Warren Buffett's annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders is to the investing world what the Super Bowl is to Las Vegas.
Which is to say: It's big.
So this story begins
When Buffett talks, we, for two, listen.
Inspired by the 2007 Berkshire shareholder letter, Tim sat down and wrote "5 Potential Buffett Picks," an article pointing out five stocks that met the criteria Buffett said he uses to pick stocks or businesses to buy for Berkshire.
Today, that screen produces names such as Urban Outfitters (Nasdaq: URBN), Panera Bread (Nasdaq: PNRA), and Fastenal (Nasdaq: FAST). For those who don't recall (we know it's a small number; indulge us), it looked for the following five traits:
These are substantial, growing, financially healthy, well-run, easy-to-understand businesses -- a pretty alluring combination, if we do say so ourselves.
"Invert, always invert"
That market wisdom comes courtesy Buffett's right-hand man, Berkshire Vice Chairman Charles Munger, who's paraphrasing the German mathematician Carl Jacobi. And what Jacobi-cum-Munger means is that to truly solve a problem, you have to both know the answer and know what the answer is not.
Today, in that spirit, we want to invert -- to see what happens when we look for companies with characteristics directly opposite the "Buffett criteria," which he restated in the 2008 Berkshire letter. We believe it's fair to call these the stocks Buffett won't be buying next.
These anti-Buffett picks will thus have:
And here are two names that appear on that ignominious list:
Company
Earnings Before Taxes (in millions)*
Return on Equity*
% Owned by Insiders
Industry
Itron (Nasdaq: ITRI)
$22
1%
0.6%
Electronic Equipment
Diodes (Nasdaq: DIOD) Continued... |