I caught a form of writers block that has been very hard to shake. The economic funk we are in has put me in a very unmotivated mood. My guess is that the same thing is happening to others. This Great Recession must be causing a massive physiological impact across society.

Have these economic times also had an impact on your motivation and mood? How have you handled it?

Premier Exhibitions has undertaken a critical assessment of their properties and process. The assessment examined  product presentation, market facing activities, brand extensions, and new concept development. The company found that it is underinvested in its core business, early success drivers for new exhibits are no longer available, their historic approach and process in ineffective, but solutions and opportunities abound for improvement. I guess when not much is going right, there are definitely opportunities to improve.

The attendance numbers for 2009 were not good:

The revenue trend from these exhibits doesn’t quite appear to have stabilized yet either.

The company did share some key facts about their shows that are worth noting. Premier Exhibitions can run up to 21 shows simultaneously. A typical show runs for six months. During one year they could run a show twice, but there is down time between each showing so the optimal operation is about 80 to 85%.

Their strategy looking forward is to better coordinate their functional groups, make critical assessments of markets and venues, and enhance lead time before selecting a show location. This is key so that they can outreach to key constituents in the market and assess third-party resources in the area such as PR firms. Premier Exhibitions will also do a comprehensive financial assessment before committing to a show. They believe that have made progress on these key points in their upcoming show bookings. They indicate they’ve successfully engaged with potential opponents, improved third-party relations, and improved the efficiency of their internal processes.

Premier Exhibitions also plans to improve their exhibits to make them more modern. They plan on adding guest appearances, designing more engaging experiences, and make it more digital. I think the move to more digital and online components to the exhibits is definitely the right move in today’s entertainment market. Last time I examined Premier Exhibitions‘ online presence, I was surprised at how weak it was.

While the presentation was not earth shattering and nothing real new was presented. I did note a focus on improving operating cash flows. I hope that this new and motivated management team can get this company on track. The value of the Titanic artifacts they are in possession of are key to the value of this stock. Premier owns all the artifacts recovered in 1987 and the federal court in Norfolk, Virginia has control over the post-1987 artifacts. Hopefully, this year the court will finally decide on the final fate of these remaining artifacts.

The Fat Pitch Financials Portfolio continues to retain a position in Premier Exhibitions. However, my patience is wearing thing. I expect to see major improvements this year in operating cash flows, especially if the economy continues to recover. If improvements aren’t achieved, I will reassess holding this stock.

Disclosure: I own Premier Exhibition (PRXI) shares at the time this article was posted.

Please participate in the survey. The survey will help me better understand my audience and it will also help me sell my advertising space. Thank you for your support.

Value Investing News appears to have fallen victim to the hands of a skilled hacker. Upon further investigation, it appears this is the work of a rogue group of internet radicals hell bent on improving web design standards. These out of work web developers have been determined to attack financial sites in retribution for damage the financial sector has wrought upon the economy. Value Investing News has been innocently snared in this plot.

I have been furiously working this morning to assess the damage to Value Investing News. Preliminary analysis indicates that the hackers activities may have in fact resulted in a net overall benefit to  the design of the site?! I guess the site design was in such sorry shape that it could only improve.

Not everything remains quite right yet. Some of the hacker activities have resulted in a few bugs. Please contact us with any bugs you find.

It also appears the hackers have put me on the hook for giving away a free pass to Value Investing Congress West in April. Ugh! Those tickets are worth $4,195 a piece. I’ll be honoring this offer, even if it kills my site’s profitability this month. Take advantage of this crisis by signing up for the contest.

Hopefully, these web developers are brought to justice soon. Until then, we will have to suffer the impacts of their clean design philosophy.

Happy April Fools Day!

The letter starts off with the grim assessment of the current economic situation. Warren Buffett notes that this past year has see a series of “life-threatening” events in the world’s financial markets and institutions resulting in a complete shutdown of the credit markets. This economic situation has resulted in the largest annual decline in Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRKa) per share book value in its 44-year history. Even given the current economic challenges, Warren Buffett remains positive. He notes, “When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy.”

The positive areas of Berkshire Hathaway’s business according to Mr. Buffett are in its insurance and utilities businesses. Low cost producers will likely be able to widen their moats in these frugal times.

As we view GEICO’s current opportunities, Tony and I feel like two hungry mosquitoes in a nudist camp. Juicy targets are everywhere.

