Mosaic: Perspectives on Investing

by Mohnish Pabrai

Book by Mohnish Pabrai

Genres: Finance, Business, Nonfiction, Economics

138 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Mohnish Pabrai is an Indian-American businessman, investor and philanthropist. In his Pabrai Investment Fund, which is a family of hedge funds inspired by Buffett Partnerships, he successfully manages over 500 million of assets and consistently achieves above-average rates of return.

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting collection of Mohnish Pabrai's writings for various sites like The Motley Fool, TheStreet.com and Silicon India Magazine in the early 2000s. It's intriguing to read these articles today, looking back at a completely different investing environment, and it's especially intriguing to see Pabrai internalize the wisdom of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger through the act of writing these articles. You can also see the early gestation of some of the ideas that later formed Pabrai's excellent book The Dhandho Investor.

Don't expect a coherent narrative type of book here however, this is a collection of articles, it's not a "book" per se. Still, very worth reading for any investor interested in some good "bootleg" Pabrai.

[Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best investment book I’ve read. It’s a strong review of the fundamentals brought down to their essence.

Must read. You can also find it for free in Mohnishs website. Google is your friend.

[Senthil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Collection of writings of Mohnish Pabrai, who practices value investing to the core by copying Warren and Charlie's framework so it always feels great to read and get to know how he thinks and act.

[Grigory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful book (collection of articles really). Not everything proved to be correct (i.e. Microsoft did grow its market cap, and it is possible to be a retailer so big that no one can copy you)

some takeaways:
- Retail is usually a terrible business because you can't hide anything from your competitors (they can just come). You can only create a business in a niche, and then make some money until competitors come in.
- An airline is usually a bad business because your price is determined more or less by the dumbest and most desperate competitor
- for a simplified valuation you can do discounted 10 cashflows plus book value instead of implying eternal growth (first high rate and then 2.5%) and eternal existence.

[Nilesh P S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mohnish has embraced simplicity just like his teacher Buffet has. His valuation of Microsoft, Cisco and Intel during the aftermath of 2000 crash was spot on, and goes on to show how a margin of safety is always necessary even when making "sure bets". It would be interesting to see this book updated with his latest work.

[Florian Bögge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mohnish really wants you to understand intrinsic value and free cash flow. This is a bulletproof instruction on how to calculate these values. You can find this book for free on his blog chai with pabrai.

[Denny Troncoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s short and pointed, however the tips are timeless and a must for investors to grasp. Some you may have heard before but still worth listening from Mohnish. I read on his site chaiwithpabrai under articles for free. Enjoy.

[Iliya Polihronov · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice collection of articles by Mohnish, but I think there’s nothing much to learn here that you can’t get from his other book ( the dhandho investor ).

[Pedro Zagury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection of articles by Mohnish, though it gets a bit repetitive in the end... No new insights, mainly Buffet & Munger's framework.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read-informative

[Praneesh K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of articles. Ode to Pabrai’s guru WB.

[Jeevesh Saxena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Light read, well compiled.

[Jason Orthman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick, easy read of a collection of articles written in the early 2000's. Some good stories and often, some good insights into how to simplify your thought process around investing.

[Sanford Chee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yellow Stone Park is a volcano. a/c for Black Swan tt Yellow Stone c/d blow up resulting in permanent k loss. So need at least 2x return to compensate for the slim chance of loss. Thou shalt not use Excel. If it’s too tough to fig. out, it’s a pass.

Thou shalt not short. Life is short you don’t need that vexation. Have fun focussing on the winners rather than obsessing over the sinners.

Offshoring & technology: what if the World is deflationary?

“Companies tt obsess on making the numbers are likely to make up the numbers.” -Warren Buffett

Do retailers truly have a moat? Costco’s culture?
What is the competitive advantage & why can’t it be whittled away?

Understand a company's DNA/Culture
How HP lost its way - hiring the wrong CEO, merging w/ Compaq & the subsequent culture clash
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carly_F...

Investing is about making a series of observations about a given business & developing a theory/hypothesis about what it's going to do in the future.

How to prevent Enronitis?
Invest w/i circle of competence: (1) understand the biz; (2) mgmt I admire & trust (read conference call transcripts to get a sense of how straight forward mgmt is during Q&A); (3) accounting w/o the fudge factor

Evaluating a great business:
1. Does it have recurrent revenue streams? e.g. large install base ready for upgrade; SAAS; high switching costs etc.
2. Pricing power: how easy or tough is it to raise prices?
3. Some sort of Monopoly or Oligopoly type market positioning or strong competitive moats
4. Strong franchise/brand that gives it insulation from most competitors

[Gabriel Pinkus · Rating 5 out of 5]

AWESOME BOOK! I'm very excited to re-read this tomorrow and take extensive notes before I have to return it! A must-read!!!

[bookreader · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of serialized articles is a repetitive, poorly edited first draft of "The Dhandho Investor" that is strictly for fanboys.