Welcome (revisited)

As the original welcome post was not migrated over to the new boards, I’ll migrate it myself.

At the original discussion.fool.com boards, the Manlobbi Method board had over the years developed a culture of the community posting higher quality but less frequent, and rather detailed posts, with the desire to share insights not found elsewhere, rather than regurgitating news stories, or inadvertently repeating fashionable topic trends - in a sense, becoming a larger part of the same herd. This itself is in the spirit of the Manlobbi Method, which I’ll briefly describe.

The Manlobbi Method involves not a simple formulae but a set of ideas that are tightly binded together, where dislodging one of them causes the others to fall apart. They will be re-expressed over time, but a summary is brief something (taking the next two paragraphs together) is as follows …

The Manlobbi Method is three-part method of investing requiring an investment to be (1) Steadfastness at the outset, and only if that can be self-determined, only then (2) requiring a high IV10/price to ratio and (3) very high concentrations and large capital movement to satisfy 2.

These terms used above have highly specific definitions:
“Steadfastness” → Earnings predictable above some minimum baseline over the next 20 years, and no chance of catastrophic collapse over 40 years, as determined by the individual observing investor.
“IV10” → The view of company’s intrinsic value by the public after ten years, assuming adverse (not favourable) competitive conditions, with any dividends accumulated and included back in.

The Manlobbi Method is mostly just about concentrated investing only with (economically) super-reliable firms priced very cheaply relative to “what you almost certainly will exceed” ten years into the future. However it includes many other philosophical and psychological elements, such as a skepticism towards (i) market efficiency, (ii) the economic relevance of news stories and (iii) present fashions, and many other concepts either entertaining for investors, of great value, or as is usual - both.

I wrote in the original welcome post that it wouldn’t surprise me if most of the attention will be upon bringing in ideas for new business purchase opportunities. However the discussions often gravitated around my own holdings - so… it is timely to reiterate the final words in the “Steadfastness” definition above, “… as determined by the individual observing investor”. A firm that is Steadfast for person A will not necessary by Steadfast for person B, and interestingly yet there is no contradiction here, by definition. This is not as gimmicky as it sounds, but rather basic aspect of the Manlobbi Method - you have to be certain yourself of what you are investing in, as only that way you can handle the temporary (sometimes spanning 2 or 3 years, which we will call temporary here) excessive declines in the quote. My very best investment actions in the past have been to do nothing (especially whilst facing a strong mysterious force to do something).

In order to make this place more special, we should stay fairly focussed on the Manlobbi Method presented in the Manlobbi’s Descent book. Read the hardcover because it has a very unique feeling about it. Some don’t get past the first chapter as it is too exotic for their habits, but those that do always read until the end. I won’t elaborate upon it further, but I will check back and attempt to keep the conversations focussed if there is a lot of drift. I’m also acutely aware of the importance of never, ever, restricting creativity, particularly when ideas are in a sincere and more embryonic form.

Welcome excellent friends again, and welcome all newcomers, to Manlobbi’s Descent.

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Good to see you made the transition! I was a bit worried this board would die off.

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