Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Friday, 18 November 2022
Indian Stock Market Journey: From 100 to 62000 Points
Sensex journey from 1,000 to 62,000
In July 1990, the Sensex touched the 4-digit figure for the first time and closed at 1,001.
In January 1992, the Sensex crossed the 2,000 mark and closed at 2,020.
In February 1992, the Sensex surged past the 3,000 mark for the 1st time.
In March 1992, the Sensex crossed the 4,000 mark and closed at 4,091.
In October 1999, the Sensex crossed the 5,000 level.
In February 2000, the Sensex hit an all-time high of 6,000 points.
In June 2005, the Sensex crossed 7,000 points for the first time.
In September 2005, the Sensex crossed 8,000 level.
In December 2005, the Sensex first closed at over 9,000 points.
In February 2006, the Sensex finally closed above the 10,000 mark.
In March 2006, the Sensex crossed 11,000 points.
In April 2006, the Sensex crossed 12,000 level.
In October 2006, the Sensex crossed 13,000 mark for the first time.
In December 2006, the Sensex crossed the 14,000 mark for the first time.
In July 2007, the Sensex crossed the 15,000 mark for the first time.
In September 2007, the Sensex crossed the 16,000 mark for the first time.
In September 2007, the Sensex crossed the 17,000 mark for the first time.
In October 2007, the Sensex crossed the 18,000 mark for the first time.
In October 2007, the Sensex crossed the 19,000 mark for the first time.
In December 2007, the Sensex closed above 20,000 points.
In November 2010, the Sensex closed above 21,000 points.
In March 2014, the Sensex closed above 22,000 level.
In May 2014, the Sensex crossed record 23,000 level for the 1st time.
In May 2014, the Sensex crossed record 24,000 mark for the first time.
In May 2014, the Sensex crossed record 25,000 level for the first time.
In July 2014, the Sensex crossed record 26,000 level for the very first time.
In September 2014, the Sensex closed above 27,000 level.
In November 2014, the Sensex closed above 28,000 mark for the 1st time.
In January 2015, the Sensex crossed the 29,000 mark.
In March 2015, the Sensex closed above 30,000 level for the 1st time in history.
In May 2017, the Sensex crossed record 31,000 mark for the first time.
In July 2017, the Sensex crossed record 32,000 level for the very first time.
In October 2017, the Sensex crossed the 33,000 mark for the first time.
In December 2017, the Sensex closed above 34,000 points.
In January 2018, the Sensex crossed the 35,000 mark.
In January 2018, the Sensex crossed the 36,000 mark for the first-time.
In July 2018, the Sensex crossed the 37,000 mark for the first time.
In August 2018, the Sensex crossed 38,000 level.
In April 2019, the Sensex crossed 39,000 level.
In May 2019, the Sensex crossed record 40,000 mark for the first time.
On 26th November 2019, the Sensex surpassed 41,000 level for the first time.
On 16th January 2020, the BSE Sensex crossed 42,000 mark for the very first time
On 10th November 2020, the Sensex crossed 43,000 level.
On 18th November 2020, the Sensex crossed 44,000 level.
On 4th December 2020, the Sensex surpassed 45,000 level for the first time.
On 9th December 2020, the BSE Sensex crossed 46,000 mark for the very first time.
On 18th December 2020, the Sensex crossed 47,000 level.
On 4th January 2021, the Sensex crossed 48,000 level for the first time.
On 11th January 2021, the Sensex crossed 49,000 mark for the first time.
On 21st January 2021, the BSE Sensex crossed 50,000 mark for the very first time.
On 8th February 2021, the BSE Sensex crossed 51,000 mark for the first time.
On 15th February 2021, the Sensex crossed 52,000 level for the first time.
On 23rd June 2021, the Sensex crossed 53,000 mark for the first time.
On 4th August 2021, the BSE Sensex touched 54,000 mark for the very first time.
On 13th August 2021, the Sensex crossed 55,000 level for the first time.
On 24th August 2021, the BSE Sensex crossed 56,000 level for the very first time.
On 31st August 2021, the Sensex crossed 57,000 level for the first time.
On 3rd September 2021, the Sensex crossed 58,000 level for the first time.
On 16th September 2021, the BSE Sensex crossed 59,000 level for the first time.
On 24th September 2021, the Sensex surged past 60,000 mark for the 1st time.
