In his recent interview on The Valley Investors Podcast, Bill Nygren, the seasoned investor and portfolio manager at Oakmark Funds, reflected on how the investing landscape has transformed over the decades. His insights offer a compelling perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing modern investors in an era of unprecedented information access.
Nygren began by highlighting the stark contrast between today’s world and the early days of his career. “If you look back early in my career, information was expensive,” he recalled. “If you wanted a copy of a 10K, you’d have to commit the time to go to the library and photocopy it.
It was expensive in both time and money.” Alternatively, investors could write to a company and wait weeks for a response. Today, however, “that’s all available to people at their fingertips.”
This democratization of information is undoubtedly a boon for investors. Yet, as Nygren pointed out, it comes with its own set of challenges.
“I think one of the challenges for investors is because there’s so much information easily accessible, it’s filtering out the noise and really honing in on those issues that are most important to your investment philosophy.”
In a world where data flows endlessly and news cycles spin faster than ever, the ability to discern what truly matters is more critical than ever.
For Nygren and his team, the focus remains on the fundamentals. “For us, it’s trying to look at the factors that influence what a business is worth,” he explained. Key questions include: “How do you think this company is going to change over the next seven years?
Is it competitively advantaged? Will its market share change? Will the addressable market grow or shrink over that time period? How much capital will it take them to invest? How much excess will they produce?
That can go back to the shareholders.” These are the questions that drive long-term value, yet they are often drowned out by the noise of short-term market chatter.
Nygren also drew a sharp contrast between the investing culture of today and that of decades past. “Looking back my early career, television business news was Wall Street Week at 7:30 on Friday nights in a half-hour show with Lou Rukeyser telling you be calm, invest in America. Everything’s going to be okay in the long term.”
Compare that to today’s environment, where investors are bombarded with constant updates and a sense of urgency. “It’s very different when you’re trying to convince people that they need to be watching stock market news.
Most waking hours, there’s always the urgency of there’s a number that’s going to be coming out in half an hour. It’s going to influence what everybody does for the rest of the day or the week.”
This relentless focus on short-term fluctuations, Nygren argues, is a distraction from what truly matters. “Having the confidence to know that none of that matters to what a business you’re looking at is worth and that you can just ignore. That is a big challenge for most investors.”
Nygren’s words serve as a timely reminder for investors to stay grounded in their principles. In an age of information overload, the ability to filter out the noise and focus on the long-term drivers of value is what separates successful investors from the rest.
As he succinctly put it, the real challenge lies not in accessing information, but in knowing what to do with it—and, more importantly, what to ignore.
In the end, the core tenets of investing remain unchanged: understand the business, think long-term, and stay disciplined. As Nygren’s career demonstrates, those who can master these principles will thrive, no matter how the world evolves.
You can listen to the entire podcast here:
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