May 28, 2020

Retail stocks have been annihilated recently, despite the economy eking out growth. The fundamentals of the retail business look horrible: Sales are stagnating and profitability is getting worse with every passing quarter. Jeff Bezos and Amazon get most of the credit, but this credit is misplaced. In this podcast,...

May 26, 2020

People often ask Vitaliy about his writing process, when he finds time to write, and how he manages to do investment research. In this podcast, Vitaliy walks the listener through his process -- from getting up at 4:30 in the morning, to researching and valuing companies, to talking to clients. For a day in the life of...

May 21, 2020

Vitaliy was slated to give a speech at a conference in Omaha, a day before the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting. He was more nervous than usual. Usually, Vitaliy needs a looming deadline to build the pressure to unleash creativity. Two days before, he wrote a nine page speech titled “How to Stay Rational in an...

May 19, 2020

Though Vitaliy loved working from home, it came at a cost – he destroyed some good habits he built up over the last few years. In March, he worked super long hours and wanted to make sure he got enough sleep. He usually writes early in the morning, but that habit has been interrupted. He's been working proactively...

May 14, 2020

Vitaliy always looks at IMA's investment process and asks himself, “What can we do better? How can we increase returns and lower risk?" Vitaliy thinks he has found a sensible way to do both -- by purchasing index put options, where possible, on a portion of the portfolio. Vitaliy explains the math behind this choice,...