There have been some question as to the new Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Company business, an insurer of the tax-exempt bonds issued by states, cities and other local entities. The Berkshire Hathaway team has once again been able to seize a great opportunity during troubled times.

We wrote this “second-to-pay” insurance for rates averaging 3.3%. That’s right; we have been paid far more for becoming the second to pay than the 1.5% we would have earlier charged to be the first to pay… Nevertheless, we remain very cautious about the business we write and regard it as far from a sure thing that this insurance will ultimately be profitable for us.

Even though Buffett’s initial attempt to get into the bond insurance market was initially rebuffed by monolines, he’s been able to his rates! Simply amazing. Though, Mr. Buffett notes that the future profitability of this new business is very uncertain given the unpresidented challenges municipalities and agencies face in the future and the potential that the insuring of these risks might make the involved parties less interested in working out problems.

Warren Buffett also confesses his investing sins:

Without urging from Charlie or anyone else, I bought a large amount of ConocoPhillips stock when oil and gas prices were near their peak. I in no way anticipated the dramatic fall in energy prices that occurred in the last half of the year. I still believe the odds are good that oil sells far higher in the future than the current $40-$50 price. But so far I have been dead wrong. Even if prices should rise, moreover, the terrible timing of my purchase has cost Berkshire several billion dollars.

One must wonder if Mr. Buffett got taken in by all the talk of peak oil last year. I must admit that I too wondered if we were approaching the end of affordable liquid petroleum to fuel the economy. While it took some time for folks to adjust to the changing oil market, economic forces finally cause demand for to respond to the price of oil and at the same time supply started to adjust as well. I recently sold some puts on ConocoPhillips (COP), but wonder if a long term stock position might ultimately be more profitable.

There was another more surprising admission:

During 2008, I spent $244 million for shares of two Irish banks that appeared cheap to me. At yearend we wrote these holdings down to market: $27 million, for an 89% loss. Since then, the two stocks have declined even further.

Even given those two big “mistakes”, one must envy the great fix-income investments Warren Buffett recently made.

On the plus side last year, we made purchases totaling $14.5 billion in fixed-income securities issued by Wrigley, Goldman Sachs and General Electric. We very much like these commitments, which carry high current yields that, in themselves, make the investments more than satisfactory. But in each of these three purchases, we also acquired a substantial equity participation as a bonus. To fund these large purchases, I had tosell portions of some holdings that I would have preferred to keep (primarily Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and ConocoPhillips).

That helps explain why folks noted the sale of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Procter & Gamble (PG), and ConocoPhillips (COP) in Berkshire Hathaway’s recent 13F filing. Those sales I believe indicate that Berkshire Hathaway is now fully invested and that future purchases may require additional sales if the operating businesses don’t generate sufficient cash. The one thing I was dissapointed in was the fact that Warren Buffett has not explained his previous comments regarding Wells Fargo (WFC). It appears he has bought shares for his personal portfolio, but I don’t believe he added any shares to Berkshire Hathaway. Why the difference?

The final section worth noting is on derivatives. Warren Buffett blasts CEOs at major financial institutions for getting involved with huge complex derivative positions that they simply were incapable of managing. The biggest offenders included Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac even though they were highly regulated. Warren Buffett carefully explains the derivative positions held by Berkshire Hathaway that have stirred up a bit of controversy recently. While the market-to-market accounting of this positions has been swinging wildly, Buffett and Munger are still very comfortable with them. He explains his comfort with these positions by detailing how the popular Black-Scholes formula doesn’t work properly with long dated derivatives. That discussion of the Black-Scholes formula deserves careful reading. I will likely post a future article on just that topic.

Be sure to read the whole Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter yourself. This wisdom Warren Buffett convey’s in his letters requires careful reading and time to fully comprehend.

Disclosure: I have sold put contracts on COP and own shares of Wells Fargo (WFC). I do not hold positions in any of the other shares mentioned in this article (BRKa, BRKb, JNJ, PG) at the time this was posted.

1. Why Wall Street Will Never Get It Right
2. Monster Worldwide
3. Dividend Stocks proving that not all dividends are at risk
4. Leveraging Dividends
5. Bill Ackman Pershing Square Investment Strategy
6. Odds Update for EMAG Arbitrage
7. Stock Analysis: BP Plc (BP)
8. Book Value? Not So Much
9. Gannon On Investing Podcast: Tuesday, January 27, 2009
10. Gannon On Investing Podcast: Monday, January 26, 2009 

We are running an exciting new contest over at Value Investing News this month. You could win a copy of Old School Value’s Intrinsic Value Spreadsheets. All you have to do to enter is to become an active member. Start by registering now.

