The Art of Value Investing: How the World's Best Investors Beat the Market

by John Heins, Whitney Tilson

Based on interviews with the world's most-successful value investors, The Art of Value Investing, by John Heins and Whitney Tilson, offers a comprehensive set of answers to the questions every equity money manager should have thought through clearly before holding himself or herself out as a worthy steward of other people’s money. What market inefficiencies will I try to exploit? How will I generate ideas? What will be my geographic focus? What analytical edge will I hope to have? What valuation methodologies will I use? What time horizon will I typically employ? How many stocks will I own? How specifically will I decide to buy or sell? Will I hedge, and how? How will I keep my emotions from getting the best of me?

Authors Tilson and Heins have delegated the task of providing answers to such questions to the experts: the market-beating money managers to whom they’ve had unparalleled access as the co-founders of leading investment newsletter Value Investor Insight. That includes such hedgefund superstars as Julian Robertson, Seth Klarman, Leon Cooperman, David Einhorn, Bill Ackman and Joel Greenblatt, as well as mutual-fund luminaries including Marty Whitman, Mason Hawkins, Jean-Marie Eveillard, Bill Nygren and Bruce Berkowitz.

Who should read The Art of Value Investing? It is as vital a resource for the just-starting-out investor as for the sophisticated professional one. The former will find a comprehensive guidebook for defining a sound investment strategy from A-to-Z; the latter will find all aspects of his or her existing strategy challenged or reconfirmed by the provocative thinking of their most-successful peers. It also is a must-read for any investor – institutional or individual – charged with choosing the best managers for the money they are allocating to equities. Choosing the right managers requires knowing all the right questions to ask as well as the answers worthy of respect and attention – both of which are delivered in The Art of Value Investing.

Genres: Finance, Business, Nonfiction, Personal Finance, Audiobook

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Michael Cestas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a compilation of insights from 'great' investors, categorized by topic. It is useful for thinking through a specific topic or finding a quote on one from someone with more authority.

One thing I like is that the book intentionally includes quotes in each section that conflict. This makes it more balanced, and gives the reader the opportunity to think through each side before taking his or her own position.

Here are some quotes that I liked (note I couldn't include them all due to the character limit. Email me for the full file):

PHILOSOPHY
It does not take a genius or even a superior talent to be successful as a value analyst. What it needs is, first, reasonable good intelligence; second, sound principles of operation; third, and most important, firmness of character. —Benjamin Graham, Common Sense Investing

DOES QUALITY MATTER?
Value to me often derives from competitively strong companies in structurally attractive industries supported by secular growth. —Morris Mark, Mark Asset Management

I've learned that to meet my return goals I can't have big losers. So regardless of how cheap something is or how much potential upside there is, that means avoiding companies that can wipe out—with too much debt, unproven business models, secularly challenged end markets or no durable competitive advantages. —Zeke Ashton, Centaur Capital

In my experience, it's been more important to be involved with a powerful trend with accelerating potential returns than to get too hung up on valuation. That's not at all to say valuation doesn't matter, but there have been many times when I've been right about the trend but didn't buy a leader because it was 20 percent too expensive and that turned out to be a mistake. —John Burbank, Passport Capital

THE VALUE MINDSET
Starting with the first recorded and reliable history that we can find—a history of the Peloponnesian war by a Greek author named Thucydides—and following through a broad array of key historical global crises, you see recurring aspects of human nature that have gotten people into trouble: hubris, dogma, and haste. The keys to our investing approach are the symmetrical opposite of that: humility, flexibility, and patience.

On the humility side, one of the things that Jean-Marie Eveillard firmly ingrained in the culture here is that the future is uncertain. That results in investing with not only a price margin of safety, but in companies with conservative balance sheets and prudent and proven management teams. If you acknowledge your crystal ball is at best foggy, you follow the advice of Ben Graham and invest to avoid the landmines.

