Investing Behaviour

Investing and the Art of Stillness

This is the fourth issue of Outside the Box newsletter, and is authored by my friend Arpit Ranka.

In this post, Arpit talks about how we, as investors, need to embrace the good, bad, and ugly side of every investment thesis/strategy and be willing to live through all the seasons, if we have to stand a chance to succeed in the long run. Over to him.

The Art of Stillness
by Arpit Ranka

The noted English singer and songwriter John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you are busy making plans.”

As an investor, I can tweak this thought to — “Investing is what happens when you are busy pursuing the next big investment idea.”

No doubt that ideation is a very integral part of any investment process but then equally central is to develop a mindset, which allows us to capitalize on the full potential of that investment strategy.

Remembering the 2008 Crisis, and A Few Lessons Learned

It seems like yesterday, but it was ten years ago. I was in the US for a conference and, on 15th September 2008, was visiting the Wall Street to check out the heart (maybe, the dark underbelly) of the global financial system.

I had just reached there after a visiting the site of the World Trade Center, which was tragically brought down on 11th September seven years ago.

Now, another tragedy was about to happen just five miles from where I was. This time it wasn’t about loss of lives but of livelihood.

Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy and the world financial system was on the verge of collapsing. It was, and remains, the largest bankruptcy filing in the US history, with Lehman holding over US$ 600 billion in assets, supported by less than US$ 25 billion of own capital. That’s around 23-times debt to equity. In such a highly leveraged structure, a 4-5% percent decline in asset values would wipe out all capital, which it did.

Of Politics, Biases, and Investing

First, an update. I did my Value Investing Workshop in Bangalore yesterday, and received an overwhelming reponse…

The upcoming sessions are in Chennai (23rd Sept), Mumbai (30th Sept), and Hyderabad (7th Oct). If you wish to register for any of these, please click here.

Coming to this post, this is the third issue of Outside the Box newsletter, and is authored by my friend Ninad Kunder.

The 9 Biases of Value Investors

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” ~ Richard Feynman

In the 1970s, two psychologists – Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky – proved, once and for all, that humans are not rational creatures. They discovered what we now know as “cognitive biases,” showing that humans systematically make choices that defy clear logic.

Now, having these biases and getting influenced by them is often not a bad thing. These have helped us survive for ages. Also, while we don’t always make decisions by carefully weighing up the facts, we often make better decisions as a result. This is applicable to most of what we do in life.

However, when it comes to investment decision making, our biases may get us into (big) trouble. What is more, the irony about these biases is that the more we read about them, the more we believe that we don’t suffer from them as much as others do.

In this second issue of Outside the Box newsletter, my friend Neeraj Marathe pokes a hole in this kind of thinking.

The Dangers of Persistence

Value Investing Workshop in Bangalore (9th Sept), Chennai (23rd Sept), Mumbai (30th Sept). Click here to register now. Few seats remain!

A few months back, during my lecture to a class of MBA students, I asked them to finish a sentence. The sentence was – “If you play a slot machine in a casino long enough, eventually you will ………” *

The class yelled out in unison “WIN!”

As most people reading this know, that is exactly the wrong answer. Slot machines are engineered to make everyone but the casino a loser in the long run. But MBA kids don’t know that, and they are never taught that. I assumed they confused the benefits of persistence with the actual odds of succeeding.

Anyways, I met a couple of my neighbours in the gym today, who smiled – as if mocking me – when I told them about my work that is to teach people to make lesser mistakes with their money and also learn to make sensible investment decisions for the long term.

What You Need to Succeed in Investing (Hint: It’s Not Genius Brain)

“Hey Vishal, have you read about how Albert Einstein lost so much money in the stock market?” asked my friend Ravi as we met for dinner over the weekend.

“Yes Ravi,” I said. “In fact, he lost most of his winnings from the 1921 Nobel Prize in the stock market crash of 1929.”

“Wow!” Ravi exclaimed. “And we are talking about one of the genius minds to have ever walked this planet.

“Right Ravi. And I’m sure you’ve also heard about Mr. Newton, who was wiped out while chasing the stock market bubble in 18th century England.”

“Yes Vishal, you only told me about Mr. Newton’s misdoings when we met a few months back.”

“Sometimes I fail to understand,” Ravi continued, “how men with such high levels of intelligence fail at such petty things as the stock market, even when you hear of investment stories about individuals who’ve made fortunes because of exceptional insights or sheer genius!”

“Because, my dear friend, the best rewards in investing don’t generally go to investors with the smartest brains but to those with the strongest stomachs.”

“Stomach? Are you serious?”

Process, Practice, Perseverance

Have you ever wondered why a doctor’s clients are called ‘patients’? Even a more interesting question, why do doctors call their work as ‘practice’?

Well, one of the reasons is that you can’t become a good doctor without practicing what you learn in textbooks. For that matter, any work done under any profession is nothing but practice. And that doesn’t exclude investing in the stock market.

I recently read a nice post from John Huber on his investment process. Here’s something John wrote that caught my attention –

…stop trying to read everything under the sun and get out there and actually start investing—start valuing companies, make investments, learn, repeat, etc…Whether you’re playing the piano, hitting a sand wedge, shooting a jump shot, riding a bike, or even driving a car—the way you learned was through repetition. The same can be said for valuation. Reading books is fine, doing case studies is better, but actually valuing companies and making investments—practicing—is the best way to learn.

Charlie Munger on Bitcoins, Banking, AI, and Life

I recently attended the annual shareholder meeting of Daily Journal Corp, a publishing company based in Los Angeles, US. I am not a shareholder in DJCO, but this was a chance to hear the 94-year old Charlie Munger, who is its chairman and director.

Mr. Munger answered questions from the audience for around two hours – on wide-ranging topics like bitcoins, banking, artificial intelligence, and life – including one from me (see below). Here are excerpts from the notes prepared by Adam Blum (see the link to entire notes at the bottom of the post).

On searching for ideas – The two rules of fishing are to fish where the fish are, and don’t forget the first rule. Investing is the same thing. In some places, no matter how good a fisherman you are, you won’t do well. Life is a long game. Take it as comes and do the best you can, and if you live to an old age, you will get your full share of opportunities, which will be two in total, maybe, but seize one of the two, and you will be alright.

On personal success – Approach life like [Thomas] Carlyle, and get up every day doing the best you can. Marry the right person. Everyone here who’s your age will do well. You’re not that mad at the world; instead you’re trying to cope with how to make it a little better. If you were here with placards shouting, you wouldn’t have bright future. Avoid extremely intense ideology, because it ruins your mind. The kids with the placards are pounding the idiocy in instead of shouting it out.

Dealing with Stock Market’s Moments of Terror

I received this Whatsapp message from a friend recently, where he wanted my opinion on the post-Budget crash in Indian stocks and how to deal with the same…

My friend’s message reminded me of Howard Marks’ Feb. 2016 memo to clients, where he described the situation in the stock market then –

My buddy Sandy was an airline pilot. When asked to describe his job, he always answers, “hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror.” The same can be true for investment managers, for whom the last few weeks have been an example of the latter. We’ve seen bad news and prices cascading downward. Investors who thought stocks were priced right 20% ago and oil $70 ago now wonder if they aren’t risky at their new reduced prices.

Lecture Presentation and Notes: Seeking Wisdom in the Age of Information

I recently spoke at a finance and business conclave in Chennai, organized by Naanayam Vikatan, a leading Tamil language finance magazine. The topic was ‘Seeking Wisdom in the Age of Information.’

Click here to download the presentation and notes, or read it in the panel below.