{"id":1304,"date":"2011-09-28T06:42:28","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T04:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/blog\/?p=1304"},"modified":"2011-09-28T06:42:28","modified_gmt":"2011-09-28T04:42:28","slug":"bruce-berkowitz-y-el-valor-en-el-sector-financiero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/bruce-berkowitz-y-el-valor-en-el-sector-financiero\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Berkowitz and Value in the financial sector"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/static.libsyn.com\/p\/assets\/1\/b\/8\/6\/1b863dcd667d3c66\/Bruce-BerkowitzPromo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"384\" height=\"216\" \/>Today we\u2019re bringing you a real gem in the form of an interview. It is none other than the one given by the best fund manager of the first decade of the 21st century, Bruce Berkowitz, to the prestigious financial journalist Consuelo Mack just seven days ago. It is fascinating to read Berkowitz\u2019s arguments and convictions today, right in the midst of the financial storm, when his flagship fund, Fairholme, has lost almost a third of its value since the start of the year. A slump that many see as a sign of his decline as a fund manager, but which some view as a huge opportunity. His interviewer, Mack, is regarded by *Money Magazine* as \u00abthe best money TV host\u00bb, and her programmes attract a huge audience. Enjoy Berkowitz\u2019s reflections whilst the financial world crumbles around us (we\u2019ll be posting the full Spanish translation shortly):<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; text-align: justify;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>This week on WealthTrack, a great investor who has taken a leap of faith by investing in battered financial stocks. In a rare interview, Bruce Berkowitz of Fairholme Fund \u2013 Morningstar\u2019s Fund Manager of the Decade \u2013 discusses why he sees treasure where others see a trap. Bruce Berkowitz of Fairholme Fund is next on Consuelo Mack\u2019s WealthTrack.<br \/>\nHello and welcome to this edition of WealthTrack. I\u2019m Consuelo Mack. One of the hallmarks of the Great Investors who have appeared on WealthTrack has been their willingness to go against the crowd, to invest in areas others avoid. That strategy puts them in uncomfortable, unpopular and often unprofitable positions for periods of time, some of which are prolonged, others not.<br \/>\nThis week\u2019s guest on \u201cThe Great Investor\u201d is no exception. In fact, he exemplifies the risks involved and what he hopes will once again prove to be the vindication of contrarian investing. He is Bruce Berkowitz, founder and chief investment officer of Fairholme Capital Management, whose tagline is \u2018Ignore the crowd\u2019. He manages three mutual funds, including his flagship Fairholme Fund, whose outstanding long-term track record earned him Morningstar\u2019s first Domestic Equity Fund Manager of the Decade award in 2010. At the end of the last decade, the value fund had delivered average annualised returns of 13.2%, placing it in the top one per cent of Morningstar\u2019s large blend category \u2013 outperforming the S&amp;P 500 by 13 percentage points a year and growing to nearly $20 billion dollars in assets.<br \/>\nFast forward to today, and the fund\u2019s ten-year track record is still outperforming the market, albeit by a much smaller margin, and ranks within the top one per cent of its category; however, its annualised returns have fallen to eight per cent, and it has underperformed the overall market over the last three-year and one-year periods; furthermore, its assets are now approaching half of what they were.<br \/>\nWhat has changed? Over the last couple of years, Berkowitz \u2013 who has always managed a highly concentrated share portfolio \u2013 has heavily invested in financials, which now account for more than 75% of the portfolio. The sector soared from the market low in 2009, but has been by far the worst-performing sector year to date. Among Fairholme\u2019s largest holdings are hard-hit names such as American International Group, Bank of America, Citigroup, and, yes, the slightly less battered Berkshire Hathaway, a long-standing holding.<br \/>\nI began the interview by asking Berkowitz why, given all the legal, regulatory, economic and market uncertainties surrounding the financial sector, he was sticking with it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>The downsides are all the uncertainty about the future. And what I try to do is focus on the facts of today. So, when you look at the income statements, they\u2019re generating huge cash flows, much of which is being used to pay for the excesses of 2007 and 2008; this will eventually run its course and those substantial cash flows will become apparent. If you look at the company\u2019s balance sheets \u2013 banks, for example \u2013 they have the strongest balance sheets they have probably ever had in their entire history. If you look at provisions, they are stronger than at any time. If you look at the trends, they are turning favourable. If you understand the nature of loans and their average life of five to seven years, and the difficulties faced in 2007 and 2008, you\u2019ve already had a good\u2014you\u2019ve had three or four years to see how the loans have performed. You know how they\u2019re going to turn out. Credit cards and other types of loans have much shorter terms. They\u2019ve already worked through all that. In the case of Bank of America, they have five different business units, four of which are quite profitable, but there\u2019s this one business\u2014residential mortgages\u2014which is still causing a great deal of trouble, and they\u2019ve just taken a $20 billion hit in a single quarter based on their estimate of what all the costs are going to be, including non-cash costs\u2014you know, the write-down of goodwill and other intangibles. And people believe that this can carry on like that. It can\u2019t. It\u2019s like insurance provisioning. When we adjust your estimate, you change the figure in a single quarter to reflect all past events and all your assumptions about the future.