Safal Niveshak

Wit. Wisdom. Value Investing.

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Archives for 2026

The Usefulness of Uselessness

Value Investing Workshop in Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai: Before we begin, a quick personal note. I’m bringing my full-day offline Value Investing Workshop to three cities this September. I run it in each city just once a year, so this is your window for 2026.

  • Chennai — Sunday, 6th September
  • Bengaluru — Sunday, 20th September
  • Mumbai — Sunday, 27th September

Each is a full day, 10 AM to 5 PM, kept to a small room of around 40 people so I can actually get to your questions. It’s a day on the principles, frameworks, and mental habits of sensible value investing, no tips, no jargon, just the thinking that helps ordinary investors build wealth slowly and stay calm through every market. Whether you’ve never bought a stock or have been at it for years, you’ll leave able to do the work yourself.

The early-bird seats have now filled. The next 20 seats in each city are still open at discounted prices. Once those go, the price steps up, and once a city’s room is full, that’s it until next year.

Click here for details and registration.

Now, on to today’s letter.

The Almanack of Good Life is where I share all that I am reading and reflecting upon about living a good life. In this age of constant information overload, I’ve found immense value in taking time to pause and reflect upon meaningful insights about life. This newsletter is my way of sharing that journey with you.

The Usefulness of Uselessness

I recently read about Zhuangzi, a Chinese philosopher who lived around 3000 years ago, the same time as Confucius. While Confucius wrote about duty and doing things properly, Zhuangzi wrote stories of butterflies, cooks, and trees. And most of these stories were designed to dismantle whatever the reader was sure of.

[Read more…] about The Usefulness of Uselessness

What If Stocks Don’t Go Up for a Decade?

Value Investing Workshop in Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai: Before we begin, a quick personal note. I’m bringing my full-day offline Value Investing Workshop to three cities this September. I run it in each city just once a year, so this is your window for 2026.

  • Chennai — Sunday, 6th September
  • Bengaluru — Sunday, 20th September
  • Mumbai — Sunday, 27th September

Each is a full day, 10 AM to 5 PM, kept to a small room of around 40 people so I can actually get to your questions. It’s a day on the principles, frameworks, and mental habits of sensible value investing, no tips, no jargon, just the thinking that helps ordinary investors build wealth slowly and stay calm through every market. Whether you’ve never bought a stock or have been at it for years, you’ll leave able to do the work yourself.

The early-bird seats have now filled. The next 20 seats in each city are still open at discounted prices. Once those go, the price steps up, and once a city’s room is full, that’s it until next year.

Click here for details and registration.

Now, on to today’s letter.

Imagine it’s 2036. You opened your first demat account during the COVID lockdown of 2020, like a lot of young people in India did. And then, you did everything you were told to do.

You SIP-ped every month, ignored the noise, thought in decades and not days. You heard it from your mutual fund’s ad, from the finance guy on Instagram, probably from me too, at some point, in some post.

[Read more…] about What If Stocks Don’t Go Up for a Decade?

Freedom Isn’t an Open Field

Value Investing Workshop in Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai: Before we begin, a quick personal note. I’m bringing my full-day offline Value Investing Workshop to three cities this September. I run it in each city just once a year, so this is your window for 2026.

  • Chennai — Sunday, 6th September
  • Bengaluru — Sunday, 20th September
  • Mumbai — Sunday, 27th September

Each is a full day, 10 AM to 5 PM, kept to a small room of around 40 people so I can actually get to your questions. It’s a day on the principles, frameworks, and mental habits of sensible value investing, no tips, no jargon, just the thinking that helps ordinary investors build wealth slowly and stay calm through every market. Whether you’ve never bought a stock or have been at it for years, you’ll leave able to do the work yourself.

The early-bird seats have now filled. The next 20 seats in each city are still open at discounted prices. Once those go, the price steps up, and once a city’s room is full, that’s it until next year.

Click here for details and registration.

Now, on to today’s letter.

We grow up with this one idea of ‘freedom’, which is that freedom means no limits. There are no rules, no schedule, and nobody standing over you telling you what to do.

It’s like a huge open field with no fences anywhere, and you’re standing right in the middle of it, and you can walk in any direction you like. Isn’t that the dream for almost all of us?

[Read more…] about Freedom Isn’t an Open Field

Charlie Munger on Patience, Wisdom, and the Power of Changing Your Mind

Value Investing Workshop in Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai: Before we begin, a quick personal note. I’m bringing my full-day offline Value Investing Workshop to three cities this September. I run it in each city just once a year, so this is your window for 2026.

