← Back to Explore
ENTITY
🕰2 min read
🎵Wisdom Density:
Moderate
🧭11 concepts
👁 -- readers

📰 Daily Journal Company

📝 Description

The Daily Journal Company (DJCO) is a publishing and software company based in Los Angeles. While fundamentally a niche publisher of legal notices and newspapers, the company became legendary in the value investing community due to its Chairman, Charlie Munger, and its massive equity portfolio.

🔗 Connection to Berkshire & Charlie Munger

  • Munger’s Mini-Berkshire: For decades, Munger used the Daily Journal as a vehicle for his own investment ideas, separate from Berkshire.
  • The 2009 Bottom-Fishing: DJCO gained fame for buying bank stocks (specifically Wells Fargo) and other equities at the absolute bottom of the market in March 2009.
  • Divided Retailing Roots: Munger has compared the DJCO investment style to the early days of Blue Chip Stamps and Diversified Retailing, where a small, idiosyncratic business provides "float" or cash for opportunistic equity investments.

📅 Evolutionary History

  • 2012 Meeting: Buffett and Munger discuss the company in the context of Charlie’s investment skill. Munger notes that the company’s software business (Journal Technologies) is a difficult, long-term build, but the equity portfolio provides a significant margin of safety.

📈 Key Insights

  • Opportunistic Capital: Munger uses DJCO to demonstrate the power of "sitting on your hands" until a generational opportunity (like the 2009 crash) arises.
  • Inversion in Practice: DJCO’s survival and growth in a declining newspaper industry illustrate Munger’s focus on avoiding standard industry follies.

🔗 Connections

index | Entities