What have David Rosenberg and Seth Klarman got in common? Diddly squat as far as I know, except they wrote the best two things I’ve read in the last few days.

Robert Shiller and John Campbell initially published on P/E Ratio predicting later real returns in this 1988 paper. In 1996 Shiller followed up the research with this easily digestible paper on the topic. In summary he found that the random walk theory does not look right and that current valuations have a strong predictive ability for future long term returns. Over the short term noise prevents prediction, whereas over the long term, ten years, current valuation levels are predictive of future returns.

As I have said before the voting machine should be used for the short term, the weighing machine for the long term.

This excellent article exemplifies a style of fusion investing, the fusion of business momentum and value.

When is price the same as value?

I have subscribed to dozens of investment newsletters and sites over the years and used to read newspapers. What follows are my opinions based on past experience, the publications mentioned may have changed since I subscribed.

While my US tool belt is full, I’m still working on my Australian belt. These sites just made it through the preliminary round. Give it up for Earnings Calendars!
First up M* Corporate Calendar. It’s easy to use. Select your event and other criteria along the top. For example if you want 2010 Interim earnings reports for February , then select those criteria from the drop down lists.
Egoli present their earnings calendar via Google calendar. It’s attractive, but as only three companies are shown on one day it makes searching for a particular …

“With small companies, you’re better off to wait until they turn a profit before you invest.” Peter Lynch – 20 Golden Rules
Investing without profits is playing with fire.

It’s that time of the year again. How did you investments perform in 2009?

Concentrate to accumulate, diversify to protect.
When you diversify do it via a broad index or specific individuals, who through careful analysis you judge to be extremely competent and capable of significantly* outperforming the index.

There’s a chance that I’m being revisionist, but I think Inch Worm that started me on my investing path. When I discovered that if I kept doubling I soon got to 1000 (1024 to be exact) and as that was one thousand, I therefore knew the entire doubling number series for all the numbers I knew, 500 trillion in 49 doubles.

The most important double to me was always the last one. That final iteration doubled all my previous doubles, no matter how long I had been doubling. Starting at 1 it takes nine doubles to get to 512, while the next iteration by itself would add 512 more. That always seemed phenomenal to me and it was that final double that I learnt to focus on and not the first double from 1 to 2.