Please introduce yourself below. At a minimum your name and where you are from. Anything you want to share about where you are in your investing journey would be helpful as well.
I've been a saver since I was a child and frugal for most of my life, but I would only claim the title of "investor" for the last couple of years. That's a 20+ year gap fueled by skepticism of things I don't (think I) understand and low pay during my years as a student.
When I finally got a 401(k), I read up on best practices and found the Boglehead principles nearly universally recommended; I set it and forgot it. By late 2024, I noticed my low-cost (and admittedly aggressive growth-style) fund seemed to be providing returns that were too good to be true, or at the very least too good to last. So, I decided I wanted to educate myself further and started by reading "The Intelligent Investor" and other investing classics. I've had "Security Analysis", "Margin of Safety", and other tomes on the docket for over a year now, but haven't buckled down to read them, as I spent more time doing due diligence and allocating capital. I also spend a bit too much time watching price action and have a proclivity towards swing trading to capitalize on mean reversion, so I'm no dyed-in-the-wool value investor. That said, I've been feeling the need to raise my competence and deepen my conviction in my own valuations. When I saw the Excess Returns episode with Gary, it resonated, so I decided to join.
I'm excited to learn from everyone and grateful to Gary for nucleating this!
I'm Michael, from Australia. I first discovered The Intelligent Investor while browsing through my university library in my second year, and that moment sparked my long‑term interest in value investing. Since then, I’ve been investing in securities across Asian markets.
Over the past year, I’ve also learned a great deal from Mohnish Pabrai’s talks and Nick Sleep’s Nomad letters, which further deepened my appreciation for long‑term, rational, business‑focused investing.
I’m excited to continue building my value investing journey through this course and look forward to learning from everyone here.
Hi, I'm Tony from Michigan. I have always had an interest in business and investing. For the past three or four years, I have been picking individual stocks, reading, and listening to podcasts. I am excited to learn in a more rigorous, structured way.
I'm Shane from Melbourne, Australia and I've been investing for almost 10 years.
I'm a software engineer by trade, but I was drawn to value investing through intellectual curiosity and an intense desire for financial independence (albeit via algo trading, bitcoin and other sins). I've read Buffett, Munger, Graham, Greenblatt, Klarman, Marks and hundreds of books on the topic.
I fish the unloved end of the market: special situations, cash flows with a hard asset floor, commodity equities at cyclical troughs, post-restructuring survivors and other intensely hated areas.
Coming from a software background, I approach idea generation from a technical standpoint. Via agent skills and MCP (Model Context Protocol), I guide my agent through repeatable processes to run deep analysis, wrangle data sources, parse filings, and screen and deep-dive whole universes in bulk via subagents. Of course, none of this substitutes doing the work on any one individual company, but it certainly lets you cover enormous ground while still retaining a day job. AI widens your reach, but it puts a premium on effort, so you really need to make the effort.
I've also built a full-featured AI-analyst platform that monitors company announcements for corporate events that may constitute a special situation. The analyst (Maurece, after Maurece Schiller, the father of special situation investing) deep-dives them using a process similar to what I've described above, but does it while you sleep and emails you if it finds something juicy.
With investing, there's always something to do and there's always more to learn, so I look forward to joining these seminars and learning with you.
Hello all. I'm Lu from the Pacific Northwest and have been investing for several decades and am currently semi-retired/FIRE. It's been an adventure. I got involved in investing during the mid-1990s because I lost money in an investment (company later went bankrupt) and thus, joined the 2 leading investment education organizations (National Association Investor's Corporation/BetterInvesting and the American Association of Individual Investors) as I knew that I needed a framework first. I was never a fan of AAII's focus on non-stocks (e.g., mutual funds) at the time, but, at the same time, I never joined an investment club (which was NAIC's focus). I think I stuck with AAII membership due to its annual December issue, which always focused on the financial planning/tax considerations that every US based investor should consider for the following year. From BI/NAIC's focus on the Stock Selection Guide, I have definitely grown from this tool, but understand that it is crucial to buy stock in the lower third of a securities trading range because a significant portion of one's investment return over time comes from buying a stock when it is selling at a favorable price/price ratio relative to its history (i.e. to allow for multiple expansion in the future). It is especially helpful to have a background on reading financial statements, and John Tracy's How To Read A Financial Report was one of the first accounting books that I learned from. Over the years, I've read many books (Graham, Fisher, Klarman, Greenblatt, etc.) along with Buffett's many well-written Letters to Shareholders. I would classify myself as a value investor, but I have definitely grown from the use of traditional metrics (e.g., P/Es, P/BV, etc.) - i.e., taking my definition of value from other considerations. Recently, of course, I am more aware that Mr. Market will have even more extreme temper tantrums in the future and have sided with returning to the basics. The most influential authors on my thought in the past decade have included Robert Kirby's The Coffee Can Portfolio (article in Fall 1984 Journal of Portfolio Management), Thomas Phelps's 100-to-1 in the Stock Market, and Chris Mayer's 100 Baggers. I see myself as an opportunistic long-term value investor and watch/listen to a bunch of Youtube podcasts on investing each week (e.g. Carlisle/Taylor's Value After Hours, Walker's Yet Another Value podcast). When Gary Mishuris discussed his course on the Excess Returns, I just thought it was a great opportunity to review/cover the basics. I just hope that I can borrow books from the local library system as my cash flows are mostly going toward my home remodel.
