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Saturday, October 6, 2018

There and back again

Was I Buff T. Warren?
I dont think so; although the lure of 'great quality companies tend to do well' had been extrapolated far.
I remember my pangs of 'I missed it!'

Klarman was right in 1999 when he asked whether Buff T. Warren's portfolio looks an awful lot like Warren Buffett's... The lure of good quality companies got to WB too.
And if WB can go through it - well, we are but mere insects.


I remember thinking -
no damned Mutual fund owns Y company,
there is no decent report out about J company,
investors dont even know what C company really does,
investors thoroughly doubt W company's ability to grow without losses;
And hence, I believed that I am alright.

So in the end, I have to believe that Mrs. Market is simply depressive.
And as is often believed about depression - no bother! just go for a nice comedy and things will be fine - Mrs. Market's depression has no firm rationale.
As I often tell my wife - 'When you gotta go, you gotta go!' - and then she complains about me being in there for an hour.


I was ready for this I believe. (And yet I was fully invested!)
I started making a folder called 'DONT PANIC' (inspired by Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) in Aug 2016 when too much money was made too fast.
I have not needed that folder until this week.

And the last 2 weeks' events reminded me of something Arpit had may be said: "All money made in the stock market is only a short term loan ready to be called back".

CM has often said "If you are not ready to take a 50% drawdown, you should not be investing"

Now, as Howard Marks often says: We may not know where we are going, but it's very important to know where we are. I guess he meant it about the investing philosophy.

Where are we now?
- In a country that adds may be 13m + net people a year
- Where people still have to buy their first homes
- Full of extremely young people which may cause odd social problems
- But somehow, everybody is getting access to the internet
- Very high savings rate in the country
- A very good ecosystem to service the world (mfcg and services)
- A nominal GDP growth rate of 11-12%+
- A formalisation of people's way of living - identity, credit, electricity, etc
- An irritable world leader who should be thrown out 6 years from now for sure.
- Overcapacity and bubble in the 2nd largest economy in the world
- Slightly higher oil prices
- A more competitive rupee that harms our import bill but makes our export bill awesome



"Risk for them is not being stupid but looking stupid."
I look stupid right now.
But this seems like the point of least risk.
Seems.




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