<br \/>\nSo there\u2019s a lot of fear in the market at the moment, which I see as a positive because financial stocks are priced as if they\u2019re destined to fail, and that\u2019s how you want to buy them \u2013 when they\u2019re priced for failure \u2013 because the pessimism is intense and the market price reflects that pessimism; you can then compare the market price with what you believe the company will earn in a more normal environment, and let\u2019s say you apply that to the funds. I look at each of our companies in turn; I take the companies\u2019 earnings and translate them into what the earnings per share of the Fairholme Fund will be. And I reckon that the companies have an earnings power of $4 per share for the Fairholme Fund, whilst the Fairholme Fund is trading at $27 \u2013 or whatever the figure may be \u2013 per share, and I ask myself, \u2018Well, what are those earnings? And what does that mean?\u2019 And if I\u2019m right, eventually, the price will follow true earnings, and hopefully, the mania we\u2019re in right now and the intense madness of the crowd will allow me \u2013 allow the fund to buy more, allow me to buy more \u2013 to take advantage of a cheaper price, in the same way that, you know, when your favourite food brand is on offer at the supermarket. It shouldn\u2019t be much different from that.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>But when you talk about the frenzy surrounding financial shares at the moment, have you ever seen that sort of frenzy, madness or craziness in any sector you\u2019ve focused on so intently before, in your experience as an investment manager?<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>In my career, every day reminds me of the early \u201890s, with the financial institutions of that time. Wells Fargo was supposed to go bankrupt and there were a couple of investors \u2013 I believe they were \u201cBuffett busters\u201d. They thought Buffett was going to lose his shirt on Wells Fargo, but when I looked at Wells Fargo, I saw that even their bad assets were generating income \u2013 which is the case with banks today. And how can \u201cbad\u201d assets generate income? So it was an overreaction. You know, our brains are wired for overreaction and momentum, and to follow the crowd. So, at Fairholme, our tagline is, \u2018Ignore the crowd.\u2019 And another of our mottos is, \u2018Count what matters.\u2019 So we count the cash.<br \/>\nSo when I see companies selling for less than their liquidation value \u2013 for less than the cash they hold, both in their own bank accounts and in other banks \u2013 and I look at their reserves, their strengths and the trends, I keep trying to pick them apart, knock them down and devour them \u2013 what if the recession drags on, and what if there\u2019s a double-dip? And what if house prices continue to fall? And what if they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing and haven\u2019t set aside sufficient reserves? I mean, you ask all those questions and the answer is: they survive. What investors aren\u2019t focusing on is the inherent earnings power of these institutions. Bank of America, today, in this environment, makes $36 billion a year in pre-tax, pre-provision profit, so $36 billion before they have to pay tax \u2013 which they won\u2019t be paying for many years because of the situation over the last few years \u2013 and before they set aside money for bad loans, provisions, or whatever. So that\u2019s $36 billion a year to add to any problems or issues. I speak to people who\u2019ve gone through a divorce; they feel as though half their money has gone. I tell them it\u2019s just a delay of game.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>I\u2019m sure they take that advice with a pinch of salt. But let me ask you this: the last time I spoke to you about your investments in financials, over a year ago, you said that the biggest risk to your position \u2013 and you\u2019ve just mentioned it \u2013 would be correlation risk, and that they might all underperform due to, say, a double-dip recession in the US. Now, we have people like Martin Feldstein saying that we\u2019re heading into a recession. We have the chairman of a major bank in Germany saying, in essence, that the European debt crisis is effectively the equivalent of a Lehman Brothers collapse. How do you assess the correlation risk now?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>In really tough times, everything is correlated except for cash \u2013 that\u2019s one. Two, everyone has already assumed that we\u2019re back in a recession. The price reflects that. I mean, literally, the banks could close their doors, stop doing business, run down the business they have, and still make more money than the share price. So, and that can happen in a recession. And if you think about human nature, after the banks made so many bad loans in 2007 and 2008, the loans they\u2019ve made in 2009, 2010 and this year are unbelievable. Everyone complains about how difficult it is to get a loan because the requirements have gone from no documentation at all to an unbelievable amount of paperwork. But that\u2019s just the way it is. And if you stop growing \u2013 if the financial institution stops growing \u2013 the cash just piles up at the front door. So these fears about not having enough capital \u2013 not having the reserves to cover past liabilities \u2013 are simply unfounded. And even if the situation drags on and gets worse, the institutions\u2019 fundamental earnings power will enable them to do more than just survive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>There has been another change in your portfolio mix since I spoke to you over a year ago. And one of the biggest changes is that, a year ago, one-sixth of the Fairholme Fund\u2019s asset mix was in cash equivalents. Now it has fallen to under two per cent.