Understanding the numbers is just one part of investing. To be a successful long-term investor, you need not only understand the numbers but also the psychological traits required to be able to capitalise on your
Continue ReadingLessons From The Collapse of Flybe
There are only two things investors can control when it comes to investing in the public equity markets. Firstly, the price paid for the security you have decided to include in your portfolio and secondly,
Continue ReadingThe Permanent Portfolio And Joel Greenblatt’s Big Secret
I recently wrote an article for Gurufocus.com on an asset allocation strategy called the ‘Permanent Portfolio’ (PP). For readers who don’t know, or who haven’t heard about this portfolio approach before, it was first published
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Hidden Value Stocks
I’ve not been able to post on this blog recently because I’ve been working flat out on a new business venture with my partner called Hidden Value Stocks. This is a stock newsletter focused on small,
Continue ReadingSeth Klarman: Approach Investing With a “Strict Standard of Risk Avoidance”
Investing is hard. To be able to outperform the market consistently, you need to be able to predict the future. Unfortunately, predicting the future is impossible. So, investing is a game of probabilities. Estimating the
Continue ReadingNegative Shareholder Equity Isn’t All That Bad After All
In many respects, the style of value investing is built around shareholder equity and book value. Benjamin Graham and David Dodd built their net-nets investment strategy on book value, with the logic that if you
Continue ReadingWarren Buffett Lectures From 1991: What Makes A Good Business
Below are notes taken across three lectures by Warren Buffett to the Notre Dame Faculty in 1991 on the topic of pricing power, and what makes a good business. The first set of notes is a
Continue ReadingLosing It All Pt.4: Benjamin Graham
No series on the mistakes of the world’s greatest investors would be complete without looking at the mistakes made by the Godfather of value investing Benjamin Graham, in the early part of his career. Losing It
Continue ReadingUsing The Kelly Criterion In Investing
The Kelly Criterion is a tool you can use to help decide how much weight you should give each position in a portfolio. Invented by John Kelly, who was originally employed at Bell Labs, the
Continue ReadingLosing It All Pt.3
Warren Buffett is considered to be the world’s best investor. Over the course of his career, he’s achieved outstanding returns for investors (and himself) buying undervalued stocks. He’s also achieved the best investment hit rate
Continue ReadingLosing It All Pt.2
In this series, I’m looking at some of the biggest investing mistakes of all time and how they transformed the investment strategies of those who made them. Part one looked at Carl Icahn’s biggest failure
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