Investing Behaviour

The Untold Story of A Self-Made Investing Millionaire

January 21, 2019 | 2 Comments

In a world dominated by men, here is a rare untold story of a woman who quietly made it big as a stock market investor.

Anne Scheiber was 51 years old when she retired from her job as a low-level auditor from the American Internal Revenue Service in 1944. She never earned a salary of more than $4,000 per year, and although she was an exemplary worker, she never received a promotion. Maybe, because she was a woman and a Jew, the lots that were discriminated against in the workforce in general in the west during that period.

As per the executor of her Will, Benjamin Clark, Scheiber, who was already investing her small savings in the stock market when she retired in 1944, started here post-retirement life with a portfolio of about $21,000. Adjusted for inflation, that was about $297,000 in today’s money. Not really a large sum to retire in the US.

Stress and Investing: A 20-Point Checklist

January 16, 2019 | 2 Comments

I was at my hometown recently and chanced upon a friend who works as an investment banker in Delhi. We had met almost after 15 years, and so I could notice a big contrast in his looks as compared to what it was in the early 2000s. He looked much older than his age, around 39, and so I enquired about his health.

To my utter shock, he said, “I had an angioplasty late last year, where they put a tiny tube in my blood vessel to restore blood flow through my arteries.”

In short, he meant, “I just survived a heart attack.”

“Stress is part of my job profile, you see,” he shrugged it off jokingly.

I had earlier read of a 35-year-old London-based hedge fund trader who died of a heart attack in 2013, and of the head of JP Morgan’s equity sales, aged 37, who had also died of heart failure in 2012. But my friend was, well, my friend, and thus the gravity of the situation weighed heavier this time.

“Is it worth it?” I asked my friend.

Seven Big Ideas from Fooled by Randomness

January 8, 2019 | 1 Comment

I have been re-reading Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness. The book is about “luck disguised and perceived as non-luck (that is, skills) and, more generally, randomness disguised and perceived as non-randomness (that is, determinism).”

It’s an enlightening read in its entirety, but here are seven key ideas I have picked up from the book.

The Journey

December 18, 2018 | 4 Comments

“If all you care about is the mountaintop, the climb is going to be rough.” ~ Anon

“We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.” ~ Warren Buffett

This is going to be one of the shortest posts I’ve written. One book that I keep by my bedside for frequent reading is Ruskin Bond’s A Book of Simple Living. Here is a passage that I stumbled upon from this book last night, and which resonated perfectly well with how I practice investing and one key idea I try to teach here – the focus on process vs outcome, on the journey vs destination.

[Read more…] about The Journey

Lecture Presentation and Notes: Surviving the Investing Game

December 11, 2018 | 4 Comments

I recently spoke at IIM Lucknow. My topic was ‘Surviving the Investing Game.’