Lauren Templeton on Global Value Investing the 'Templeton Way' (video)

Lauren Templeton: "Investing the Templeton Way"

Talks at Google video above originally published March 6, 2017.

This talk covered the subjects of global value investing and behavioral finance through the lens of a practitioner. Ms. Templeton spoke on the subject with an eye towards both beginners and practitioners, while sharing valuable lessons learned from her great-uncle, Sir John Templeton.

Notes below provided with the video as of the date of publication:

Lauren C. Templeton is the founder and president of Templeton & Phillips Capital Management, LLC  (domain: templetonandphillips.com); a value investing boutique located in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Ms. Templeton received a B.A. in Economics from the University of the South. She is the founder and former president of the Southeastern Hedge Fund Association, Inc. based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a current member of the John M. Templeton Foundation established in 1987.

Lauren Templeton began investing as a child under the heavy influence of her father as well as her late great-uncle, Sir John Templeton. Professionally, Lauren began her career working with managed portfolios and investments in 1998, beginning as a junior associate at the financial advisor Homrich and Berg and later the hedge fund management company New Providence Advisors both of Atlanta.

In 2001, Lauren launched her own hedge fund management company which dedicates its efforts to the practice of value investing across the global markets using the same methods learned from her great-uncle. Ms. Templeton is also the co-author of, Investing the Templeton Way: The Market Beating Strategies of Value Investing Legendary Bargain Hunter, 2007, McGraw Hill, which has been translated into nine languages. Lauren lives in Chattanooga, with her husband, Scott Phillips, who is a portfolio manager of the Global Maximum Pessimism Fund and author of the investing book, Buying at the Point Maximum Pessimism: Six Value Investing Trends from China to Oil to Agriculture, 2010, FT Press, and co-author to the revised edition of The Templeton Touch, 2012, Templeton Press. Lauren and Scott produce a monthly investment report titled the Maximum Pessimism Report.

Maxims of John Templeton:

See also How To Invest $1,400 (Or Less) At The Point Of Maximum Pessimism | seekingalpha.com

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DISCLAIMER

Advertising and Offline Retail: A Better Way to Track Shoppers (video)

A Better Way to Track Shoppers Offline

Stanford Graduate School of Business video above published Oct 9, 2017: Stephan Seiler, Associate Professor of Marketing, Stanford Graduate School of Business

