Valuing the Value Investing Congress
October 15th, 2010Over the past five years, the Value Investing Congress has grown from a hanger-on at the Berkshire annual meeting into a respected independent conference, featuring talks from some of the biggest names in value investing.
Registration is $3000 to $7000, depending upon various factors. Including travel expenses and the opportunity cost of work time lost, the true total is an average of perhaps $10,000.
Just for fun, how might we calculate when and whether this is a good deal?
At minimum, the VIC looks worthwhile if both of the following conditions are satisfied.
- You have already read every excellent book on the subject. There are dozens. Good books are sometimes less exciting than flying to conferences, but they have far higher ROI, so you should completely exhaust this educational “asset class” before diversifying.
- You have a reasonably high net worth. How high? Think of it this way. Based on today’s cyclically adjusted P/E, the expected 20-year forward real annual return on the S&P is about 2% (I will post on that interesting subject soon). Suppose you can reliably increase that return by half (an extra 1% per annum) by attending the VIC every year. Then you should pay something less than 1% of net worth to attend. Thus, your net worth should be at least $1m or so to justify the trip.
The above presumes the VIC has only educational value. If the goal instead is just to have fun, or to network, or to meet like-minded people, then it is either a marketing expense or a vacation, and so the ROI calculations are different.