5 Places to Search for Hidden Profits
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Value investing involves buying a business for substantially less than its intrinsic value. So what causes businesses to occasionally become available at such a large discount?
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The “Mental Game” in Investing
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At the 2017 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s partner, said: “A lot of other people are trying to be brilliant and we are just trying to stay rational. And it’s a big advantage.” It’s a simple, but crucial insight – a lot of the edge in investing can be traced to the ability to stay rational and execute your approach at moments of highest pressure and uncertainty. So what is the “mental game” in investing, and how do you make sure that yours helps your investing results?
Read MoreBalancing Conviction and Flexibility in Investing
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Conviction is a necessary quality for any investor – lack thereof can lead to an inability to stay the course on a successful contrarian investment. Yet without flexibility investors can easily fall prey to various behavioral biases such as anchoring and overconfidence and fail to correctly change their minds when the evidence merits doing so.
Read MoreTop 5 Investing Do's and Don'ts
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- Don’t invest in anything that you don’t understand. Yourself. Not because someone sold it to you or because others are doing it.
- Don’t pay high fees for investment products unless you know why the product is worth it. Many are not.
When Does Volatility Equal Risk?
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Conventional financial wisdom considers volatility to be one of the greatest risks in investing. A small minority of investors, mostly among value investors – a group to which I belong, take a completely opposite view and believe that it is the probability of permanent capital loss, not volatility that constitutes risk.
Read MoreWhat Do the Best Investors Do That the Rest Don’t?
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Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett’s partner said something simple yet profound at the 2017 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting: “A lot of other people are trying to be brilliant and we are just trying to stay rational. And it’s a big advantage.” Some might think that becoming an excellent investor requires off-the-charts intelligence or some highly proprietary model that leads to an edge that nobody else can replicate. That is not what experience has shown.
Read MoreThe Low Cost of Inaction: Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!
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If you have been paying any attention to the rising stock market in the last couple of years, you might be tempted to succumb to this siren-song and relax your investment criteria in order to join those appearing to make money quarter after quarter in high-expectation growth stocks. Don’t… at least not until you read this article.
Read MoreHow to Lose Money in the Stock Market: The Top 5 Mistakes
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I have compiled the top 5 mistakes investors make in the stock market to teach you what not to do when investing. Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett’s partner, has a favorite piece of advice, which is to always invert. What he means by that is that we should figure out what we don’t want to do and avoid it in order to get the result that we want. Let’s apply his advice by answering the following question: What is the most certain way to lose the most money investing in stocks?
Read More10 Insights from the Berkshire Hathaway Weekend
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Listening to Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and other smart investors over the course of the weekend surrounding the Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha is always informative. Below I examine my 10 insights from this year’s trip, which are a combination of new ideas and helpful reminders about those from the past that are still important today.
Read MoreHow Tax-Efficient Is Your Investing?
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For a taxable investor, the pre-tax rate of return is not the whole story. The tax efficiency of how that pre-tax return was generated will have a large impact on the after-tax rate of return and the ultimate wealth of the investor. Long-term investing naturally results in very tax-efficient returns. The same pre-tax rate of return over 30 years achieved in the most tax efficient way could result in you having more than 2.5 times more than you would have had if your returns had been completely tax-inefficient.
Read MoreHow and Why to Be a Long-Term Investor
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Having a long-term time horizon can help you avoid making poor short-term investment decisions. A multi-year time horizon can also give you an advantage toward achieving superior returns by allowing you to make high-potential investments that others with a shorter timeframe would avoid. This article will elaborate on why being a long-term investor can help you achieve better returns, and illustrate how you can go about doing so.
Read MoreWhy Passive Investing Is an Excellent Default Choice – an Active Investor’s View
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Passive investing – replicating the market’s returns through low-cost index funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – has finally gained a meaningful share of the market. However there are still many investors who attempt to beat the market by investing with higher-fee active investment managers or directly in individual securities.
Read MoreBehavioral Defense in Decision Making
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Behavioral biases affect decisions more often than one might think. Behavioral defense involves making sure you are aware of any such biases affecting your thinking and correcting for them whenever possible. This article will focus on helping you make better decisions through the use of behavioral defense.
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