Every few weeks, Saturday mornings are reserved for the barber. Today was one of those, so my son and I had our visit to the salon. After our customary drive and parking, and a few minutes of waiting for our turn, we finally were called in and sat into our ‘throne’ to get started with … Read more
A couple of days back I was privileged to watch one of the best recent displays of classical Test Match batting by Rahul Dravid. That day (as so many times in the past too), Dravid secured a painstaking century on a minefield of a pitch to get India into a position of victory. He has … Read more
Dr Edward De Bono came up with a famous theory of the six thinking hats, as a tool for group discussion and also individual thinking – as a means to think from all angles, more effectively, and to come up with successful decisions. The contention of the six thinking hats is that the human brain … Read more
Despite all the books and articles written on him so far, this is one of the best Warren Buffett talks. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6231308980849895261#
It has been a while since I wrote here, and the reason was that I was away for a nice family vacation. It was a truly wonderful experience, in the midst of good weather, the beauty of nature and great company – a meeting of like minds, a time to relax, the agenda being no … Read more
The best portfolio strategy for an individual investor is to start by setting a prudent desired asset allocation between risky equity assets and fixed income that the investor is comfortable with and is sustainable, and implementing it by a continuous timely re-balancing of the portfolio. This would mean selling a certain percentage of the equity … Read more
For the equity part of their portfolio, individual investors have the choice of either directly buying stocks or following the equity mutual fund route. Many individual investors, including myself earlier on in my investing life, make the mistake of evaluating mutual funds similar to stocks. The way to evaluate funds is quite different from evaluating stocks for investment. … Read more
“You can fondle it, you can polish it, you can stare at it. But it isn’t going to do anything.” That’s what Warren Buffett had to say about gold. Essentially it is a useless commodity. But it has gone up every year for the last 10 years. It has given returns that are, perhaps, better … Read more
“Researching and selecting your own stocks is not necessary; for most people, it is not even advisable. However, some investors do enjoy the diversion and intellectual challenge of picking individual stocks – and, if you have survived a bear market and still enjoy picking stocks, then nothing that Graham or I could say will dissuade … Read more