In terms of flexibility, we've been willing to be out of the biggest sectors of the market, whether it was Japan in the late 1980s, technology in the late 1990s or financials the late 2000s. That wasn't necessarily because of any particular gift of foresight, but reflected a recognition that each of those areas embodied very widely accepted and high expectations. It's painful and not socially acceptable to be out of the most revered sectors of the market, but those types of acts of omission have been a key contributor to the strong performance.

The third thing in terms of temperament we think we value more than most other investors is patience. We have a five-year average holding period. Particularly in a volatile market like today's, people are trying to zig and zag ahead of every market turn that they're hoping they can forecast with scientific precision. We like to plant seeds and then watch the trees grow, and our portfolio is often kind of a portrait of inactivity. That's kept us from making sharp and sometimes emotional moves that we eventually come to regret.
—Matthew McLennan, First Eagle Funds

INDUSTRY PREFERENCE
We'd like to believe any business is analyzable, but when you have product cycles of only twelve months, as an investor you're very reliant on the company hitting that window exactly right. If they don't and somebody else does, you can buy low all you want, but you find out pretty quickly that you were buying a future income stream that was a mirage.

We haven't sworn off technology entirely, but we've essentially sworn off investing in shortproduct- cycle technology. We look for technology companies where the business cycles are glacial in comparison. —Larry Robbins, Glenview Capital

High-quality businesses tend to be characterized by things like strong brand names, customer loyalty, pricing control, some cost advantage and growing long-term markets. Low-quality businesses, which don't have much control over their futures, exhibit the opposite characteristics. We generally consider cyclical, commodity businesses to fit this more negative profile and so are less invested there. —Bill Nygren, Harris Associates

I've always had an affinity for companies that actually make things. We favor companies with transparent businesses that we can understand fairly quickly and those that have large and recurring maintenance, repair, and overhaul revenues from an installed base, such as elevator companies or aerospace-parts firms. —Alexander Roepers, Atlantic Investment Management

One thing about being an investor for 20 years is that experience leads you to write off big chunks of the market. I don't do retail because you have to recreate the demand every day. I don't do financial services because it's a spread business with no real free cash in it—you have to grow equity to grow assets to make more spread. I don't do much in industrials because the capital demands are high and, long term, the cost structure—particularly with labor and energy prices—is challenging in a global economy. I don't do commodities—we like price-makers that set prices based on value added, as opposed to price takers.

If you buy a high-quality business, you only have to be right once—buying at the right price. The sale is fairly easy to execute. In cyclical or commodity areas, you have to be right twice, on the buy and the sell. If you miss the exit, it might be awhile before it comes back around. —Jeffrey Ubben, ValueAct Capital

One thing we are very conscious of is the degree of leverage in a business. That can be financial leverage, which is reflected on the balance sheet. It can be operational leverage, where you look at how much of the cost base is fixed or variable. It can also be the degree of leverage to a particular industry or geography. In general, I'm uncomfortable with companies that are vulnerable to more than one of those kinds of leverage going against them at the same time. A cyclical business that has a lot of fixed costs, for example, should not have a lot of financial leverage or be too levered to one geography or industry. If things go the wrong way, management has its hands tied in trying to get out of trouble. This is a big reason we rarely find opportunity in more commodity-type businesses. —David Herro, Harris Associates

One of the keys to Warren Buffett's early success was investing in high return on capital consumer businesses that were relatively immature when he bought them and that grew enormously along with the U.S., the largest economy in the world. He owned companies like Gillette, Wells Fargo, and Washington Post Co. over a period in which consumer products, financial, and media companies grew from being a relatively small part of the S&P 500 to a very large part of it. That's a natural evolution in any large, developing economy and we expect that dynamic to create considerable value in places like India for a long time. —John Burbank, Passport Capital

The human brain is incapable of conceptualizing something vastly different from what's happening today. But the big-money ideas are those where the changes are far beyond what you can conceive today. The closer you can get to conceiving those types of changes and the higher the probability they might happen, the more likely you are to find big winners. —Lisa Rapuano, Matador Capital Management

