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Investing

This page contains our best articles on the subject of value investing and investment behaviour.


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Stock Investing is a Humbling Game

Not losing money is a critical part of the stock investing process. Successful investors say it in different ways, but the point is always the same.

Warren Buffett has often said – “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1.”

But he has also said – “If you don’t make mistakes, you can’t make decisions.”

You see, the problem is not in making mistakes. The problem is in not knowing when you have made a mistake and thus not learning from it.

Unfortunately, openness to making mistakes and recognizing them is beyond most of us. Why is that?

Two reasons. The first, our society’s phobia for making mistakes, something that begins at school, where we learn to learn what we are taught rather than to resolve problems. We are fed with facts, and those who make the fewest mistakes are considered to be the smarter ones. So we learn that it is embarrassing to not know and to make mistakes. We feel bad when we find out we have made a mistake or do not know something.

[Read more…] about Stock Investing is a Humbling Game

16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot

Mastermind Value Investing Course: Admission Open

I have opened admission to my premium, online course in Value Investing – Mastermind – with a lot of updates and upgrades. The course contains –

  • 7 modules – 50 detailed, downloadable lessons with case studies of listed Indian companies
  • 20 hours of pre-recorded lecture and Q&A videos
  • 2 Live Q&A sessions spread over one-year
  • Exclusive, members-only forum for questions and exercises (rich archive of 6,000+ postings from past students)
  • Assignments and exercises at the end of each lesson to help you practice what you learn
  • 7 readymade stock screens to help you identify the best businesses to invest in and worst the avoid
  • 100% online: Start instantly and learn at your own schedule
  • Detailed stock analysis spreadsheet (otherwise priced at ₹1999)

I am offering ₹5000 discount on the course fee for the first 100 students, or till 15th June, whichever comes early. If you are interested, click here to know more and join now.


What do you call an investor who earned 16% per annum on average over a 47 year period – that’s a 1,070-bagger – and is not called Warren Buffett?

What if I told you that this investor…

  • Did not care about corporate earnings
  • Rarely spoke to managements and analysts
  • Did not watch the stock market during the day
  • Never owned a computer, and
  • Did not even go to college

…you would not say anything but just ask me to reveal his name fast, so as to re-confirm whether such a super-investor has ever existed in the investment circles.

Well, before I tell you this man’s name, you must read what Buffett had to say about him…

…He doesn’t worry about whether it it’s January, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s Monday, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s an election year. He simply says, if a business is worth a dollar and I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me. And he does it over and over and over again. He owns many more stocks than I do — and is far less interested in the underlying nature of the business; I don’t seem to have very much influence on him. That’s one of his strengths; no one has much influence on him.

Now, if you haven’t already read below to find out who I am talking about, let me now disclose the name of this man, whom Buffett termed a Super Investor in his famous essay, The Superinvestors of Graham-And-Doddsville.

The Name is Schloss…Walter Schloss
“Walter who?” you may wonder if you have not read much about the world’s best-ever investors.

[Read more…] about 16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot

Learn to Pick Great Stocks with My Premium, Online Course in Value Investing – Mastermind

There are no secrets to the art of sensible stock picking that most people don’t know of. The literature has been there since the 1940s, when Ben Graham, the father of value investing, first wrote about it in his landmark book The Intelligent Investor.

Other practitioners of this art, like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Seth Klarman, Walter Schloss, and Howard Marks have been writing about it for years now.

So, you can find hundreds and thousands of resources in print and on the Internet on how you can become a smart, successful investor. However, what I found lacking ever since I started learning this art of sensible stock picking myself, was a structured, step-by-step approach to do it.

[Read more…] about Learn to Pick Great Stocks with My Premium, Online Course in Value Investing – Mastermind

In Investing, Simple Beats Complex

Mastermind Value Investing Course: Admission Open

I have opened admission to my premium, online course in Value Investing – Mastermind – with a lot of updates and upgrades to the course. Plus, I am offering ₹5000 discount on the course fee till 15th June. If you are interested, click here to know more and join now.


In the endnotes of his brilliant book, Winning the Loser’s Game, Charles Ellis wrote about two of his best friends who, at the peak of their distinguished careers in medicine, agreed that the two most important discoveries in medical history were penicillin and washing hands (which stopped the spreading of infection from one mother to another via the midwives who delivered most babies before 1900).

