The Intellectual Investor

Vitaliy has long considered himself more American than Russian, so why does he feel that it's the Russian composers (like Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky) that speak to his soul? Vitaliy explores this question - and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto Number 4 in this episode.

Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" was one of the first American capitalist books to be translated in post-Soviet Russia. But it took Vitaliy many years to fully absorb the lessons Carnegie teaches in it. Listen to Vitaliy's key takeaway from the book and how it impacted not just his investing, but also his parenting.

Is the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting really about Warren Buffett? With another annual meeting coming up, Vitaliy reflects on over a decade of making his pilgrimages to Omaha.

Is SoftBank setting itself up for failure by investing in WeWork? Despite his apprehension regarding WeWork, Vitaliy isn't worried. Hear his take on it & the reasoning behind his investing firm's decision to hold SoftBank stock.

Is value investing simply about buying cheap stocks? A question from a reader prompts Vitaliy's discussion of how value investing evolved from its origins with Ben Graham to its current application under Warren Buffett and why it's not really about buying "cheap stuff".

For a Jewish girl, bat mitzvah ranks somewhere alongside getting married and having a firstborn. Vitaliy revisits his Russian Jewish heritage and reflects on celebrating his daughter's important milestone and the speech he gave at her bat mitzvah.

The market is not your friend. Its up and down swings cause many an emotional investor to buy high and sell low. Listen to Vitaliy explain how you can avoid irrational investing and what rational investing should look like.

Every time the stock market takes a turn, all sorts of “experts” make all sorts of predictions about what’ll happen next. But who’s right? Can we even tell? Listen to Vitaliy’s value-investor take on this (hint: he doesn’t think much of any predictions).

A lot of fanfare surrounds corporate mergers. There's talk of profits driven by "synergies". So why do they keep failing? Vitaliy uncovers the dark side of mergers that's often missing from the ecstatic promises made by corporate press releases.

Dividend-paying stocks are the holy grail in today’s markets. So many companies end up endangering themselves by pumping out dividends to attract investors. Hear Vitaliy explain what factors investors should be analyzing instead. Originally published in Fortune Magazine.

What is value investing? Vitaliy digests the concept into 6 simple principles – the same principles that helped Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger get to where they are today.