On 14th October 2021, the Sensex surpasses 61,000 mark for the 1st time.
On 16th November 2022, the Sensex surpasses 62,000 level for the 1st time.
100 Great quotes from Charlie Munger
Charlie Munger’s 100 best (investment) quotes full of investment wisdom.
Investing is where you find a few great companies and then sit on your ass.
The big money is not in buying or selling, but in the waiting.
Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich, not because I wanted Ferrari's - I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it.
We have a passion for keeping things simple.
Assume life will be really tough, and then ask if you can handle it. If the answer is yes, you've won.
Think of the basic intellectual dishonesty that comes when you start talking about adjusted EBITDA. You're almost announcing you're a flake.
If investing wasn't hard, everyone would be rich.
You don't have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time.
The desire to get rich fast is pretty dangerous.
Those who keep learning will keep rising in life.
There is no way you can live an adequate life without making mistakes.
Acknowledging what you don't know is the dawning of wisdom.
No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use a checklist.
There is no better teacher than history in determining the future. There are answers worth billions of dollars in 30$ history books.
A lot of people with high IQs are terrible investors because they've got terrible temperaments.
It's waiting that helps you as an investor and a lot of people just can't stand to wait. If you didn't get the deferred -gratification gene, you've got to work very hard to overcome that.
You don't have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time.
One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple... the system often goes out of control.
Knowing what you don't know is more useful than being brilliant.
If a business earns 18% on capital over 20 or 30 years, even if you pay an expensive looking price, you’ll end up with a fine result.
Forgetting your mistakes is a terrible error if you’re trying to improve your cognition. Reality doesn’t remind you. Why not celebrate stupidities in both categories?
You need patience, discipline, and agility to take losses and adversity without going crazy.
Everywhere there is a large commission, there is a high probability of a rip-off.
It takes character to sit with all that cash and to do nothing. I didn't get to the top where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.
We both (Warren Buffett) insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.
Another thing, of course, is that life will have terrible blows in it, horrible blows, unfair blows. It doesn't matter. And some people recover and others don't.
Live within your income and save so you can invest. Learn what you need to learn.
Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.
I would argue that passion is more important than brainpower.
A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.
Our game is to recognize a big idea when it comes along when one doesn't come along very often.
Simplicity has a way of improving performance by enabling us to better understand what we are doing.
In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time - none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren reads -at how much I read. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out.
Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets and can be lost in a heartbeat.
We recognized early on that smart people do very dumb things, and we wanted to know why and who, so that we could avoid them.
I met the towering intellectuals in books, not in classroom, which is natural. My family was into all that stuff, getting ahead through discipline, knowledge, and self-control.
Some people are extraordinarily good at knowing the limits of their knowledge because they have to be.
Opportunity comes to the prepared mind.
To this day, I have never taken a course anywhere, in chemistry, economics, psychology, or business.
If something is too hard, we move on to something else. What could be more simpler than that?
The best thing a human can do is to help another human being know more.
Most people are too fretful, they worry too much. Success means being very patient, but aggressive when it's time.
The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.
One person told me,"I have a list of 300 potentially attractive stocks & I constantly track them, waiting for just one of them to get cheap enough to buy." Well, that's a reasonable thing to do. But how many people have that kind of discipline? Not one in 100.
I think that one should recognize the reality even when one doesn't like it; indeed, especially when one doesn't like it.
People calculate too much and think too little. Thinking is a surprisingly underrated activity in investing. People who cannot be alone with their own thoughts for a long time are terrible candidates to become successful investors.
We don’t care about quarterly earnings and are unwilling to manipulate in any way to make some quarter look better.
To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people.
The iron rule of nature is: you get what you reward for. If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor.
All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there.
Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day-if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.
The best armor of old age is a well-spent life perfecting it.
How to find a good spouse? The best single way is to deserve a good spouse.
Two thirds of acquisitions don’t work. Ours work because we don’t try to do acquisitions — we wait for no-brainers.
We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.
I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.
Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?
I think that, every time you see the word EBITDA, you should substitute EBITDA with ‘bullshit earnings’.
Warren talks about these discounted cash flows. I’ve never seen him do one.
Own your work and compound credibility.
Being something and doing something that no one had done before are two different things.
I try to get rid of people who confidently answer questions about which they don't have any real knowledge.
