Finding Stocks to Research

In this post I'll look at how I found all the stocks I currently own.

Sears Holding

I can't find the specific article and VInvesting won't come up on my computer, but I originally got interested in Sears Holding when I read an article on that site about Eddie Lampert, his returns and the hidden value in Sears Holding.

American Express

This idea came from my friend Joe Koster, he loves the business and couldn't believe how undervalued the stock was.

After talking to him I saw a Joel Greenblatt article in this issue of Value Investor Insight, that piqued my interest and I decided to research the company.

K-Swiss

This pick was 100% Lynchian. I decided to research it days after the second time I read One Up On Wall Street.

I got my idea my just paying attention as I walked around school and the mall. A lot of people were wearing K-Swiss shoes, and what really got me interested was the fact that they were the 'cool' shoe to wear.

Netflix

I originally saw this on the 52-week low list, and just wrote-it off in my mind as another potential candidate that probably didn't work.

But eventually I read a write-up on the Value Investor Club that claimed it had a great business model and was deceptively undervalued, this made me curious and I basically wanted to find out for myself if it was.

Overstock.com

I originally found Overstock in this article in Pabrai's book Mosaic: Perspectives on Investing.

After that first caught my interest Anre Alsin's articles pushed me to research the company further.

Western Sizzlin'

I had heard about the Lion Fund about two years ago and liked Sardar Biglari after reading his letters to shareholders.

After I read some posts about Western Sizzlin' on this board I decided to try to value the company.

Penn National

This post first got me interested I subsequently read about five different articles (all found on Google Finance) that made me decide to look at it then buy.

Tandy Leather

Joe Koster also liked this one. The company where he's an analyst has held shares for a few years.

Special Situations

As previously stated all the special situations I own were found on the Fat Pitch Financials Contributor's Corner.

Conclusion

The way to find good value ideas is simple - read constantly. All of the above ideas (K-Swiss stems form reading the Lynch book) come from reading. Even if some ideas came originally from talking to people in e-mails or on a discussion board I didn't give them serious thought until I read something about them or did more research.