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You are here: Home / Archives for Investing Behaviour

Investing Behaviour

10 Qualities of Great Investors

Admission Open: Value Investing Workshops – Offline (Mumbai) and Online

1. Offline Workshop: Mumbai – After a gap of 2 years, I am back with my live, offline Value Investing workshop. The first session is planned in Mumbai on Sunday, 22nd January 2023. I am accepting only 50 students for this session, and less than 10 seats remain now. Click here to know more and join the Mumbai workshop.

2. Online Workshop – Admissions are also open for the January 2023 cohort of my online value investing workshop. The workshop involves 22+ hours of pre-recorded, detailed lectures and Q&A sessions, plus a 3-hour live online Q&A session scheduled on Sunday, 15th January 2023 (tomorrow). I am accepting 50 students in this cohort, and less than 5 seats remain now. Click here to know more and join the online workshop.

* * *

One of the first lessons I learned from my yoga teacher was that “yoga is not about rapid movements but long pauses. Slow down, calm down, don’t hurry, and trust the process.”

The thing about yoga — or any exercise — is that there isn’t a comfort zone. But if you have a sound process, and practice it diligently, over time it starts to work for you.

The act of investing your money, as I realize, isn’t much different from practicing yoga. A superior process and greatness often go hand in hand in yoga, and also in investing. For serious investors, thus, it’s wise to learn to trust the process that generates winning investment results.

I came across one such time-tested process framework while reading Michael Mauboussin’s “Reflections on the Ten Attributes of Great Investors.” Mauboussin is Head of Consilient Research at Counterpoint Global, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, and author of some amazing books like The Success Equation and More Than You Know. He is a highly successful value investor, and thus the process he has laid out in his note is a great help for any serious investor seeking a winning investment process.

Here are my reviews of the ten attributes Mauboussin has laid out in his note.

[Read more…] about 10 Qualities of Great Investors

Investing and the Art of Getting Less Prejudiced

Admission Open: Value Investing Workshops – Offline (Mumbai) and Online

1. Offline Workshop: Mumbai – After a gap of 2 years, I am back with my live, offline Value Investing workshop. The first session is planned in Mumbai on Sunday, 22nd January 2023. I am accepting only 50 students for this session, and less than 10 seats remain now. Click here to know more and join the Mumbai workshop.

2. Online Workshop – Admissions are also open for the January 2023 cohort of my online value investing workshop. The workshop involves 22+ hours of pre-recorded, detailed lectures and Q&A sessions, plus a 3-hour live online Q&A session scheduled on Sunday, 15th January 2023. I am accepting 50 students in this cohort, and less than 5 seats remain now. Click here to know more and join the online workshop.

* * *

Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922, proposed once that the goal of science is not universal truth.

[Read more…] about Investing and the Art of Getting Less Prejudiced

When to Bet Big, and When Not To

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: Get Your Copy Now

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.


It was mid-1974.

Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx had a problem at hand. FedEx was a young company, just three years old, and primarily due to rising fuel costs, found itself millions of dollars in debt and on the brink of bankruptcy.

As per demands from oil companies that provided fuel to run FedEx’s planes, every Monday, the latter was required to prepay for the anticipated weekly usage of jet fuel. It was one of those Fridays and FedEx had just about $5,000 in its bank account, while it needed $24,000 for the jet fuel payment for the coming week.

[Read more…] about When to Bet Big, and When Not To

The Investor’s Manifesto (2022)

This is for you. This is from someone like you.

It is an Investor’s Manifesto.

It is something you can reflect back on if you ever felt stuck in your investing life.

If you believe in it, follow it, and stand for it, your investing life will be good.

Click here to download the manifesto.

Read it. Print it. Frame it. Face it. Remember it. Do it.

This is YOUR Manifesto.

And if you find value in it, please share it.

Long Term Investing is Hard

Admission Open: Value Investing Courses – Classroom and Online

1. Classroom Course: Value Investing Blueprint – This is a comprehensive course on value investing that I will conduct at FLAME University, Pune. It is a residential course and is scheduled to be held from 1st to 4th December 2022. The deadline for submitting applications is 17th October 2022. Click here to know more and join the course.

