Archives for May 2023

I had shared my Investor’s Manifesto last year. 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.

“Dare to be wrong,” Howard Marks wrote in one of his memos in 2014, very much like Charlie Munger told him, “It (investing) is not supposed to be easy. Anyone who finds it easy is stupid.”

Marks wrote –

You have to give yourself a chance to fail.” That’s what Kenny “The Jet” Smith said on TV the other night during the NCAA college basketball tournament, talking about a star player who started out cold and as a result attempted too few shots in a game his team lost. It’s a great way to make the point.

Failure isn’t anyone’s goal, of course, but rather an inescapable potential consequence of trying to do really well.

I was an average student till the ninth grade. Just slightly above average to be precise. That is what my marks consistently showed. My parents did not expect much from me.

Tenth was when things changed. Through little bit of hard work, and great luck, I ranked among the top five in my class. My teachers were surprised. My parents did not believe my report card at first. But when the emotions settled, they said they were proud of my achievement. At least, that is what I heard.

After all, on a normal distribution curve, I had moved from ranking within one standard deviation of normal (lowly among top 50% of students) to within two standard deviations (among the top 16%).