Those of us who have been fortunate have a duty to give back. Whether one gives a lot as one goes along as I do, or a little and then a lot (when one dies) as Warren does, is a matter of personal preference.
We have three baskets for investing: yes, no, and too tough to understand.
All intelligent investing is value investing, acquiring more than you are paying for.
When you borrow a man's car, always return it with a tank of gas.
… the most famous composer in the world but was utterly miserable most of the time, and of the reasons was because he always overspent his income. This was Mozart. If Mozart couldn't get by with this kind of asinine conduct, I don't think you should try.
Wall Street has too much wealth and political power.
People should take away less than they’re worth when they are favored by life… I would argue that when you rise high enough in American Business you’ve got a moral duty to be underpaid
Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward.
Part of what you must learn is how to handle mistakes and new facts that change the odds. Life, in part, is like a poker game wherein you have to learn to quit sometimes when holding a much-loved hand.
Just because you like it does not mean that the world will necessarily give it to you.
You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best-loved ideas.
You don't have to have the ability that quantum mechanics requires. You just have to know a few simple things and really know them.
I think that one should recognize the reality even when one doesn't like it; indeed, especially when one doesn't like it.
You should avoid sloth and unreliability.
It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be intelligent.
The habit of committing far more time to learning and thinking than to doing is no accident.
I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself.
A majority of life’s errors are caused by forgetting what one is really trying to do.
Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is very useful thing.
If you skillfully follow the multidisciplinary path, you will never wish to come back. It would be like cutting off your hands.
Generally speaking, envy, resentment, and self-pity are disastrous modes of thoughts.
Self-pity gets fairly close to paranoia, and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse.
We say that having a certain kind of temperament is more important than brains. You need to keep raw irrational emotion under control.
I paid no attention to the territorial boundaries of academic disciplines and I just grabbed all the big ideas that I could.
It’s the work on your desk. Do well with what you already have and more will come in.
I think we have some special talents. That being said, I think it’s dangerous to rely on special talents — it’s better to own lots of monopolistic businesses with unregulated prices. But that’s not the world today. We have made money exercising our talents and will continue to do so.
The great algorithm to remember in dealing with this tendency is simple: an idea or a fact is not worth more merely because it’s easily available to you.
The liabilities are always 100 percent good. It’s the assets you have to worry about.
Ninety-nine percent of the troubles that threaten our civilization come from being too optimistic, therefore we should have a system where the accounting is a way more conservative.
I’ve seen so much folly and stupidity on the part of our major philanthropic groups, including the world bank. I really have more confidence in building up the more capitalistic ventures like Costco.
What is the secret of success? I’m rational. That’s the answer. I’m rational.
It’s not possible for investors to consistently outperform the market. Therefore you’re best served investing in a diversified portfolio of low-cost index funds [or exchange-traded funds].
A lot of people think if you just had more process and more compliance- checks and double-checks and so forth-you could create a better world. We just try to operate in a seamless web of deserved trust and be careful of whom we trust.
Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean.
If you don’t get this elementary, but mildly unnatural, mathematics of elementary probability into your repertoire, then you go through a long life like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
Is there such a thing as a cheerful pessimist? That’s what I am.
There is more money to be made from law, but less time to enjoy it.
Don’t drift into self-pity because it doesn’t solve any problems.
Always take the high road, it’s far less crowded.
It’s not supposed to be easy. Anyone who finds it easy is stupid.
Monday, 10 May 2021
Sparc ( SunPharma Advance ) - weekly chart
Today Sparc ( SunPharma Advance ) in its fourth attempt since March 2019 crosses the resistant trendline. Must watch for next few days.
Wednesday, 5 May 2021
Parag Milk monthly chart
Today Parag Milk has given breakout from two descending trendline in monthly chart.
Must watch for next few days ......
Friday, 30 April 2021
Usha Martin monthly chart looks ready for long run.
Usha Martin monthly chart looks ready for long run.
Thursday, 12 November 2020
Thursday, 17 September 2020
Monday, 22 June 2020
Sunday, 21 June 2020
Monday, 25 May 2020
Charlie Munger's Best Quotes
Charlie Munger's Best Quotes
1. "Life will have terrible blows in it, horrible blows, unfair blows. It doesn't matter. And some people recover and others don't. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every missed chance in life was an opportunity to behave well. Every missed chance in life was an opportunity to learn something and that your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity. But instead to utilize the terrible blow in constructive fashion. That is a very good idea."
