Here is your weekly Saturday newsletter, where I share the latest updates from the site, a new idea worth thinking about, few stories you shouldn’t miss, and a question for you. Let’s get started.
On SN This Week
A New Idea: The Only Way to Win in Investing
Here is a story I read recently –
A giant ship engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine.
Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young boy. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.
Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!
A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.
“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!” So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”
The man sent a bill that read:
Tapping with a hammer………………….. $ 2.00
Knowing where to tap…………………….. $ 9,998.00
Knowing where to tap – the process – makes all the difference, whether you are working with a hammer or with your money.
Charlie Munger says –
The only way to win is to work, work, work, work, and hope to have a few insights.
If you are not willing to work on creating the right investing process that suits you – and just rely on the ready made stuff available out there – you face a great probability of ending up with a bad outcome.
“Focus on the karma,” Lord Krishna told Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. “Don’t let the fruit be the purpose of your karma.”
Focusing on your investment process, and not the outcome, should be your goal.
Here is the payoff: Over the long term, a good process delivers highly desirable results, and generates better and more reliable outcomes. This isn’t any secret.
A Few Stories You Shouldn’t Miss
- Why Emotion Is the Enemy of Investing – How to Avoid Herd Psychology (Money Crashers)
- Zuckerberg Never Fails to Disappoint (NY Times)
- Who gets to be reckless on Wall Street? (Vox)
- Is Wall Street’s Youngest Talent Doomed? (Institutional Investor)
- 5 Stoic Lessons On Time Management (Daily Stoic)
- Anthony Fauci: ‘We are living in the perfect storm’ (Financial Times)
A Question for You
Your life is dependent on the things you do today. You cannot live the life of your dreams if you spend your time today doing average things.
So ask yourself – Where will my life be in five or ten years if I continue doing what I am doing today?
This should help you identify the things in your life today that are wasting your time. It should also help you identify things that you need to do in order to achieve your dreams.
That’s about it from me for today.
If you liked this post, please share with others on WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, or just email them the link to this post.
Have a great weekend. Stay safe.
With respect,
— Vishal
Very nice thoughtful article 👍.
Thank you so much for sharing.
With best wishes and regards 😊
Sir, I am interested in learning about investing to become a real investor.
So, my question is where should I start from?
I am 25 years old student.
hi nabadeep im a newcomer myself but i have learnt basics by myself so ill give you a simple reply. learn about fundamental analysis . search on google as well as youtube. a good site is investopedia .
some of the terms you should know about is p/e ratio, eps , cash flow etc.
find a list of companies you want to invest in and cross check them on different sources. i usually use 4 websites marketsmojo, trendlyne, screener and ticker tape. you get to know about a particular company from different angles. its going to be a lot of trtial and error, so best of luck
Thanks Vishal, my week begins on a high note whenever I read your weekly digest.
I love the story about knowing where to hit the hammer. My company manufactures furniture in the USA and our costs are higher than a lot of our competitors, but we believe the quality we produce is better. You really do get what you pay for.
If there is no Goal as an output for any process, then any process can take you to that Goal meaning without Goal whatever may be the process, it’s useless. Investing itself should start with the whole purpose of achieving something that why at first place ,I should do investing. If you dont focus on the the output ,then what’s the use of that process ,if it’s going in right way or not? As soon as you get what you set as per your goal, you need to check if that Goal is achieved or not and if that process has worked or not, otherwise you will never get what you want. Hence I completely disagree with first part of the article.
Hi Vishal, Please post only 1 or 2 articles per week.
We dont want to miss any article.