Whitney Tilson's best value plays

Tilson owns 10-12 longs, out of which he likes Netflix (higher margin, lighter business model vs. Amazon, attractive takeover candidate), Goldman, Citi (winding down "bad" bank Citi Holdings, trades well below tangible book), Berkshire Hathaway. He does not currently own JC Penney given that short-term has been very rocky and he doesn't have enough conviction on it yet. He's finding 5-10 short ideas for every long idea.

Whitney Tilson: Netflix Has More Upside Than Amazon

Netflix has a lot more upside potential than online retailer Amazon, Whitney Tilson of T2 Partners says.

Whitney Tilson on AIG

In this interview with the Manual of Ideas on May 7, 2012, Whitney Tilson explains why he believes AIG common stock represents an excellent investment opportunity.

Whitney Tilson on Buying JC Penney

Whitney Tilson on Trading Barnes & Noble

Whitney Tilson: Netflix Selloff a Buying Opportunity

Whitney Tilson, T2 Partners, says Netflix earnings report was "great news," and weighs in on the alleged Wal-Mart scandal under investigation.

Whitney Tilson discusses his excellent Q1 performance

Whitney Tilson regrets not buying Apple

Tilson regrets not buying Apple, and he's short Lululemon, LinkedIn, GroupOn and Green Mountain Coffee.

“[Lululemon's] a fine company – but we’re short because it’s trading at 10.6 times sales – and 41 times earnings – and operating at 20% net margins. We’re staying with the short – mathematically I feel almost certain that a company this overvalued will reward on the short side.”

“LinkedIn is a good business but at 16.5 times revenues and a $10 billion market cap it’s overvalued”

“And as for Groupon, I subscribed and it feels like spam to me and I don’t see any real barriers to entry. There’s some value but it’s way south of what it should be.”

Whitney Tilson likes Big Tech

Tilson likes large cap stocks, especially tech stocks like Microsoft and Dell, even after the recent run up. He also likes JC Penney, Goldman and Citi.

"They’re incredible companies that are earning profits and trading at 10 to 12 times earnings with strong balance sheets and they’re returning cash to shareholders – they’re not exciting but if you’ve got a 5-10 year horizon and you want to earn better returns that Treasurys I think they’re the way to go."

“Between Cisco, Oracle, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Dell, Microsoft and Apple – every value guy I know - they own 2 or 3 of those.”

“We still think Dell is cheap. Although it’s gone from 5.5 earnings to 7 times earnings it’s still pretty darn cheap.”

"JCP has low sales per square foot relative to its peers and quite high expenses relative to peers – this is an underperforming and undermanaged business that now has a great retail guy. I think there’s a lot of upside here."

"Citi is still trading at a 36% discount to tangible book – even after this run up. Goldman is trading at 7% discount to tangible book. We think Goldman should be worth a premium to book and Citi is worth at least book"

Whitney Tilson's 2011 Annual Letter

(HT: ZeroHedge)
Tilson's T2 Partners lost 24.9% in 2011.
Tilson Full Year

Steve Forbes interviews Whitney Tilson (Part 2)

(Part 1 of the interview can be found here)


The transcript can be found here

Steve Forbes interviews Whitney Tilson

(Part 2 of the interview can be found here)
Part I

The transcript can be found here

Btw, the so-called "Anti-Tilson" trade – Long Green Mountain Coffee, Short Netflix - has been a fantastic winner. GMCR is up 4.45% today while NFLX is down 1.19%.

Some manager news today

·         David Tepper’s Appaloosa Said to Fuel Trading in CMBS by offering to buy and sell bonds with a face value of at least $8 billion after Wall Street firms pulled back from making markets in the debt. The $15 billion investment firm is providing bids and offers on at least 49 bonds issued in 2006 and 2007 with prices from 22 cents to 61 cents on the dollar

·         Bill Gross tweet on the EU summit today: “This is no summit. It’s a coffee klatch filled with petit fours and empty promises.”

·         Marc Faber told CNBC that stocks will be a better investment than bonds for the next 10 years. "When you print money everything goes up at different times, different asset classes … I think that stocks may still continue to go up, and I would rather own equities than government bonds for the next 10 years."

·         Whitney Tilson: 5 money moves one Buffett disciple is making now. 1. Buy US Banks (GS, JPM, C) 2. Buy Tech (Dell, Apple, Microsoft) 3. Own Berkshire Hathaway 4. Look at management’s track record (Howard Hughes Corp and Anheuser Busch) 5. Piggyback on activist shareholders (Bill Ackman and JC Penney)