2. "What do you want to avoid? Such an easy answer: sloth and unreliability. If you're unreliable, it doesn't matter what your virtues are. You're going to crater immediately. Doing what you have faithfully engaged to do should be an automatic part of your conduct. You want to avoid sloth and unreliability."
3. "Don’t do cocaine. Don’t race trains. And avoid AIDS situations."
4. "Three rules for a career: 1) Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself; 2) Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire; and 3) Work only with people you enjoy."
5. "When any guy offers you a chance to earn lots of money without risk, don’t listen to the rest of his sentence. Follow this, and you’ll save yourself a lot of misery."
6. "If you think your IQ is 160 but it's 150, you're a disaster. It's much better to have a 130 IQ and think it's 120."
7. "In my whole life, I have known no wise people over a broad subject matter area who didn't read all the time. None. Zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren Buffett reads and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out."
8. "You don’t have to be brilliant, only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time."
9. "I'm always reminded of the young guy who went to Mozart and said, 'I'd like to write symphonies.' When Mozart said, 'You're too young,' the young man replied, 'But you were young when you started.' Mozart pointed out, 'Yes, but I wasn't asking anyone else for advice on how to do it.'"
10. "Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge and self-pity are disastrous modes of thought. Self-pity gets fairly close to paranoia, and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse. You do not want to drift into self-pity. Self-pity will not improve the situation."
11. "Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich, not because I wanted Ferraris – I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it."
12. "To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people."
13. "I met the towering intellectuals in books, not in the classroom, which is natural. I can't remember when I first read Ben Franklin. I had Thomas Jefferson over my bed at seven or eight. My family was into all that stuff, getting ahead through discipline, knowledge, and self-control."
14. "We both, Warren Buffett and I, insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think."
15. "Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at."
16. "Spend less than you make; always be saving something. Put it into a tax-deferred account. Over time, it will begin to amount to something. This is such a no-brainer."
17. "There is no better teacher than history in determining the future. There are answers worth billions of dollars in $30 history book."
18. "It takes character to sit with all that cash and to do nothing. I didn't get top where I am by going after mediocre opportunities."
19. "When you borrow a man’s car, always return it with a tank of gas."
20. "The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more."
21. "Being an effective teacher is a high calling."
22. "There are huge advantages for an individual to get into a position where you make a few great investments and just sit back, you’re paying less to brokers, you’re listening to less nonsense."
23. "Very-high-IQ people can be completely useless. And many of them are."
24. "Benjamin Graham used to say, 'It's not the bad investment ideas that fail; it's the good ideas that get pushed into excess."
25. "The iron rule of nature is: you get what you reward for. If you want ants to come, you put sugar on the floor."
26. "Obviously if you want to get good at something which is competitive, you have to think about it and practice a lot. You have to keep learning because the world keeps changing and competitors keep learning. You have to go to bed wiser than you got up. People who do that almost never fail utterly. Very few have ever failed with that approach. You may rise slowly, but you are sure to rise."
27. "We’re emphasizing the knowable by predicting how certain people and companies will swim against the current. We’re not predicting the fluctuation in the current."
28. "Move only when you have an advantage. It’s very basic. You have to understand the odds and have the discipline to bet only when the odds are in your favor. We just keep our heads down and handle the headwinds and tailwinds as best we can, and take the result after a period of years."
29. "Only in fairy tales are emperors told they are naked."
30. "People have always had this craving to have someone tell them the future. Long ago, kings would hire people to read sheep guts. There's always been a market for people who pretend to know the future. Listening to today's forecasters is just as crazy as when the king hired the guy to look at the sheep guts."
31. "Sit on your ass investing. You’re paying less to brokers, you’re listening to less nonsense, and if it works, the tax system gives you an extra one, two, or three percentage points per annum."
32. "I remember the $0.05 hamburger and a $0.40-per-hour minimum wage, so I've seen a tremendous amount of inflation in my lifetime. Did it ruin the investment climate? I think not."
33. "No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist."
34. "You need to have a passionate interest in why things are happening. That cast of mind, kept over long periods, gradually improves your ability to focus on reality. If you don’t have the cast of mind, you’re destined for failure even if you have a high IQ."
35. "There are worse situations than drowning in cash and sitting, sitting, sitting. I remember when I wasn’t awash in cash — and I don’t want to go back."36. "Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy."
37. "You must value the business in order for you to value the stock."
38. "Once you get into debt, it’s hell to get out. Don’t let credit card debt carry over. You can’t get ahead paying eighteen percent."
39. "I think that one should recognize reality even when one doesn't like it; indeed, especially when one doesn't like it."
40. "Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets and can be lost in a heartbeat."
41. "99% of the troubles that threaten our civilization come from too optimistic accounting. And yet these damn accountants with their desire for mathematical purity want to devote exactly as much attention to accounting that is too pessimistic as they do to accounting that is too optimistic — which is crazy. 99% of the problems come from being too optimistic. Therefore, we should have a system where the accounting is way more conservative."
42. "Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day-if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve."
43. "The best armor of old age is a well-spent life preceding it."
44. "I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart."
45. "It’s not possible for investors to consistently outperform the market. Therefore you’re best served investing in a diversified portfolio of low-cost index funds or exchange-traded funds."
46. "Live within your income and save so that you can invest."
47. "They don’t do this in airplanes, but they’ve done it in simulators. They have the pilot do something where an idiot co-pilot would know the plane was going to crash, but the pilot’s doing it, and the co-pilot is sitting there, and the pilot is the authority figure. Twenty-five percent of the time, the plane crashes. I mean this is a very powerful psychological tendency."
48. "Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group – then to hell with them."
49. "Part of what you must learn is how to handle mistakes and new facts that change the odds. Life, in part, is like a poker game, wherein you have to learn to quit sometimes when holding a much loved hand."
50."Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward. What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where don’t we want to go, and how do you get there? Instead of looking for success, make a list of how to fail instead. Tell me where I’m going to die, that is, so I don’t go there."
51. "It is really useful to be reminded of your errors. I think Warren Buffett and I are pretty good at that. We do kind of mentally rub our own noses in our own mistakes. And that is a very good mental habit."
52. "When a better tool or idea or approach comes along, what could be better than to swap it for your old, less useful tool? Warren Buffett and I routinely do this, but most people, as Galbraith says, forever cling to their old, less useful tools."
53. "The big money is not in the buying and selling. But in the waiting."
54. "To the extent that all I've done is pick stocks that have gone up and sat on my behind as my family got richer, I haven't left much contribution to society. I guess it's a lot like Wall Street. The difference is, I feel ashamed of it. I try to make up for it with philanthropy and meetings like this one today. This meeting is not out of kindness. This is atonement."
55. "Assume life will be really tough, and then ask if you can handle it. If the answer is yes, you've won."
56. "If you took our top fifteen decisions out, we’d have a pretty average record. It wasn’t hyperactivity, but a hell of a lot of patience. You stuck to your principles and when opportunities came along, you pounced on them with vigor."
57. "Almost all good businesses engage in pain today for gain tomorrow activities."
58. "Choose clients as you would friends."
59. "In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and or minimizing one or a few variables. Like the discount warehouses of Costco."
60. "We look for a horse with one chance in two of winning and which pays you three to one."
61. "You’re looking for a mispriced gamble. That’s what investing is. And you have to know enough to know whether the gamble is mispriced. That’s value investing."
62. "A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price."
63. "Do the best you can do. Never tell a lie. If you say you’re going to do it, get it done. Nobody cares about an excuse. Leave for the meeting early. Don’t be late., but if you are late, don’t bother giving people excuses. Just apologize. They’re due the apology, but they’re not interested in the excuse."
64. "It never ceases to amaze me to see how much territory can be grasped if one merely masters and consistently uses all the obvious and easily learned principles."
65. "If you always tell people why, they’ll understand it better, they’ll consider it more important, and they’ll be more likely to comply."
66. "I won’t bet $100 against house odds between now and the grave."
67. "I try to get rid of people who always confidently answer questions about which they don’t have any real knowledge."
68. "Without numerical fluency, in the part of life most of us inhibit, you are like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest."
69. "In my life there are not that many questions I can’t properly deal with using my $40 adding machine and dog-eared compound interest table."
70. "We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side."71. "What are the secret of success? One word answer: rationality"
72. "Opportunity cost is a huge filter in life. If you’ve got two suitors who are really eager to have you and one is way the hell better than the other, you do not have to spend much time with the other. And that’s the way we filter out buying opportunities."
