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Moats: Some More Thoughts

What’s interesting about moat is that if a moat needs to be continuously built, it isn’t a moat at all. How do you know if you’re paying up or overpaying for the moat? This time we invert the conundrum of moat to explore the symptoms of false-moat trap.

Over the past few months, I have spent considerable time studying about business, their longevities, moats, what helps them sustain, and what dilutes them over time.

As an investor in stocks, studying what makes a few businesses really great and their moats sustain over a long period of time, and on the other hand, what makes a majority of businesses bad and their moats, if any, fleeting has been an interesting aspect of my work.

So, while I have not yet arrived at any Eureka moment on how and why some moats sustain over a long period of time, and how can one identify in advance when a moat is shrinking, there have been some thoughts that I have formed through such reading.

I had shared some of those thoughts in my last post in the June 2015 Special Report. This post is a continuation of what else I have learned about moats, and especially about the dark side of investing in either emerging moats or ones that have already had a proven past.

I’m sure you may be wondering, “What could be the dark side of moats?”

Well, without trying to lay down any clear theories on the same, what I will be sharing below are just a few thoughts on the risks of investing in moats that you must keep in mind when you are buying such businesses that seem to be in their full glory and not destined to failure in the future.

But then, like s**t happens in real life, it often happens when it comes to investing…and that’s what makes it such an interesting game where you must keep learning…and evolving.

Let’s Start with…Destruction

When changes in the natural environment accelerate, so do the extinction rates of the Earth’s creatures. It happened to the dinosaurs and again to many species during the Ice Age. Many scientists believe we may be entering another such period.
[Read more…] about Moats: Some More Thoughts

Latticework of Mental Models: Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility

“Chocolates!” replied Soham, my nephew, with a glint in his eyes. That was his response to my question “What is happiness?”

“So you think the secret of happiness lies in chocolates?” I quizzed him further.

“Yeah! It’s bliss,” he blurted while going around in circles in his tricycle.

“Bliss?” I thought to myself, “That’s quite a mouthful of adjective coming from a five year old.”

“Okay! Here is a chocolate. Tell me if it makes you happy?”

“Thanks Mamaji (that’s what he calls me),” he screamed as he literally snatched it from my hand and in no time the chocolate was gone. He was ecstatic. May be he was right. Chocolate is bliss.

“So if one chocolate makes your happy, more chocolates should make you more happy. Isn’t it?” I was attempting to play Socratic Solitaire (the tradition of asking question that helps somebody discover the wisdom) with an unsuspecting kid.

Life 2.0: Serendipity

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

It’s an ordinary looking question but it has the power to create magic in our lives. How? Please allow me to digress a bit for a while and I’ll circle back to this line of thought little later in the post.

It’s common knowledge that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. That’s Newton’s Law. Simply put, every cause has an effect. What’s noteworthy about this phenomenon is that some actions produce immediate effect, for example if you put your hand in fire you get burnt. Some other actions have delayed effect like you overeat unhealthy food and it makes you fat but the result isn’t immediate.

The above two cause-effect relationships are well known to everybody but there are some actions which may not seem to produce any recognizable effects, immediately or even in perceivable near future, but they end up creating significant unintended consequences.

Notice the term ‘unintended’ which means you could never have known in advance about the kind of consequences or results that will eventually be produced by your actions. Let me tell you a story.

This is a story of a guy with an uninteresting and dead end corporate job. There was no hope for him to become wealthy in his career. However in his spare time, i.e., weekends and evenings, he was always involved in some hobby projects or activities.

He learnt computer programming and developed few computer games which nobody bought. He came up with few business plans but could never convince any investors for his ideas. He attended business writing classes. He used to draw cartoons and send them for publication. He did public speaking courses. He learnt about human psychology.
[Read more…] about Life 2.0: Serendipity

Latticework of Mental Models: Critical Mass

This article is the tenth of this weekly series called Latticework of Mental Models, which will be authored by my friend and partner in writing the Value Investing Almanack, Anshul Khare. Anshul will write on various mental models – big ideas from various disciplines – which can help you think more rationally while analyzing businesses and making your stock investment decisions.

It’s said that you can find extraordinary intelligence in nature. To unearth this brilliance, all you need is curious eyes and close observation. In that spirit, let me start today with the story of a Chinese bamboo tree.

Imagine that you were given few Chinese bamboo seeds and asked to grow them. You take the little seed, plant it, and start watering it. You add fertilizer and wait patiently for the seed to turn into a plant. You wait for a whole year, and nothing happens.

The second year you continue to water it and fertilize it, but still nothing happens. Looks like somebody is testing your patience.

The third year you water it and fertilize it, and the same story repeats i.e., no visible results. Many people would have given up on the tree by this time. But not you. At least not in my story.

Overpriced

When I was looking to acquire the first client for my writing business in 2011, I had no idea how much to charge. I had no point of reference as far as content writing fee was concerned. For me, there were a few hours of work involved.

Anyways, to my first prospective client, I dared to ask for a hefty sum of Rs 2,500 per article, simply going by the understanding that you charge not for how much work it is for you, but how much the service is worth for the client.