I'm trying to do this via the library also. I have Security Analysis (which I gather is the first book) on order via interlibrary loan. It is good to read your background. I likewise expect Mr. Market to throw a tantrum before long, but he is an unpredictable fellow.
I'm another Andrew, from Western Illinois. I'm in my seventies, retired from a career as a church organist-choirmaster.
My first retirement account included the Vanguard SP500 index fund, which seemed the best choice. That led me to Jack Bogle, whom I deeply respect, and from there to the Bogleheads forum, where I have spent way too much time for the last twenty years or so.
Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" is frequently mentioned over there, and it has become my foundational investing book. I have always tended toward value investing and this book took me much deeper in that direction.
And you could say that it led me here. I have never attempted "Security Analysis" and it seems well to do it now in good company, with more good books as well. I'm looking forward to it.
I've been investing for a few years. Started with Buffett and been adding in some Nick Sleep/Chris Mayer, but am very aware that I have a lot to learn.
Most of all, I'm looking forward to the discussions as I've struggled finding people doing investing the right way, outside of the books.
I am a finance lawyer (capital markets, VC, PE, M&A, finance regulatory). I've always been the math and accounting geek among lawyers and the legal geek among finance guys. My investment journey started out as a lawyer (advised 200+ transactions and countless regulatory matters across all asset classes) always heavily involved in negotiations regarding the commercial, finance, and business aspects of deals which developed a keen interest in investments and financial mechanics.
I am at the beginning of my investing journey. Currently developing technical skills while doing some minor investments and deals to feel the depth of it.
I am actually friends with László (introduced himself earlier below), whom we share a common enthusiasm for the field. He showed me this seminar as well. At this point, both of us learning theory and technicalities at a rapid pace, so this seminar is also a great opportunity to learn and I look forward to it.
Sri from Bentonville Arkansas. Software engineer by the day, just started learning value investing. Always been curious about investing which makes sense by ignoring make rich quick trading games.
I’m someone who is ultimately curious and passionate about value investing, the corporate world, business and mental models.
Over the years, I was principally influenced by Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Mohnish Pabrai, Joel Greenblatt, Arnold van den Berg, William Higgons, and I'm trying to follow their principles.
I'm thrilled to join this course and I'm looking forward to this learning and sharing journey.
My involvement in investing started during the GFC (and its aftermath), while I was still in law school. I made some good calls, which helped me to have an easier time as junior lawyer later on. The first quick success though made me reckless and - to be honest - arrogant, which led to mistakes. I was lucky to get out of those "positions" (as they were certainly no investment-quality decisions). Then I applied to study finance and accounting BA on the weekends, while working as a junior lawyer.
Although I read a great number of books on investing, my "process" were based mostly on my personal hunches. A couple of years ago I decided to change things in my life - which among other things included tjoining the Hungarian Defence Forces as a reservist (the war in Ukraine is in our neighborhood) - and systematically started to build up a framework I would like to follow as an investor (with many delays in the schedule, though, as I am still running a legal practice). My goal is to shift my focus from legal work (or law job) to investing (a 20[legal]/80[investing] split would be satisfactory).
One of the first steps I took was to finish Prof. Damodaran's online course (free version) on Valuation, which was a great help in working through his book on the topic. I became heavily influenced by his teachings, but I am also incorporating other aspects/ perspectives, elements in the framework as well (Prof. Shiller, Howard Marks, John Mihajlevic, etc. etc. - this would be a very long list).
