Howard Marks is a legendary figure in the investment community. The author shares notes from Marks during a lecture in Mumbai. These apply as well to the basketball community as the investment world. Just change investing or investment to 'coaching' or 'teaching' and investors to coaches.
- Ego, hubris, and overconfidence are killers of investment returns.
- In investing, to succeed you must survive.
- Investors would be wise to accept that they cannot see the future and they should restrict themselves to doing things that are within their powers.
- Very few investors have the nerve to say, “I don’t know.” But that’s how you build integrity in your investment process.
- Anytime you think you know something others don’t, you should examine the basis. Ask yourself – Who doesn’t know better? Why should I be privy to exceptional information? How do I know this that nobody else knows? Am I really that smart, or am I just wrong?
- You can know more than others about companies and industries if you work very hard and if they are not fully followed. This is the knowable. You can control your emotions. That’s very important.
- When there’s nothing clever to do, it’s a mistake to try to be clever.
- Of the most corrosive of all the difficult human emotions is the feeling to sit by and watch other people make money.
- Success is not good for most people. We all know of people who have been successful that makes them think they are smart, and they have the ability to do everything. Of course, that’s a very dangerous thing.
- Everybody must invest in a way that is consistent to their personalities.
- To be a successful investor, you must have a philosophy and a process that you stick to even when the times get tough. This is very important.
- Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett's partner) told me that investing is not supposed to be easy, and anybody who finds it easy is stupid.
And a BOB from John Kresse...