IDEA GENERATION
Most of our initial research is on finding the true standouts in any given business. That's largely a numbers-driven exercise, focusing on returns on equity, margins, and growth in key sales and profitability metrics—all in comparison with the competition. We've identified more than 400 companies—primarily in the U.S., but not exclusively—that we could imagine owning and that we try to keep fairly close track of. —Francois Rochon, Giverny Capital

RELIABLE SOURCES
I like to have information pushed at me, so I've set up keyword alerts on something like 3,000 companies, which results in 20 to 25 press releases a day announcing things like management changes, reorganizations or new dividends. Ideas come out of that all the time.
Another thing I've done in my personal account is to buy one share of probably 250 micro-cap companies, which is kind of my own customized research service. The daily mail delivery is kind of a Christmas grab bag—you never know when an annual or quarterly that arrives is going to catch your eye. —Paul Sonkin, Hummingbird Value Fund

We also like to search article databases using keywords that indicate problems or big changes at a company—things like “profit warning,” or “spin-off,” or “restructuring.” —David Samra, Artisan Partners

We've over time built a number of systems and reports that enable us to track globally the movement of debt, equity and assets around on balance sheets. We follow in a disciplined way things like spinoffs, rights offerings, new equity issuance and buybacks. —James Crichton, Scout Capital

I'd much rather steal a good idea than generate a bad one myself. —Steve Morrow, NewSouth Capital

CUTTING THROUGH THE NOISE
Money managers must keep firmly in mind that the only things they really can control are their investment philosophy, investment process, and the nature of their client base. Controlling your process is absolutely crucial to long-term investment success in any market environment. —Seth Klarman

MACRO VS MICRO
One element to our process I have added in recent years is what I call “PEST” Control. I grew up in the business with the basic assumption that I didn't need to worry much about macro issues as long as I had enough margin of safety from a cheap stock price. That's no longer a safe assumption, so we force ourselves to more fully assess the risks of Political, Economic, Social and Technological changes that could derail our thesis. —Jeffrey Bronchick, Cove Street Capital

We're bottom-up stock pickers, so the main reason we concern ourselves with the macro environment is to pressure-test the companies we invest in. Using a nautical analogy, we're looking at the weather forecast to make sure our boat will be strong enough, not to pick the day to go sailing.
Even our macro views stem largely from bottom-up work. We were interested in Fannie Mae in 2007 but first wanted to understand their credit risk better. We spoke with the ratings agencies and asked them what would happen if house prices fell. “You mean a six-sigma event?” they asked. “No,” I said, “just if prices fell 5 or 10 percent.” They said, “That's six-sigma!” Well, if house prices going back to where they had been just 12 months earlier was considered six-sigma by the ratings agencies, I thought we were in trouble. —Boykin Curry, Eagle Capital

I would argue that if macro factors are too big a determinant in your appraisal of a company's intrinsic value, you should just sit that out. We just move on to where the micro is driving value. —Staley Cates, Southeastern Asset Management

While it is always tempting to try to time the market and wait for the bottom to be reached (as if it would be obvious when it arrived), such a strategy has proven over the years to be deeply flawed. Historically, little volume transacts at the bottom or on the way back up and competition from other buyers will be much greater when the markets settle down and the economy begins to recover. Moreover, the price recovery from a bottom can be very swift. Therefore, an investor should put money to work amidst the throes of a bear market, appreciating that things will likely get worse before they get better. —Seth Klarman, The Baupost Group

Our goal is to find earnings streams that are defensible in good times and bad and that also demonstrate secular growth. It's frankly an advantage to not get overly distracted by macroeconomic concerns, which can make it hard to pull the trigger on a great business when the opportunity presents itself. —Jeffrey Ubben, ValueAct Capital

BUSINESS FIRST
We focus on companies with long competitive-advantage periods, which puts a premium on our truly understanding the business dynamics over time. As a result, features of businesses we're tempted by typically include stable market shares, stable margins, pricing power and long data series, so we can evaluate how the business has performed through good times and bad. —James Crichton, Scout Capital

