[The Weekend Bulletin] #113: Buffett, Spier, Druckenmiller, Self-Renewal,...
...Technical Analysis, Monkey Mind, and more.
A digest of some interesting reading material from around the world-wide-web. Your weekly dose of multi-disciplinary reading.
Section 1: Investing Wisdom
Contrasting last weeks over-100-pages long investor letter, this week's the shortest that the author has ever written. This one is rather famous and appropriately well-forwarded. I am sure most of you have already received the Berkshire Hathaway annual letter. If in case you haven't read it yet, may I suggest this annotated copy.
Another great interview in The One Percent Show. This conversation with Guy Spier was so meditative. The most interesting part to me was the non-investment discussion around thank you notes and onwards. This one comes highly recommended: Guy Spier on Finding Your North Star and the Power of Compounding Goodwill - The One Percent Show
This short video traces the investment journey of Stanly Druckenmiller. It narrates the series of events that led to the momentous returns that he generated for his clients, and later for his own funds. Given its length, the video doesn’t go into the finer details, but provides a good overview.
This is a slightly touchy subject, especially with hardcore fundamental investors. Technical Analysis, or the study of price movement, is in complete contrast to fundamental analysis, as one starts with price while the ends there. More importantly, one is backward looking, while the other is forward looking. This post suggests that marrying the two contrasting ideas - like most things in investing (strong convictions loosely held) - can help investors in making some decisions better. I am neither a strong believer nor a complete non believer; I stand in the place where ideas are worth exploring, at least.
Section 2: Mental Models & Behavioral Biases
Not much to offer here this week, however, if you are looking for some weekend binge then there is a series on Netflix called 'The Mind, Explained' that has some fantastic episodes (rated 8/10 on IMDB). I particularly enjoyed: Memory, Focus, and Creativity.
Section 3: Personal Development
Our minds are like monkeys, jumping around all day. We all experience those times when we just cannot focus on the task at hand. Here is a simple system that teaches you to match your state of mind with an appropriate task to enhance productivity (unlike most productivity porn about to-do lists and apps, this one is a rather simple system that involves only you and your mind). Good short read.
This five page extract from a speech delivered in 1993 is amongst that best meditations that you can read on personal growth, lifelong learning, motivation and the likes. This talk reminded me of two others that we have looked in the past:
Section 4: Blast From The Past
Revisiting articles from a past issue for the benefits of refreshing memory and spaced repetition, as well as for a fresh perspective. Below are articles from #39:
Unpredictability of stock price movements in not the only reason that investing is difficult. It is also difficult because MOAT - regarded as one of the more important factors in fundamental investing - is not always reliable. For, as this article highlights, seemingly infallible moats can be filled, or an altogether new fort with different moat may come up elsewhere, leading to investors completely bypassing your fort.
Every once in a while, the market catches a fancy. A theme, sector, or set of stocks are set on fire on the belief that their short term performance can be extended ad infinitum. Global examples include the tech bubble and the nifty-fifty (check out 'Lessons from History' in Issues 27 and 34), while back home, we had the infrastructure boom. Behind all these varied themes, was a common culprit called 'GROWTH', one that was overestimated and overpaid for. Here are a few reads on this subject:
"Growth is a numerical outcome, knowable only with hindsight. It is singularly unhelpful, if not outright harmful in an investment process. Compounding is a holistic construct, controllable in advance. It is fuzzy and multi-faceted. It is imprecise and unmeasurable. Mixing up growth and compounding is one of the biggest mistakes investors make. Yes, compounders have delivered growth. No, (chasing) growth did not deliver compounding."
"...Mr. Market often thinks growthy, glamorous, names are much smarter to own. They definitely are smarter looking. And it is surely more entertaining to own these stocks. It’s also easier to sleep at night. They are obviously more dynamic companies and, in many cases, they indeed are better companies...And there are periods where these growthy, good and glamorous names do tremendously, well. During these episodes, it downright sucks to be a fundamentally-driven value investor."
Joshua Waitzkin was recognised as a child prodigy. He won the U.S. Junior Chess Championship in 1993 and 1994 (In 1993 Paramount Pictures released the film Searching for Bobby Fischer, based on the highly acclaimed book of the same title written by Fred Waitzkin, documenting Josh's journey to winning his first National Championship). At the age of eleven, he drew a game with World Champion Garry Kasparov in a simultaneous exhibition. At age 13, Josh earned the title of National Master, and at age 16 became an International Master. As a young adult, Waitzkin's focus shifted to the martial art Aikido. He holds several US national medals and a 2004 world champion title in the competitive sport of Taiji Push Hands. Waitzkin is also a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a performance coach and an author of two books. He is all of 44 years old. How does one achieve so much in life? Well you'd have to dig into this books, movie, talks, and life to get a detailed grip on the subject, but here are his methods summarised into five broad mental models.
Section 5: Readworthy Passage
Let's read together a random, but read-worthy, passage from a randomly picked book.
[From here onwards, all the links will take you to the original source of the content]
Six Qualities of Successful Investors:
- From MONEY MASTERS OF OUR TIME by JOHN TRAIN
Quotable Quotes
"Many situations in life are similar to going on a hike: the view changes once you start walking. You don't need all the answers right now. New paths will reveal themselves if you have the courage to get started."
We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.
We are all long term investors until your company does something that is best for the long term.
Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible god and slaughters a visible nature…without realizing this nature he slaughters is the invisible god he worships.
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That's it for this weekend folks.
Have a wonderful week ahead!!
- Tejas Gutka
[Mar 04, 2022]
GREAT EFFORT SIR PLEASE CONTINUE
My gratitude to your effort for this newsletter Sir. Have a nice weekend!