YouTube.com auto-generated transcript (w/ minor edits):
00:00  [Music]
00:18  off-line compared to online retail is
00:20  still actually a very large fraction of
00:22  consumer spending so although online is
00:24  growing quite dramatically as of now
00:27  essentially still about 90 percent of
00:29  total retail spending happens in the
00:31  offline world and firms are still trying
00:33  to figure out how to best promote
00:35  products how to best run a price
00:37  promotions things of that sort and so we
00:40  wanted to go back and see can we
00:42  actually use tools that we learned about
00:45  it in the online world better types of
00:47  measurement and can we bring that back
00:48  through your flying world and try to
00:50  track things better so we know if I run
00:57  an ad online
00:58  I typically can track did somebody click
01:00  on it did it again to go to my website
01:01  how much they spend all this linkage is
01:04  much closer and those are often things
01:06  that we don't observe in the offline
01:07  world right so an online retailer would
01:09  know how did this consumer get to the
01:12  product you're ultimately purchased we
01:13  can observe browsing with a lot of
01:15  precision. Offline does usually no
01:17  equivalent traditionally we weren't able
01:18  to see how did somebody walk through the
01:20  store how did they actually get to the
01:22  specific aisle where they then picked up
01:23  products and so what we do in the study
01:26  is we actually bring in a new
01:28  measurement tool that's going to mimic
01:30  the way we're gonna observe things
01:31  online in the offline world and in
01:33  particular what we're going to do is
01:34  we're gonna rig consumer shopping carts
01:37  if you will with so-called radio
01:38  frequency identification tags which
01:40  worked like a GPS tracker that allow us
01:42  to track exactly how does somebody walk
01:44  through the store which category is
01:46  godigo? do they walk past what do they
01:48  eventually end up purchasing
01:50  [Music]
01:54  if in a particular week the supermarket
01:57  is running a beer ad do more people buy
02:00  a beer
02:00  that we were usually able to observe
02:02  even before but now we can also see did
02:04  actually more people go to the beer
02:06  aisle so did did that advertising
02:09  attract people to go to different part
02:11  was started they wouldn't have otherwise
02:12  gone to and then they made the purchase
02:14  if that's true then maybe this
02:16  advertising will have positive spillover
02:18  to other categories maybe people on
02:20  their way to the beer aisle are now
02:21  gonna pick up salty snacks other things
02:24  and so there's sort of anecdotally a lot
02:26  of that sense that we are gonna get
02:29  these kind of spillover effect so people
02:31  often talk about the fact that milk gets
02:33  stored in the back of the store
02:34  why because people buy it very
02:36  frequently and having it in the back of
02:38  the store makes them walk past a lot of
02:40  other categories and hence they might
02:42  pick up other things that they didn't
02:43  plan on buying on their way and so you
02:46  could imagine that advertising does
02:48  something very similar if advertising
02:49  allows me to divert traffic to other
02:51  parts of the store then maybe products I
02:54  pass on that way also gonna end up in my
02:56  purchase basket and so that was
02:59  something that we weren't usually able
03:00  to observe
03:01  [Music]
03:05  so for a store manager the good news
03:08  here is that advertising is quite
03:10  effective beyond just individual product
03:12  being advertised so what we find is that
03:14  when you advertise a particular brand of
03:16  beer sales go up in the beer category as
03:18  a whole and that increase comes partly
03:20  from the advertised brands but also goes
03:22  beyond that
03:23  so some consumers presumably just pick
03:26  up on effect beers being advertised
03:27  today they got reminded of I want to buy
03:30  beer and hence we seen increase in beer
03:31  sales and that's beyond the individual
03:34  product being advertised at the same
03:36  time we also find that the effect stops
03:38  there so to the extent that stores might
03:40  have to hope that driving more people to
03:43  the beer aisle through advertising will
03:45  then spill over into higher sales for
03:46  salty snacks or other categories that
03:49  are stocked nearby we find no evidence
03:51  for that whatsoever so we think so
03:53  things stop at the category level but
03:56  they go beyond individual product being
03:57  advertised and so hence as we think
04:00  about allocating advertising budget
04:02  thinking about effectiveness at the
04:04  level of the category rather than the
04:06  more narrow product level or the broader
04:08  store level seems to be the right way to
04:09  tackle that managerial decision
04:12  [Music]

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DISCLAIMER

MacroView: World's Central Bankers Doubling Down, Going For Broke?

Domain Mondo's new weekly review of  macro economic and investing news:

MacroView Feature • Doubling Down:"... it is capitalism itself that is threatened by the ongoing Martingale strategies of central banks. As central bank purchases grow, and negative/zero interest rate policies persist, they will increasingly inhibit capitalism from carrying out its primary function — the effective allocation of resources based upon return relative to risk ... This cannot end well."--Bill Gross. See also Bill Gross says global markets are one big casino created by central banks--MarketWatch.com.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.--William Butler Yeats

•  The 3 Things That Spook People about the Stock Market:

SkyBridge Capital [skybridgecapital.com] founder Anthony Scaramucci explains in the above video published Oct 3, 2016, by Fortune.com.

•  The TRUST Index: Trust is eroding away in markets | BusinessInsider.com. See also Backlash to World Economic Order Clouds Outlook at IMF Talks | Bloomberg.com and Perry Capital Closing Flagship Fund After Almost Three Decades | Bloomberg.com.

•  Bridgewater Ray Dalio's Long-Term Debt Cycle Charts--Ritholtz.com: "It is no longer controversial to say that: … this isn’t a normal business cycle and we are likely in an environment of abnormally slow growth … the current tools of monetary policy will be a lot less effective going forward … the risks are asymmetric to the downside … investment returns will be very low going forward, and … the impatience with economic stagnation, especially among middle and lower income earners, is leading to dangerous populism and nationalism."