  • Chennai — Sunday, 6th September
  • Bengaluru — Sunday, 20th September
  • Mumbai — Sunday, 27th September

Each is a full day, 10 AM to 5 PM, kept to a small room of around 40 people so I can actually get to your questions. It’s a day on the principles, frameworks, and mental habits of sensible value investing, no tips, no jargon, just the thinking that helps ordinary investors build wealth slowly and stay calm through every market. Whether you’ve never bought a stock or have been at it for years, you’ll leave able to do the work yourself.

The early-bird seats have now filled. The next 20 seats in each city are still open at discounted prices. Once those go, the price steps up, and once a city’s room is full, that’s it until next year.

Click here for details and registration.

Now, on to today’s letter.

What I’m Reading

Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger

I am a loner and have worked alone for almost the whole of my time at Safal Niveshak, which is for the past 15 years, but I understand the importance of having the right partner. For me, that partner is my wife.

But if you are looking to find a good partner for work, you may want to look into the 60-year long partnership of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, which sadly ended late November with the passing away of Charlie.

[Read more…] about Charlie Munger on Patience, Wisdom, and the Power of Changing Your Mind

The Long Game: The Compounding Approach to a Richer, Healthier Life

Value Investing Workshop in Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai: Before we begin, a quick personal note. I’m bringing my full-day offline Value Investing Workshop to three cities this September. I run it in each city just once a year, so this is your window for 2026.

  • Chennai — Sunday, 6th September
  • Bengaluru — Sunday, 20th September
  • Mumbai — Sunday, 27th September

Each is a full day, 10 AM to 5 PM, kept to a small room of around 40 people so I can actually get to your questions. It’s a day on the principles, frameworks, and mental habits of sensible value investing, no tips, no jargon, just the thinking that helps ordinary investors build wealth slowly and stay calm through every market. Whether you’ve never bought a stock or have been at it for years, you’ll leave able to do the work yourself.

The early-bird price holds for the first 20 seats in each city, or until 25th August, whichever comes first.

Click here for details and registration.

Now, on to today’s letter.

I have spent most of my life studying compounding. And the older I get, the more I notice that it doesn’t only happen with your wealth, but also in your health, very slowly.

Every meal is a transaction. Every night of sleep is a deposit or a withdrawal. Nobody sends you the account summary. The audit just arrives one day, years later, all at once, in a health report.

[Read more…] about The Long Game: The Compounding Approach to a Richer, Healthier Life

The Gift of Attention

The Almanack of Good Life is where I share all that I am reading and reflecting upon about living a good life. In this age of constant information overload, I’ve found immense value in taking time to pause and reflect upon meaningful insights about life. This newsletter is my way of sharing that journey with you.

[Read more…] about The Gift of Attention

Eight Experts, Forty Facts, One Investing Lesson

Two Books. One Purpose. A Better Life.

“Template on how to lead a happier and fuller life.”

—Ramesh Damani, Member, BSE

“Teaches you how to think, judge, and behave…”

—Arnold V. D. Berg, Century Mgt.

In 1973, psychologist Paul Slovic sat down with eight professional horse handicappers (bettors). These were not weekend punters but experts who could read a horse-racing form better than the next person. If anyone on earth could turn information into money, it was them.

Slovic ran a simple experiment. He had data on real races that had already been run, and he stripped out the horse names so nobody could lean on reputation. Then he asked each handicapper to pick winners, but he controlled how much they got to see.

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15 Years of Safal Niveshak: A Confession

🎁 15th Anniversary Offer: Today, 9th July 2026, Safal Niveshak turns 15. To celebrate, my books are on discount, individually and in combos, till 15th July. Click here to buy.

Safal Niveshak turns fifteen today.

I still find it hard to believe when I say it out loud. Most things in my life, including some opinions and even some friendships, have not lasted fifteen years. But this small corner of the internet, somehow, has.

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How Not to Get Fooled by Randomness in Investing

🎁 15th Anniversary Offer: On 9th July, Safal Niveshak turns 15. To celebrate, my books are on discount, individually, in combos, and as a complete set, till 15th July. Click here to buy.

“All of life is a management of risk, not its elimination,” wrote Walter Wriston, the former chairman of Citicorp. The more you think about this statement, the more you can strip away one more layer of the illusion that you can somehow control what markets will do.

Randomness is the fabric that weaves the interaction of everything around us. You can’t remove it from human affairs, and so you can’t remove the risk that comes with it either.

[Read more…] about How Not to Get Fooled by Randomness in Investing

The Trappings of Wealth

🎁 15th Anniversary Offer: On 9th July, Safal Niveshak turns 15. To celebrate, my books are on discount, individually, in combos, and as a complete set, till 15th July. Click here to buy.

When I look around, I see so many people constantly racing against time. Parents, in their drive to climb the career ladder, often miss out on the precious moments of their children’s childhood. I also see relationships faltering because people are so focused on chasing something elusive in the future — something that never seems to be enough. In the process, they miss out on living and loving the people around them in the present.

[Read more…] about The Trappings of Wealth