We focus on industry structure. We like concentrated industries with two or three primary players. As value investors, we are typically buying the underperformer. There are issues to fix, but the customers are rooting for you and the leading competitor, with high margins and a high stock price, is probably not going to go for the jugular. —Jeffrey Ubben, ValueAct Capital
There are usually only a few things you have to get right about a company for it to be a successful investment. What are the key drivers of the business and how are they changing? What is the company doing to position itself for that future, and what is it doing to operate more efficiently and effectively? How are they redeploying capital? Our view is that if you can get 85 percent of the way there by answering the big questions, don't waste your time on the last 15 percent because the marginal utility isn't worth it. —Steve Morrow, NewSouth Capital

WHAT QUALITY MEANS
When you're putting 8%, 12% or 15% of your money in something, it's not a day trade. You have to focus first and foremost on high-quality businesses that can't blow up and should grow in value over time. —William Ackman, Pershing Square Capital Management

What makes a high-quality business? At a basic level, the product or service being sold is critical to customers but is only a small part of their cost structure, and the customer relationship tends to be sticky and recurring. Generally, we end up in intellectual-property-based businesses that can price off of a value-add rather than some sort of cost basis. —Jeffrey Ubben, ValueAct Capital

We're looking for businesses with low capital intensity, the ability to generate high levels of free cash flow, and a privileged business model that enables the company to produce excess capital. We want the financial and business models to be transparent. In terms of competitive dynamics, we want to understand the value of the company's product or service to customers and the strength of its competitive moat. From an industry perspective, we ideally want to see long-term sustainable growth and secular tailwinds. —James Crichton, Scout Capital

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
One [of my more common mistakes] would be ignoring the potential impact of leverage. I know the effect goes both ways, but say you do a sum-of-the-parts analysis and think the assets of a company are worth $100. If the company has $70 of debt, overstating the asset value by only $10 makes the equity value go from $30 to $20. In the grand scheme of things, being 10 percent off isn't that big a mistake, but when there's heavy leverage, it is. —Jean-Marie Eveillard, First Eagle Funds

One element we've added to the tail end of our analytical process in recent years is to consider scenarios that could send the stock down 30 percent or more and we would not want to add substantially to our position. Common examples would be things like the loss of a giant customer, or market incursions from a powerful competitor. Given the outsized positions we take, we want in a disciplined way to contemplate those scenarios up front and pass on the investment if they're even somewhat likely. —Kian Ghazi, Hawkshaw Capital

HOW IMPORTANT IS MANAGEMENT?
Making judgments about management is important to us and something I think value managers tend to underweight. You can analyze something statistically, but if you expect to own it for 10 years, management is going to make thousands of decisions you can't predict and may never even know about, which collectively make earnings compound at a rate more or less than they would have otherwise. Those things can add up over time to the difference between a great performer and an also-ran. —Boykin Curry, Eagle Capital
I'm at a stage in my career where I'd say human behavior is the most important determinant of a business's long-term success. I don't care how smart an analyst you are, you can't really know what's going on inside a business. We want to invest not only in highly capable managers, but also those with clear track records of integrity and acting in shareholders' best interest. —Chuck Akre, Akre Capital Management

I don't think you can spend too much effort trying to understand the quality of management—at the end of the day, it's the most important investment criterion. I've learned over time that great management teams deliver positive surprises and bad ones deliver negative surprises. —Lee Ainslie, Maverick Capital (maybe judge this by assessing historical skew of surprises)
I think I've been in the top five percent of my age cohort almost all my adult life in understanding the power of incentives, and yet I've always underestimated that power. —Charlie Munger, Poor Charlie's Almanack

We're looking for managers who have demonstrated they are killers at business execution, and who have a history of always acting in the best interests of all shareholders. I'm not interested, for example, in CEOs who appear personally greedy. I frequently ask CEOs how they measure success. They often speak about meeting the needs of their various constituencies, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the community. Many have said they measure their success by the rise in the share price. The closer they get to saying they measure success by growth in the company's real economic value per share, the more interested I am. —Chuck Akre, Akre Capital Management