73. "Today, it seems to be regarded as the duty of CEOs to make the stock go up. This leads to all sorts of foolish behavior. We want to tell it like it is."
74. "Smart people do dumb things."
75. "Invest in a business any fool can run, because someday a fool will. If it won't stand a little mismanagement, it's not much of a business."
76. "There's only one way to the top: hard work."
77. "Do what you like and are good at."
78. "You'll do better if you have passion for something in which you have aptitude. If Warren Buffett had gone into ballet, no one would have heard of him."
79. "Being smart and doing something that no one has done before are two different things."
80. "The liabilities are always 100% good. It's the assets you have to worry about."
81. "Ben Graham was a truly formidable mind, and he also had a clarity in writing, and we talk over and over again about the power of a few simple ideas thoroughly assimilated, and that happened with Graham's ideas which came to me indirectly through Warren, but some also directly from Graham. The interesting thing for me is that Buffett the former protégé — by the way Buffett was the best student Graham had in 30 years of teaching at Columbia — became better than Graham. That's the natural outcome — as Milton said, 'If I've seen a little farther than other men, it's by standing on the shoulders of giants.' So, Warren stood on Ben's shoulders, but he ended up seeing more than Ben. No doubt somebody will come along and do a lot better than we have."
82. "All intelligent investing is value investing. Acquiring more than you are paying for."
83. "The difference between a good business and a bad business is that good businesses throw up one easy decision after another. The bad businesses throw up painful decisions time after time."
84. "People couldn’t believe that I suddenly made myself a subordinate partner to Warren. But there are people that it’s okay to be subordinate partner to. I didn’t have the kind of ego that prevented it. There always are people who will be better at something than you are. You have to learn to be a follower before you become a leader. People should learn to play all roles."
85. "Understanding both the power of compound interest and the difficulty of getting it is the heart and soul of understanding a lot of things."
86. "I would argue that passion is more important than brain power."
87. "The world learned what happened after World War I, when we demanded that Germany repay. It was chaos and hyperinflation. The result, of course, was the rise of Hitler. And Hitler could have been more successful than he was; his kids or family members could still be in power today, had things gone just a little differently. You don't ever want to do anything to push an economy to collapse. Terrible things result. Now think about this. During World War II, Japan tortured our soldiers to death. They marched them around. The Germans put people in ovens. Just awful. And what did we do after the war? We gave them money to rebuild. We said, 'Let bygones be bygones.' The result was a magnificent global economic system and a win for human rights."
88. "I would rather throw a viper down my shirt than hire a compensation consultant."
89. "If you get a lot of heavy ideology young, and then you start expressing it, you are really locking your brain into a very unfortunate pattern."
90. "Our game is to recognize a big idea when it comes along, when one doesn’t come along very often. Opportunity comes to the prepared mind."
91. "I am a biography nut myself, and I think when you’re trying to teach the great concepts that work, it helps to tie them into the lives and personal ties of the people who developed them. I think that you learn economics better if you make Adam Smith your friend. That sounds funny, making friends among the eminent dead, but if you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas, I think it will work better in life and work better in education. It’s way better than just giving the basic concepts."
92. "You need a different checklist and different mental models for different companies. I can never make it easy by saying, "Here are three things..." You have to derive it yourself to ingrain it in your head for the rest of your life."
93. "Quickly eliminate the big universe of what not to do, followup with a fluent, multidisciplinary attach on what remains, then act decisively when, and only when, the right circumstances appear."
94. "I don't have the slightest interest in gold. I like understanding what works and what doesn't in human systems. To me that's not optional; that's a moral obligation. If you're capable of understanding the world, you have a moral obligation to become rational. And I don't see how you become rational hoarding gold. Even if it works, you're a jerk."
95. "There are two types of mistakes: 1) doing nothing, what Warren calls "sucking my thumb" and 2) buying with an eyedropper things we should be buying a lot of."
96. "I think track records are very important. If you start trying to have a perfect one in a simple thing like honesty, you’re well on your way to success in this world."
97. "Some economic distortions come from the masses believing that other people are right. Others come from the need to make a living through behavior that may be less than socially desirable. I've always been skeptical of conventional wisdom. You have to be able to keep your head on when everyone else is losing theirs."
98. "The game of investing is one of making better predictions about the future than other people. How are you going to do that? One way is to limit your tries to areas of competence. If you try to predict the future of everything, you attempt too much. You’re going to fail through lack of specialization."
