Archives for January 2018

Latticework of Mental Models: Naive Realism

January 31, 2018 | 19 Comments

Let me start by inviting you to have an intellectual and emotional experience. Take a few seconds and stare at the picture below.

**Image-1 (Source: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey)**

Observe closely. What do you see?

You’d probably see a woman who is looking away from you. You may notice that she is wearing a necklace. She seems to have high cheekbones, long eyelashes, and a pointy nose.

Now I ask you to take your eyes off her and focus on the second picture below –

**Image-2 (Source: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey)**

What do you see now? Another woman? What does she look like? How old do you think she is? What is she wearing? In what kind of roles do you see her?

You probably would describe this second woman as beautiful as the first one. You might guess that she is about 25 years old and fashionable. In fact, the second image looks like a lower resolution version of the first image.

Safal Niveshak’s Value Investing Workshop – International

January 29, 2018 | 5 Comments

Time flies. It’s already been over six years since I started Safal Niveshak in mid-2011. Even the journey of my Value Investing Workshops is about to complete six years. So far, I’ve completed 70+ workshops across 15+ cities in India, covering 3,000+ investors. And it’s been a wonderful experience.

Over these years, I have also received quite a few requests for conducting such workshops outside India, which I have avoided so far.

However, given the continued requests, I am making an attempt now to conduct these workshops internationally.

To start with, I plan to conduct two workshops in the United States in February 2018. Tentative dates are 10th February (Saturday) in San Francisco and 17th February (Saturday) in New York.

If you are in the US that time and wish to attend any of these sessions, please fill this short form to show your interest, which will help me finalize my plans.

Also fill the form if you live in some other country and want me to visit there to conduct such a session.

If you need any other details on these workshops, please email me at vishal@safalniveshak.com.

Thank you! Look forward.

My Interview with Kenneth Jeffrey Marshall

January 21, 2018 | 8 Comments

Note: This interview with Kenneth Jeffrey Marshall was originally published in the November 2017 issue of our premium newsletter – Value Investing Almanack (VIA). To read more such interviews and other deep thoughts on value investing, business analysis and behavioral finance, click here to subscribe to VIA.

Kenneth Jeffrey Marshall - Value Investing Almanack - Safal Niveshak

Kenneth Jeffrey Marshall is an American value investor, teacher, and author. He teaches value investing in the masters in finance program at the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden, and at Stanford University. He also teaches asset management in the MBA program at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of the 2017 bestselling book Good Stocks Cheap: Value Investing with Confidence for a Lifetime of Stock Market Outperformance published by McGraw-Hill. He holds a BA in Economics, International Area Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles; and an MBA from Harvard University. He splits his time between California and Sweden.

Safal Niveshak (SN): Thanks for doing this interview, Kenneth! Please tell us a little about your background and journey, and how you got into value investing?

Kenneth Marshall (KM): Well, I was first shown value investing in the late 1980’s. But it wasn’t like some sudden enlightenment. It actually took me a decade to get it. I’d rather not think about the cost of that delay.

The Art of Asking Good Questions

January 18, 2018 | 11 Comments

Two hunters are out in the jungle when suddenly one of them collapses. His pulse is gone and his eyes are glazed. The other guy yanks out his cell phone and calls the emergency services.

He gasps, “My friend is dead! What should I do?”

The operator says “Calm down, sir. I can help. First, let’s make sure if he’s really dead.”

After few moments of silence, the operator hears a loud gunshot. Back on the phone, the guy says “OK, now what?”

The hunter was dumb but given the high adrenalin and panicky situation, the operator’s question wasn’t brilliant either, was it?

There’s some truth to the saying – the quality of your questions determine the quality of solutions. Computer programmers know this very well. They call it GIGO, i.e., garbage in garbage out.

Good question begets good answer. Bad question leads to bad answer.

The Wisdom of Intelligent Investors (Special E-Book)

January 15, 2018 | 5 Comments

If the history of stock market is anything to go by, investors often make decisions that can undermine their ability to build long-term wealth. As such, it is often very valuable to look back in history and study closely the principles that have guided the investment decisions of some of the best minds and practitioners in this field through both good and bad markets.

By studying these experienced investors, we can learn many important lessons about the mindset required to build long-term wealth.

With this goal in mind, here is a special e-book that aims to offer the wisdom of some of the best investment minds of current times from India and abroad.