•  Deutsche Bank (db.com | $DB $DBK): German minister accuses Deutsche Bank of making speculation its business--"I did not know if I should laugh or cry ... [Deutsche Bank] made speculation a business model [and] is now saying it is a victim of speculators."--German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel--Reuters.com  See also Crisis of Globalization Lies Behind Deutsche Bank’s Troubles | WSJ.com: "Deutsche has also paid a high price for its global ambitions ... it tried to buy market share through aggressive pricing, acquiring a reputation among its rivals as the “dumb money” in the market."

•  A weak British Pound means UK-based assets are attracting more and more attention from foreign investors, particularly investors with US$. As a result, the London Stock Exchange benchmark index FTSE100 is up, up, up:

•  Venture Capital: It is a pricing, not a value, game! "At the time of a VC investment, the VC wants to push today’s pricing for the company lower, so that he or she can get a greater share of the equity for a given investment in the company. Subsequent to the investment, the VC will want the pricing to go higher for two reasons. First, it makes the unrealized returns on the VC portfolio a much more attractive number. Second, it also means that any subsequent equity capital raised will dilute the VC’s ownership stake less ... This is a business where success is measured less on the quality of the companies that you build (in terms of the cash flows and profits they generate) and more on the price you paid to get into the business and the price at which you exit this business, with that exit coming from either an IPO or a sale. Consequently, how much you are willing to pay for something becomes a process of judging what you will get when you exit and working backwards."--aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com.

•  Venture Capital hits a wall in Q3 as investments tumble 28% YOY: "According to a new report from the National Venture Capital Association, startups in the U.S. raised $15 billion in venture capital during the third quarter ending September, down 28.6 percent from $21 billion for the same period one year ago."--VentureBeat.com

•  Election 2016: One mashup of recent polls has Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump but remember that the Financial Times poll tracker ahead of the Brexit vote had “Remain” up by 2 points the day of the referendum. Betting odds have recently had Clinton at a 75% chance of winning; they had “Remain” at 85% the day before that vote. The USC Dornsife / LATimes.com daily tracking poll, on the other hand, for weeks has shown Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton. Consensus is that Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, won the VP Debate. Remaining Presidential debates: October 9th and October 19th (both are 9:00-10:30 pm EDT). Watch online here.

Q3 2016 Earnings Season--companies on Domain Mondo's coverage list:

1. Alibaba BABA
2. Alphabet GOOG
3. Amazon AMZN
4. Apple AAPL
5. Facebook FB
6. GoDaddy GDDY
7. Neustar NSR
8. Rightside NAME
9. Twitter TWTR
10. Verisign VRSN

Q3 2016 preview:  For Q3 2016, the estimated earnings decline for the S&P 500 is -2.1%. If the index reports a decline in earnings for Q3, it will mark the first time the index has recorded six consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines in earnings since FactSet.com began tracking the data in Q3 2008--read more here (pdf).

Two More Reading Recommendations: 

1. It's Time We Crush the Putrid Roach Motels of Philanthro-Crony-Capitalism, Starting with the Clinton Foundation--CharlesHughSmith.blogspot.com
2. Why thousands of millionaires don’t pay federal income taxes--WashingtonPost.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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Interview With Professor Burt Malkiel, A Randown Walk Down Wall Street

Interview With Burt Malkiel: Masters in Business (Audio) by Bloomberg View

Interviewed by Barry Ritholtz, Burton Malkiel is Chairman’s Professor of Economics at Princeton University. Professor Malkiel served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers (1975–1977), president of the American Finance Association (1978), and Dean of the Yale School of Management (1981–1988). He was a director for the Vanguard Group vanguard.com for 28 years. Currently, he is Chief Investment Officer to software-based financial advisor, Wealthfront wealthfront.com. He is best known for A Random Walk Down Wall Street, now in its 11th edition, with over 1.5 million copies sold.

