Stay Tuned for the Best Posts of the Year

Dear Readers,

I certainly have a busy few weeks coming up. No, I am not talking about the last 6 weeks of school work that are required for me to actually graduate in June. I am talking about the equivalent of Super Bowl week for value investors. Specifically, over the next 3 weeks, I will be attending the following events:

1. April 30th: Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting in Omaha

2. May 1st: Markel Breakfast in Omaha

3. May 3rd and 4th: Value Investing Congress in Pasadena

4. May 12th: 2011 South Central Scholars Value Investing Idea Dinner in LA- I am co-hosting this event with Alex Rubalcava and we are donating all of the excess proceeds to South Central Scholars, a nonprofit that helps kids from South Central LA realize their dreams of attending college and grad school. If you would like to learn more or make a donation, please visit the organization's website at: http://www.southcentralscholars.org/

As in previous years, I plan to blog about all of these events and hope that I will be able to produce my usually comprehensive notes for the Berkshire meeting and the Value Investing Congress. If you are planning to be at any of these events and want to meet up, feel free to email me. I would love to meet more of you in person. However, if you are not able attend, I hope my notes will serve as a good substitute. So, stay tuned for a series of posts that should be the best ones of the year.

Thank you for following my blog and I look forward to sharing my content with you.

Sincerely,

Ben

Value Investors Unite!

Readers,

This past weekend I hosted an event that included 14 other value investors, most of whom are from the Los Angeles area. The dinner went very well and in an attempt to keep our momentum going I have created a LinkedIn group for the value investors in Southern California. The group is called SoCal Value Investors. If you would like to join and be on the list for upcoming events such as idea and 10-K review dinners, please email me or search for the group on LinkedIn. For right now, we are trying to limit the group to people who either are currently working in the investment management industry or have in the past. However, I view value investing as a non-exclusive discipline. As such, if you don't fit the above criteria please email me at inoculatedinvestor@gmail.com and maybe we can figure something out.

Of course, regardless of what I try to do to build my network, I am always being outdone by my good friend Miguel Barbosa of Simoleonsense. Miguel is organizing an event for January 27th at 6pm for value investors who work on the buyside in Chicago. Here is the link to the event if you are in the area and want to attend. You can also email Miguel at miguel@simoleonsense.com if you want details. It sounds like he is expecting a lot of people so it will probably be a great networking event. I encourage anyone who can to attend.

In any case I really like this trend of value investors getting together. Despite what you may hear on CNBC or from US government officials, the global economy and financial markets are still on a little bit of thin ice. Accordingly, every investor should be looking for ways to protect his or her investments from unexpected events. Therefore, I think establishing a network of people to bounce ideas off of is invaluable.

Good luck in 2011,

Ben