Disclosure: I own shares of Emageon (EMAG) at the time this article was published.

I ran across a unique service today called Odiogo that takes blog posts and creates audio podcasts out of them. The voice quality of the automated reader is very impressive. Give it a try by clicking on the “listen now” button at the top of this page or by going to Fat Pitch Financials Podcast page.

I’ve only found two issues so far with this automated podcasting service. I noticed that the reader states the stock tickers in parentheses in my articles. This can really break up the flow of sentences. I also noticed that Odiogo only maintains the audio files for the most recent posts. I probably could solve that problem by downloading the mp3 audio files and storing them on my server, but that’s an extra step that I’d rather not have to do.

I’m interested in getting your feedback on this technology. What do you think of the voice quality? Do you subscribe to podcasts? Would you like to have the current Fat Pitch Financials feed include the audio option along with post text in your feedreader? And finally, are you going to subscribe to the Fat Pitch Financials podcast?

Join us live now and ask Steve any questions you may have about his great new service for investors.

This is the first time that I will be attending a public event on value investing. If you ever wanted to meet the mysterious blogger behind Fat Pitch Financials or the creator of Value Investing News, this event is your opportunity to meet me. I will try to make myself available during breaks, lunch and at the cocktail reception at the end of the day on October 6th.

You can recognize me from my image on my Twitter account. Just sign up for Twitter and then follow FatPitch to keep up with my whereabouts during the conference. In addition to posting my moves and observations on Twitter, I also plan on blogging from the Value Investing Congress if all goes well. I still need to get a better laptop before I head off to New York or I will be stuck using my old PocketPC.

I heard from Todd Sullivan of Value Plays that he will also be at Value Investing Congress NYC. I look forward to meeting Todd, one of the most active value investing bloggers that I know. I also just noticed that Jeff Matthews is a speaker on day 2 of the conference, so it appears that at least 3 bloggers will be at this event. I wonder if any other bloggers will also be attending. If a few other value bloggers make it to the conference or are in New York City during the event, maybe we can pull together some sort of meetup of our own. Please contact me if you are attending this meeting.

I just noticed that the agenda for Value Investing Conference NYC 2008 has been posted. It looks like on day 1 the speakers include the following:

• John Schwartz and Whitney Tilson of Schwartz Tilson Information presenting the Opening Remarks
• Mohnish Pabrai of Pabrai Investment Funds presenting The Dhando Investor: Interesting Times; Interesting Opportunities
• Bill Ackman of Pershing Square, LP presenting Remarks and Q&A
• John Burbank of Passport Capital presenting The American Perspective
• Jeffrey Schwarz of Metropolitan Capital Advisors, Inc. presenting “Taking What the Defense Gives You” – How watching the NFL helped make me a contrarian investor
• J. Carlo Cannell of Cannell Capital LLC presents Selling Short: Controversial Black Magic
• David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital presents Dangerous Public Displays of Sanity
• Thomas Russo of Gardner, Russo and Gardner presents Global Value Equity Investing
• Alexander Roepers of Atlantic Investment Management presents Constructive Shareholder Activism

The lineup of speakers on the first day is pretty amazing. I’m most looking forward to hearing Mohnish Pabrai and David Einhorn speak. I’ve read both of Pabrai’s books, so I particularly interested in hearing him talk. Day 2 of the conference looks equally promising. The speakers include the following:

• Boykin Curry of Eagle Capital presenting Time Arbitrage
• Kian Ghazi of Hawkshaw Capital Management presenting Investing With Conviction
• Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors, Inc. presenting The Investment Climate and Some All Weather Stocks
• Aaron Edelheit of Sabre Value Management presenting Small Cap Diamonds in a Rough Market
• David Nierenberg of D3 Family Funds presenting Tech is not Dreck: Unlocking Shareholder Value in the Tech Wreck
• Jeff Matthews of Ram Partners LP presenting Evaluating GE: What Would Warren Do?
• Whitney Tilson & Glenn Tongue of T2 Partners presenting How to Profit From the Credit Crunch

As I’m sure you know, I’m very interested in arbitrage, so I’ll be listening carefully to Boykin Curry’s presentation. I’m also pretty excited to hear what fellow blogger, Jeff Matthews, will have to say.

