On my article here, I would like to discuss three things, which may be vital to any investor on his/her path.

Brexit and Japan

Last June, majority vote in UK wants Brexit. On general, most market participants saw Brexit as bad news. On many brains being wired to the same aforementioned view, most investors, including value investors, regardless of their holding period frame, show the intention of (or already have done) offloading European and UK stocks.

I read something similar to this news article in early 2016.  It is true that two stacks of 3 arrows Abe tried to shoot yield little result. Then again, it never been easy to do policy implementation on countrywide. I believe that there is small progress on that. A series of small progress can be accumulated over years.

I went to Japan before visiting Omaha for Berkshire Hathaway's shareholder meeting. I discover that there is constant standard of providing the customer services due to the culture. It is one of the main reason why Japan get reasonable amount of repeated tourists.

Despite of these, I still hold 2 UK stocks, 2 European stocks, and 2 Japanese stocks. I am eager to add more when I find an interesting investment opportunities.

To sum my holding stance, I refer to Howard Marks' statement:
"To achieve superior investment results, your insight into value has to be superior. Thus, you must learn things other don't, see things differently or do a better job of analysing them."
Since newly appointed prime minister for UK, Thresea May, will ensure that the process of brexit is orderly and is in favour for UK (and probably for EU as well), I believe that humans are very adaptable people. We adapt to the changes so as we can find better ways of living in a new life stage.

As for Japanese, I would recommend anyone to spend more time on study Japanese listed companies. It is because these companies are quite resilient, much more than I would initially thought. Somehow, you may find an interesting idea among Japanese stocks. While holding two Japanese stocks, I am still understand how Japanese build business around the products that seems to be thoughful for any customers.

Hidden Champions

Kee Koon Boon has written a lot of interesting Asian-content articles for past few years. Recently, he announced his intention to hunt for hidden champions with his colleagues. Because of that, I made sure to read the book titled Hidden Champions of 21st Century.

Now, in addition to 'Good to Great' book, this book provides me excellent understanding about what kind of attributes compounders are likely to have. I am quite glad that it has discussed the marketing arena concerning the companies. To be honest, I am quite critical to most kinds of marketing tactics suggested on the standard marketing textbooks. Nevertheless, I am willing to recognize that they may somehow, directly or indirectly, yield some revenue. Hidden champion book confirm that it is best to do direct sales by having close and continuous interactions with the customers. The chart about the customer requirements on that book is quite huge surprise to me - advertising, among 13 performance attributes, is the last. Chapter 5 of the book is breakthrough understanding for me.

Before I read hidden champions book, I had a firm belief that patents would protect the moat. It does not sound anything wrong. Hidden champions have very high r&d intensity, much higher than the average figures. This book discuss extensively on patent area. One hidden champion said the following:
"Patent would not help us anyway because we could not enforce them. Our development would outpace the patent before we received it. Patents move at horsespeed, we are flying at jet speed."
Now, with that knowledge, I view that patents should not be all-important defense. We can look at the example of Creative. Creative had patent for mp3 interface and won the case against Apple few years ago. Despite of that, Creative became smaller by its own size.

Whoever hunt for compounders should read this book. Although it is hard read, it is still informative.

Donald Keough's Ten Commandments for Business Failure
I read his book titled 'The Ten Commandments for Business Failure' because of Warren Buffett. Surprisingly, it is very good book. So easy read! Briefly, I think his book can be a good guide to distinguish good CEO from bad CEO. Very often, CEO's management performance can be catchall variable for our stock investment's result.

One thing for sure is that companies can rebuilt itself once the CEO or chairman admit the mistake. We all know what had happened to Coca Cola after Donald Keough took charge of press conference, telling us that they are going back to the classic coke and abandoning the new coke.

Comments

Popular Posts