Value Investing Based on Ben Graham, Phil Fisher, Warren Buffett, Joe Ponzio

Recently, as I continue to analyze my investing habits, I’ve noticed a couple of things I was and was not doing. One aspect that I had always adhered to was to “always invest in businesses that you understand”. Some where along my investing journey, I slowly started to morph the philosophy to a new meaning; “don’t invest in anything unless you know everything”.

Here is why I am wrong.

Before all else, I am in no way endorsing or encouraging what I am about to post. However, if information is available on the net, I don’t see why you can’t take a look at it.

In my recommended reading post on Old School Value, I recommended people to read Ronald R Redfield’s notes on Seth Klarman’s book Margin of Safety - Risk Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor.

Fiscal year 2008 came to a close for AeroGrow on March 31, 2008. The conference call was held on June 26 and I think it is a good time to provide an update.

Previously I had written about AeroGrow and pointed out good and bad points, but mostly good. With the stock price lower by approximately 35% from my time of purchase.In this post, I won’t gloss over the increase in revenue or store presence and other obvious matters. This post, I’ll be going over the problems.

With increasing prices in food, commodities and inflation, I have decided to distribute the spreadsheets via an alternative method.

The spreadsheets have now been split into a basic and premium version.

The basic spreadsheets are the free versions which now only contain the financial statements and a valuation page. After using it, I hope that users will want to upgrade to the premium version.

Charlie Munger stated it quite clearly. Intelligent investing = value investing.
By value investing, the general population tends to think of it as bottom feeding and being cheap, but such a statement only holds true in a town called Speculatown.

Need information about competitors? Tired of Google, Yahoo or other websites showing incorrect competitor data or just not enough information? Problem solved.

Do you invest in mutual funds? In your main acocunt, 401k or IRA? Do you diversify your funds? If so, have you thought about the following?

Just wanted to pass on a great read before we officially hit the holiday long weekend.

The merger between Aquila and Great Plains has finally been approved. The deal was first announced in February of 2007 and the deal is now expected to close on July 14. It was a long process but certainly worth the investment.