In the meantime, I’ll be researching the backgrounds of many of the speakers in preparation for the Value Investing Congress. I’ll share my notes with you here as time permits. Let us know if you will be attending this year’s New York Value Investing Congress in the comments section below.

Today, I am also be celebrating the fact that Fat Pitch Financials has served over 1 million page views, 1,054,491 pages to be exact at the time of this writing. This year alone, Fat Pitch Financials served 482,497 pages to 257,214 visitors. Supposedly, 68% of this years visitors were new to the site according to my stats counter.

If you are a recent reader of Fat Pitch Financials or even if you are a long time reader, there are probably many articles that you’ve never even seen at Fat Pitch Financials. I dug through my visitor logs and found the following stories were most read this past year:

Most Popular Stories

1. How to calculate your return on investment
2. Excel Financial Data Add-In
3. Exploring Greenblatt’s Magic Formula
4. Ultimate 2007 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting Guide
5. Phil Town’s Rule #1 Book
6. Biggest Losers of Today’s Stock Market Panic
7. Ultimate 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting Guide
8. Using My Annualized Rate of Return Spreadsheet
9. 52-Week Low List Packed with Quality Names
10. Magic Formula Performance to Date

Are any of your favorite posts missing from this list? I’ve added several of these top posts to my new tabbed sidebar under the “Best Of” section. I’ll be updating that section routinely, so any suggestions would be helpful.

Since I recently redesigned the site, I thought it might also be interesting to look back at how Fat Pitch Financials has evolved over the past four years. Here are six screen shots that depict the evolution of this blog:

August 2004

May 2005

November 2005

July 2006

October 2007

August 2008

In addition to the evolution of Fat Pitch Financials, it’s hard to believe that my simple little blog has morphed into several spinoffs. Some were short lived, like Fat Pitch News. However, Fat Pitch News helped spark in October of 2006 the idea for Value Investing News, which is now even more popular than Fat Pitch Financials in under two years.

In early 2005, I created the going private transactions list, which in turn evolved into Fat Pitch Financials Contributor’s Corner. Contributor’s Corner now not only covers going private transactions, but also odd lot tender offers, spinoffs, split-offs, and other special situation opportunities. My goal is to continue developing Contributor’s Corner into a more application oriented service.

As I work towards my fifth year of Fat Pitch Financials, I look forward to discussing some meaningful portfolio numbers. As you might know, I track two portfolios here at Fat Pitch Financials. The first one is the Fat Pitch Financials Port and it is up over 30% since inception back in 2004. It is now sporting a 7% average annualized return. The second portfolio is the Special Situations Real Money Portfolio. It is a small portfolio that is a bit younger than the Fat Pitch Port. However, it has already produced a 60% return, which comes out to an impressive 20.75% average annualized rate of return. There are not many other blogs that track performance and very few have been doing it as long as I have. Since the beginning it has been my goal to maintain performance numbers as a way for my readers to understand my experience with investing and to learn from my actions. I look forward to being able to share five year performance numbers next year.

You might have noticed a new look at Fat Pitch Financials this week. I just put some of the finishing touches on this major redesign of the site. Hopefully my work on the site didn’t disrupt any of your visits to Fat Pitch Financials this week. I believe the site was only unavailable for a few minutes here and there as I was updating files.

I was inspired to make this major change for three reasons. First, I just joined the InvestingChannel financial media network. Their ad placements on my site required a new layout to be effective. InvestingChannel will be selling the graphical ads on my site and providing other services. I’ll have more to say about them shortly.

Second, I needed to upgrade WordPress, the software that runs this blog, for security reasons. I was behind on software updates and this particular update was going to cause some compatibility issues with my old theme.

Finally, the old layout was getting rather cluttered and bloated. For those of you that might not remember, the old Fat Pitch Financials design is pictured below:

Old Fat Pitch Financials design

I attempted to preserve some of the colors and banding of the old design when I set out on this project. The new and improved Fat Pitch Financials layout is pictured below:

New Fat Pitch Financials design

The main features of this new design include the following:

• Main content on the left to improve readability
• More readable typography
• Clean menu bar that includes a convenient search box
• A split right column to improve readability and navigation
• Less advertising clutter, at least for now
• Comic style comment bubbles with Gravatar enhanced author pictures
• Three column footer to provide more compact link display
• Faster loading times

I’d love to hear what you think of the new design. I’m still tweaking a few details so I can incorporate any suggestions you might have.

