Professor Glen Arnold

The motivation for purchasing Northamber’s (LSE:NAR) shares two years ago was to benefit from the obvious path for the directors to take, namely the gradual run down of the business, releasing cash from property, inventory and receivables. That would result in at least a doubling of money invested in the shares because it held net […]

Boy am I glad that I doubled my holding in Haynes (LSE:HYNS) a couple of weeks ago – at the AGM I got the distinct impression that this company is on the up. As usual, I selfishly hogged the largest part of the question time. After that I chatted with the key directors about the […]

I think I have found a company for my Modified cyclically adjusted price earning ratio portfolio. If I fail to find a sufficient reason to reject I’ll buy some shares and write about it for you. In the mean time here is something to ponder. Doing the right thing can pay dividends both personally and […]

Experience indicates that the best business returns are usually achieved by companies that are doing something quite similar today to what they were doing five or ten years ago…. a business that constantly encounters major change also encounters many chances for major error. (Warren Buffett, BH 1987 letter) Comment: analysing companies is hard – you […]

Are they throwing money at the phoenix-like attempt? Some food for thought (quick calculations – forgive mistakes): Sales up 4.1% – good. Gross profit up 7.7% – good Distribution and administration costs, same as last year – good, given the sales rise Loss for the year £888,000. Bad because it is not yet in profit, […]

The only principle of timing that has ever worked well consistently is to buy common stocks at such times as they are cheap by analysis, and to sell them at such time as they are dear, or at least no longer cheap, by analysis….it requires no opinion as to the future of the market; because […]

I’m still searching for a company to go in my Modified cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio portfolio.  So far: no luck.  I’ll keep working on it. In the meantime here are a couple of principles for all value investors to keep in mind: Dreams do not come true by wishing, but if you internalise them […]

Warren calls the way in which he went about the National Indemnity deal as a more serious blunder than the purchase of Berkshire Hathaway: “becoming the most costly in my career.” This self-deprecation – written in his 2014 letter to BH shareholders – needs some explanation.  The key to understanding this logic is that his […]

Warren has a wonderful knack for holding onto very talented and experienced people. He doesn’t mind that they are getting on in years; their knowledge, judgement and contacts are often vital to the success of the enterprise. Besides, Warren has numerous investments to think about he simply cannot deal with the day to day detail […]

The National Indemnity deal would probably never have happened if it wasn’t for another Omahan, Charles Heider. Charlie, who died only a two months ago (89), (leaving many tens of millions to Creighton University) was an Omaha stock broker competing with Warren in the early 1950s to persuade people to invest in shares. Warren says […]