Brave New World

Welcome to the inaugural post of my new Value Investing blog. My intention is to use this blog as a repository for my investigations into various US stocks that I might consider for investment.

My background is actually in the UK stockmarket, where I was moderately successful for the first two or three years of my investing career (I say career - I'm not a professional, I do this for fun and to increase my savings). I have been heavily influenced by the writings of TMFPyad (Stephen Bland) on The Motley Fool UK website). You might describe his strategy as deep value, where the letters PYAD stand for

• Price (low P/E)
  
• Yield (high dividend)
  
• Assets (Price to Tangible Book Value of < 1)
  
• Debt (or rather - no debt)
  

I have not been particularly strict in following these criteria, but this at least gives you some idea of my background. I'd rather buy a dog of a company at a really cheap price than a good company at a mediocre price. And there have been many studies to back up this strategy as more likely to be successful (David Dreman's book: Contrarian Investment Strategies provides ample proof of this).

As I say, my previous experience has been in the UK (where I was moderately successful - generating approximately 19% p.a. compounded return), so the US stock market is a new adventure for me. I'm therefore also expecting this to be a learning experience to some extent - I'm not sure if anyone will read this blog, but if you'd like to journey with me then you'd be more than welcome.