The most important discussion we have with management is when we ask how they allocate capital. You can usually pick out the empire builders with that question alone—they tend to have a hard time zeroing in on a concrete answer. The best managers can usually say clearly and with confidence where they see the highest return-on-invested-capital opportunities and what they expect those returns to be. They also are typically smart about buying back their shares—not just on some systematic basis, but opportunistically when they believe the shares are cheap. —Robert Williamson, Williamson McAree Investment Partners

RED FLAGS
There's just a huge amount of skill in exposition. Part of being a wise person is resisting the other person's expository—to know nonsense when you see it. If you're like me, you can conceal your contempt for the person even as they speak. —Charlie Munger, 2006 Wesco Annual Meeting

[Girish · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am India based value investor. I am always looking for good value investing books and buy those when I find one. I have read scores of books on value investing and that makes learning anything substantially new difficult proposition. There is only so much you can learn new when you have read Ben Graham's two books, Margin of safety by Seth Klarman, Philip fisher's Coomon stock uncommon profits, Joel Greenblatt's books, Peter Lynch etc. But this book has something for every level of investor from novice to professional. The author has talked to hundreds of value investors old and new and compiled their wisdom and thought process into this book. This book is literally encyclopedia of value investing tips and best practices....period. You are spoiled by the choice.
Perosnally I learnt many new best practices and methods after reading this book. This learning is going to help me for life time I reckon.
Cons- After reading this book your head will spin. The book is organised as series of tips form scores of investors and this is done for every facet of investment...hunting for ideas, qualititaive data, Paying for growth, screens to be used and so on and so forth. It goes on and on. You will find one investor saying he does not care for management quality imemdiately after some one had said he does not invest unless management is good. Same goes for small cap Vs large cap, Cigar Butt Vs Good quality business at reasonable price, Macro outlook Vs company specific outlook. The novice investors may get paralized after reading these contradictory reccomendations. But this is great asset for experienced investors who are looking for variety of perspectives and who can pick and choose what they find suitable. I am greateful to author for making this all wisdom available to me in one book.
All in all I would strongly reccomend this book to all fundamental investors. I can assure it will be good value for your money. You will find at least one bit of wisdom that you were not aware of and something which you can use that very day. In fact I would go further and claim...you will not find serious value investor who has not read this book...5 or 10 years down the line. May become bit of a classic I guess.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great collection of quotes from some of the great minds in finance. This book doesn't have much practical application unless you work in the financial industry or are an active stock trader who deals in individual stocks. I did not get much out of it, personally.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book of quotes, nice as a side not for some inspiration from time to time.

[InvestingByTheBooks.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I opened up this book my initial reaction was disappointment. It almost exclusively consists of a collection of quotations from the monthly magazine Value Investors Insight. The obvious risk with a “cut-and-paste-set up” like this is that, however excellent the magazine is, it will not give you the needed coherence for a book. John Heins and Whitney Tilson are the cofounders of Value Investors Insight, where the former is the Editor-in- Chief. Tilson is also as most would know, a well- known value investor in his own right. The concept is simple; line up the questions that should be answered in order to create a well thought out investment philosophy and an effective investment process. Then let a number of investors give their answers. This means that each question gets several and often contradictory answers. The reader gets to benefit from insight from superstars like Seth Klarman, Howard Marks, David Einhorn, Jim Chanos and many others. As the book is sorted by topic and not by investor one shouldn’t expect to get a comprehensive picture of the process of any one of those individual investors. However, the reader gets to survey a ton of the hard won insights various seasoned investors have made over their careers.