As I planned to finish the rough framework by the end of this year, this seminar came at just the right time.
So here I am: attorney-at-law, reservist lieutenant, investor aspirant (the way I see it, I haven't earned the title of investor yet).
I am really glad that Mr. Mishuris provided this opportunity to learn more. Looking forward to it.
My background is in mathematics, finance, and economics. I’ve been analyzing companies for more than 20 years.
Over the past few years, I’ve been developing my own systematic approach to stock analysis and ranking. The idea is simple: apply the same rules to an entire investment universe — hundreds or thousands of stocks across different markets — and see which companies really stand out.
That’s one of the reasons I joined this seminar. I’m interested in learning more about different approaches to value investing and comparing them with what I’m doing myself.
Looking forward to learning from Gary and everyone here.
I'm Andrew, an undergraduate in the Bay Area. I got into value investing through my father's influence before he got sick, and I've been exploring it casually amid a busy college life. I'm majoring in Economics and hoping to minor in Data Science and History.
I haven't read much of the literature yet, but I'm currently reading Benjamin Graham's The Interpretation of Financial Statements to learn the basics of finance and accounting, and I've read Li Lu's book on value investing. I'm still figuring out what I want to do with my life, but value investing draws me in because it rewards patience and a genuine pursuit of knowledge, qualities I really value and want to develop for life.
I'm delighted to have found this little community online. Value investing is honestly pretty niche, and not something most people my age are aware of. I'm excited to build a routine for learning more about the subject and the industry, and I'd appreciate any recommendations on books to read, things to look at, or general career and life advice.
Hi I’m Sarah, from London. I started the course last year but due to family issues wasn’t able to keep us. I’m all in for this year. The bits of the course I done last year were brilliant. So looking forward to it. I’m hoping learn more about valuation and not over paying for stocks.
Please introduce yourself below. At a minimum your name and where you are from. Anything you want to share about where you are in your investing journey would be helpful as well.
Hi Everyone,
Alex from Central California here.
I've been a saver since I was a child and frugal for most of my life, but I would only claim the title of "investor" for the last couple of years. That's a 20+ year gap fueled by skepticism of things I don't (think I) understand and low pay during my years as a student.
When I finally got a 401(k), I read up on best practices and found the Boglehead principles nearly universally recommended; I set it and forgot it. By late 2024, I noticed my low-cost (and admittedly aggressive growth-style) fund seemed to be providing returns that were too good to be true, or at the very least too good to last. So, I decided I wanted to educate myself further and started by reading "The Intelligent Investor" and other investing classics. I've had "Security Analysis", "Margin of Safety", and other tomes on the docket for over a year now, but haven't buckled down to read them, as I spent more time doing due diligence and allocating capital. I also spend a bit too much time watching price action and have a proclivity towards swing trading to capitalize on mean reversion, so I'm no dyed-in-the-wool value investor. That said, I've been feeling the need to raise my competence and deepen my conviction in my own valuations. When I saw the Excess Returns episode with Gary, it resonated, so I decided to join.
I'm excited to learn from everyone and grateful to Gary for nucleating this!
I'm Michael, from Australia. I first discovered The Intelligent Investor while browsing through my university library in my second year, and that moment sparked my long‑term interest in value investing. Since then, I’ve been investing in securities across Asian markets.
Over the past year, I’ve also learned a great deal from Mohnish Pabrai’s talks and Nick Sleep’s Nomad letters, which further deepened my appreciation for long‑term, rational, business‑focused investing.
I’m excited to continue building my value investing journey through this course and look forward to learning from everyone here.
Hi, I'm Tony from Michigan. I have always had an interest in business and investing. For the past three or four years, I have been picking individual stocks, reading, and listening to podcasts. I am excited to learn in a more rigorous, structured way.
Hi all,
I'm Shane from Melbourne, Australia and I've been investing for almost 10 years.
I'm a software engineer by trade, but I was drawn to value investing through intellectual curiosity and an intense desire for financial independence (albeit via algo trading, bitcoin and other sins). I've read Buffett, Munger, Graham, Greenblatt, Klarman, Marks and hundreds of books on the topic.
I fish the unloved end of the market: special situations, cash flows with a hard asset floor, commodity equities at cyclical troughs, post-restructuring survivors and other intensely hated areas.