It took me several clients to figure this out. My next client, I tried charging Rs 3,000 per article. He went for it. The next client Rs 3,500. The next client Rs 4,000. I kept charging more and more until finally three clients all turned down my Rs 5,000 fee. So I lowered the price back to Rs 4,000.

Essentially, at Rs 5,000, my prospective clients were telling me, “Your services are overpriced, and not worth it!”

[Read more…] about Overpriced

Governance: Know Thy Manager

In the original version of his book The Intelligent Investor, Ben Graham began his discussion of a chapter on “The Investor as Business Owner” by pointing out that, in theory…

“…the stockholders as a class are king. Acting as a majority they can hire and fire managements and bend them completely to their will.”

But he changed this part in the subsequent editions of the book. In practice, says Graham…

“…the shareholders are a complete washout. As a class they show neither intelligence nor alertness. They vote in sheeplike fashion for whatever the management recommends and no matter how poor the management’s record of accomplishment may be.

The only way to inspire the average American shareholder to take any independently intelligent action would be by exploding a firecracker under him.”

Well, this is a fact that is true for not just American shareholders, but all shareholders. Most of us overlook the human aspect of operating a business. This is despite the fact that, in most cases, the future success of a business is directly tied to the quality of its people.
[Read more…] about Governance: Know Thy Manager

Latticework of Mental Models: Law of Small Numbers

This article is the ninth of this weekly series called Latticework of Mental Models, which will be authored by my friend and partner in writing the Value Investing Almanack, Anshul Khare. Anshul will write on various mental models – big ideas from various disciplines – which can help you think more rationally while analyzing businesses and making your stock investment decisions.

Outside of the closed glass chambers in the corporate world, there is another very unusual place where grand scheming about workplace strategies (read, office politics) happens regularly. Don’t worry, there is nothing hush-hush about this place and it’s not at all surrounded by thick soundproof walls.

Wondering what I am talking about? Let me give you another hint.

It’s the designated open area in every large company, where people go out in fresh air to fill their lungs with freshly brewed smoke. You guessed it right. I am talking about the smoking areas.

Mind you, it’s not just a place trafficked by the smoke billowing nicotine guzzlers, but you’ll often find those hapless passive smokers too who don’t realize that their lungs are going to collapse sooner than their active smoker buddies.

Latticework of Mental Models: Kantian Fairness Tendency

This article is the eighth of this weekly series called Latticework of Mental Models, which will be authored by my friend and partner in writing the Value Investing Almanack, Anshul Khare. Anshul will write on various mental models – big ideas from various disciplines – which can help you think more rationally while analyzing businesses and making your stock investment decisions.

I was almost at the end of a beautiful evening drive. Refreshing cold breeze gently blowing on my face through the car windows coupled with minuscule traffic was like heaven on earth. Sporting an ear-to-ear smile I felt confident that nothing in the world had the power to take away my inner peace at that moment.

But, as usual, my faithful and ever reliable nemesis, the chaos-monkey, had different plans for me that evening.

Just when I was about to take a smooth turn on a closing traffic signal, a taxi cut me off while overtaking my car. The surprising rash maneuver from the taxi called for sudden brakes and by that time signal had turned red. As a result I missed my turn because of the insensitive driving by the taxi driver.

In the next few seconds, my Buddha smile turned into an angry frown and I was thrown out of my “appreciating the good things in life” mode.

Why did I feel so agitated? Well, for one, I was ahead of the taxi and it was me who was supposed to cross the signal first.

When I Met the Legends of Investing – Part 4

“I have noticed one thing…” I told my wife, “…that whenever we are on a holiday, the stock markets take a nosedive.”

“Oh, you and your stock market!” she replied with expected frustration. “You always promise at the start of the holidays that you won’t look at stocks, but then…”

“Yes dear, you know I don’t look at daily stock prices while on a holiday or even otherwise, but the way stock prices are moving these days, I can’t help but take notice.”

“Forget it! Let me sleep now for we have a long day tomorrow touring the entire city.”

“Yeah, even I need a good night’s sleep,” I said, “…and possibly continue my dream of meeting the legends of investing who have guided me well in the past.

“Amidst this excessive stock market volatility, I surely need to get my thoughts re-aligned.”

And the dream follows…

Latticework of Mental Models: Redundancy

This article is the seventh of this weekly series called Latticework of Mental Models, which will be authored by my friend and partner in writing the Value Investing Almanack, Anshul Khare. Anshul will write on various mental models – big ideas from various disciplines – which can help you think more rationally while analyzing businesses and making your stock investment decisions.

What’s your favourite day or time of the week? For somebody like me with a Monday-Friday job, the favourite part of the week usually is Saturday morning.

Now, what could be the best way to ruin a Saturday morning? Let me tell how I (almost) achieved the feat.

On a cool and breezy weekend morning when most people prefer to sit in the balcony and sip on a hot beverage, I was standing just outside my front door with milk packet in hand and toothbrush in my mouth, wondering why do they build these auto-lock doors.

Yes, you guessed it right. I managed to lock myself out of my house. Everything including my keys, glasses, cell phone, wallet, and slippers were behind the door which was slammed shut by the very same saturday morning breeze.

However the story had a happy ending when I was rescued by my saviour. Saviour? Yes and it was none other than our mental model for today – Mr. Red (short for Redundancy).