So does this book give you the distilled collective wisdom of successful practitioners or is it just sketchy snippets without context? Is it a multiple choice menu that allows you to compose your own perfect meal or a recipe for confusion? As so many times before I have to side with James Montier, who in the endorsements of the book states that “I often judge a book by how many times I get my highlighter out and dog-ear pages. On that metric, this book is wonderful”. My marker pen did some ridiculously heavy work while I was reading this text. Halfway through the book my initial skepticism had been converted into a feeling of having found a goldmine. It’s a lively debate between many of the persons we should all listen to when it comes to improving our investing practice. At times, when several persons give roughly the same answer to a question, it gets slightly repetitive, but at the same time this tells you something. At other times the answers differ and the reader is given great granularity on how that particular topic can be handled.

The topics are presented in an order that is well suited for the formulation and execution of an investment process. It’s logically consistent and it’s all very relevant. The book goes through how to position yourself within value investing with various degrees of focus on quality, growth or just on plain cheap stocks; where to compete with consideration to the skills you got and with the areas and strategies to match; how to search for investment ideas; thoughts on how to do research with all its nuances and choices; and it gives a detailed run through of how to build a portfolio, i.e. position sizing, risk management etc. The chapter that really spoke to me was “Why to sell”. The quotation on the introduction page to the chapter reads “Standard descriptions of the selling discipline typically include: (1) We sell when our thesis for the stock has been realized; (2) We sell when the fundamentals significantly change; and (3) We sell opportunistically when we identify better uses of our capital. These are fine reasons for selling a stock, but they don’t particularly suggest strategic thinking.” Well, in slightly different words, that’s the three bullet points we use to explain when we sell stocks! In reality the process for selling winners should differ from selling losers, the process of selling a franchise type stock should be different from selling a cigar but- type stock and there should also be a finely tuned balance between swapping out portfolio holdings for stocks with better prospects and the benefit of holding on to cases that you really know (and minimize trading costs).

The Art of Value Investing is packed with insights. The reader gets the “greatest hits” from 8 years or so of reading Value Investing Insight, and this roughly for the price of one month’s subscription. Clearly something for the value investor!

[Firsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was surprisingly good, my kind of book. Because it has endless quotes from various investors, covering all topics in investing one could think of. Such as thoughts about risk, portfolio concentration vs diversification, short selling, what value investing actually is, growth, industries (sectors), turnarounds, assessing management, stock selection... I strongly feel like I'll want to re-visit this title, not just listen to it but perhaps give it a go in epub as well, because surely it is worthy of note-taking and highlighting. The quotes are on rapid fire mode (and make up like 90% of the book) and one normal listen doesn't do it justice. I frankly don't understand the low rating here, perhaps people are more used to books with an overarching story arc or delving deep into a single topic? Or perhaps they were expecting to be convinced of the cigar-butt approach? This is anything but, and it's rare to read (or listen to) a value investing book without being fully engulfed in Graham and Doddsville. I simply felt that all important topics are covered by every possible angle, meaning the interviewees or quoted persons don't necessarily agree all the time. You are free to pick who or what approach you like best, then look them up and lean more from them. It was great to recognize Howard Marks quotes even before the attribution named him.

[Pedro Zagury · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. A compilation of quotes of successful value investors, offering their take on different aspects of investing. As they disagree among each other, it's a great source of insights and offers a chance for the reader to make up his own mind on these aspects (concentration, idea generation, timing, etc).

[Sy. C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Largely a collection of quotes and bite sized insights from respected investors in the business. Good book to have on the shelf as a source of self discipline on those days when irrationality beckons.

[Jatin Singhal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won't recommend reading this book unless you have a good hand on the investing concepts.
My complete review can be found on my blog, here:
https://yoursnitin.wordpress.com/2020...

[Toby Bond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad book, some of the advice is repetitive but essentially the underlying approach is to be skeptical, remove emotion from analysis & your trades and in a way automate your investing approach wholly based on the long view gameplan.

[Denny Troncoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great one for investors and entrepreneurs. I listened to audio and am buying physical to keep as quick reference. Filled with nuggets by so many investors. One thing that stood out, there is no right way to invest but there are different right ways.

[Gordon Lindstrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a series of quotes from various investment advisors and guru's. Interesting to see how they think and react to the various market conditions.

[Rakesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

good read, quotes from value investors

[Skywalker Hu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes it’s a bit too abstract. However, it’s still useful. I wish more concrete advice is given.

[Joel Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

HAVING THE PATIENCE AND DISCIPLINE TO SAVE YOUR CASH FOR WHEN THE FAT PITCHES COME ALONG IS PROBABLY THE MOST VALUABLE TRAIT AN INVESTOR CAN HAVE.

The exact same thing doesnt always work over and over again - the market is too smart for that.

The second important way of having a margin of safety is to have more than one way to win, through earnings growth, multiple expansion or free options in the business.

By controlling risk and limiting loss through extensive fundamental analysis, strict discipline and endless patience, value investors can expect good results and limited downside.

The future is uncertain - invest accordingly.

The real secret to investing is that there is no secret.

Smaller to mid-sized companies are generally easier to understand.

The distinguishing attribute among successful investors is temperament, rather than brainpower, experience or classroom training. They have the ability to be rational when others are not.

There is a clarity that comes with great ideas - you can explain why its a great business and why its cheap.

If you look at sports history, the champions have usually been the best defensive teams, not those with the most exciting offences.

We dont like management focused on the share price, at a lot of investment conferences or having lavish offices.

If I have to contact management to have something important explained, there is something wrong.

On investment committees where everyone has to agree you end up with ideas that dont offend anyone, which are not likely to be very good.

The world doesnt end when we pass on a borderline investment that later works out. The danger we seek to avoid is the temptation or pressure to make too many borderline investments that later turn out badly.

[David Glad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The wisdom in it is awesome, but the coherence just did not do it for me. It really seemed like it could have just been a series of blog posts organized entirely different from the book.. I loved John Train's The Money Masters specifically because it profiled each person individually rather than meshing them together upon some investment aspect. (Which given so many personalities means it sounds contradictory.. even if among the passages are that well-informed argument is encouraged by many investment managers to minimize the survival of the bad ideas.. if that was this author's intention.) As a consequence of Wikipedia and similar investment wikis, you probably will not see many books like The Money Managers these days becoming bestsellers due to too much breadth and the relative lack of depth failing to reach the intended audience.

Plus side is the scatterbrain nature of quotes means whether you have 30 seconds or 30 minutes, you can pore through some of the audiobook whenever you have a moment.

Still probably worth having in your collection if you have an appreciation for this subject.

[Brian Zheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book consisted of a collection of quotes from some most reputable value investors in the world, such as Seth Klarman, Howard Marks, and Will Browne. The book is arranged neatly topic by topic, for example, the size of the bet and when to sell. One thing learned form the book is value investing is more of a mindset and principle than a fixed playbook. Different investor has different field and style they prefer.

[Frank Jerome · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book extracts the knowledge of the greatest value investors and categorizes it in a way that creates a great contextual philosophy. It reminds me of Lawrence Cunningham's Essays from Warren Buffett. Great read, highly recommend.

[Tirath · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a great compilation of other investors' quotes over the years.
That's it.
So, while there are things to mark and highlight, that's about it.
At no point during the book does one really sit back and wonder.
But Tilson is an interesting chap, so one ought to get his book.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impressive collection of famous value investors' thoughts on various key topics, from investor psychology and stock selection to risk management. A gold mine of ideas. That made me want to learn more about all of them. Thank you Steve Forbes for recommending this book.

[Tim Laukka · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Art of Value investing had several good insights, but I thought it was too much of short, 2-3 sentence quips from various professional investors. I was hoping for more of an in-depth review of value investing.

[Danilo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro que contiene varios puntos de vista de los principales inversionistas que practican el "value investing"

Ofrece un panorama general de estrategias a desarrollar no sólo en el mercado de valores sino también en el mundo de los negocios.

[Youngju · Rating 5 out of 5]

another must read book

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great compilation of information from a diverse array of value investors. Seeing different philosophies for the same questions all in one place is a fantastic way to learn.