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You are here: Home / Archives for 2021

Archives for 2021

No Stock is Safe

March 2, 2021 | Leave a Comment

The Sketchbook of Wisdom Now on Amazon: My new book – The Sketchbook of Wisdom – is now available on Amazon India. Packed with 50 timeless ideas, the book is a manual on virtue, happiness, and the pursuit of wealth and good life, and has already been bought across 30+ countries within 15 days of launch. Click here to get your copy on Amazon or buy on my book website.

* * *

The bulls may want you to believe this, but no stock is safe.

There are businesses that may remain good (earning return on capital greater than cost of capital) for some time, maybe a long time, but you must not attach infinite values to them.

This is because high returns attract competition, generally causing return on capital to move towards the cost of capital. While such companies may still earn excess returns, but the return trajectory is down.


Everything in this world, after all, is momentary. So, your best bet is to just stick with quality (even that is momentary, just for longer moments that allows time for compounding to work its magic).

The good thing about high-quality stocks is that you can pay up for them (never overpay), expensive looking prices, and still do well till the underlying businesses remain good.

With poor quality, most probably, you have no hope.

As Charlie Munger says –

Over the long term, it’s hard for a stock to earn a much better return that the business which underlies it earns. If the business earns six percent on capital over forty years and you hold it for that forty years, you’re not going to make much different than a six percent return – even if you originally buy it at a huge discount. Conversely, if a business earns eighteen percent on capital over twenty or thirty years, even if you pay an expensive looking price, you’ll end up with one hell of a result.

The Biggest Killer of Investment Returns

February 9, 2021 | 1 Comment

Somewhere, right this very moment, an investor you know of is having more fun than you. He has made a lot of money – more than you – in the stock market surge of the past few months. And you missed out on it.

In fact, you may even know of someone who owns all the stocks that are rising, and you are cursing yourself for not being that person, plus envying him.

Not just that, looking at your portfolio you realize that somewhere, something isn’t right. There’s one stock, or maybe more, that hasn’t done much even when other stocks you don’t own have skyrocketed.

I know this affects you, annoys you. And that’s a normal emotion to have, and one you have no control over, which is also normal. Your lizard brain – part of the brain that is responsible for primitive survival instincts such as aggression and fear – is hardwired to behave that way.

So, even when you own more assets and privileges than you could have imagined by this age, and are reasonably happy in your life outside stocks, you feel terrible because you missed out on a few stocks that have done wonders for other investors you know of.

[Read more…] about The Biggest Killer of Investment Returns

A Cheat Sheet To Avoid Stock Market Ruin

January 19, 2021 | Leave a Comment

In his book, Skin in the Game, Nassim Taleb runs an interesting thought experiment where he talks about two cases of playing the casino.

Equate the first case with ‘stock market trading’ in general –

…one hundred people go to a casino to gamble a certain set amount each over a set period of time, and have complimentary gin and tonic. Some may lose, some may win, and we can infer at the end of the day what the “edge” is, that is, calculate the returns simply by counting the money left in the wallets of the people who return. We can thus figure out if the casino is properly pricing the odds.

Now assume that gambler number 28 goes bust. Will gambler number 29 be affected? No.

You can safely calculate, from your sample, that about 1 percent of the gamblers will go bust. And if you keep playing and playing, you will be expected to have about the same ratio, 1 percent of gamblers going bust, on average, over that same time window.

[Read more…] about A Cheat Sheet To Avoid Stock Market Ruin

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: Pre-Order Ends Today

January 15, 2021 | Leave a Comment

This post is to notify that pre-order for my new book – The Sketchbook of Wisdom: A Hand-Crafted Manual on the Pursuit of Wealth and Good Life – closes today.

Click here to read more about the book and order your copy now.


Packed with 50 timeless ideas from Lord Krishna to Charlie Munger, Socrates to Warren Buffett, Lao Tzu to Nassim Taleb, Swami Vivekanand to Steve Jobs, and Sant Kabir to Naval Ravikant – as it applies to our lives today, The Sketchbook of Wisdom is a manual on virtue, happiness, and the pursuit of wealth and good life.

Click here to read more about the book and order your copy now.

Look forward.

With respect,
Vishal

My Stock Valuation Manifesto

January 14, 2021 | Leave a Comment

The Sketchbook of Wisdom

I had shared my Investor’s Manifesto few years back. Here is my fifteen-point stock valuation manifesto, which I have been using as part of my investment process for the past few years now.

It is evolving but is something I reflect back on if I ever feel stuck in my stock valuation process. You may modify it to suit your own process and requirements. But this in itself should keep you safe.

Read it. Edit it. Print it. Face it. Remember it. Practice it.

[Read more…] about My Stock Valuation Manifesto

Beware the Boredom of Bull Market

January 8, 2021 | Leave a Comment

The Sketchbook of Wisdom – Pre-Order Ends on 15th January: My new book – The Sketchbook of Wisdom: A Hand-Crafted Manual on the Pursuit of Wealth and Good Life – is almost here (shipping starts in mid-February). Pre-order by 15th January to reserve your copy. Click here to pre-order now.

* * *

I received an email recently where one reader asked – “What you say about long-term investing in the stock market is all good. But doesn’t it get boring after a time? I mean, first the process of reading annual reports to find good businesses, and then if you find some, holding on to them for the long run doing nothing. How does one maintain interest in this thing? How does one make this process and journey exciting?”

I thought these were good questions. In fact, questions like these used to bother me when I started out on my journey of reading annual reports, analyzing financial statements, and practicing long term investing more than a decade back.

In fact, I was talking to an investor friend recently, who confessed of boredom because he was not able to find stocks worth buying in this rising market. “Even if you are a long-term investor, what do you do but feel bored when you don’t find anything worth buying because everything seems to be so inflated?” he questioned.

“I agree,” I said.

[Read more…] about Beware the Boredom of Bull Market

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