can be for reading. After all, it has the two most important ingredients: very good lighting and plenty of fresh air (via the ultra clean ventilation systems of course). Your book has been an excellent addition to my investing education and I look forward to meeting you at one of your upcoming presentations.

    Cheers, Matt

    P.S. the patient is doing just fine

    UPDATE: 14 October 2010

    Hi Roger,

    I was just reading up on the “formula” when some of the guys were curious. Then, just before the game started I was trying to explain to my team mates the difference between a company’s yeild, PE and ROE. Told them to just get the book.

    Cheers….Rad

    by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights, Investing Education, Value.able.

  • No more Value.able Roger?

    Roger Montgomery
    October 7, 2010

    The First Edition of Value.able has sold out.

    Thank you. Thank you for purchasing copies for your family and friends. And thank you for allowing me to share my way of investing with you.

    If you haven’t yet purchased your copy, don’t worry. I plan to release a Second Edition paperback in November. The manuscript is with the designers and will soon be on the printing press.

    You can pre-order and secure your copy at my website, www.rogermontgomery.com. Or if you haven’t yet done so, join up to my mailing list and I will let you know when then Second Edition is available.

    I have received a few emails from investors who purchased their First Edition copies in early September and are patiently waiting for them to arrive. The books are delivered by Australia Post. If no one is home at the time of delivery, a parcel reminder will be left at your front door or in your letterbox and your book will be taken to your local post office. Unfortunately I have heard of occasions where no reminder note was left.

    If you haven’t yet done so, please check with you local post office and if you don’t have any luck, please let me know.

    Posted by Roger Montgomery, 7 October 2010.

    by Roger Montgomery Posted in Insightful Insights, Investing Education, Value.able.

  • How do Value.able graduates calculate forecast valuations?

    Roger Montgomery
    October 1, 2010

    I know of no other book in the world that discusses the concept of calculating future intrinsic values. You may think that is a bold statement, but its true. I have seen many books that claim to reveal Warren Buffett’s intrinsic value formula, but not one that lays out, step-by-step, what investors need to look at to determine whether intrinsic value is rising at a satisfactory rate in the future.

    I confess to chuckling recently when one investor told me that they were finding it a little difficult to source the data they needed to calculate future intrinsic values. They also believed that my book lacked an explanation for how to calculate future intrinsic values.

    So I asked whether or not they had even thought about future intrinsic values before having read Value.able? Sheepishly, the investor accepted that my book was much more valuable than they had initially concluded and subsequently told other people.

    I have not found any other book in the world that has taken that little Buffett quote about finding businesses growing intrinsic value at a “satisfactory rate” and making it part of a clearly explained and defined investing process.

    And for those of you who are looking for a reference to forecast equity per share in Value.able…. see Page 188, Step A.

    The missing worked example for future equity. It’s easy!

    How can you estimate future equity if you don’t have a forecast number such as those readily available in analyst research notes? It’s easy. Take the last known equity per share figure, add the estimated profits, subtract the estimated dividends, add any capital raised through new shares issued and subtract any equity paid back to shareholders through buybacks and you have it.

    Here’s an example: In the 2010 annual report for The Reject Shop, equity at 30 June 2010 was $51.543 million (click here to see) and there were 26.034 million shares on issue. Dividing the 2010 ending equity by the shares on issue  ($51.543/26.034) equals equity of $1.98 on a per share basis.

    According to Commsec (click here to see), consensus analyst estimates for 2011 earnings per share and dividends per share are $1.028 and $0.744 respectively.

    Starting with the 2010 equity per share of $1.98, add the earnings per share of $1.028 and subtract the dividends per share of $0.744 to arrive at an estimated ending equity for 2011 of $2.26. (If you are aware of any shares issued since the end of the financial year, you may want to take the amount raised and divide it by the number of shares issued and then add that result to the $2.26)

    Now that you have seen it done, how easy is that?

    A global movement begins!

    I couldn’t be happier that a small group of passionate Australian value investors are even contemplating future intrinsic values! Nobody in the world is presenting you with estimates for intrinsic values, two, three or four years out and I have never seen any investor ever do it. I know of nobody else in Australia doing that, nobody has written about it before and I haven’t ever come across anyone else in the international business media discussing it either.

    And now you are all doing it! It has become part of your vocabulary.

