Blog on Value Investing | Safal Niveshak

Investing and the Art of Cloning

My friend Ravi was home for lunch on weekend. After food, as we went out for a stroll, he told me a story of a famous motivational speaker.

At a huge gathering once, the speaker proclaimed, “The best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman, who wasn’t my wife.”

The audience was in a state of shock and silence at thus revelation, especially because it was coming from someone they looked up to.

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The speaker than added, “She was my mother.”

What followed then was a huge round of applause and laughter.

Ravi then told me the story of a male participant at this event who was his friend from school. This gentleman tried to trick his wife with a similar joke.

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My Stock Valuation Manifesto

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: A Hand-Crafted Manual on the Pursuit of Wealth and Good Life

Buy your copy of the book Morgan Housel calls “a masterpiece.” It contains 50 timeless ideas – from Lord Krishna to Charlie Munger, Socrates to Warren Buffett, and Steve Jobs to Naval Ravikant – as they apply to our lives today. Click here to buy now.

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.

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Dare to Be Wrong

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: A Hand-Crafted Manual on the Pursuit of Wealth and Good Life

“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.

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Nobody Knows

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: A Hand-Crafted Manual on the Pursuit of Wealth and Good Life

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%).

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Philip Fisher on Four Dimensions of Investing – Part 4

This is the fourth and the final instalment of Philip Fisher’s “Four Dimensions of Investing” series. It’s recommended that you read the first three parts before reading this one.

The first three dimensions of conservative investment were essentially about the quality of the business itself. However, a great business becomes a great investment only when it’s acquired at a reasonable price. That means, without considering the price, the conservativeness of an investment process is still questionable. So, price is the fourth dimension of conservative investing.

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30 Ideas That Changed My Life

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: A Hand-Crafted Manual on the Pursuit of Wealth and Good Life

Whenever I feel uninspired, I look to a collection of my favorite quotes and passages I keep in a document on my computer or marked in my books (my idea bank). Today was one of those days.

As I was re-reading some of these and remembering why I love writing, reading, and the power of words, I thought perhaps someone somewhere out there might be feeling the same as me before I started writing this post.

So, here are 30 of the most beautiful passages (in no particular order) I have ever read on life and related subjects, and which have helped me become a better version of myself over the years.

Hope you find these passages of some help, and worth your time.

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Influencers are Not the Problem

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: A Hand-Crafted Manual on the Pursuit of Wealth and Good Life

Blaming the system is soothing because it lets you off the hook. But when the system is broken, we wonder why you were relying in the system in the first place.

~ Seth Godin

This story dates to September 2008. I remember this clearly because it happened on the day Lehman went bust.

The event is more vivid for me because, when the news broke out, I was less than a mile away from Lehman’s headquarters, with a school friend.

My friend, who was working in the tech division of another investment bank in the city, met me to discuss his India investments. His portfolio had already taken a beating in the financial crisis that had started at the beginning of 2008.

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Answering an Easier Question

When a satisfactory answer to a hard question is not found quickly, our mind tends to imagine a related question that is easier and constructs an answer for it. This processes, answering one question in place of another, is mostly involuntary and known as substitution principle. It’s better to stay mired in a genuine confusion than to bask in the comfort of a false conclusion.

Let me ask you a simple question – How happy are you these days?

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Philip Fisher on Four Dimensions of Investing – Part 3

This is the third leg of the “Four Dimensions of Investing” series. It’s recommended that you read the first two parts before reading this.

Philip Fisher’s investment classic Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits ranks pretty close to Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor and for many years, it has been part of the curriculum in the investment class at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Investors Do

Most of us invest in the first place is to attain financial freedom so that we do not have to worry about money. But most of us become slaves of the short term stock price movements. And that creates stress. And stress is bad, very bad.

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