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?Look at market variations as your friend rather than your enemy; earnings from folly rather than participate in it.? ?Warren Buffett

Investors shouldn?t hate the market because of it is up and downs. They will have to capitalize on it?and give a middle finger to those brokers wasting their time (and money) buying and selling, looking at laying out capital as just buying stocks and not taking ownership of a company. In this book, Joe Ponzio gives an ?f-you? to Wall Street and teaches you how to become a sharp value capitalist who uses economic downturns to your advantage. By buying into companies you believe in?but that may be selling for less than their intrinsic value, like high-end merchants who sells goods at retail in a weak market and discount merchants who sells goods at retail in a strong one?you will net profit from their long-term performance. It?s the perfective guide for any individual fed up with Wall Street?s bull.

About the AuthorJoe Ponzio has seen the "dark side" of Wall Street. Having worked for two of the greatest firms in the industry, he left the Wall Street titans in 2002 to found the Meridian Business Group, a successful portfolio management firm consecrated to performance, safety, and putting his cash where his mouth is. Today, Mr. Ponzio manages person portfolios as well as a private investment fund modeled after the early partnerships of Warren Buffett. His internet site FWallStreet.com is a general value investing web site and is a permanent link on CNBC.com's Warren Buffett Watch. He lives and works in Chicago, IL.

Most helpful client reviews

26 of 26 persons found the following review helpful.
Value Investing that Emphasizes Cash Flow
By Jeff Partlow
I'm surely glad that the somewhat objectionable title did not dissuade me from reading this book. The title comes from the author's contention that the brokerage and mutual fund industry is driven by their own greed. Thus, their focus is primarily on sales rather than what will have to be their objective, namely identifying good investment prospects that will heighten our investment returns. Although I have no disagreement with this viewpoint, I'm pleased to report that a comparatively little share of the book is consecrated to this topic. Most of the book is a practical guide to value investing.

The necessary thesis may be summarized as follows: "So the key to making long-term gains in the stock market is simple. Figure out which companies will grow and buy them at a cheap price." It is easy to agree with such an objective, but how do we do that? What distinguishes this book from the myriad value-oriented laying out capital books now available is the author's special and significant stress on the importance of analyzing a company's cash flow characteristics. This is a welcomed standpoint that transcends the conventional value investor's financial ratios of P/E, P/B, and P/S.

The author describes how Warren Buffett used the cash flow conception of owner net income since the mid-1980s, even years before the cash flow statement became a required corporate quarterly financial reporting document. The author uses Enron to demonstrate the desirability of analyzing cash flows in lieu of reported earnings. The two necessary analysis tools espoused by the author are "Cash Yield" and "Buy-and-Hold Valuation". Historical examples using Johnson & Johnson, Coca Cola, and Microsoft are helpful in answering the when to buy? and when to sell? questions. An further and added gain from this book are the interesting, mutual sensical perceptivenesses in the areas of portfolio diversification and also "The Psychology That Will Drive Your Investment Success".

The improvements that would take the rating from four stars to five stars would be: (1) Less repetition of a few of the viewpoints provided; (2) Reduce the terminology confusion. For example, "Cash Yield" would be more appropriately termed as "Owner Earnings Yield". The same problem with clarity exists in use of the terms "Buy-and-Hold Valuation" and "Cash Return On Invested Capital"; and (3) Rather than relying solely on historical examples of how to tell apart buying and retail opportunities, it would likewise be even more utile to the reader if a specific example of how to use the tools to tell apart a current suitable investment probability was provided.

17 of 18 humans found the following review helpful.
Joe Ponzio Understands and Explains Buffett Better Than Others
By Rob Joseph
Joe Ponzio's "F Wall Street" is a true accomplishment in clarity and investing wisdom. Over the past 14 years, I have read almost each book or article or essay written by or in regards to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, and not one thing captures the value-oriented, basi principles driven "Focus Investing" approach of Buffett and Munger better than this well written and explained book. Ponzio, who to the full or entire extent gets the sarcasm of his name being similar to the namesake of all pyramid schemes, knows of what he writes, having left high paying jobs on Wall Street disgusted with an industry that has lost any semblance of veritably serving the intermediate capitalist to start out his own firm devoted to providing honest, long-term financial counsel to intermediate and well-heeled investors.

Ponzio starts simple, explaining the integral elements of Buffett's "follow the cash" approach to screen genuinely good long-term businesses from weak ones, then goes on to nuts and bolts of how to the right way value a business using discounted cash flow analysis -- all in accordance with Buffett and Munger's advice. He then goes on to make an analyzation of how to carry through another favored Buffett approach -- merger arbitrage or "workouts" -- in a way that makes this more or less more progressed tactic accessible to the more ambitious person investor.

What sets F Wall Street detached from other books is it's clear to read style, and it is capacity to boil down necessary and more or less elaborated value-investing conceptions into easy to understand principles -- much like Buffett himself in his annual letters to shareholders. But Ponzio is not just another commentator -- he is a unfeigned practitioner of Buffett's art, with a comparatively short-term (a few years) but so far impressive results in his portfolio based on the approaches espoused in the book. More on his portfolio may be seen on his blog[...]. The blog offers much of his principles for free and is worth visiting, but the book is well worth the price for bringing all the principles together in one place and bringing the reader through the base-logic all the way through the more progressed conceptions in a logical progression.

In my view, having read all of the books on Buffett from Hagstrom to Mary Buffett to Lowenstein, this book does a better overall occupation of capturing the nuts and bolts of Buffett and Munger's approach, though the others are worth reading as well to round out one's psychological result of perception learning and reasoning of Focused Investing.

I am in no way related with Joe Ponzio or his firm. I am plainly very impressed with an individual who has so well captured Buffett's "Focused Investing" approach, and shares Buffett's passion for educating his fellow man.

4 of 4 persons found the following review helpful.
A Gem of a Book!
By Jonathan Watson
I have read numerous books on investing; my favorites include Graham's Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis as well as Fisher's Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. This book ranks right there amongst them. In a clear, concise manner Mr. Ponzio takes the reader through the steps required to perceive investing, value businesses, and buy securities. Appropriate for beginning investors, but with priceless selective information for even the most seasoned- I highly commend this book! If you are looking for a place to get started learning regarding investing, buy this book and Graham's Intelligent Investor. If you have read a ton of books with regards to investing, you still need to read this book!

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