99. "Frequently, you’ll look at a business having fabulous results. And the question is, "How long can this continue?" Well, there’s only one way I know to answer that. And that’s to think about why the results are occurring now and then to figure out the forces that could cause those results to stop occurring."
100. "Insurers or financial institutions that incorrectly assess their true exposure often experience the kind of painful lesson Twain refers to "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way."
101. "A few major opportunities clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind, loving diagnosis involving multiple variables. An then all that is required is a willingness to bet heavily when the odds are extremely favorable, using resources available as a result of prudence and patience in the past."
102. "My habit of committing far more time to learning and thinking than to doing is no accident."
103. "How do you learn to be a great investor? First of all, you have to understand your own nature. Each person has to play the game given his own marginal utility considerations and in a way that takes into account his own psychology. If losses are going to make you miserable and some losses are inevitable, you might be wise to utilize a very conservative pattern of investment and savings all your life. So you have to adapt your strategy to your own nature and your own talents. I don’t think there’s a one size fits all investment strategy."
104. "Investors can have 90% of their wealth in a single company, if it is the right company."
105. "Like any good algebraist, the pilot is made to think sometimes in a forward fashion and sometimes in reverse; and so he learns when to concentrate mostly on what he wants to happen and also when to concentrate mostly on avoiding what he does not want to happen."
106. "How do some people get wiser than other people? Partly it is inborn temperament. Some people do not have a good temperament for investing. They’re too fretful; they worry too much. But if you’ve got a good temperament, which basically means being very patient, yet combine that with a vast aggression when you know enough to do something, then you just gradually learn the game, partly by doing, partly by studying."
107. "We have three baskets for investing: yes, no and too tough to understand."
108. "I’ve had kids in both moderate and immoderate circumstances, and to be honest, my children that were raised when we had less money have worked harder."
109. "The company that needs a new machine tool, and hasn’t bought it, is already paying for it."
110. "It is really useful to be reminded of your errors. I think Warren Buffett and I are pretty good at that. We do kind of mentally rub our own noses in our own mistakes. And that is a very good mental habit."
111. "It’s kind of fun to sit there and out-think people who are way smarter than you are because you’re trained yourself to be more objective and more multidisciplinary. Furthermore, there is a lot of money in it, as I can testify from my own personal experience."
112. "This is a good lesson for anyone: the ability to take criticism constructively and learn from it."
113. "I’ve heard Warren say a half a dozen times, "It’s not greed that drives the world, but envy." And you go through the psychology survey courses, and you go to the index: envy, jealousy, in a 1,000-page book... it’s blank! There’s some blind spots in academia, but it’s an enormously powerful thing."
114. "A lot of the businesses we buy at Berkshire Hathaway are kind of cranky and old-fashioned like us."
115. "The most extreme mistakes in Berkshire’s history have been mistakes of omission. We saw it, but didn’t act on it. They’re huge mistakes and we’ve lost billions. And we keep on doing it. We’re getting better at it. We never get over it."
116. "We’re partial to putting out large amounts of money where we won’t have to make another decision. If you buy something because it’s undervalued, then you have to think about selling it when it approaches your calculation of it’s intrinsic value. That’s hard. But, if you can buy a few great companies, then you can sit on your ass. That’s a good thing."
117. "Obviously the more hard lessons you can learn vicariously, instead of from your own terrible experiences, the better off you will be. I don’t know anyone who did it with great rapidity."
118. "If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember your lies."
118. "If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember your lies."
119. "We think there should be a huge area between what you’re willing to do and what you can do without significant risk of suffering criminal penalty or causing losses. We believe you shouldn’t go anywhere near that line. You ought to have an internal compass. So there should be all kinds of things you won’t do even though they’re perfectly legal. That’s the way we try to operate."
120. "If you keep trying to get a little better over time, you’ll start to make investments that are virtually certain to have a good outcome. The keys are discipline, hard work and practice. It’s like playing golf – you have to work on it. If you don’t keep learning, other people will pass you by."
121. "Warren Buffett has become one hell of a lot better investor since the day I met him, and so have I. If we had been frozen at any given stage with the knowledge we had, the record would have been much worse than it is today. So the game is to keep learning, and I don’t think people are going to keep learning who don’t like the learning process. You need to like the learning process."
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