I completed Siegel's book so no more tidbits from there. 

Some other interesting quotes I read in Warren Buffett Speaks. -

Everybody engaged in complicated work needs colleagues. Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is a very useful thing. -

Munger has mastered short answers. "Charlie is not paid by the word" explains Buffett. -

Retirement plans? About 5-10 years after I die. -I feel like tap-dancing all the time. We tap-dance to work. -Any string of impressive figures multiplied by a single zero is still a zero. -

With enough insider information and a million dollars you can go broke in a year. -

That which is not worth doing is not worth doing well. -

I went to Dale Carnegie not to prevent my knees from knocking when public speakig but to do public speaking while my knees were knocking. -

Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No.2 : Never forget Rule No. 1 -

-I has been helpful to me to have tens of thousands (of students) turned out of business schools taught that it didn't do any good to think (EMT) -Its only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked. -Forecasts usually tell us more of the forecaster than of the future. -

When you combine ignorance and borrowed money, the consequences can get interesting. -do a lot of reading. I read annual reports pf the company Iam looking at and of competitors, that is the main source of material. -

I'd rather have a $10 million business making 15 percent than a $100 million dollar business making 5 percent. -Don't take the performance of your stock personally, after all : A stock doesn't know you own it. -Never buy an airline stock.

Jeremy Siegel book takeaways

Some things I read in Jeremy Siegel's book yesterday :

10) If there is significant evidence that a sector has become overpriced relative to its fundamentals then alter. A warning sign is when a sector achieves a 30% or greater weight in S&P500 Index. Oil in 1980 and technology in 2000 are examples. Subsequent returns to both sectors were very poor.

13) Investor's Intelligence has published one of the long-standing indicators of investor sentiment. They have evaluated scores of newsletters determining if bullish, bearish or neutral.
When investor sentiment is lowest, the returns have ben highest. And when investor sentiment has been highest, worst returns in the market. Sentiment = bullish newsletters/bearish newsletters

Sentiment Return (70 thrugh 00)
0.2-0.3 Return = 20%
0.9-1.0 Return = -10%

14) It is of note that the volatility index (VIX) the measure of implied market volatility computed from option prices, spikes upward at virtually the same time that investor sentiment drops. Anxiety in the market which can be measured from the premiums on options prices, is strongly correlated with investor bearishness.

15) Another indicator of investor sentiment :
Whenever the recommended allocation to stocks falls below 50% by portfolio managers, returns in actuality have been high. (Richard Bernstein)

16) Out-of-favor stocks : Dogs of the Dow (Dow 10 strategy)

I finally found the AWESOMEST tool to calculate the return of my portfolio. I had been losing a lot of sleep over this and was trying to figure out whether I should even keep actively investing at all or just leave it all (the meagre all ;) in index funds... But all my doubts are resolved for now!!!

Anyway this absolutely sublime tool is called XIRR. A nice description of it is at :
http://www.fool.com/ddow/1998/ddow980227.htm

Over the past 3 years, my return was 18.2% . Its probably not the best and have been very lucky so far and it may go down from now on, but still is encouraging enough to continue to invest myself. :)

Am so incredibly happy. Love XIRR and finally see the point of Excel.

Jim Cramer apparently mentioned SVI last night, had exchanged emails with someone at NBC about the possibility of calling and speaking to him about it on air. On balance Iam glad they didn't call, not sure if I would have managed to sound loud and hearty convincingly.

Hmm, it seems to me that the fewer things I do, the more constructive Iam. Gives me time to think and act rather than just running around at full speed, getting tired and not being very productive. Also tend to lose perspective if am doing too many things at the same time.

Just started my blog today. Need to start my device driver code this evening. Going to fiddle around with the Linux PC which I setup last week. Got the company's website up and running on the other machine. Need Windows on webserver PC since it is T's computer and he has tons of stuff stored on it. Website looking elegant but need to work on portfolio and misc links. So now let's work on building an actual product. Looked at craigslist and am amazed how many Linux "experts for hire " there are out there. That model ain't gonna work.

Meeting A and daughter in the evening, long overdue on that too. Just bought CMG today, hopefully a good decision. Sold PLCE at about 31 percent gain, thought it was overpriced. PLCE stores don't look very crowded to me, and was looking at a good exit price which I thought was today. Hmm, let's see if sell a good idea or not, but anyway as Buffett says, stick to your guns after doing your own analysis. My analysis said overvalued. (unlike CRI sell which was a sub-optimal decision but was made before reading The Intelligent Investor and Common Stocks, Uncommon Gains) . Let's see if these books help my portfolio any or as dad says, maybe its all luck in which case I should just get my horoscope done ;)

Going to Kabul for lunch on Friday with K. Should be fun, should get some news about the higher-ups. Not that it matters, except for gaining an insight into the latest corporate silliness
in my company.