Price is what you pay; value is what you get. Warren Buffett credited that line to Ben Graham in his 2008 letter, and nearly every chapter of this book comes back to it.

If you have watched a few market cycles and suspect prices are high, you may not have a good way to judge how high. Tim Travis gave his opinion on valuations in his first book, The Business Mindset Investor. This book lays out the evidence behind it so you can check it yourself.

It is a long book, and some of it may be more detailed than you want. Tim’s approach with clients is to tell them what he would want to know in their shoes, and he wrote it the same way.

What You Will Learn

• How to value a business. Four valuation methods worked through on a hypothetical company with the arithmetic shown, and how to check what management has done with the cash.
• How to judge an income investment. Dividend stocks, REITs, BDCs and rental property, each looked at through the cash it pays, the price it costs and the risks to that cash.
• How to read a market’s price tag. Nearly a century of evidence, told one episode at a time: 1929, the Nifty Fifty, Japan, the tech bubble, the financial crisis, Europe in 2011 and the 2023 bank runs, along with the counterexamples.
• What the years around retirement can do. Historical market index returns applied to hypothetical portfolios, for hypothetical retirees who started in the worst of that history and for those who started at better times.
• Which questions to bring to your advisors. Roth conversions, tax-loss selling in taxable accounts, asset location, beneficiaries and estate basics, as general education.
• How a value investor thinks about AI. Who builds it, who profits from it, what it does to prices and interest rates, and what it is sensible to pay.

What the Firm Owns and Why

The book names companies, including some T&T Capital Management owns. Tim says which ones and why, dates each opinion to the day he wrote it, and puts the risks and counterarguments beside it. His views may have changed since, and the book is not a track record.

About the Author

Tim Travis is the CEO and Founder of T&T Capital Management, a fee-only fiduciary investment adviser registered with the SEC and based in Gilbert, Arizona. He started the firm in October 2011, in the middle of the European financial crisis, and the book opens there.

If you would like us to look at your current portfolio, you can request a complimentary, no-obligation review through our contact page or at 805-886-8140, and the team will work out a time with you. You don’t need a review to get the book, and no is a fine answer.

Disclosures

T&T Capital Management LLC is a fee-only fiduciary investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (CRD #158407). Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. The book and this page are general educational content. They are not personalized investment, tax or legal advice, and they are not an offer to buy or sell any security. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Hypothetical examples and tables are illustrative only and do not represent any client account or T&T Capital Management strategy. The book’s retirement tables apply historical market index returns to hypothetical portfolios, before fees, expenses and taxes. Views are the author’s as of the dates stated and may change without notice. Market data is as of the dates shown. The book names specific companies. T&T Capital Management, its clients and its principals hold or may hold positions in those companies and may buy or sell them at any time, and statements about what the firm owns speak only as of the dates stated. Nothing in the book or on this page is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Results attributed to third parties belong to those third parties and are not results of T&T Capital Management or its clients. T&T Capital Management does not provide tax or legal advice, so please consult your own CPA and attorney. The portfolio review is offered without obligation, and recommendations are personalized only after a written advisory agreement is in place. Form ADV Part 2A is publicly available at adviserinfo.sec.gov.