Warren Buffett wrote the following in the 1984 Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa) shareholder letter:
"When companies with outstanding businesses and comfortable financial positions find their shares selling far below intrinsic value in the marketplace, no alternative action can benefit shareholders as surely as repurchases."
If a company's own stock is selling at a discount to a conservative estimate of value, buying back stock is a very low risk way to enrich remaining shareholders.
Other shareholder enhancing moves mostly involve more risk.
Having said that, here's one situation to think about that sometimes gets too little consideration.
Unfortunately, it's possible that a buyout offer comes in at a nice premium to market value but a discount to intrinsic value. If enough owners are okay with the gain that will have occurred compared to the recent price action, the deal may be approved. The quality of a company's board of directors naturally comes into play in such a scenario. If too few have conviction about longer run prospects, the deal may get approved. When too many owners of shares are in it for the short-term or, at least, primarily to profit from price action, the chance of this happening increases.
Well, those that became owners because of the plain discount to intrinsic value and the company's long run prospects will likely get hurt in this scenario.
Adam
Long BRKb
Related post:
Buy a Stock...Hope the Price Drops?
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This site does not provide investing recommendations as that comes down to individual circumstances. Instead, it is for generalized informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. Visitors should always do their own research and consult, as needed, with a financial adviser that's familiar with the individual circumstances before making any investment decisions. Bottom line: The opinions found here should never be considered specific individualized investment advice and never a recommendation to buy or sell anything.
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Applying Newton's Fourth Law
Origin of Newton's 4th Law?
"Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases." - Warren Buffett
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Find good businesses; buy at nice discounts to value; stay within limits & stick to what's understandable (necessarily unique for each investor); minimize trading, frictional costs, & errors of all kinds.
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This site is for generalized informational purposes only and the views found here should never be considered specific investment advice.
Visitors should always do their own homework and consult, as needed, with a personal financial adviser who understands their specific individual circumstances before taking action on any particular investing idea. What makes sense as an investment in one set of individual circumstances may not in another.
Opinions found on the blog are just that, opinions, could easily be wrong in all kinds of ways, and should never be considered advice that is specific in nature. Stocks and other investment vehicles are inherently filled with risks including the possibility, or even likelihood, of permanent loss of capital. Past performance, of course, should not be considered indicative of future results. Due diligence is necessary.
The content found here shall not be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell any security or to participate in any particular investment strategy. Again, that necessarily comes down to individual circumstances. So, in other words, there is no personal financial adviser here, just some opinions and views. These opinion and views are subject to change at any time and, since they are not individualized in any way, consultation with an investment professional and doing one's own rigorous research/analysis before making any investment decisions is essential.
All posts are simply presented as one view on investing and some related topics though never specific recommendations. An investor should always get help from an investment professional if they feel they need it and, most importantly, before mistakes are made. Ultimately, the actions of individual investors, whether they happen to be a visitor to this site or not, are their own responsibility (and, if applicable, so are the associated losses). While there will always be a very real risk of permanent capital loss in investing, those who know their own limits and ask for professional advice when they require it can improve their chances substantially. Investors should never buy or sell a security based upon what they've read on any blog.
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Posts on this blog do not offer opinions on the future price action of specific stocks or the capital markets as a whole. Instead, the focus is sound investing principles but never predictions or recommendations. It's understanding productive assets and their likely intrinsic value; how they may or may not compound in intrinsic worth over a long time horizon. It's about investing with a comfortable margin of safety. It's NOT about speculating on price action. In the near-term, or even longer, the market price of an asset can do just about anything.
A temperamental market pretty much assures it.
Those with a long investing horizon, it's worth noting, actually benefit from lower stock prices in the near-term (though not many market participants seem willing to put this truism to effective use). Those who attempt to profit primarily via speculating on short-term price action likely won't find this way of thinking to be of much interest.
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Otherwise, hopefully some occasionally find the site worthwhile.
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This site's emphasis? Put simply, it's on finding and buying -- with the long-term in mind -- good businesses at a plain discount to conservatively estimated value; it's on selling shares of those well-bought high quality business reluctantly. The view here is that selling makes sense only when core economics become permanently impaired, prospects have been misjudged, market price not just somewhat but, instead, meaningfully exceed per share intrinsic value, or opportunity costs are high. Buy/sell decisions aren't just an opportunity to increase returns; they're also an opportunity to make mistakes. It's easy to overemphasize the former and forget the latter. The focus here is on minimizing trading, frictional costs, and errors of all kinds; it's on staying comfortably within realistically assessed limits. First and foremost is the view that an investor should never make a specific investment based upon what someone else thinks. In other words, what makes sense to own is necessarily unique for each investor and it'd be unwise to not act accordingly. So, more generally, this site simply attempts to better understand some useful principles and ideas in context of investment. It's about, in a practical sense, what tends to work over the long haul as well as what, at times, gets the investor into trouble. It's not about grand theories in finance and economics. These too often distract from what matters or, worse yet, lead to costly misjudgments. As a result, they are mostly viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism here. Otherwise, the best thinking across disciplines should be learned well then put to good use in a way that's uniquely suitable.
About
Notable Quote
"Warren and I have not made our way in life by making successful macroeconomic predictions and betting on our conclusions.
Our system is to swim as competently as we can and sometimes the tide will be with us and sometimes it will be against us. But by and large we don't much bother with trying to predict the tides because we plan to play the game for a long time.
I recommend to all of you exactly the same attitude.
It's kind of a snare and a delusion to outguess macroeconomic cycles... ...very few people do it successfully and some of them do it by accident. When the game is that tough, why not adopt the other system of swimming as competently as you can and figuring that over a long life you'll have your share of good tides and bad tides?" - Charlie Munger
Our system is to swim as competently as we can and sometimes the tide will be with us and sometimes it will be against us. But by and large we don't much bother with trying to predict the tides because we plan to play the game for a long time.
I recommend to all of you exactly the same attitude.
It's kind of a snare and a delusion to outguess macroeconomic cycles... ...very few people do it successfully and some of them do it by accident. When the game is that tough, why not adopt the other system of swimming as competently as you can and figuring that over a long life you'll have your share of good tides and bad tides?" - Charlie Munger