Archives for April 2025

The Investor’s Survival Guide to Spotting Bad Promoters (Before It’s Too Late)

A couple of quick announcements before I begin today’s post.

1. Masterclass – Thinking Clearly in A Market Crisis: I am hosting this Masterclass tomorrow, Saturday, 19th April 2025, 7 PM IST Onwards. The underlying idea is to help you deal with the messiness of market panics and crises, so you can protect your wealth, peace of mind, and long-term goals. I had 100 seats available for the Masterclass, and now just 20 remain. Click here to know more and join.

2. Relaunch of Value Investing Almanack: I have relaunched my premium newsletter, the Value Investing Almanack (VIA), which subscribers have called “…the best source in India on Value Investing, for both beginners and experts.” Click here to read more and subscribe to VIA at a special launch price (available only for the first 100 subscribers). Also, if you wish to check out the March 2025 VIA issue before deciding to rejoin, click here to download.

The Investor’s Guide to Spotting Bad Promoters Before It’s Too Late

We Indians love stories. From Ramayana to Reliance, we’re a country moved by narratives. And when it comes to investing, perhaps no story sells better than that of the visionary promoter — the larger-than-life figure who claims to be solving big problems and creating generational wealth for shareholders (don’t ask, which) in the process.

Now, I don’t mean here that all such stories that Indian promoters tell us are bad. Some are genuine. But most are just well-packaged, and a few are designed to do just one thing — take you for a ride. And when you peel back the layers of some of these stories, what you often find is not innovation or integrity, but obfuscation, opportunism, and in some cases, outright fraud.

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The Four Levels of Rationality: A Guide for Investors from Charlie Munger

If you’ve been an investor long enough, you’ve probably heard someone say, “Be rational.”

It sounds simple enough. Just don’t panic, don’t be greedy, don’t follow the herd.

But as Charlie Munger showed us throughout his life, rationality isn’t just a cool head during market crashes. It’s a much deeper discipline. It’s a lifelong commitment to thinking clearly, even when the world tempts you otherwise.

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Now, most of us think of rationality as the absence of emotion. But Munger’s version is different. As per him, rationality is layered, nuanced, and demanding. It isn’t just about not making stupid decisions. It’s about constructing a mind that naturally veers toward truth, practicality, and long-term wisdom.

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Letter to A Young Investor #10: The Most Important Thing That Counts in Investing

A quick announcement before I begin today’s post – I am hosting a new online Masterclass, titled “Thinking Clearly in A Market Crisis”, on Saturday, 19th April 2025, 7 PM IST Onwards.

The underlying idea is to help you deal with the messiness of market panics and crises, so you can protect your wealth, peace of mind, and long-term goals.

I had 100 seats available for the Masterclass, and now just 50 remain. Click here to know more and join.

I am writing this series of letters on the art of investing, addressed to a young investor, with the aim to provide timeless wisdom and practical advice that helped me when I was starting out. My goal is to help young investors navigate the complexities of the financial world, avoid misinformation, and harness the power of compounding by starting early with the right principles and actions. This series is part of a joint investor education initiative between Safal Niveshak and DSP Mutual Fund.

Dear Young Investor,

I hope you are doing well, and that the lessons we have covered so far have helped you in guiding you through the early stages of your investing journey.

I wish to start today’s letter with a tragic yet magnificent story from World War II that has stayed with me for years. It’s the story of Anne Frank.

Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany but moved to the Netherlands for safety in 1934, five years after she was born. The Frank family hid in their basement with four other Jews when Germany took control of the Netherlands.

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Stay the Course

A quick announcement before I begin today’s post –

My new book, Boundless, is now available for ordering!

After a wonderful response during the pre-order phase, I finally have the book in my hands and am shipping it out quickly. If you’d like to get your copy, click here to order now. You can also enjoy lower prices on multiple-copy orders.

Plus, I’m offering a special combo discount if you order Boundless along with my first book, The Sketchbook of Wisdom. Click here to order your set.

I was obsessed with cricket during my school days. There was a chance to represent my school in a match against a visiting South African U-19 side, and I was pushing hard to secure a place in the final eleven for our team.

I played as a leg spinner. And if you’ve ever bowled leg spin, you know it’s a bowling style that dances on the edge of brilliance and disaster. I often struggled during practice matches and net sessions. One delivery would turn sharply, the next would land halfway down the pitch and disappear into the trees. Some days I felt unstoppable. On most others, I felt like I didn’t belong.

After one particularly frustrating session, I told my coach I was thinking of giving it up. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this,” I said.

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Nobody Knows Anything

There’s a comforting illusion many of us as investors hold onto, which is the idea that if we just read enough, track enough, listen to the right experts, and follow the right indicators, we will finally be able to predict the direction of the market with some confidence.

But experience, history, and honest reflection reveal a more humbling truth: nobody really knows anything for sure, especially in investing.

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Now, don’t get me wrong here. It’s not that people aren’t smart or that research doesn’t help. It’s that markets are shaped by a complex web of human emotions, economic variables, political decisions, global events, and plain randomness, none of which can be forecasted accurately and consistently.

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