Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Charlie Munger........the Right Hand Of Warren Buffet....

Freinds,
I just been through a post ..at Yahoo...which I liked so much and hence I am pasting it here
....
I need not write any comments here ...

My comments is all written in No4....
Thanks.....


Had Warren Buffett never been born, there's a good chance we'd award the "world's greatest investor" honor to his right-hand man, Charlie Munger. Not only is Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK-A) co-chairman a phenomenally talented investor, but he'd probably school almost anyone in a debate about philosophy, biology, physics, or just about any other topic. The man's disturbingly smart.I'd continue this introduction, but as Munger might bluntly say, "Nobody would listen." Without further ado, here are five Munger quotes you should study before making another investment decision.

1. "This is really crucial: Warren [Buffett] is one of the best learning machines on this earth. The turtles who outrun the hares are learning machines. If you stop learning in this world, the world rushes right by you."
Investing is so much more than a game of numbers. If you've mastered Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Excel and can tear apart an annual report like it's no one's business, you're on the right track, but that's hardly the end of the road. You're probably just as likely to catch Munger reading the biography of a Roman emperor as you are The Wall Street Journal. Why? Because he's intently curious about all aspects of life. He wants to learn everything. It's his and Buffett's intense desire to probe into everything they find -- to ask, "Why is that? Tell me more!" -- that ultimately drives their quest to find spectacular investments


2. "I think that one should recognize reality even when one doesn't like it -- indeed, especially when one doesn't like it."
There's a big difference between not swaying into the madness of crowds and not realizing when the facts have changed and adjusting accordingly. Unfortunately, it's incredibly hard to come to terms with this when your investments are gushing red ink. Not to pick on a battered soul, but Crocs (Nasdaq: CROX) provides a good example. Its raging popularity and surging stock price were nearly impossible to ignore, especially in the wake of soaring inventory levels and expectations a Romanian gymnast couldn't keep up with. The reality was that Crocs was a good company with a dramatically unrealistic stock price. Those who didn't recognize reality paid dearly.


3. "To me, it's obvious that the winner has to be very selective. It's been obvious to me since very early in life. I don't know why it's not obvious to very many other people."
It's easy to get caught up in grandiose dreams about successful investments, which typically leads to rushing out and putting your hard-earned money to work as soon as possible. But think about it: If, every time you sat down at your computer in search of a winning investment, you actually found one, the good ideas would quickly be exploited and outsized returns would never exist. The big winners -- like buying Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) after the dot-com crash or Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) on its IPO day -- come around very, very seldom.


4. "Mankind invented a system to cope with the fact that we are so intrinsically lousy at manipulating numbers. It's called the graph."
Got that, chartists? If the past were a road map to the future, your high school history teacher wouldn't be driving a 1979 Volvo wagon.
To pull a quote from Buffett, "I realized that
technical analysis didn't work when I turned the chart upside down and didn't get a different answer."
Seems simple enough, but the amount of people trying to foretell the future with squiggly lines is downright bewildering. When Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN) shot up almost 40% in the last year, it had nothing to do with its 200-day moving average. When Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) fell 55% in the past 9 months, it had nothing to do with a "head-and-shoulders" pattern. Honestly. It didn't.


5. "Some people seem to think there's no trouble just because it hasn't happened yet. If you jump out the window at the 42nd floor and you're still doing fine as you pass the 27th floor, that doesn't mean you don't have a serious problem. I would want to address the problem right now."

This quote reminds me of one thing: investors who know darn well a stock is overvalued, but insist on holding it because "it's still going higher." I guess it's only natural: The thought of selling something, only to watch it climb ever higher, can be a miserable one. The problem is that you'll never know for certain exactly when a stock either bottoms out or tops out. Those who hold out for the last drops of success are the ones who end up getting slaughtered.

5 comments:

  1. this is a great post Rajeev.
    Berkshire Hathway AGM letters which you can search on the web is another good source of how Buffet and Charlie evaluate stocks and their quotes are really funny.

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  2. Shankar Sharma is proved right today. His prediction of sensex target come true when today at 11:30 sensex touched 12500......