\u00a0<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>It\u2019s not two per cent, but it\u2019s in single figures.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>It\u2019s in single figures.<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Yeah, in the mid-single digits.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>But you also had, I suppose, about one-sixth invested in fixed-income securities as well. So, at the time, you told me that we had billions of dollars in cash in the Fairholme Fund, ready to capitalise on any further market turmoil that might arise. So, first of all, what happened to all that cash over the past year?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Well, we\u2019ve used it for further investments in AIG and other companies. And we\u2019ve used it for redemptions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>You\u2019ve always described cash as your financial valium.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>And that gives you that sort of flexibility. So you\u2019ve got less financial \u2018valium\u2019 now.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Correct. But at some point in a business cycle, you have to get greedy. And the time to get greedy is when everyone else is running for the hills in fear; that\u2019s usually a great time to let your greed take over. And we\u2019ve become greedy \u2013 less cash, more concentrated investments, a higher percentage of investments. Because my definition of skill is knowing when you\u2019re lucky and taking advantage of that luck, and we\u2019re very lucky right now. We have financial institutions that are so cheap that I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d see anything like it again in my lifetime, not since the early 1990s. They have stronger balance sheets than they\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>When you see shares you hold \u2013 Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, whatever, AIG \u2013 that are down, say, 30 or 40 per cent, and I\u2019m just talking about year-to-date. To you, that\u2019s an opportunity to get greedy. It\u2019s not a reason to panic and sell\u2013<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Yes, that\u2019s right. No, you don\u2019t want to be in denial, so you take out your checklist of the 500 aspects you look at with a company and try to understand; you know, you go through it all again and then you try to understand why the market is behaving the way it is, trying to find out where the differences lie between perception and reality. You go through it all again \u2013 you don\u2019t want to go into denial, so you want to double-check all your work. But at that point, if you can\u2019t rule it out, you have to have the courage of your convictions. That\u2019s what you\u2019re being paid for. This is when I really earn my keep.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>But one of the things you told me a year ago \u2013 and this is a direct quote \u2013 was that the worst situation is when you\u2019re backed into a corner and can\u2019t get out of it, whether due to illiquidity, shareholders needing money, or redemptions; if you have a standard investment, you\u2019re a bit early and you\u2019re early into financial stocks, I think \u2026<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>That\u2019s a bit early, but it\u2019s very kind of you.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>And if you don\u2019t have the money to buy more, or you don\u2019t have the flexibility, that\u2019s a nightmare scenario. Great investors never run out of cash. We always want to have plenty of cash. So, you know, how close are you to your nightmare scenario? That\u2019s my question.<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>About five per cent from the nightmare scenario of not having the cash for redemptions. But you adapt. You look at your positions; you want to be in liquid positions \u2013 those with high trading volumes \u2013 so that if you need to cut some of your positions, you\u2019ll have the liquidity to do so. And things change. There are correlations between the size of the portfolio, the value of the portfolio and the cash you need, and where you believe you are in the cycle. If you think you\u2019re bouncing around the bottom, and you\u2019ve already paid the price for having the courage of your convictions, then I don\u2019t think we need to hold as much cash as we do and\u2013<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>So do you think we\u2019re bobbing around at the bottom and that you\u2019ve essentially paid the price for the courage of your convictions? And it takes a great deal of courage.<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Well, if I\u2019m wrong, I don\u2019t deserve to be in business \u2013 in this business \u2013 because everything I look at tells me that the financial companies we\u2019ve invested in are extremely cheap: below their book values, below their tangible book values, and below their liquidation values. The trends are improving. The balance sheets are strong. I don\u2019t know what more investors could want. There\u2019s a fear of the future, but I don\u2019t understand the maths being used to forecast it. I\u2019ve never been very good at predicting the future, but I do know that this fear is reflected in what you\u2019re paying for a share in Bank of America or Citigroup or whatever.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>So let me ask you about some of your major holdings, because in a letter dated February 2000, which you recently resent to clients, you said, \u201cConcentrated investing implies less risk of permanent loss as long as you maintain superior knowledge about the companies you own.