Value Investor Blog Weekly Reading List

Every week we will list columns, blog posts, mutual funds shareholder letters and research papers which can be of interest to value investors.
Feel free to send your own readings ideas using the blog comments.

Here is today the first issue today for the VIB Weekly Reading List for the week ending Dec. 3rd.

Investopedia column on Overcoming Compounding's Dark Side is a clear illustration backed by few simple examples of Warren Buffet famous quote: "The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule".

Jim Cramer explains how to be a contrarian . I'm not a big fan of his kind of "contrarianism" which is based almost exclusively on short term analyst earnings expectations. Though we are not brothers in our investing process we may somehow cousins after all.

Associated Press have a look at the stagnant paper industry . Sentiment is poor and Wall Street, as usual, discounts present poor prospects in the future. After stock market euphoria starting last summer this is one of the few industries where you may still find some interesting value or deep value candidates.

Bill Cara has an interesting comment on whole stock market valuation . We share his prudence though huge flow of private equity and leveraged buyout money together with a benign economic environment still provide some kind of support to stock market.

Nicholas Yulico, a reporter at TheStreet.com, writes a textbook of analysis of BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ) . It's a pitty that same has been published only about ten days after a 9% spike on the stock.
His insightful column demonstrates that it's a good idea to concentrate your research a bit more on balance sheet items and a little bit less on the cents and pennies per share on the quarterly earnings figures.
At VIB we believe that discovering under rated balance sheet items provides at the same time a margin of safety on your investments and above average returns.