Apparently, the 10Q Detective has been shedding some light on Raser Technologies (RZ). Some of the company’s shareholders are upset with the information David Philips has been posting on the Yahoo message board for that company. Regardless, I sure what David posted on the message board was not as bad the other 99% of the garbage that is posted on Yahoo Finance’s message boards. The real problem is likely the fact that the truth hurts.

The best thing to do in these type of situations is shed light on the problem. I encourage fellow financial bloggers to help me in shedding light on this issue by linking the the David Phillips’ post on Rabid Raser Tech Bulls Push Yahoo to Ban 10Q Detective. You never know when you might also be the target of a similar effort to silence your own analysis, so help David out with this attempt to silence him.

Disclosure: David Philips did not contact me or request my support with his issue with Yahoo.

This  is your last chance to take advantage of the low $100 per year membership price at Fat Pitch Financials Contributor’s Corner. I recommend locking in the $100 rate for the next year, but there is also a six month option for $65, and a one month trial for $12.

Starting Saturday, June 14th new membership rates go into effect. The new monthly rate will be $15 per month, six months for $80, and the annual membership rate will be $125 per year.

Because it is Contributor’s Corner, members who contribute news about special situations receive three days of credit for each submission they make. As you can imagine with that incentive, there is a lot of activity in the members forum at Contributor’s Corner. I encourage you to join and learn all about what we are currently researching. This often includes going private transactions, tender offers, mergers, spinoffs, split-offs, rights offerings, and other interesting arbitrage opportunities. We are always learning something new from one another, so consider this an investment in your own education.

Fat Pitch Financials Contributor’s Corner has a great reputation rating and has been reviewed by several other financial bloggers (none of them compensated). I am very proud of the resource I’ve built at Contributor’s Corner and am always looking for new ways to improve it. (For example, this month I installed an automated subscription payment system, so new members no longer have to wait for me to activate their accounts.) By becoming a member of Contributor’s Corner, you are helping to support Fat Pitch Financials and maybe also your own portfolio. Join now before inflation strikes!

As you can see above, the Value Investing News Button includes the up/down arrow rating system from Value Investing News. It also displays the current total point rating of the article on Value Investing News. If you click on the "VIN" logo on the button it takes you to the article's entry on Value Investing News where you can read the discussion, review the votes, and browse a list of other related news items. Finally, if the article has not yet been submitted to Value Investing News, a plus sign will appear instead of the arrows, and visitors to your site can then click on the button to submit a link to your story to Value Investing News. After testing the VIN Button out a bit today, it is ready to be released into the wild.

I sent out some invitations this week to active members of Value Investing News (one of the benefits of being a member). I want to thank the following guinea pigs early adopters for already putting the Value Investing News Button on their top notch sites:

• MagicDiligence - See Book Review: The Future For Ivestors by Jeremy Siegel
• Value Plays - See AmeriCredit (ACF) Deal: ABS Market Thawing

If I missed your site, please let me know. Several other bloggers reponded positively to my invitation and are planning on adding the button to their sites shortly. Be sure that you are not the last one to add this useful interactive widget to your site. The VIN button allows your readers to evangelize your articles to other value investors, and will ultimately attract new readers to your site.

The code for this little widget is rather simple. Just cut and paste the code below and place it in your blog post or web site template:

For those of you using the popular blogging software, WordPress, I made a very simple plugin that you can use to automatically add the Value Investing News Button to all your posts. All you have to do is upload the vinvote folder to your WordPress plugins folder. Then login to your blog, click Plugins, and activate the Value Investing News Button.

Download: Value Investing News Button Plugin version 0.1

I also know that many value investing bloggers still use Blogger. To add the Value Investing News Button to all of your individual post pages on Blogger, you need to edit you Layout HTML. Be sure to check off the "Expand Widget Templates" button above the editor. Then search your template for the following line:

<p><data:post.body/></p>

Then paste the following code above or below that line:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<script src=' http://www.valueinvestingnews.com/sites/all/scripts/externalvote.js' type='text/javascript'>
</script>
</b:if>

Finally, you can place the Value Investing News Button on your homepage teasers or anywhere else you want to highlight a specific post using the following code:

<script type="text/javascript">
  site-url = "[URL]";
  site-title = "[TITLE]";
</script>
<script src="http://www.valueinvestingnews.com/sites/all/scripts/externalvote.js"  type="text/javascript">
</script>

In the above code, be sure to replace [URL] and [TITLE] with your article's URL and title. Let me know if you need help using the Value Investing News Button widget on any other platform.

