[The Weekend Bulletin] #190: Intelligence vs Smartness, Turnarounds, Life-Cycle of a Company, ...
... The Zeigarnik Effect, A Few Investing Lessons, and more.
A digest of some interesting reading material from around the world-wide-web. Your weekly dose of multi-disciplinary reading.
Investing Wisdom
A couple of articles that draw investing lessons from the experience of different investors:
This article draws seven timeless lessons from an investors known as 'The Lone Wolf of Wallstreet'.
A practitioner recounts 20 key lessons learned over 20 years in the investment business in this article. (If I can indulge you, here are 12 lessons that I had recounted from my first 12 years in the business)
By charting some events that led to the standardisation of time zones, this article talks about investing in turnaround candidates. It explains why turnarounds are so rewarding, defines some challenges with investing in turnarounds, and delves in to the strategies that investors should adopt when investing in turnarounds.
This article explains the life-cycle of a company by comparing it to the financial phases of a person's life. Using a few examples, it illustrates different growth constraints and outcomes that companies face. It also delves into scenarios where companies manage decline, explaining a few strategies where resources are reallocated.
Mental Models & Behavioral Biases
The Zeigarnik Effect, named after Dr. Bluma Zeigarnik, explains why unfinished tasks occupy mental resources, similar to having too many open tabs on a browser. This phenomenon affects storytelling, multitasking, perfectionism, anxiety, and even sleep. This article explains why this happens and lists a few strategies to combat this effect.
Personal Development
This post reflects the sentiment of Warren Buffet when he said that investing is not a high-IQ profession. The author contrasts between intelligence and smartness to show how sometimes intelligent people will surprise you on the downside whereas not-so-intelligent-but-smart people may outperform expectations. While the author thinks that both attributes are important, they are needed at different stages in life. A very interesting article that reminded of this post that we read in #148:
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 113:
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.
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
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: https://x.com/tgutka/status/1498724792752508928?s=20
Quotable Quotes
We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.
- Konrad Adenauer
We are all long term investors until your company does something that is best for the long term.
- Barry Schwartz
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That's it for this weekend folks.
Have a wonderful week ahead!!
- Tejas Gutka
[Mar 17, 2024]