\u201d So, amongst the most controversial positions you hold \u2013 Bank of America, for instance, which has been very much in the news \u2013 what is it that the naysayers fail to understand about Bank of America that you and Warren Buffett do?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>I think the sceptics simply don\u2019t believe what Bank of America is saying. They believe that Bank of America is fibbing about the figures, about the trends, about the strategy, about the model, about their ability to \u2013 I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s asking me to analyse something that doesn\u2019t exist, which is very difficult, and that can take on a life of its own. But the good news is that this is what gives you a price of around $7 per share for a company that could potentially earn $3 per share. Now, there aren\u2019t many times in life when you can buy a legendary brand that touches one in every two people in the United States at two and a half times what you expect their earnings to be in more normal times. Now, I don\u2019t know how it gets any better than that.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>So let\u2019s talk about AIG.\u00a0\u00a0<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>I mean, AIG was treated harshly, with the government taking an 87% stake. They didn\u2019t take an 87% stake in other financial institutions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>And they still own \u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>And it owns 77%, and they\u2019ll make money; their cost \u2013 they\u2019re a little underwater \u2013 but AIG\u2019s tangible book value, and if you think of tangible book value as a liquidation value, especially for an insurance company, is less than 50 cents on the dollar, so you\u2019re picking up dollar bills for less than 50 cents. A storied franchise \u2013 I mean, AIG still has a great reputation worldwide, and people may be disillusioned with it to some extent. Investors have lost money. But with a 1-for-20 reverse split, you know, back in the day AIG was trading at over $100 a share and the equivalent today is around $1.25. So it\u2019s down by 98% plus. Yes, they\u2019ve had to sell off a few bits and pieces, but the balance sheet is stronger. The two businesses that caused the problems were a relatively small part of the company. They\u2019ve been wound up.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>So what is your view on AIG\u2019s position today?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>I think there\u2019s much stronger leadership under Bob Benmosche, new leadership at Chartis, a much stronger balance sheet, huge assets, excellent tangible book value, strong equity, and a massive deferred tax asset \u2013 which isn\u2019t even on their books. I mean, just like Citigroup \u2013 and this is the case with Bank of America \u2013 AIG won\u2019t be paying taxes for many years given its previous losses. So, no, past shareholders have paid the price. They\u2019ll never recoup what they paid for their shares; the new management and the company have paid the price. So there is a 70% overhang, and many investors won\u2019t go near the share until that overhang disappears; they\u2019re waiting for the government to exit, thinking the government will strike a very poor deal. But, you know, you\u2019re taking that to an illogical extreme. Does that mean you wouldn\u2019t buy the shares at 20 or ten? Five? A dollar? Would you still wait for the government to exit? So at some point, without knowing exactly how the government is going to exit and what will happen to those shares, I have to look at the company\u2019s balance sheet, its earnings power, what I believe the company is capable of earning or growing, and what they\u2019re doing and what they\u2019re selling, and put it all together\u2013 the good, the bad and the ugly \u2013 and then look at the price at which the company is trading and decide whether or not this institution can be permanently eliminated \u2013 which is not the case \u2013 and whether or not, at that price, there is a sufficient margin of safety to avoid losing any money and, hopefully, generate a reasonable return for shareholders.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>One investment for a long-term, diversified portfolio that we should all hold some of?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>It has to be Bank of America.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>Does it?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Everyone can read all about it in the newspapers and on the telly every day. You can read every conceivable negative story known to mankind, from the press all over the world, blogs and whatever else you care to read \u2013 the most extreme negatives. But you have to weigh these up against the positives, as we have discussed. And if I\u2019m right, Bank of America has a book value of $20. Over the next ten years, I could see them easily doubling their book value to $40 and paying out a very attractive dividend yield, so you would eventually have, in my opinion, a double-digit dividend yield and fabulous capital appreciation in a bank that will be regarded as an extremely safe investment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>So Bruce, one more question: last time you were on WealthTrack \u2013 again, after winning Morningstar\u2019s Fund Manager of the Decade Award, I might add \u2013 I\u2019m going to quote you. You told me that: \u201cWhat worries me is knowing that it\u2019s usually a person\u2019s last investment idea that does them in. As you grow, you put more into your investments, and that final idea \u2013 which may be a bad one \u2013 will end up costing you more than you\u2019ve made over a decade. That is why, if you look at the fund today, to me\u2026\u201d This was over a year ago \u2026<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Right.