Schedule.

This is the timeline and the order in which I am planning on studying the two books I described here.

I get home every day at approximately 1:30PM. Lunch takes me about 10 minutes, afterwards I need a nap to clear out my head, which should take between 15-20 minutes. Then I have about three and a half hours till around 5.30PM to set aside for studying. These 3 ½ hours, I intend to use on studying new material. Then, I have set aside about a hour and a half in the evening to review the material learned that day.

This week I intend to finish the first book, Understanding Wall Street.

My plan is to study at least two chapters daily, and then review them in the evening. The book has 13 chapters, 12 of which I intend to master by the end of the week. Chapter 12 refers to technical analysis, and since I am aiming for investing & not trading, I plan on omitting it. Otherwise, I expect to study it thoroughly.

Next week I hope to continue on to the next book, Value Investing. But not before returning to post on what I learned this week.

Choosing Books.

Here we are after writing the Blueprint, just in time to set the foundation in the ground. But first, we need to set the mold in which to pour the concrete. That is what was drawn in the blueprint as Phase 1, setting the curriculum for the forthcoming education.

Before I write my choice of books to read, I'll explain what I was looking for in setting a curriculum.

Prior to studying anything in depth, I like having an overall knowledge of the desired field of study. Bearing that in mind, I proceeded to choose my first book.

Understanding Wall Street
By Jeffrey B. Little, and Lucian Rhodes.

Well, it’s not a “value Investing” book, and I wasn’t looking for one. As I said, I first need to have a clear overall picture. I was looking for a book, which, without preaching any specific method of investing, simply explains everything that’s happening on Wall Street. This specific book uses layman’s language (not for Dummies language…) to explain the terms abundant in the Wall Street guy’s vocabulary. That’s why this is my choice at getting the objective look at the overall way the markets function.

After getting a full view of the market, I need to get an overall view of value investing. I spent many hours on the web, then at the library and finally in Barnes & noble, I decided on this one;

Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond
By Bruce C. N. Greenwald, Judd Kahn, Paul D. Sonkin, Michael van Biema.

Even though I haven’t read it yet, it looks to be a good choice. It came across as a book, that while giving you the general picture, does not stray from the clear points. I also liked that it has a brief history of 8 masters of the trade, which sort of puts life to dead numbers.

So much for introductions, now we get to study the bible itself. Namely, Benjamin Graham’s Security Analysis, and The Intelligent Investor.

Next post I intend to write the order and timeline, in which I wish to study all of these.

My Blueprint.

As I posted yesterday, I came up with a structured plan how to become a Value Investor. And that I hope, that this blog will help me adhere to my plan. So today I would like to post about my plan, its objectives, and goals.

My plan calls for 3 basic steps.

1)EDUCATION
2)ANALYSIS
3)INVESTMENT

EDUCATION
This includes;
· Defining Value Investing.
· The proper information gathering & analysis of companies ripe for a value investment.
· Subsequently, how to use this information in investing.

PHASE 1
Before I start to learn all of the above, I need to have the following three objectives completed.
I. Curriculum, a list of books to read.
II. Timeline, in which the books will be read.
III. Making sure the curriculum & timeline are held to.

PHASE 2
Studying the books, in accordance to the timeline set in Phase 1.

PHASE 3
Once education is complete, there should be write-down of;
A. Philosophies & techniques learned, in addition to pitfalls to be avoided.
B. Memorandum of investment plans going forward.
C. Prepared investment checklist, for each prospective investment.


ANALYSIS
Analysis by methods gathered in step 1.

Preset periods of time weekly or monthly, for researching and analyzing companies.


INVESTMENT
Investing with methods gained knowledge of in step 1.

Each investment should only proceed after filling out of the investment checklist to be prepared in final phase of step 1.

Why I am starting this Blog.

First, I would like to welcome everyone -maybe rather anyone...- to my new blog.

I hope, that you will find it interesting, knowledgeable and at the very least readable. I have to confess that English is not my first language, so if you find any grammatical mistakes please bear with me.

Now before I introduce myself to any readers here, let me say that I would like to keep my anonymity & not bring my personal life in here. Haven't gotten anything to hide, I just choose to separate between my personal life & any business that I do.

I am in my 20's, married, got three little girls, and I live in suburban NY. I made some money in real estate in the boom years, but I haven't chosen any particular career yet. So, there I was thinking about a career path to enable me to support my family. And it just came to me; why not go to the source. If the whole worlds finances are dependent in some way to the happenings on Wall Street, and whoever succeeded there is mighty rich. Then it’s as Willie Sutton the bank robber said when asked why he robbed banks, 'because that's where the money is'.

Now I have been reading a lot on the history of Wall Street, its gainers & losers. And it seems that the longest history of success belongs to the value investors. And that is even without mentioning Buffet. So if I decide to go to Wall Street, then of course I got to go with the biggest winners. So I decided to try and emulate the success of the value investor, and try to become one myself.

Once I came to this conclusion, I realized that in order for me to achieve my goal, there is a lot of knowledge that I need to pick up on. How to analyze companies, how to use information gathered in the analysis towards the coveted "value" investment. So I decided to start reading the famous books on value investing. I started by buying "The Intelligent Investor", and decided to start reading it. But then I saw that without a structured plan towards my education in value investing, I would never get to pull myself together to get it done. One day it will be laziness due to other activities which would appeal more, and the other day it will be plain laziness. And the days and months and years and decades will pass, and I still wouldn't get there.

After coming to the resolution that only a structured plan will take me to my desired goal. I sat down and tried to see how I can come up with a plan, and then how I can make sure to adhere to it. I realized that even after i come up with a plan, if I don't ensure my adherence to it, then the plan isn't worth anything. And that's where the blog idea came into my head.

I thought that if I would have a Blog, where I would blog about my path and about what it has taught me. Then the enjoyment & excitement by having other participants in my journey, would give me the drive to stride towards my desired goal.

So here I am, with this newly minted blog. I hope to post daily, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback.

I really wanted to write down my plan here too, but its getting late here. I might still post it today, otherwise I hope to post it tomorrow morning.