Even though Warren Buffett has come to personify fundamental analysis and I'm more of a technical analysis kind of guy, how can one not go gaga over this kind of fundamental analysis (emphasis mine)?
Long ago, Charlie [Munger] laid out his strongest ambition: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.” That bit of wisdom was inspired by Jacobi, the great Prussian mathematician, who counseled “Invert, always invert” as an aid to solving difficult problems. (I can report as well that this inversion approach works on a less lofty level: Sing a country song in reverse, and you will quickly recover your car, house and wife.)[...]Charlie and I avoid businesses whose futures we can’t evaluate, no matter how exciting theirproducts may be. In the past, it required no brilliance for people to foresee the fabulous growththat awaited such industries as autos (in 1910), aircraft (in 1930) and television sets (in 1950). Butthe future then also included competitive dynamics that would decimate almost all of thecompanies entering those industries. Even the survivors tended to come away bleeding.Just because Charlie and I can clearly see dramatic growth ahead for an industry does not meanwe can judge what its profit margins and returns on capital will be as a host of competitors battlefor supremacy. At Berkshire we will stick with businesses whose profit picture for decades tocome seems reasonably predictable. Even then, we will make plenty of mistakes.We will never become dependent on the kindness of strangers. Too-big-to-fail is not a fallbackposition at Berkshire. Instead, we will always arrange our affairs so that any requirements for cashwe may conceivably have will be dwarfed by our own liquidity. Moreover, that liquidity will beconstantly refreshed by a gusher of earnings from our many and diverse businesses.When the financial system went into cardiac arrest in September 2008, Berkshire was a supplierof liquidity and capital to the system, not a supplicant. At the very peak of the crisis, we poured$15.5 billion into a business world that could otherwise look only to the federal government forhelp. Of that, $9 billion went to bolster capital at three highly-regarded and previously-secureAmerican businesses that needed – without delay – our tangible vote of confidence. [...]