The birth of the VCI blog

Welcome to the Victoria Contrarian Investing Blog--- a mish mash of (hopefully) productive thinking about value investing in the current market environs...

What I hope to accomplish with this blog:

1. To educate myself and others regarding GARP strategy (Growth at A Reasonable Price) of recognizing a specific company's current and future value
2. To analyze specific securities in Canadian, US and international markets that may meet criteria as investment grade
3. To learn to identify the MARGIN OF SAFETY for investing in the above securities. "Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked."
   
   Warren Buffett

You may find this blog interesting or useful if you consider yourself to be a long term investor. A representative time frame for most contrarian investments would be 18 months-4 yrs++. In fact, Mr. Buffett has been known to hold onto some investments for many decades, i.e. KO

“We believe that according the name "investors" to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a "romantic”

Warren Buffett

Being contrarian means that you must be prepared to swim upstream from the herd. That means you must buy when everyone else is panicking and the market prospects appear most bleak. OTOH, you will need to sell some or all of your investments when stocks are red hot and everyone seems to be getting into the game. You will need to sit back and smile as you watch your investments plummet further after you buy them. You will not succumb to greed or fear based decision making. Easy, right? Just wait.... LOL.