MY LEARNING FROM MY MISTAKES

In this section, I keep on posting my mistakes from which I keep on learning. As I commit any new mistake and learn from it, will add my learning to this section.

  1. When we face loss then only learning comes —Our mistakes can be only realized by us when we face any loss or we proved wrong. So we always welcome mistakes which provide us with some good learning and keep us down to earth. Being true and continue earning profits raise our ego level and invite more huge loss in the future.
  2. Never ignore the true value of the company—Every business has some value and that we should not have to ignore. If we commit such a mistake then the market will defiantly punish us. Be careful with the true worth of the company and only buy it when it falls below its true worth. And if business not available below its true worth then ready to missed that opportunity. Loss of opportunity is better than the loss of capital.
  3. Don’t buy HOT —-If we buy the hot business such as recent trend, new IPOs, business on which everyone is bullish etc., then we must have to exit it at the proper time. So if we aren’t able to exit at the proper time then it’s better to let it go such opportunities. If we buy HOT then that HOT will BURN our portfolio.
  4. Buying a high leverage business — We need to avoid a business which has a huge borrowings, such borrowings can kill the business and also kill our investment journey.
  5. Using the wrong valuation method — Every business will not get valued with a similar valuation matrix. We need to identify the nature of the business and then value a particular business. Such as we should not use the valuation matrix of growing non-cyclical business for cyclical business, should not use the valuation matrix of assets light business for assets heavy business and vice-versa. If we made such a mistake then whether we might miss a decent investment opportunity or we might lose our capital.
  6. A mistake of buying a story, not a fundamental — I have never ever made such a mistake because I am a hard-core lover of numbers. But I have seen many of the people who always focus on the story and also which is very trending to the market. I believe that without the support of numbers, no story can survive for long. In the year 2014-15, Logistics stocks due to GST gets a trending story but due to lack of good numbers, the story gets failed. People generally avoid numbers due to lack of understanding of it. I firmly believe that “Stories are for kids, not for investors.”
  7. Investing without a process and philosophy — I can overcome this mistake at the initial period of my investment journey and that is only because of my guru – Neeraj Marathe Sir (who always believe on having a process and philosophy for making an investment). I have seen many people who spent lots of time into the market but they do not have any process or philosophy. They change their philosophy as they meet various people. If we do not have our own process and philosophy for making an investment then we will not able to create a successful investment journey. I also learn from my guru that we must have our philosophy in a written format so that we can refer it over a period of time and stop ourselves from occurring a mistake.
  8. Not using a checklist — We should have a checklist for a business, industry, financial, management etc. so that we can focus on the points to study and also not forget any point to study. I am using a checklist for the last 3 years and I can say that having a checklist helps me a lot. My checklist keeps on improving as my experience grows.
  9. Making an investment decision with disturb mind — We should avoid making an investment decision while our mind is disturbed. Disturbance in mind will end up with the faulty investment decision and which can be harmful to our wealth.
  10. Cloning a well-known investors/fund managers — Again I can overcome this mistake at the initial period of my investment journey and again credit goes to my guru. If we have our process and philosophy then we will not try to clone others. I have seen many people who have spent 10-15-20 years to the stock market then also not having any process and philosophy & they clone others. Many of the people have cloning as their investment philosophy because they love to use shortcuts. I always remember the quote of my guru –

NM