Ellis’s friends also counseled him there was no better advice on how to live longer than to quit smoking and to buckle up when driving.

[Read more…] about In Investing, Simple Beats Complex

A Lazy Marwari’s Guide to Stock Market Investing

Value Investing Workshop: June 2022 Batch

I recently opened admission to the May 2022 cohort of my online Value Investing Workshop. Seats got sold off within a few hours. And so, I have opened admission for the June 2022 cohort, and accepting only 50 students, out of which 15 seats remain. If you are interested to join, click here to register now.


Coming from a Marwari business family, I have grown up on the idea of ‘opportunity costs,’ which is simply the value of the lost opportunity, or the benefit of the thing you could have done instead of what you are doing now.

For a Marwari businessman, opportunity cost is at its most expensive when he misses opportunities. Standing by as something important is happening without him, or not moving funds to where they are most productive, are like wasted opportunities. Most Marwari business houses act like venture capitalists and keep scouting for opportunities to grow and for their heirs to run.

[Read more…] about A Lazy Marwari’s Guide to Stock Market Investing

Should You Sell in May and Go Away?

I keep receiving questions from readers about what they should be doing with their investments, and more so when the markets are falling. Here is my attempt to answers a few such questions I have received over the past few days.

You won’t find perfect answers below, but this is just my attempt to help you get over your fears, which may otherwise lead you to act in haste, which can cause some damage to your process of long term wealth creation.

Let’s start right here.

1. Why is the market crashing?
It hasn’t crashed…so far! The BSE-Sensex is down just 11% from its peak one-month ago. And so are the BSE-Smallcap and BSE-Midcap indices. 11% down isn not a crash!

If you think it is, you maybe be suffering from ‘denominator blindness’, which is the tendency to focus on the absolute number than the percentage decline. Or you just seem to have been spoilt by rising markets over the past few years, that a 11% fall seems like a crash.

I still see rampant speculation and short-termism around. Like Warren Buffett said at the recent Berkshire meeting –

My general assumption — there’s no way to prove it — but essentially, people are now behaving somewhat more tribal than they have for a long time. It’s fun to participate in, but it can get very dangerous when people say two plus two is five and the other says two plus two is three, you know, and they’re gonna give you those answers.

I also see companies with extremely poor financials and track record are quoting at market capitalisations and valuations more than much established, profitable, dividend paying companies. So, we are still not on a slippery slope as of now.

[Read more…] about Should You Sell in May and Go Away?

The Five Most Irrelevant Facts of Stock Investing

Look at this. This is a stock price chart. Not from today, given the market’s crash. But just a random stock price chart.

Now look at it another way. This is not just a stock’s price. It is, borrowing from the legendary John Bogle, a “giant distraction to the business of investing.”

Long term investment returns are created by how businesses perform, but most investors make their investment decisions based on where stock prices have come from and where they may be going.

Anyways, now look at the following chart. This is a stock’s price plus four other “irrelevant” facts that drain most investors when they consider their investments.

[Read more…] about The Five Most Irrelevant Facts of Stock Investing

The Biggest Danger of Investing in Bad Businesses

Focusing on what can go wrong has long been a mantra of sound investing.

The legendary investor Seth Klarman put it the best in an investor letter –

We are big fans of fear, and in investing it is clearly better to be scared than sorry.

But chances are that even the biggest pessimists among us can have their focus on risk muted by extended periods of generally favourable market conditions.

[Read more…] about The Biggest Danger of Investing in Bad Businesses

A Reminder to Focus on the Journey, Not the Destination


I recently read a story to my son, which was about a martial arts student who went to an accomplished teacher to seek training under his guidance.

He asked the teacher, “I am devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it?”

The teacher casually replied, “Ten years.”

[Read more…] about A Reminder to Focus on the Journey, Not the Destination

Reflections on My Life

19 years have passed since I entered the stock market through my first and last job as an equity research analyst. 11 years have passed since I left that job to start on my own.

I recently tweeted about my experiences during both these phases, which I thought I would share with you here too.

There have been numerous lessons I have learned along the way, but what follows below contains some of the most important ones. Mostly, it’s about the memories I have made on this journey.

This is how an important part of my life has flowed over the past 19 years, and the best thing I have enjoyed about the whole journey is, well, the flow, with not much idea about where I would go.

If you are still reading, let’s start right here.

[Read more…] about Reflections on My Life
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