2. Online Course: Value Investing Workshop – Admissions are also open for the October 2022 cohort of my online value investing workshop. The workshop involves 22+ hours of pre-recorded, detailed lectures and Q&A sessions, plus a 3-hour live Q&A session scheduled for Sunday, 30th October 2022. I am accepting only 50 students in this cohort, and first 25 students can claim a special discount. Click here to know more and join the workshop.


A Few Ideas I’m Thinking About

Here are a few ideas I have been thinking about over the last few days.

Long Term Investing is Hard

The biggest reasons more people do not practice long term investing are that –

  1. It flies in the face of anything taught in business schools – that is, short termism – where most influencers/experts come from,
  2. It requires a painful degree of patience because it is only over long periods of time that the market eventually gravitates toward value,
  3. Life spans of businesses and their competitive advantage periods, on an average, are shortening,
  4. Our attention spans and holding periods are shrinking, and
  5. Noise is magnifying.

Given all of this, long term investing has become an increasingly difficult and contrarian endeavour. And so, not many investors have the ability or the wherewithal to practice it.

In fact, most people participating in the stock market don’t even understand what they are doing. This is especially when making money gets quick and easy, and they are doing great at it.

[Read more…] about Long Term Investing is Hard

How to Manage Risk of Randomness in Investing

Admission Open: Value Investing Workshop (Online) – October 2022 Cohort

I have opened admission to the October 2022 cohort of my online value investing workshop. The workshop includes 22+ hours of pre-recorded, detailed lectures and Q&A session, plus a 3-hour live Q&A session. 

I am accepting only 50 students in this cohort, and first 25 can claim a special discount. Click here to know more and join the workshop.


A Few Ideas I’m Thinking About

Here are a few ideas I have been thinking about over the last few days.

How to Manage Risk of Randomness in Investing

“All of life is a management of risk, not its elimination,” writes Walter Wriston, former chairman of Citicorp.

Randomness is the fabric that weaves the interaction of everything around us. Since you can’t remove randomness from our affairs, you can’t get rid of the risk also. Peter Bernstein in his book Against the Gods writes –

The essence of risk management lies in maximizing the areas where we have some control over the outcome while minimizing the areas where we have absolutely no control over the outcome and the linkage between effect and cause is hidden from us.

[Read more…] about How to Manage Risk of Randomness in Investing

20 Timeless Lessons for Young and Old Investors

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: Did you get your copy?

Get 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 recently published a couple of Twitter threads sharing some key lessons (in my view) that young and old (experienced) investors can practice to do well in their investing.

The lists are not exhaustive, but contain some of the most important lessons that, if you practice, may help you survive the tough times in the market.

Here are those lessons.

[Read more…] about 20 Timeless Lessons for Young and Old Investors

The Dark Room of Investing Success

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: Did you get your copy?

Get 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.


Growing up in the 90s, and before digital cameras became common, one of my most precious possessions was a Kodak roll camera.

It was a simple box camera that came loaded with a 36-exposure roll of film (if I remember that correctly). When the roll was finished, the camera or the roll was handed to a photo studio for processing.

[Read more…] about The Dark Room of Investing Success

My Advice to a Young Investor – Part 3

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: Did you get your copy?

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.


This is the third part of this unintended series on my single biggest advice to a 26-year-old investor.

First, she asked – What advice would I offer to a 26-year-old to do well in her career?

I offered this advice – Play games that you can win.

Then, she asked – How do I know which games to play where I can win?

I offered this advice – First, try to answer this question: ‘What do I desire?’ Then, do a few things that you desire to do, maybe 2 or 3, and then gradually you will gravitate towards the number one out of those 2 or 3. Keep learning, keep exploring, and you should find that one game that would become the only that you would like to be in. And once you have found that game you should play, start playing, get better at it over time, and you should win – not against others but along with others who are also playing that game.

Anyways, then she asked – But how do I get over the fear to even start playing the game that I can win?

[Read more…] about My Advice to a Young Investor – Part 3

My Advice to a Young Investor – Part 2

The Sketchbook of Wisdom: Did you get your copy?

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.


This is in continuation of the previous post on my single biggest advice to a 26-year-old investment analyst on what she should be doing to do well in her career as an analyst and an investor.

My advice to her was this – Play games that you can win.

After reading the post, she came back with a follow-up question – But how do I know which games to play where I can win?

This was another important question. And since I knew this would come, I was better prepared this time.

[Read more…] about My Advice to a Young Investor – Part 2
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