Street Capitalist: Event Driven Value Investments

I’ve posted briefly about Marty Whitman before, but I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned Jean-Marie Eveillard of First Eagle Funds. Eveillard is another excellent value investor, and in the Morningstar interview I’m linking below we get to see some good commentary from both Eveillard and Whitman.

Conversation: Jean-Marie Eveillard and Marty Whitman (Morningstar)

MW: I think buy-and-hold makes much more sense than people give it credit for. Because one, value is not static. It is very dynamic. If you’re in a reasonably good company on a long-term basis, the business continues to create value. And I’ve had a long career in learning my lesson. I’d own a stock for three years; it would double; and I’d sell it to somebody for whom it would triple in the next six months. We should also talk about shortcomings. I think your discipline and my discipline works an awful lot better on the buy side than the sell side. Therefore, unless you have compelling reasons, why sell?

JME: That’s right. Too much money is often left by value investors on the table because the stock is sold too soon. Truly, as value investors and as long-term investors, we should not worry too much about the fact that after the price of the stock has moved up, maybe it will no longer go up, or maybe come down a bit over the next year or two.