Mohnish Pabrai Interview

InvestorGuide.com interviews value investor Mohnish Pabrai and it's definitely worth your time reading it.

I'm not as familiar with Pabrai as with other value players -- Meryl Witmer, Peter Cundill, Mason Hawkins and Marty Whitman are the ones I follow most closely. But Pabrai certainly has a top-notch record. And his new book, The Dhando Investor, is getting lots of buzz in value investing circles. Several people I trust have read it and recommend it highly.

Comments

[Amit Chokshi]

Pabrai is the closest heir apparent to Buffett IMO. I think the mental "programming" of guys like him and Greenblatt are difficult to emulate but I follow their concentrated value strategy as well.

[John]

Amit: Agreed. I think it's a waste of time to try to emulate the thinking of a successful investor. And that's apart from the fact that if they run a fund or partnership (and you can afford the minimums) you can just put money in their investment vehicle.

This reminds me of two things I've repeated here.

First is Walter Schloss saying that you never really know a stock until you own it. And the second is Peter Cundill saying that investing is as much art as science.

[Alex]

Thanks for the link. I agree with your comments about blind emulation. Pabrai actually referenced a period where he simply bought and held; as he acknowledged, he was lucky to avoid a 75% loss of appreciation.

Jeff Matthews posted an interesting series about the last Berkshire Hathaway meeting. He concluded with the observation that it would have been paradoxical to Buffett's main axiom, Be Rational, to elevate the man to a cult status.

[John]

Alex: The Matthews series on the last Berkshire meeting is fascinating stuff.