Coming from a software background, I approach idea generation from a technical standpoint. Via agent skills and MCP (Model Context Protocol), I guide my agent through repeatable processes to run deep analysis, wrangle data sources, parse filings, and screen and deep-dive whole universes in bulk via subagents. Of course, none of this substitutes doing the work on any one individual company, but it certainly lets you cover enormous ground while still retaining a day job. AI widens your reach, but it puts a premium on effort, so you really need to make the effort.
I've also built a full-featured AI-analyst platform that monitors company announcements for corporate events that may constitute a special situation. The analyst (Maurece, after Maurece Schiller, the father of special situation investing) deep-dives them using a process similar to what I've described above, but does it while you sleep and emails you if it finds something juicy.
With investing, there's always something to do and there's always more to learn, so I look forward to joining these seminars and learning with you.
Best,
Shane
P.S. you can steal my skills here: https://github.com/shanehull/dotfiles/tree/main/skills
Hello all. I'm Lu from the Pacific Northwest and have been investing for several decades and am currently semi-retired/FIRE. It's been an adventure. I got involved in investing during the mid-1990s because I lost money in an investment (company later went bankrupt) and thus, joined the 2 leading investment education organizations (National Association Investor's Corporation/BetterInvesting and the American Association of Individual Investors) as I knew that I needed a framework first. I was never a fan of AAII's focus on non-stocks (e.g., mutual funds) at the time, but, at the same time, I never joined an investment club (which was NAIC's focus). I think I stuck with AAII membership due to its annual December issue, which always focused on the financial planning/tax considerations that every US based investor should consider for the following year. From BI/NAIC's focus on the Stock Selection Guide, I have definitely grown from this tool, but understand that it is crucial to buy stock in the lower third of a securities trading range because a significant portion of one's investment return over time comes from buying a stock when it is selling at a favorable price/price ratio relative to its history (i.e. to allow for multiple expansion in the future). It is especially helpful to have a background on reading financial statements, and John Tracy's How To Read A Financial Report was one of the first accounting books that I learned from. Over the years, I've read many books (Graham, Fisher, Klarman, Greenblatt, etc.) along with Buffett's many well-written Letters to Shareholders. I would classify myself as a value investor, but I have definitely grown from the use of traditional metrics (e.g., P/Es, P/BV, etc.) - i.e., taking my definition of value from other considerations. Recently, of course, I am more aware that Mr. Market will have even more extreme temper tantrums in the future and have sided with returning to the basics. The most influential authors on my thought in the past decade have included Robert Kirby's The Coffee Can Portfolio (article in Fall 1984 Journal of Portfolio Management), Thomas Phelps's 100-to-1 in the Stock Market, and Chris Mayer's 100 Baggers. I see myself as an opportunistic long-term value investor and watch/listen to a bunch of Youtube podcasts on investing each week (e.g. Carlisle/Taylor's Value After Hours, Walker's Yet Another Value podcast). When Gary Mishuris discussed his course on the Excess Returns, I just thought it was a great opportunity to review/cover the basics. I just hope that I can borrow books from the local library system as my cash flows are mostly going toward my home remodel.
I'm trying to do this via the library also. I have Security Analysis (which I gather is the first book) on order via interlibrary loan. It is good to read your background. I likewise expect Mr. Market to throw a tantrum before long, but he is an unpredictable fellow.
I'm another Andrew, from Western Illinois. I'm in my seventies, retired from a career as a church organist-choirmaster.
My first retirement account included the Vanguard SP500 index fund, which seemed the best choice. That led me to Jack Bogle, whom I deeply respect, and from there to the Bogleheads forum, where I have spent way too much time for the last twenty years or so.
Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" is frequently mentioned over there, and it has become my foundational investing book. I have always tended toward value investing and this book took me much deeper in that direction.
And you could say that it led me here. I have never attempted "Security Analysis" and it seems well to do it now in good company, with more good books as well. I'm looking forward to it.
Hi, Tomas from Barcelona here.
I am very excited.
I've been investing for a few years. Started with Buffett and been adding in some Nick Sleep/Chris Mayer, but am very aware that I have a lot to learn.
Most of all, I'm looking forward to the discussions as I've struggled finding people doing investing the right way, outside of the books.
Mahdi from London looking forward to the seminar.
Hi everyone,
I am Mátyás from Hungary.