Malkiel discusses a wide range of topics from how he urged the creation of index funds to why “a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by the experts.”

Particularly interesting for all types of investors, traders, marketers, sellers, and buyers, are Professor Malkiel's comments about pricing and prices, markets and valuations, including in the context of the dot-com bubble. Audio release date: 25 May 2016

Investing: A Random Talk With Malkiel - Bloomberg Gadfly: "... Are high-dividend stocks more risky than bonds? Traditionally, yes. If you look in terms of traditional risk measures, they are more risky, but in my view investors are going to be much better off. 
You famously wrote that a blindfolded chimpanzee could select a portfolio that would do as well as any expert. How do you reconcile that view with Buffett’s long-standing success as a stock picker?
Warren Buffett has in his will instructed his widow to invest in index funds, which means that’s what Warren Buffett would do.
How do you invest your money? 
I invest my own money largely in index funds."

2/ Decided I wanted to work on Wall St, so I picked up Burt Malkiel's "Random Walk..." & got my hands on all Buffett's investment letters

— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) February 29, 2016

Youtube video of Dr. Burton Malkiel: what an individual investor should be doing in the event that their investment portfolio is underperforming in the short term (published Aug 26, 2015).

Burton Malkiel is still an indexing fan, but a ‘smart beta’ skeptic https://t.co/e1adrP7wwI via @WSJ

— DrivingTheDay (@DrivingTheDay) May 28, 2016

Tweets by @Wealthfront

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DISCLAIMER

ICANN, DNS Abuse, New gTLDs: Bad Policy, Horribly Implemented

ICANN Questionnaire: Measuring DNS Abuse in New gTLDs:
[note: first 5 questions not included as they only asked for contact information of the person answering the questionnaire]

ICANN is seeking input on the effectiveness of nine safeguards put in place prior to the launch of the New gTLD Program that are intended to mitigate abusive, malicious and criminal behavior in the Domain Name System. In particular, ICANN is looking for ways to measure the effectiveness of these safeguards, which include:

1. Vetting registry operators
2. Requirement for DNSSEC deployment
3. Requirement for Thick WHOIS records
4. Prohibition of “wild carding”
5. Removal of orphan glue records
6. Centralization of Zone file access
7. Abuse contact and documented anti-abuse policy requirements for registries and registrars
8. Availability of expedited registry security request process
9. High-security zone verification

Please answer the questions below to the best of your knowledge and from your own perspective.

6. Which activities do you consider to be DNS abuse?

Answer: Launching hundreds of unwanted, unneeded new gTLDs into the global DNS has to be DNS abuse problem #1 of which the known perpetrator is ICANN itself (along with a few hucksters hoping to make money by exploiting trademark owners and domain name registrants generally), while the victims are businesses, registrants, and the entire global internet community. What has been the effect of ICANN's new gTLDs? Financially failing gTLDs, predatory pricing, malware, rampant cybercrime and trademark infringement, "shady" new gTLDs that "fail to work as expected on the internet" (universal acceptance, collisions, etc.), resulting in reputable security firms advising their clients to block new gTLDs "wholesale" in order to protect the safety, stability, and security of their networks and users.

7. If you could put forth a globally accepted definition of DNS abuse, what would it be? This definition should be broad enough to cover various malicious uses of the DNS.

Answer: Misuse and abuse of the global domain name system (DNS) by ICANN, TLD registry operators, registrars, registrants, or others having access to the DNS.

8. In your opinion, what are the most effective methods to measure the prevalence of abusive activities in the DNS?

Answer: Measure which TLDs are being blocked "wholesale" by network administrators and others globally for reasons of safety and security. Also measure which registry operators, registrars and registrants are connected to domains identified as having abusive activities. Contact firms like IID and Blue Coat to help ICANN staff begin to "understand and comprehend" the magnitude of the problem ICANN has created with its new gTLDs program, and the damage being inflicted upon the DNS and global internet community. ICANN's new gTLDs program is an example of "bad policy, 'horribly implemented.'"

