快樂牛郎

I've seen a lot of TV shows where some individual investors claim to be students of Warren Buffett.  They follow his "value" approach very closely.  This is pretty funny if you really think about it.  Buffett does not make money because of his value approach.  Rather, it's because of his reputation (hence a herding effect) and the amount of insider information and deals he's able to get (10% preferred dividends from GS).

In essence, the so-called fundamental analysis is pretty meaningless unless you can give the CEO a ring and get him to talk to you immediately.  People with no insider information pore over financial statements for hours but they completely forget the Efficient Market Hypothesis.  I don't agree with the Hypothesis most of the time, but when it comes to things like financial statements, there's no way someone like us can gain an edge over other investors.