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong> \u201c\u2026it looks more conservatively positioned than it has ever been. We\u2019re currently two-thirds invested in equities \u2013 not a kamikaze strategy.\u201d You are no longer two-thirds invested in equities. You\u2019ve got a much higher proportion of equities and a much smaller proportion of cash. So, I mean, isn\u2019t this a kamikaze strategy? I mean, what if the financials go wrong, or if this strategy doesn\u2019t work out \u2013 haven\u2019t you really put it all on the line, bet the farm?<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>I think you have to \u2013 it\u2019s a question of how you frame the argument. If the financials fail, the United States\u2019 financial system has failed, and capitalism as we know it has failed, and we\u2019ll be faced with a whole host of bigger issues, and I don\u2019t see that happening. We\u2019re not a highly leveraged institution. We still have cash. We\u2019re not dependent on anyone for money. Our biggest risk in terms of that cash would be if shareholders were to continue to withdraw their investments. If they do, we have significant positions that can be scaled back on a pro-rata basis so that the remaining shareholders are not affected. And it\u2019s simply a matter of time; we want to try and position the portfolio so that the longer it takes, the more the remaining shareholders will prosper.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>And the remaining shareholders include the Berkowitz family, as you have invested heavily in your funds.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Right. You can\u2019t be 100 per cent certain about anything. That\u2019s \u2013 to hold a fanatical belief would be a mistake. So, by putting all the family\u2019s money into these investments, it acts as a safety net. No one wants to throw away 30 years of hard work, so why on earth would you want to risk what you might need for something you don\u2019t need? So it\u2019s a safety net and puts me squarely in the shoes of shareholders, allowing me to feel the joy and pain of our shareholders. And it\u2019s been six months. In February I was a hero; now I\u2019m a bum. So, we\u2019ll see where we stand in six months\u2019 time. Revenge should be sweet.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>I\u2019m sure you can\u2019t wait for that revenge.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Then I\u2019ll be annoyed that I didn\u2019t buy more at such low prices, and wonder how on earth I could have been so stupid.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>So Bruce Berkowitz, of the Fairholme Fund, who continues to go against the grain \u2013 for better or for worse in the short term, at any rate \u2013 and hopefully, in the long term, it will turn out for the better. Thank you very much for joining us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>BRUCE BERKOWITZ: <\/strong>Thank you.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>CONSUELO MACK: <\/strong>The motto, \u201cignore the crowd\u201d, isn\u2019t just for professional value investors like Bruce Berkowitz. It also applies to individual investors in mutual funds, which brings me to this week\u2019s Action Point. It is: stick with your favourite mutual funds during downturns. Third-generation value fund investor Chris Davis of the Davis Funds sent me this chart. It shows that underperformance is inevitable, even from top-performing managers. Over the past decade, 94% of the top quarter of large-cap equity fund managers have fallen into the bottom half of their peers at least once during the decade for a three-year period; 63% hit the bottom quarter for three years; and 30% the bottom ten per cent. As we have said many times on WealthTrack, there is a reason why individual investors consistently underperform the mutual funds they invest in. They buy high, when performance is strong, and sell low, when performance is poor.\u00a0<strong> <\/strong><br \/>\nNext week, we\u2019ll be bringing you a rare interview with a financial thought leader and one of Wall Street\u2019s top-ranked strategists \u2013 Fran\u00e7ois Trahan will explain why he believes the old economic models are flawed and why safety is the best strategy for investors for the rest of the year.<br \/>\nWe\u2019d also like to tell you about a new opportunity for those of you who watch WealthTrack on TV or online. We now offer subscribers the chance to watch our programme as early as Thursday morning, along with timely interviews exclusive to WealthTrack subscribers. For more information, visit our website, wealthtrack.com. And whilst you\u2019re there, please do us a favour \u2013 if you haven\u2019t already, though many of you have \u2013 and complete our brief, confidential survey for WealthTrack viewers. Thank you for watching, and we hope you have a profitable and productive week ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the full video of the interview:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wealthtrack.com\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Consuelo Mack WealthTrack<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hoy os presentamos una aut\u00e9ntica perla en forma de entrevista. Se trata nada m\u00e1s y nada menos que de la que concedi\u00f3 el mejor gestor de la primera d\u00e9cada del siglo XXI, Bruce Berkowitz, a la prestigiosa periodista financiera Consuelo Mack hace tan solo 7 d\u00edas. Resulta interesant\u00edsimo leer los argumentos y convicciones de Berkowitz [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,51,45,41,42,40,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actualidad","category-banca","category-asesoramiento-deportistas-artistas","category-economia-y-finanzas","category-estrategia","category-gestion-financiera","category-reflexion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}