Hold on for just a New York minute now and consider the powerfully serious message the bond market sent last week about the political dithering in Washington and in Europe’s capitals. “Pay attention folks,” as the investor Gifford Combs e-mailed me on Friday. “This is not a drill.”
Here are the facts: The yield on Greek sovereign debt is now at record highs for the euro era. Last week’s state-managed bond auction in Italy almost failed. And, while few seem to have noticed, the overnight repurchase market -- for short-term, secured, corporate debt obligations -- nearly seized up amid what Combs described as “an almost panicky scramble” for less- risky paper. Read More>>
The shift in investor base might help boost the price of Berkshire shares, which many analysts say is undervalued. "It is possible that the institutional shareholders who come into owning Berkshire via the Burlington Northern merger will be more apt to hold on to the stock because they will perceive it as having greater liquidity now. Further, Berkshire is pretty obviously undervalued to anyone who takes time to examine it, so there is more likelihood that institutional shareholders will be attracted to it," Gifford Combs, managing director with $1.1 billion hedge fund Dalton Investments in Los Angeles told Portfolio.com… Read More>>
..."The most interesting question in macroeconomics today is why Japan developed the way it did over the past 20 years," says Gifford Combs, a portfolio manager at Dalton Investments. "What nobody in the West wants to utter aloud is... Read More>>
An Interview with Gifford Combs: When searching for corporate castles filled with gold, stick with rulers willing to share the wealth. A value investor through and through, Gifford Combs landed his first job out of graduate school by cold-calling Warren Buffett, who referred him to Phil Carret, who recommended that he talk to George Michaelis, who steered him to Jim Gipson of Pacific Financial Research and the Clipper Fund, where he stayed for 10 years. In 1998, he joined Los Angeles-based Dalton Investments… Read More>>