9. As part of the New gTLD Program, ICANN introduced safeguards to mitigate potential DNS abuse in new gTLDs (listed above). How would you propose we measure the effectiveness of these safeguards?

Answer: Since ICANN itself is a source of the problem--see answer to #6 above--accordingly, "ICANN safeguards" were insufficient and ineffective from the start. If ICANN never had a clue how to measure the effectiveness of its own safeguards, ICANN should have never introduced new gTLDs.

10. What has been your experience, personally or on behalf of an organization, with these safeguards? Please tell us:
A. Which were and/or were not effective? How so and why do you believe they were or were not effective?
B. Are there safeguards that should have been included but were not?

Answer to 10A&B: My experience has been as a user of the internet, domain name registrant, and website developer/publisher/editor. ICANN's "safeguards" were ineffective and insufficient--see answers to #6, #7, #8, #9 above. ICANN's new gTLDs program--bad policy, horribly implemented--is a complete indictment of ICANN and its own peculiar form of the "multistakeholder model" of internet governance.

Submitted to ICANN February 1, 2016

See also on Domain Mondo:

• ICANN Insiders On New gTLDs: Mistakes, Fiascos, Horrible Implementation 
• Security Firm Recommends Blocking ICANN's "Shadiest" New gTLDs
• Cybersecurity Firm IID Predicts New gTLD Websites Will 'Go Dark'
• ICANN 54: New gTLDs Still Beg For Money, Claim Severe 'Implications'
• Blocking New gTLDs, ICANN's 'Shadiest' Top-level Domains, 'Wholesale'
• Housing Bubble Like New gTLDs Mania? The Big Short Trailer (video)
• New gTLD Domain Names, Defects, ICANN Liability, FTC Complaints
• Verisign, ICANN, Internet Root Zone, Risk Factors to the Root Domain
• ICANN, Domain Registry Operators, Monopoly, Antitrust, FTC Statement
• New gTLD Domains, the Walking Dead and Dying, ICANN FY15 Results
• ICANN is NOT a new gTLDs Marketing Agency: ICANN 53 Review, Part 3
• What Does That July 29th Deadline Mean For .brand TLD Applicants?
• The dot SUCKS Conundrum: ICANN, FTC, OCA, New gTLD Domains
• ICANN 52, Universal Acceptance, New gTLD Domain Names "break stuff"
• Why New gTLD Domain Names Fail To Work Across the Internet
• Will the IETF, RIRs, ccTLDs + Verisign Just Walk Away From ICANN?
• Google Just Killed The Last Remaining Rationale for New gTLD Domains
• ICANN Admits New gTLDs Compromise Internet Stability and Security
• ICANN Process for New gTLDs Dysfunctional -- from the beginning
• ICANN, New gTLD Domain Names, Universal Acceptance Another #FAIL
• Reason #2 Why New gTLD Domains Are a #FAIL
• Why ICANN's New gTLD Domains Are A #FAIL, Reason #1

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DISCLAIMER

ICANN, Domain Registry Operators, Monopoly, Antitrust, FTC Statement

"... the rights to .xyz will remain with the company he’s [Daniel Negari] set up in perpetuity, assuming it keeps paying its quarterly fees and isn’t in breach of contract by letting the domain name servers fail... “There is no cap on money that can be charged [for new gTLD domain name registrations]. It’s the amount the market can bear,” James Cole, ICANN’s global media coordinator. “We don’t impose a limit.”" (source: Fusion; emphasis added)

ICANN is a monopoly, and being a California corporation, is subject to US jurisdiction, including the jurisdiction of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). ICANN is also in the business of granting "monopolistic franchises" to operate gTLDs (generic top-level domains), with very little oversight or control as to how each of those monopolies conduct business. Monopolistic franchises are known to lead to predatory and monopolistic pricing practices with concomitant anti-competitive effects deleterious to consumers, including domain name registrants. FTC jurisdiction extends to all persons (including corporations) doing business in the United States, and conceivably this would include those in contractual privity with US-based ICANN (e.g., generic Top-level Domain Registry operators and ICANN-accredited domain name Registrars).

