Here’s a great investing lesson by Nassim Taleb from his book Fooled by Randomness. Similarly to Michael Mauboussin in this article, Taleb makes the point that it’s not how frequently you profit from your investments that important, it’s the magnitude of the outcome that counts. Here’s an excerpt from the book: … Read More
Michael Mauboussin: The Babe Ruth Effect Generates More Successful Returns
Here’s a great lesson from Michael Mauboussin’s book – More Than You Know. Mauboussin highlights the point that when it comes to successful investing it’s not about the frequency of correctness that matters in stock picking, it’s the magnitude of correctness that matters. This is called the Babe Ruth Effect. Here’s an excerpt from … Read More
George Soros: “I Believe That Market Prices Are Always Wrong In The Sense That They Present A Biased View Of The Future”
One of our favorite investing books here at The Acquirer’s Multiple is The Alchemy of Finance by George Soros. There’s one passage in particular which encapsulates Soros’ successful approach to investing and what makes him different to most other investors. Soros writes: In the first ten years of my business … Read More
TIP Mastermind Group Discussion (Including Tobias Carlisle) 2nd Qtr 2018
Every quarter the Mastermind Group from The Investor’s Podcast gets together to discuss their latest investment ideas. In this episode, each member of the group recommends a stock pick that might outperform the S&P 500. After each stock pick, the remaining members of the group pick-apart the idea. In this … Read More
James Montier: “Finance Has Turned The Art Of Transforming The Simple Into The Perplexing Into An Industry”
Some years ago James Montier wrote a great paper called – Was It All Just A Bad Dream? Or, Ten Lessons Not Learnt. Montier’s states that we can learn a great deal about investing by looking back at the mistakes that gave rise to the worst period in markets since the Great Depression … Read More
Howard Marks: The Two Main Risks In The Investment World
One of the best resources for investors are Howard Marks’ memos. One of our favorite memos here at The Acquirer’s Multiple is one he wrote called – Warning Signs in which Marks discusses the two main risks in the investment world. Here is an excerpt from that memo: For about … Read More
The One Thing All Value Investors Can Do To Get You Halfway Home – Irving Kahn
One of our favorite value investors here at The Acquirer’s Multiple is Irving Kahn. Kahn was the Chairman at Kahn Brothers Group which he founded in 1978. He began his career in the value investing business shortly before the stock market crash of 1929, and, in the 1930s, he served … Read More
The 13 Commandments of Successful Value Investing – The Art of Value Investing
One of the best books ever written on value investing is, The Art of Value Investing, by John Heins and Whitney Tilson. Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management said the following about The Art of Value Investing: “I learned the investment business largely from the work and thinking of other investors. The … Read More
Just Why Do Today’s Worst Performing Stocks Historically Outperform
One of my favorite investing books is A Mathematician Plays The Stockmarket by best selling author – John Allen Paulos. Paulos demonstrates what the tools of mathematics can teach us about the machinations of the stock market. One of my favorite parts of the book focuses on regression to the mean … Read More
Has The Price-To-Book Metric Become Redundant – O’Shaughnessy Asset Management
Just finished reading a great paper by O’Shaughnessy Asset Management that discusses whether the traditional Price-to-Book metric has become redundant because of the increase in shareholder transactions, primarily through the increase in share repurchases. Here’s an excerpt from that paper: Value has broadly been accepted as an investing style and, historically, portfolios … Read More
Investors Shouldn’t Compare Their Performance To Others – Here’s Why
Great article by Ian Cassell at MicroCapClub titled, Don’t Compare Yourself To Others. Ian covers two important issues that all investors can relate to. The first is how to sit still while others are making money, because you can’t find stocks that fit your strategy. The second is how to … Read More
5 Things to Consider Before Buying Today’s Hot Investment
The New York Times provides 5 great tips for investors that are considering buying today’s hottest stocks. Here’s and excerpt from that article: We are again nearing what appear to be all-time highs in the stock market, and when that happens, people tend to say and do strange things. This … Read More
A Very Simple Formula For Figuring Out How Many Stocks To Hold
Here at the Acquirer’s Multiple we believe your equally weighted portfolio should consist of 20-30 stocks generated from our Deep Value Stock Screens. In general terms, holding more stocks leads to greater diversification, and lower volatility, but is harder to manage and requires more purchases. Fewer stocks reduces the number … Read More
Nice Portfolio, Shame About The Human Running It
James Saft at the Globe and Mail illustrates how an investor’s behaviour can be one of the biggest risks facing a successful investing strategy. Here’s an excerpt from that article: Investors hate two things above all else: losing money and missing out. The tension between the two, the fear of loss … Read More
One of The Best Investing Tweets of 2017. So Far!
One of the best blogs in our Top 50 Investing Blogs 2017 is Morgan Housel at The Collaborative Fund Blog, and one of the best investing tweets for 2017 is this one which encapsulates everything you need to know as an investor: Everything I’ve learned about investing points to the … Read More
Know What Kind Of Investor You Are Before You Get Caught Up In The Latest Hysteria
Josh Brown at The Reformed Broker says calm the f*** down when it comes to the latest stock market hysteria. Here’s an excerpt from his article: Take a step back and look at the last six months – here’s the quilt, dating back to just before the start of this … Read More
If You Own A Great Stock, But The Price Isn’t Going Up, Hang On!
Great article from Ian Cassel at MicroCapClub who discusses the age old problem of owning a stock that just won’t go up even though you know it’s a great business. Here’s an excerpt from that article: If you knew a stock you owned today wasn’t going to go up for … Read More
There Are Now More Indexes Than Stocks – Here’s Why
According to a recent Bloomberg article, the number of market indexes now exceeds the number of U.S. stocks. Here’s an excerpt from that article: