Don’t Believe Everything I Write on Stock Market Investing

Do you ever wonder if you’re wrong about certain things that you currently consider to be fact?

Like the way you handle your money? Or like the way you invest in stock market?

Do you ever think that maybe you were wrong about that worthless stock you still hold in your portfolio? Or the advisor who advised you that stock? Or your own habit of making hasty investing decisions that led you to buy that stock?

Do you ever question your beliefs and opinions when it comes to investing in stock market? Like, where they came from? Did you develop them yourself or did you adopt them from someone else, like your father, colleague, or Warren Buffett?

What’s your worldview?
Every investor has a worldview when it comes to how he invests in stock market.

It might be, “I don’t believe in value investing,” or it might be, “All big companies are evil” or it might be, “I love fast moving stocks.”

On some level, we’ve all been programmed, manipulated, and influenced into forming our current beliefs (our worldview) in life. And investing isn’t any different.

Like I believe that value investing is the only sensible way to invest in stock market.

That’s not to say that the legendary value investors like Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett have intentionally manipulated or forced me to believe so. But without doubt, they have influenced me nonetheless.

You might have your own influencers. And you might have been influenced to see value investing as nonsense, and instead believe that speculating in stocks is the only way to make big money.

This programming and influencing happen to us automatically, and often, unconsciously.

It’s an unavoidable result of being around people we trust, respect and love.

On some level, we’ve all been shaped and influenced by others and, in turn, we will reciprocate.

Every day, for good or bad, consciously or not, we will influence and be influenced.

Don’t believe me
If you are a regular reader of my articles on stock market investing here at Safal Niveshak, then you have been influenced by me.

In fact, that’s one of my key objectives – to influence people towards making independent and sensible stock market investing decisions the way ‘I’ think is the right way.

If you expose yourself to my investing ideas and thoughts on a regular basis, then you can’t help but be influenced in some way, big or small, by what you read here.

Whether that impact is a positive or a negative in your world, is for you to judge.

But as I’ve always said, your job is not to accept whatever I say as gospel but, rather, to consider it and see if it resonates with you.

If you consider whatever I write on stock market, value investing, and human behaviour to be relevant and valuable, then do something with it.

If not, ignore it and move on.

But don’t ever feel manipulated.

If you have doubts on what I write, ask me tough questions. Some of us have been programmed never to ask questions. Never to doubt. Never to challenge.

It happens daily in our lives. And as I say again and again, how we behave in our lives is the root cause of how we behave while investing in stock markets.

The moment we start to ask intelligent questions and think independently about how we invest in stocks, we begin to discover our authentic selves and to learn our own abilities as investors.

We begin to discover ourselves beyond the influence, the programming and the expectations of financial advisors and others stock market experts.

My job here is to help you discover the sensible, intelligent investor in you – not to manipulate and programme you to believe whatever I say is true.

Taking the road less travelled
I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life when I accepted certain things simply because it was the path of least resistance…the easy way out. This has been true of my investments in stock market as well.

When I started eight years back, I invested like my senior colleagues and my friends invested, or like anyone who was a more experienced investor than me. Investing this way was the path of least resistance for me…the right way…the easy way out.

Investing ‘their way’ made me comfortable. I wore their investing styles like old ill-fitting clothes.

But as I see now, what I was doing then wasn’t investing but sheer speculation. I bought and sold stocks because I thought that was the easiest and safest way to make money from stock markets.

I now know that attitude was all about my fear…

• Fear of asking questions about whether speculation was really the right way to make money from stock markets
• Fear of parting with my money for the long term
• Fear of researching stocks on my own, which was based on my fear of going wrong in my analysis and judgment
• Fear of sticking my neck out and saying that the way my senior colleagues and friends were handling their money was all wrong
• Fear of doing something ‘different’

Whatever I’ve learned over the years has completely changed the way I now invest in stock markets. I have gotten over all my fears when it comes to investing for the long term, and investing ‘my’ way…not the way others do.

You see, sometimes, our life’s journey is all about learning.

Sometimes it’s about unlearning.

This is what I plan to help you do through Safal Niveshak – learn the right ways to invest in stock market, and unlearn all the wrong ways you might have picked up over the years.

But my intention has never been, and will never be, to manipulate you into believing whatever I say here to be the ultimate truth.

I’ll say it again – If you consider whatever I write on stock market, value investing, and human behaviour to be relevant and valuable, do something with it. Use my experience and learning to become independent and sensible with your stock market investing decisions.

If you don’t consider my words to be relevant and valuable, just ignore them and move on.