The mission of the FTC is to protect consumers and promote competition. Its enforcement powers are broad and varied. On August 13, 2015, the FTC issued a "Statement of Enforcement Principles" that describes the underlying antitrust principles that guide the Commission’s application of its statutory authority to take action against “unfair methods of competition” prohibited by Section 5 of the FTC Act but not necessarily by the Sherman or Clayton Act.

“The promotion of consumer welfare is a cornerstone of the FTC’s antitrust enforcement, and these principles reaffirm the agency’s legal framework in carrying out that important mission,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. “The statement formally aligns Section 5 with the Sherman and Clayton Acts.”

Statement of Enforcement Principles Regarding “Unfair Methods of Competition” Under Section 5 of the FTC Act (pdf):

"... In deciding whether to challenge an act or practice as an unfair method of competition in violation of Section 5 on a standalone basis, the Commission adheres to the following principles:

• the Commission will be guided by the public policy underlying the antitrust laws, namely, the promotion of consumer welfare;
• the act or practice will be evaluated under a framework similar to the rule of reason, that is, an act or practice challenged by the Commission must cause, or be likely to cause, harm to competition or the competitive process, taking into account any associated cognizable efficiencies and business justifications; and
• the Commission is less likely to challenge an act or practice as an unfair method of competition on a standalone basis if enforcement of the Sherman or Clayton Act is sufficient to address the competitive harm arising from the act or practice."

There was only one dissent to issuing the above FTC statement, Maureen K. Ohlhausen:

"Arming the FTC staff with this sweeping new policy statement is likely to embolden them to explore the limits of UMC" (note: UMC is Section 5 of the FTC Act’s prohibition of “unfair methods of competition”).

WSJ: "Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), top Democrat on a panel overseeing the FTC, called the guidance “historic” and said he hoped it would “lead to more frequent and effective enforcement actions to protect both consumers and businesses.”" (emphasis added)

As the editor of Domain Mondo has previously noted:

"... If ICANN was really interested in the "public interest" and protecting consumers (domain name registrants) [as well as "promoting competition"], instead of just being a "captured organization" of the new gTLDs lobby, it would: (a) require the fees for domain name registrations be disclosed in every new gTLD Registry Agreement (RA) for the entire term of the RA, with no variances allowed for sunrise, landrush, GA, or otherwise, and no price increases allowed during the RA term; (b) open each new gTLD at the end of every RA term, for competing bids by other registry operator applicants, with award to the bidder with the "lowest and best" proposed registration fee schedule for the next term. Of course this will probably never happen as ICANN does not have a Registrants Stakeholder Group, unlike Registrars and Registry operators, and ICANN has no real interest in serving the public interest ..." (emphasis added)

Question: How long will it be before the first FTC investigation or proceeding involving ICANN or one or more of its "contracted parties" (registry operators, domain name registrars) is announced? 

Caveat Emptor!

See also on Domain Mondo:

• ICANN, New gTLD Domain Name Renewal Fees, Price Gouging
• The dot SUCKS Conundrum: ICANN, FTC, OCA, New gTLD Domains
• Dot SUCKS: FTC Lectures ICANN On How To Protect Consumers
• FBI and FTC Join ICANN, GAC, PSWG: ICANN 53 Review, Part Two
• New gTLD Domain Names, Defects, ICANN Liability, FTC Complaints
• ICANN, Public Interest, New gTLDs Registry Operator Code of Conduct

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ICANN 53 Buenos Aires Recap, MarkMonitor video

ICANN 53 Buenos Aires Recap - Featuring MarkMonitor domain management and gTLD experts, Elisa Cooper and Matt Serlin. Published on Jul 9, 2015

Key Takeaways:
• New gTLD Program Status, Review and Next Round; Suspect Registry Pricing Practices
• Status of the IANA Transition and ICANN Accountability Working Group
• Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Communique

source: MarkMonitor | Brand Protection, Domain Management, Anti Piracy, Anti Fraud

Domain name: markmonitor.com


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