    Salute to Mr Shankar Sharma

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  3. Rajeev Ji,
    I suppose this attack on chartists dont get us anywhere. If we read some chartists who made big money, they can be equally funny about fundamental analysts. for eg Elliot wave International is a great site which tells us so many reasons why fundamental analysis is wrong ( it is the most authoritative site on Elliot wave Theory)
    I suppose it is best that we accept that there is varying degrees of merit in all forms of analysis( thats my beleif). Even if we dont accept it it is still fine.But I wonder what do we gain by repeated and blatant criticism?ridicule.
    I am of the view that no technical or fundamental analyst can predict the market. At best they make an assessment or make intelligent guesses based on their fundamental analysis or trend studies on charts. Some of the better ones (both fundamental and technical) come incredibly close to the truth while the useless ones are far off the target.
    No analyst ever is sure of of exacly what the market will do nor do sensible ones make such claims

    Just for interests sake, I have been reading Vivek Patils weekly coloumn on icicidirect.com for a long time now. As early as the first week of Feb 08 he spoke of the LIKELYHOOD of the eight year cycle and the POSSIBILITY of 50-55 percent correction from the January top. Even now however when it is so close , he does NOT claim it WILL happen.In the early part of 2007 he did make an estimate of 21000 tgt for the year 2007 which went wrong by 21days!!

    I agree that many technical analysts are often off the mark but so are fundamental ones. For eg most fundamental analysts established a solid inverse relation between market movement and oil prices.We know what happened. But that is not to say that that particular relation will not become true in the future.

    Any one who follows technicals would have realised that at some point of time in the first half of 2008 that a severe bear market is on and that the only healer is TIME.So again I must say that it is a guide and not a crystal ball. Anybody who claims that it is acrystal ball would be out of his head.
    A good technical analysts recommendation,be it trading or investment will always include both a target and a stop loss. So if one is desciplined, one will always avoid the BIG LOSS probability. ( The other three --small loss, small profit or big profit) are all acceptable.And if one ensures that the position is in a fundamentally sound scrip, it is all the more better.

    So to sum it, a bit of objectivity will do us no harm

    I do wish some one had taught me to short the markets earlier!!!

    Inspite of my difference of opinion I must say that I admire you as great selector of hidden gems. Best wishes

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  4. Dear Azad,
    What I emphasized here while posting this article was, if chartist were so great why they need for subscriber?When they read the market movement why they do not play themselves and earn million or billions?
    I think Warren Buffet or RJ or Peter Lynch take anyone...they are in real sense great market wealth creator and no one on earh can ignore that.
    I have heard no chartist making that much of wealth in that time span.
    Never heard Warren talking of charts and never heard of Peter Lynch or RJ talking of charts level.
    Do you think that they are wrong?
    Heard ever Warren Buffet shorting in US market?Atleast I have never heard even when there was so much turmoils in US market.Don't you think , WB had not smelled this type of scenario of US?But he still didn't short the stocks....This itself is the answer...
    I wish you short the stocks and make great profits.....
    There are scores of A gr stocks where you can still short ever now and make millions.Just sell 3-4 futures of every stocks......that are still over Rs 1000, viz:SBI,RilInd Grasim etc....
    Well, I am not rediculing anyone here.I have kept my blog open for any commnets who wants to write and air his view.These are just discussion and I may be wrong and anyone can be right.
    Well, fundamentals never prove wrong because fundamentals is not just one thing.It consist of many aspects like, Value of the company at given time,price at what you buy , the econmic scenario,the growth visibility,the sustanibility of earning...etc....
    and never it is seen that fundamentals says don't sell!
    When one get the profit and thinks that company can't earn more then that , it is time to sell.When you talk of inverse relation then it is not fundamentals but it is comparing the movement and that is what is chart or technical reading and that is not a fundamental reading.
    Fundamental reading is if Oil goes down , the earnigs are going to come good and hence stocks are bound to go up sooner or later.That is what RJ did in 2000 when every one were buying IT stocks he bought BEL,BHEl,Mcdowell,Titan,Praj and made a fortune....
    Dear Azad,I request , don't take anything personally.I have never been personal to anyone here.Whatever I have written , maybe against any one is on his view or this thinking.I never had any intention of rediculing anyone here.
    But I am indebted that readers at my blog has time and again wrote what they thinks without any false impression.I must admit that I have gone horribly wrong in predicting the market movement and that shows that no one should rely on what I write.
    I must applaude you for predicting the market movement so correctly and that I must admit that one more reader, Mr.Ahmed was also needs to be named as he was also writing the same thing here.....
    I am elated by the blog readers who has written their view without coming in impression of my writing.
    Market are such world over.They are unpredictable.Never has been able to predict so correctly and hence the biggies say, buy the value and HOLD......

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