What are your Investment Rules?

[kiora]

Whether one likes him or not he still has something to teach
"“I tell senior executives, ‘You should have the least stress' he said. "There's this false idea that CEOs are under the most stress. Well, I look at that and I'm like why? You're in charge. Why don't you delegate the stress? It's your choice.”"
"“It’s your choices that construct your life, not your gifts,” he said, encouraging young people to embrace challenges and adventure over comfort and ease."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jeff-...172255112.html

[kiora]

I haven't listened to it yet but

"Qiao Ma: Why culture should be key to your investment decision-making
Culture is hard to assess but, as the saying goes, you'll know it when you see it. The problem is, most people don't look."
https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wire...0THE%20PODCAST

[kiora]

RIP
""One of the inane things [that gets] taught in modern university education is that a vast diversification is absolutely mandatory in investing in common stocks. That is an insane idea. It's not that easy to have a vast plethora of good opportunities that are easily identified. And if you've only got three, I'd rather it be my best ideas instead of my worst. And now, some people can't tell their best ideas from their worst, and in the act of deciding an investment already is good, they get to think it's better than it is. I think we make fewer mistakes like that than other people. And that is a blessing to us." — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting"
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/memor...225308303.html

[kiora]

Are you an investor or a gambler?

"'I lost half-a-million trading on the internet – it's no different to gambling'"

"A spokesperson for the Financial Markets Authority said it did not have any local data but in the UK about 80% of people lost money investing in CFDs.

“Our view is that derivative trading is very high risk, even for experienced investors.”"
He said he was also experimenting with a demo account that got to $3.5 million.

“I was hooked. But in a short time the market turned and I lost all that money and another $200,000. Over time my total losses are $400,000 to $500,000.”"

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/mon...nt-to-gambling
"

[kiora]

Investment Risk
https://www.vltavafund.com/dopisy-ak...m/vynosariziko
"If I had to name one occasion in which people most often lose money in investing, it is when they get into things they do not understand"

"The second pillar of our risk management is to avoid the risk of permanent loss of capital. Or, better said, to minimise its probability"
"Permanent loss of capital is not the same as volatility. Share prices normally fluctuate. A difference of 40% between the highest and lowest price of a given share during the year is not unusual. For the long-term investor, however, volatility is not a source of risk. The source of risk is the permanent loss of capital. How do we try to avoid it? We know from experience that the most common causes of permanent loss of capital tend to be poor quality businesses, high levels of debt, and poor management actions."
"The last essential element of risk management is the emphasis on good price.'

"The individual steps of our risk management approach are not measurable, some of them are even difficult to estimate, but all of them together are designed to eliminate the important risk elements present and thus over time tilt the probability of a good return in our favour. The result, or so we hope, is a portfolio that is far less risky than the overall market portfolio"

"The companies we own, taken as a whole, are of a higher quality than the market average. They have higher returns on equity and higher returns on capital. They have incomparably less debt than the market average. Some of them even have no debt at all. This makes them more resilient and less dependent on external financing. In our view, their managements have the important ability to allocate capital efficiently in addition to the ability to manage the business itself. This is a rare but very important skill upon which we place great emphasis."

[kiora]

"Why is company culture so important and what are you looking for specifically when you invest?
Corporate culture comes to the fore in the way a company treats its customers and its employees, whether it makes decisions for the short or the long term, and whether it complies with or breaks the rules.

As an investor, all of this is highly relevant to both growth and risk. As the world has become more transparent and news of unhappy employees or customers travels faster, culture has never been more relevant to corporate growth and success"
https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wire...H%20CONVICTION

Competitive returns > S & P 500
https://www.aoris.com.au/fund#performance

[kiora]

One of the many reasons why I NEVER look to use "short positions"
Statistically who wins ?
"Short sellers lost close to $178 billion in 2023"
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/short...152135596.html

"Shorting is like swimming against a current."
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-win...hort-positions

[kiora]

Many reasons here why I never invest in real estate

https://www.sharecafe.com.au/2023/12...as-stocking-2/

[RTM]

Many reasons here why I never invest in real estate

https://www.sharecafe.com.au/2023/12...as-stocking-2/

Thanks for posting the link, interesting read.

[kiora]

Some useful ideas about buying a business.
Its no different to buying shares/or buying a share in a business

https://www.fullyinformed.com/about-...ting-business/

"It meant that when my broker told me that everyone was losing money, it was an excuse – not a reason for being unprofitable"
" As I was now running a business I needed products that I could “sell” long term and rely on for steady income"
"Every stock that did not pay a dividend I sold. I didn’t even look at the price. There were some big losses and very few gains."

"Studying The Inventory:
Once I had set up my consistent income, I then took the time to analyze my inventory. In a business, inventory can make or break your business. If I have too much inventory or the wrong inventory such as the products that no one wants, then my business will suffer. I needed inventory that could perform. That meant that I had to look hard at the stocks I was buying. They had to be paying increasing dividends so that each year I knew my earnings would increase"
"I also weeded out those stocks that paid low dividends, or were not increasing their dividends. I went from 50 stocks and mutual funds from my former employee’s (ie broker) recommendations down to 12."
"The Lender:
With my business plan in hand I went to 4 different banks."

"Both offered to pick up my mortgage and restructure it so that some of the interest would be tax deductible against my investing “business” earnings. It was the fourth bank though that offered me prime rate borrowing and offered to set up the load in such a way that every payment I made to the mortgage would increase the amount available for borrowing for investing. They told me I could pay whatever I wanted at any time, daily, monthly or whenever"
" It was then that I realized that the main goal was to invest 5% of everything I earned and receive at least 10% a year on all my investments and compound those returns yearly, as my spreadsheet told me that over the next 35 years it would mean I could retire by 60 if:

1) I didn’t lose any capital
2) I consistently made 10% annually.
3) I reinvested the earned capital"

Not for me !
"That’s where naked puts and covered calls came into play."

But important
"I also find it interesting to note that, like in business, a good performance tracking system in which you track all transactions and their profit and loss, identify trends, see what works and what doesn’t, identify variances from plan and apply the required corrective actions are all what I find “good business practices” that apply to investment like they apply in managing a business for performance."