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My new book, The Long Game, is available now. The book contains reflections from 30 investors who’ve survived decades of market cycles. You’ll learn how to tune out the noise that makes you second-guess yourself, handle the fear and greed that hurt your decisions, and stick to principles that actually compound wealth over time. Click here to get your copy.
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A young man at a workshop asked me a few months ago, “Vishal, I read the annual reports and listen to the conference calls. I follow the smart people on Twitter. I think I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do. But when I actually want to decide whether to buy a stock, I freeze. I do not know what I’m supposed to be looking for.”
I told him what I wish someone had told me when I started, which is that the problem is rarely too little information. It is almost always too much, with no way to sort it.
So I tried to make him a simple template, underlying which is the process I have been following for the last many years to analyse businesses myself.
It’s a one page template, with fifteen questions. Nothing fancy.
Like I said, I have been using this thinking framework myself for the last few years before deciding on anything, and I am surprised at how much it has helped. Now, I don’t promise that this, or any, template can provide you all the answers you are looking for in investment analysis. But what it does is show me where I genuinely understand a business and where I am bluffing.
I made a video walking through the whole thing, and I then apply it to a real Indian company, just to show how it works.
As a disclaimer, nothing that I talk about in the video is a recommendation.
You can watch it here.
I have also kept the blank template as a free PDF.
Download and print it if you can. Pick one stock you already own, and try filling it in by hand. The column you struggle with is usually the one telling you something.
If you do try it, I would like to know what came up for you. Reply to this email or add a comment to this post.
P.S. If this thinking framework resonated with you, you may find my new book The Long Game useful. It is a hardcover collection of reflections from 30 investing practitioners on what it actually takes to stay the course over decades. You can find it here.
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