“I have learned that the capacity to endure boredom without looking for excitement is one of the foremost requirements to succeed in investing,” said my broker friend Jigneshbhai as we sipped our coffee last weekend. We were meeting after a long time and my broker friend was reading from a speech he had heard in … Read more
Prem Watsa was once called the savviest value investor you will never know. He is also known as the Canadian Buffett. In fact, his investing approach is uncannily similar. He heads Fairfax which owns multiple insurance companies. He generally buys companies in whole and mostly when they are in trouble (Blackberry being a recent example). … Read more
This year marks 50 years of Buffett and Munger running Berkshire Hathaway. Since 1977, Buffett has been writing an annual letter to his shareholders. A compilation of these letters was also published as a book. This year the letter has its details on business performance, plus the now regular interesting insights and wisdom as usual, … Read more
I found this wonderful talk – both in style and substance, in numbers and stories – as he mentions – delivered by Prof Aswath Damodaran (of New York University) at Google posted on Youtube over this weekend. Here are some notes/ statements from this talk to takeaway: “Accounting is not valuation” “Goodwill is the most … Read more
It has been a while since I posted to the blog. The reason being I had nothing much to say. So while I find something to say, there is always a lot of interesting stuff to read. While the message remains the same like all the basics of investing, it is not a bad time … Read more
“Expect a Surprise” said my broker friend Jigneshbhai as we ordered a fresh new flavoured cold coffee this time, when we met over the last weekend. “Is it a surprise or should I expect it?” asked a confused Swami. “If I expect it, it is no longer a surprise, and if it is a surprise, … Read more
“Thank God for the Supreme Court – now the government has to catch all the black money holders with Swiss Bank accounts” exclaimed my friend Swami while we were having our coffee this week. My broker friend Jigneshbhai was unmoved and kept sipping his coffee waiting for Swami to continue. As usual, nothing irritates Swami … Read more
“Yeh PSPO nahi jaanta!” Remember that old ad for – I think – Orient fans? In which a customer gets mocked for not knowing what is PSPO? That was the kind of look my broker friend Jigneshbhai got from Swami when he said, ‘No Idea!’ in response to Swami’s question on ‘where are the markets … Read more
And for a Friday (because this is a long weekend), a few stray thoughts and a few general observations and a few points of view (all my own work): Like the two great minds that influenced the 20th century the most were Gandhi and Einstein. Einstein changed the way we think about what the world … Read more