26th
Positions I would add to: WU, WMI, CL.
New positions I’m looking at: JNJ, MMM, KO, VFC, HNZ, DOV, EMR, NSC, PPG, SWK and TPP.
I am focused these days almost exclusively on solid companies, with a 10- or 25-year history of steadily increasing dividends, trading at or near 12.5 times earnings.
I recall a Friday afternoon back in the early fall of 2000 when I was riding the elevator in the ML office in Germantown. I had visited my broker and was on the way to get in a workout before the MJCC closed for Shabbat. I was in my gym clothes (including a P&H Cafe t-shirt) and toting a copy of How to Buy Stocks. Two guys got into the elevator, saw the book, concluded that I was a rube, and asked where I got it. I told them that my broker gave it to me, and they laughed. They told me that I was wasting my time and “that stuff is old fashioned, like Warren Buffet.” Being a new investor, I did not really know what to think, but now I know for sure: that guy was the rube, not me. The same rules apply now as applied 100 years ago: buy good companies at fair prices.
