Investment learnings
http://www.subramoney.com/2016/03/some-of-my-learning/
This cannot be original for sure. It is the result of lots of reading (subconscious cut paste), learning from health related stuff (subconscious cut paste), experience (original mistakes), client mistakes (even tried to prevent a few), …so if you find it common to something somewhere (even my own old post, pardon me):
- It is not easy to go against the tide especially if you talk to a lot of people. Silence is Golden.
- The market can be irrational far far longer than your patience. I have Ta Mo Dvr and I keep wondering why people are not doing an arbitrage on Share and dvr.
- Greed, Fear, etc. do not matter. You cannot even make out when your greed turned to fear and the reverse. Forget reacting.
- Picking a fund manager who will consistently beat the Russell 9000 over 17 years is IMPOSSIBLE in the US.
- Picking a fund manager who will consistently beat the sensex in India is easy. Not because theses skills are great, but because the Index is badly constructed.
- Experts appearing on media are either being paid to be there, are building their own brand or are just vela and come on TV for a social time pass.
- As long as nobody keeps a subject wise or scrip wise what experts say, experts an talk like they make no mistakes..
- Women think men know all about finance and men think women know all about cooking. Not true!!!
- Men and women have to learn about finance and cooking. However it is easier said than done
- We underplay the role of luck. I was lucky to spend my childhood with Gujarati friends who breathed stocks
- Great companies need not make great investments
- Great companies do not slip down in one day, but the decay and death can be multi year, multi decade a process
- Great wealth can be made by a concentrated portfolio, but once made it has to be protected by diversifying the portfolio.
- Dramatically reducing mistakes is a far superior strategy than trying to spot multibaggers
- Legendary investors have largely picked up a few multi baggers and then waited for compounding to work
- People claim to understand compounding, but do not have the patience to wait for ‘n’ to work
- The more comfortable an investment feels, the more likely you are going to under perform the index
- Sell all the shares / mutual fund **** in your portfolio. Put it in an etf. Keep repeating process annually.
- Accepting your mistakes is very important. Sit with a friend and ask him to review portfolio – FOR A FEE.
- Spend one hour a month discussing mistakes during the month. Write down in a notebook. Next week summarize learning
- Warren Buffett’s returns in absolute terms is like Sir Don Bradman’s. It is of a bygone era. Things have changed now.
- Warren Buffett is a greater compounding theory and less of a stock picking theory.
- Discipline is brilliant to see and appreciate. You benefit only if YOU do.
- MBA schools CANNOT teach equity. Not enough professors who have created wealth.
- Great wealth has been created by involuntary inertia. Later on packaged as strategy.
- If you bought Eicher Motors for the great trucks they make, but made money on the motorcycle, keep quite.
- If you bought Hdfc Ltd. shares for the home finance business, keep silent.
- Go and get success. I can weave a story around that. Later on I will tell you how to believe it.
- I have seen many NICE and humble people making a lot of money. Is it a pattern of confirmatory bias I have no clue.
- The more time a person appears on TV the less accurate he is likely to be.