Vitaliy Katsenelson's blog

Having government control over the levers of the economy can have advantages. For example, by taking prompt action, the Chinese government was able to pull the economy out of the recession remarkably fast, basically by fire-housing the stimulus package that was equivalent to 12% GDP. That’s the advantage. The only problem is that these kinds of short-term advantages come with long-term, painful consequences.

Any money manager, whether he is managing separate accounts or a mutual fund, will go through stretches where he looks smarter or dumber than he really is, though his IQ hasn’t actually changed.

The unforeseen consequences of the advent of electric cars will reverberate much farther than the demise of dealerships and significant shifts in market share in the auto industry.

I never thought a visit to Omaha would trigger an appreciation of the role Icahn and other activist investors play in corporate America.

probability that Apple will introduce a brand new product category in the near future is incredibly high

In investing you have opportunities that open up because dogmatic investors say “I don’t do ... ”

I vividly remember how low interest rates and the Fed Model were used as propaganda tool in the late ’90s to justify the stock market’s “this time is different” sky-high valuation

As a value investor I used to spend a great deal of time in Microsoft hell. No More!

There are lot of similarities between the 1920s and today.  In fact Livermore’s quote says it all: “There is never anything new on Wall Street, because speculation is as old as the hills.”   1924-1929 bull market was rigged by stock manipulators.   Ninety-some years later the market is still (or at least is perceived to be) rigged by ...

One of the problems with QE is that the Fed is forcing people to buy riskier investments than they otherwise would have. The immorality of their actions aside, they create a significant psychological mismatch between assets and their holders. Stocks are in weak hands, insuring one great stampede for the chairs when the music stops.

 I read that Rich Bernstein, former chief investment strategist at Merrill Lynch, is very optimistic about US stocks; he believes we are at a point similar to where the market was in 1982 – at the beginning of the 1982-2000 secular bull.  After you’ve gone through my slides, you’ll understand why it is so hard for me to share Rich’s excitement.

The partisan politics of this country is simply insane.

Here are my thoughts from the VALUEx Vail conference. The idea for this conference came to me when I attended VALUEx Zurich, organized by Guy Spier and John Mihaljevic in February 2011 (you can register for VALUEx Zurich 2013, here). The thought of spending three days learning and sharing ideas with smart, like-minded value investors felt instantly right. Investing on some level is a never-ending pursuit to get better. Most of us are locked up in air-conditioned offices where we learn through reading SEC filings, magazines, blogs, etc.

 I am back from Buffett’s Omaha.  Every year I come back feeling supercharged for the year ahead.  This year was no different.  From morning till night I had the pleasure of sharing and debating ideas with investors from all over the world.  Though I did not plan it this way, the first day I had dinner with value investors/friends from the UK, on the second from Germany, and on the third from Spain.  I have at least a dozen stock ideas to research and new thoughts to process. 

Here is a thought for an eager Facebook investor: Google revenue - $40 billion; market capitalization $200 billion (plus $40 billion of cash).  Facebook revenue $4 billion; market capitalization $100 billion. So Facebook has to grow revenue 10x for you to double your money.  Good luck!