I am a finance lawyer (capital markets, VC, PE, M&A, finance regulatory). I've always been the math and accounting geek among lawyers and the legal geek among finance guys. My investment journey started out as a lawyer (advised 200+ transactions and countless regulatory matters across all asset classes) always heavily involved in negotiations regarding the commercial, finance, and business aspects of deals which developed a keen interest in investments and financial mechanics.
I am at the beginning of my investing journey. Currently developing technical skills while doing some minor investments and deals to feel the depth of it.
I am actually friends with László (introduced himself earlier below), whom we share a common enthusiasm for the field. He showed me this seminar as well. At this point, both of us learning theory and technicalities at a rapid pace, so this seminar is also a great opportunity to learn and I look forward to it.
Thank you Gary, for putting this together.
Sri from Bentonville Arkansas. Software engineer by the day, just started learning value investing. Always been curious about investing which makes sense by ignoring make rich quick trading games.
Hi All,
I’m Tibor from Paris.
I’m someone who is ultimately curious and passionate about value investing, the corporate world, business and mental models.
Over the years, I was principally influenced by Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Mohnish Pabrai, Joel Greenblatt, Arnold van den Berg, William Higgons, and I'm trying to follow their principles.
I'm thrilled to join this course and I'm looking forward to this learning and sharing journey.
Hi everyone,
I'm László from Budapest, Hungary (Europe).
First of all: thank you, Mr. Mishuris for this seminar!
Background:
I'm a practicing attorney (business law, transactions, PE/ VC investments, occasionally M&A).
My involvement in investing started during the GFC (and its aftermath), while I was still in law school. I made some good calls, which helped me to have an easier time as junior lawyer later on. The first quick success though made me reckless and - to be honest - arrogant, which led to mistakes. I was lucky to get out of those "positions" (as they were certainly no investment-quality decisions). Then I applied to study finance and accounting BA on the weekends, while working as a junior lawyer.
Although I read a great number of books on investing, my "process" were based mostly on my personal hunches. A couple of years ago I decided to change things in my life - which among other things included tjoining the Hungarian Defence Forces as a reservist (the war in Ukraine is in our neighborhood) - and systematically started to build up a framework I would like to follow as an investor (with many delays in the schedule, though, as I am still running a legal practice). My goal is to shift my focus from legal work (or law job) to investing (a 20[legal]/80[investing] split would be satisfactory).
One of the first steps I took was to finish Prof. Damodaran's online course (free version) on Valuation, which was a great help in working through his book on the topic. I became heavily influenced by his teachings, but I am also incorporating other aspects/ perspectives, elements in the framework as well (Prof. Shiller, Howard Marks, John Mihajlevic, etc. etc. - this would be a very long list).
As I planned to finish the rough framework by the end of this year, this seminar came at just the right time.
So here I am: attorney-at-law, reservist lieutenant, investor aspirant (the way I see it, I haven't earned the title of investor yet).
I am really glad that Mr. Mishuris provided this opportunity to learn more. Looking forward to it.
Hi everyone, I’m Andrei from Aveiro, Portugal.
My background is in mathematics, finance, and economics. I’ve been analyzing companies for more than 20 years.
Over the past few years, I’ve been developing my own systematic approach to stock analysis and ranking. The idea is simple: apply the same rules to an entire investment universe — hundreds or thousands of stocks across different markets — and see which companies really stand out.
That’s one of the reasons I joined this seminar. I’m interested in learning more about different approaches to value investing and comparing them with what I’m doing myself.
Looking forward to learning from Gary and everyone here.
Hi everyone,
I'm Andrew, an undergraduate in the Bay Area. I got into value investing through my father's influence before he got sick, and I've been exploring it casually amid a busy college life. I'm majoring in Economics and hoping to minor in Data Science and History.
I haven't read much of the literature yet, but I'm currently reading Benjamin Graham's The Interpretation of Financial Statements to learn the basics of finance and accounting, and I've read Li Lu's book on value investing. I'm still figuring out what I want to do with my life, but value investing draws me in because it rewards patience and a genuine pursuit of knowledge, qualities I really value and want to develop for life.
I'm delighted to have found this little community online. Value investing is honestly pretty niche, and not something most people my age are aware of. I'm excited to build a routine for learning more about the subject and the industry, and I'd appreciate any recommendations on books to read, things to look at, or general career and life advice.
Hi I’m Sarah, from London. I started the course last year but due to family issues wasn’t able to keep us. I’m all in for this year. The bits of the course I done last year were brilliant. So looking forward to it. I’m hoping learn more about valuation and not over paying for stocks.