Let us know how you are using the Value Investing News Button in the comments section below.

1. Why Warren Buffet is richer than the Hedge Fund managers – a tale of two business models
2. Notes From A Conversation with Munger
3. Does the magic formula work?
4. Marvel – Superhero Value?
5. Berkowitz Sees Volatility As An Opportunity
6. A Solid Bet: The Case For Ternium Steel
7. Sneak Preview of The Four Filters by Bud Labitan
8. Free RSS Feeds for Company Filings on EDGAR

We ran some updates to Value Investing News this evening. It might have interrupted some visits. Sorry about that. On the positive side, the updates seems to have gone well. The update addressed some security issues and performance improvements. Please let me know if you find any issues that may have come from the update.

Back in high school and college I use to regularly read Business Week, but I kind of fell out of the habit when I started my professional career. I’m looking forward to this free offer to reconnect with Business Week. At the least, I will be able to use the magazine covers as a contrarian indicator.

I’m also a big fan of The Economist. I was a subscriber back in 2006, but I was never able to keep up with them all. Each issue was so dense that it would take me longer than a week to read them. Eventually they began to pile up around the house. My wife had me end that subscription and I’ve missed it.

I also just noticed that another blog, TopicalSEO, just mentioned Value Investing News in a list of 9 new niche social media sites. TopicalSEO then added my site to its list of the top 38 niche social media sites that are gaining critical mass. Hopefully this new found attention is a sign that Value Investing News may soon experience the snowball effect. Now I just need the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times to mention Value Investing News and the site will really start buzzing.

In the meantime, I’ll have to keep a close eye on the comments and submission at Value Investing News. Search engine optimizers are a crafty bunch that are often looking to place free advertising for their clients. If any of the SEO pros really want to benefit from Value Investing News, they should contact me regarding the great advertising options available to them at reasonable rates.

Share your best stock pick in the Value Investing News stock contest Forum thread by December 31, 2007. We will then track the performance of the picks from the opening bell on the first trading day of 2008 until the close of the market on the last trading day of 2008.

Each Value Investing News member only gets one pick. Registration is free. Please provide a write up of your rationale along with your pick in the forum. A prize will be given out for the best performing pick in 2008. We will also give out a prize to the best stock pick rationale posted the stock picking contest thread by December 31, 2007. The best stock pick rationale will be based on the comment with the highest number of voting points.

Now here are this week’s top Value Investing News stories:

1. Fat Pitch Financial Reviews Active Value Investing
2. The Hidden Value In Sears Holdings
3. MartketWatch Interview: Active Value Investing in Range-Bound Markets
4. Harley Davidson (HOG)……. Not Yet
5. Mosaic Chapter 19: Is it time to Buy Infosys?
6. Berkshire’s Buffett says China is too hot to buy
7. PetroChina: A Look Back
8. 17th Annual Graham & Dodd Breakfast
9. Sherwin Williams Defies The Consumer
10. Warren Buffett Considers Korean Stock Market ‘Still Attractive’

I’m pretty proud that my review of Active Value Investingmade the top of this week’s list.  MarketWatch also interviewed the author, Vitaliy Katsenelson, this week. Value Investing News is also planning to host an online question and answer session with Vitaliy in the Value Investing News Forum in the next few days.  If you are interested in Vitaliy’s new book, I encourage you to participate in this month’s Value Investing News contest. We are giving away three signed copies of Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets.

Disclosure: I own shares in Microsoft (MSFT).

In order to win this prize, just post an article on your blog, favorite message board, or other online community sharing your love for Value Investing News. Be sure to include a link back to some part of the Value Investing News website. This could be to our homepage, monthly contest, top stories, forum, or some other part of the site. Then post a comment on Value Investing News’ anniversary post providing a link to where you discussed and linked to Value Investing News.

We will take submissions until 8:00 PM EST on Friday, October 12, 2007. After that, we will randomly select a winner of the book, Active Value Investing, from the submissions received in the comments on Value Investing News.