    Think about that for a minute… after reading Value.able, investors are now estimating future intrinsic values, posting their estimates at my blog and Facebook page,and  chatting about them online in forums and in boardrooms where previously nobody was.

    If before reading Value.able you weren’t discussing future intrinsic values and now you are, then my book has had a positive impact and I am delighted. And all for just $49.95!

    Consider how you are now subconsciously framing your investing decisions with future intrinsic values in mind.

    Warning!

    Don’t blindly combine numbers with Value.able’s valuation tables to produce intrinsic values. As I say in my book, you MUST understand the business and its prospects. I devoted an entire chapter to cash flow and its calculations. Don’t ignore it. I also devoted an entire chapter to competitive advantages. Don’t ignore that either.

    Recently, Buffett sold down his holding in Moody’s because it had lost some of its competitive advantage. He isn’t selling because he has recalculated intrinsic value. It’s the competitive advantage that drives the intrinsic value.

    Be careful you aren’t so focused on the intrinsic value number that you ignore all the other important factors.

    Its one of the reasons I have my Montgomery Quality Ratings (MQRs). They are my own filter to help narrow the universe of companies to conduct further research on.

    I put a lot of effort into writing my book and making an investment plan out of the best of what the world’s most successful investors have revealed, published and taught. And I am delighted that you have allowed me to share that with you. Thank you.

    Where do I get the raw data Roger?

    I have previously posted a document called ‘Source Data’, where Value.able graduates contributed their solutions to obtaining the data. Because I am receiving so many requests for help finding the data, I thought it useful to republish it. Click here or click the Value.able Source Data button to the right.

    I was saddened to hear that one Value.able reader thought getting the data was all too hard and gave up. That’s like knowing there’s silver and gold a metre under your feet but saying that grabbing a shovel and digging is just too hard. If you don’t want to do the work that’s fine, but please don’t blame the guy who gave you the map, the pick and the shovel.

    Using the information in my Source Data document, you should now be in a rock solid position to start estimating future intrinsic Value.able values.

    Take a look at the Source Data document and you will see that the raw data is freely available. Indeed every single number you need to estimate the current intrinsic value is also available in a company’s annual report, and its all free at ASX.com.au.

    With sources like Commsec and the formula I have given you for future equity, you can now freely estimate the forecast intrinsic value as well. Just go to ASX.com.au, click on the announcements link, select the company code and the year you need and voila! All the information is there in the annual report.

    Value.able outlines the way I invest. I don’t have a green button that I press each day that automatically goes and buys the best opportunities. Value investing requires research and analysis. We can build devices that give us some short cuts, but they don’t replace the need to understand the business and the risks.

    Why are my valuations different to Roger’s?

    If everyone uses exactly the same inputs, our Value.able valuations will all be identical. Any differences therefore are due to different data. Some examples of sources of variation are:

    • Online brokers’ ROE numbers are calculated differently to the way I suggest in Value.able. They use ending equity and I suggest average equity.
    • Generic net profit after tax figures available on various online summary lists may or may not remove abnormal/significant or non-recurring items. Intrinsic values should be based on recurring profits, revenues and expenses. (Yes there is some subjectivity in this).
    • I have noticed many of you using 10% discount rates for all companies. As I suggest in Value.able, this may be too low in some cases.

    There are a variety of reasons and your Value.able valuations are different to mine.

    Recently on TV I indicated that my valuation of Telstra was closer to $2.30-$2.50, but one Value.able graduate produced $3.68. I suspect that the difference is simply the choice of discount rate. Many investors will use a low discount rate because TLS such a big company with plenty of liquidity and very low risk of significant change. I however might use a higher rate because I want compensation for the fact that its future prospects are opaque and its profits haven’t grown a dollar in a decade.

    Thinking about differing results, I am encouraged that many Value.able graduates were able to replicate my results exactly, or within a couple of cents.

    Value.able will stand the test of time because it is based on a method of investing that works. It is a method of investing that requires time to demonstrate its value. And in time I look forward to hearing many more of your success stories.

    Only a few First Edition hardback copies of Value.able remain. So if you haven’t purchased your reserved copy yet, now is not the time to ponder.

    There was only one print run of the First Edition hardback. The paperback Second Edition will be available in mid November.

    Posted by Roger Montgomery, 1 October 2010.

    by Roger Montgomery Posted in Companies, Insightful Insights, Investing Education, Value.able.