The Cult of Warren Buffett
/My first trip to the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha was over 20 years ago, in 2002. It was quite an initiation into the cult of Warren Buffett.
Read MoreMy first trip to the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha was over 20 years ago, in 2002. It was quite an initiation into the cult of Warren Buffett.
Read MoreWhat a year. A once-in-a-generation market bubble began to pop. Speculative euphoria has given way to a more cautious market environment. Returns have begun to creep back into security prices. And yet…
Read MoreInspired by recent events in the financial/crypto world, I came up with some rhymes over the weekend:
"It's really simple:
I committed a crypto-fraud
Together with my crypto-broad…
Read MoreWith the World Cup coming up, I thought it was timely to share a mental model that I find helpful in constructing a portfolio. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to gamify investing. Far from it – I take my responsibility for our capital very seriously. However, I frequently find that other disciplines have a lot to offer in helping me think about how to best invest, and this is one of those times.
Read MoreWhy do we feel pain in investing? Is it good or bad? And how can we cope?
Read MoreMy first Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting was in 2002. I was travelling to Omaha with the Fidelity team of 20+ investors. The new analysts had an important job – get up super early to get a spot in line. That way the Portfolio Managers and Senior Analysts could sleep in, and still get a spot upfront. I thought I was ready. I was not.
Read MoreI was shocked. A friend e-mailed me the news that a well-known growth manager had shut down. I didn’t believe him. Just last summer I heard that manager self-promoting on the podcast circuit, trying to impress the audience with how sophisticated of a business-picker he was.
Read MoreI grew up in the former Soviet Union, where almost everyone played chess to some degree. It was also something that was studied very rigorously from an early age by those who wanted a chance to excel, the same way that math or science was. In St. Petersburg, the best chess school was at the “Dvorets Pionerov” or the “Palace of the Pioneers.” That’s where future Grand Masters trained, typically from an age of 5.
Read MoreYes, you are living through a bubble in the financial markets. No, this is not an article about how to time the market. No, you don’t know when the bubble will burst (and neither do I). Yes, there are still things that you can do that will set you up for investing success.
Read MoreThe investing environment we find ourselves in today is like some strange, twisted forest where old rules seem to no longer apply.
Read MoreRisk management will not produce the best returns.
What?? Then why do it? Because we don’t know the future.
Read MoreFear is rampant. Investors are reverting to their worst behavioral biases and habits in such an environment. You need to do better than the crowds and continue to invest rationally. Here is how.
Read MoreThe company was a spin-off from a healthcare company, one that I have followed for almost 15 years. After months of research and following a collapse in the stock price, an opportunity finally presented itself.
Read MoreThis is as precarious an investment environment as any that I have experienced during my two decades of investing. Prices of many securities and asset classes are optimistic, in some cases bordering on irrational. When the pendulum of the market swings so far towards greed, we need to be even more careful than we usually are in our capital allocation. Just because most market participants are in a generous mood does not decrease the amount of uncertainty facing businesses. What it does is make it very easy to lose large amounts of money and hard to make good returns.
Read MoreI was a young equity analyst at one of the largest mutual fund firms in the country. It was the week before Christmas in 2002, and my most important stock recommendation to the firm’s portfolio managers had just declined by 50%. In one day.
Read MoreYour money is unlikely to last you as long as most savings withdrawal calculators will tell you. That famous 4% withdrawal rule? Not so fast, especially not in the current environment. Before you entrust your retirement to some over-simplified rule of thumb, you should understand what’s really involved and what you need to know in today’s low-return investing climate.
Read MoreEarlier this year I gave a talk to students at Babson College on how to learn value investing and become an investor. You can watch the talk and the Q&A discussion that followed in this video.
Read MoreWarren Buffett’s annual letters are known for his wisdom on investing and many other topics. In the 2018 letter that was published last weekend, the following six insights stood out.
Read More“It’s different this time.” This phrase has likely cost many investors far more than they realize. Each period of time is indeed different. However, there are many insights that we can learn from history that should inform how we invest today. Failing to learn from the past mistakes of others can be hazardous to your wealth.
Read MoreBefore you succumb to the charms of a charismatic management team or fall for someone pitching you on another “story stock,” read the skeptic’s checklist. It won’t give you all the answers, but it will give you a fighting chance against the biases that you are likely frequently exposed to.
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