Successful investment case studies

I think this has been asked before, but does anyone know of a resource that includes examples of successful investment case studies? Stock or bond was trading at X, Y happened, therefore it was successful, resulting in Z price appreciation – that sort of thing. I’m looking for examples of real investments across any industry current or historical. I could pull data and run an analysis on historically successful stocks myself (with considerable effort), so I am looking for something as prepackaged as possible if that exists.

I have never heard of any resources like this – any advice appreciated. I don’t mind paying as long as the cost is not excessive.

Thanks.

Let me know when you find out tooo…

I figured someone would say that. I’m pretty sure that none exist. Has anyone read any Havard Business School case studies that are relevant? numi?

HBS…case studies…value investing…

Have you seen Seth Klarman’s (HBS alum) “Margin of Safety”? This is somewhat of a rhetorical question, but I think it’s an excellent source for investment reflections among other things.

I’m not aware of case studies published by HBS for the specific purpose of value investing though. I mean, there are other case studies that are designed in a versatile fashion so they can be used for value investing instruction, such as the Polaroid case study for example (it’s used for strategy, marketing, and finance cases…probably among other things). However, the thing about HBS case studies is that students only get to read one thing, whereas the professor gets another set of instructions that are specifically designed for them to lead the case with respect to the class that they’re teaching. I don’t think students normally have access to these “professor guides,” but I guess if you just look at the stock chart and compare it with the chronology as described in the HBS case write-ups, you can put it together. I hadn’t thought about doing this in the past, but it may be a useful exercise…it’s just not written for the express purpose of value investing teaching, which I’m guessing is what you’re asking about.

Yes, I am looking for a value investing “guide” in a sense in the form of case studies. Margin of Safety is a good book but it talks a lot more about theory than specific examples (there are a few but the examples are pretty basic and do not include financial statements). I still think the cases would help to some extent for anyone willing to put in the work, but that is just my guess – I haven’t actually read any. Cases in Competitive Strategy is a pretty good book by Michael Porter, but again, not really value investing so much as structural issue case studies.

You could read Hagstrom’s book on Buffet, that has some case studies. But most people have read it already.

Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond

Margin of Safety (I’d link you, of course, but it’s about $900 for a used copy…). It does actually have some pretty good examples - if memory serves, there’s an entire chapter on Jamaica Savings Bank and the other thrift conversions that Klarman owned.

Would also suggest looking at Whitman’s Value Investing: A Balanced Approach and The Aggressive Conservative Investor. Those aren’t as good as the first two, but still worth a look.

I also enjoyed, on the short side of things, Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story by Einhorn.

A pdf is available for MoS, Chad sent it to me, lemme know…

I haven’t read the two books supersad recommended, but most books I have read don’t offer much in the way of case studies. I guess real world case studies it is – probably look at what was up the most and down the most in prior years and see what I can learn from those.

bromion – I routinely look at high-quality investment write-ups from the past and see how they compare with actual stock performance, and then use the best performing calls as “best practices” to inform my own write-ups. It isn’t that time consuming and it’s quite fun for me.

Also, I wanted to let you know that I’ve developed another investment write-up recently. It’s for a $300mm company, primarily in services and having used a roll-up growth strategy which I think is going to run out of steam. I think it’s in line with the type of stuff you invest in and I’d be curious to hear any feedback and thoughts from you. I’ll send it to you later tonight.

Great, send me an email. I’m always looking for stuff like that and will dig into it on my end. Thanks!

I guess, also, when I said time consuming, I was looking at it from an incremental perspective – so busy already, it’s hard to find consistent time to do more, so I’m always looking for efficiency. But yes, point taken.