LIMITS ON COPING – 15 – MASTERING THE MARKET CYCLE

We have seen superior results with superior insights. But for getting these skills, we also need to know the limitations and how difficult it is to acquire them.

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If we are going to identify what will be going to happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or next week, next month then we are not going to get success in identifying cycle. Identifying cycle is never easy, it requires a greater effort to capture a cycle in a better way which provides us with an advantage.

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Disclosure – Companies mentioned in the article are just for an example & educational purpose. It is not a buy/sell/ hold recommendation. 

Read for more detail: Mastering The Market Cycle: Getting the odds on your side by Mr.Howard Marks

The Intelligent Investor – 10 – The Investor and His Advisers

Many of the immature investors seek advice from the investment advisers to improves their returns on investment.

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Immature investors have to be knowledgeable and experienced to pass an independent judgment for any of the investment opportunities communicated by others. Investors need to analyze the services provided to him by the consultant or advisers are of benefits to them or him, whether they are involved to generate commission/brokerage or true advice, etc. Intelligent investors look at the recommendation provided by reputed firms but they decide by themselves. So that we can have safety rather be sorry for the decision. It is always a question that should we manage our portfolio independently or should we seek for the help of others? It depends on to them how we have performed during the market cycle, better than the market or not, whether we can easily meet our financial goal or does we require to take help.

Before trusting any of the advisers, we need to make our due diligence and check whether any complaints, fine, a penalty against him or not. Before selecting an adviser, we need to ask a few questions –

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Answers of the above questions provide us clarity of selecting or rejecting an adviser. It is difficult to find a genuine adviser so that we also need to do due diligence from our side. I have experienced that no investment strategy outperforms in every period so that we should analyze the performance of the adviser over a market cycle, does adviser changing his process frequently? does he behave rationally with his investment or get emotionally trapped by market moods? We need to analyze all such aspects. And the most important aspect is to have an investment process and investment philosophy. If the adviser does not have it then we do not have to be in help of him.

Disclosure – Companies mentioned in the article are just for an example & educational purpose. It is not a buy/sell/ hold recommendation. 

Read for more detail: The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig

LEARNING INVESTMENT LESSONS FROM MOVIE “SANJU”

Previously I have written a post on learning investment lessons from movies such as Chal Man Jeetva Jaiye”, “Dangal”, “3 IdiotsandRajneeti. Now, I am going to write a few investment lessons from another movie “Sanju”. Sanju movie having very negative comments regarding the reliability of the story but not be go deeper into it. This movie has a very inspirational story and as well as many lessons which we can implement in our life & in our investment career.

  • We need a mentor who helps us with identifying right or wrong decision

Extract from the movie – We have seen in a movie that Sanjay Dutt having a many up and downs in life and during those tough time Mr. Sunil Dutt has helped him with proper guidance. Due to his guidance and support, Sanju can achieve success. Many times, we require a proper guidance which can help us with making a difference between right or wrong decision.

We have seen in a movie that whenever Sanju get confused, Sunil Dutt has shown him a way to get out of such a situation. He has supported him, encourage him to achieve success. Sunil Dutt has encouraged Sanju to make a right decision and also support when Sanju got stuck into worst situation. Books also in our life work as a mentor. When we do not have a mentor, we can take a help of books which help us with a selection of the right decision. Mentor help us to come out from the struggling situations where we are not able to find out the proper way.

Co-relation in investment life – Our investing life is as similar, we require a true mentor who helps us with a proper guidance and supports us in identifying a right or wrong decision. Whenever we get confuse he can help us with his wisdom which can uplift us to the next level. If we do not have a proper mentor then we should select books and try to learn from it. I had a conversation with few of a successful investor and they told that they did not train by a mentor but they read books from Graham, Phil Fisher, and letter of Buffett and prepare themselves for an investment journey.

  • Drugs and suicide are not a solution to any problem

Extract from the movie – We have faced many problems in our lives and we have to fight with those problems, not give up against those problems. Many a time, people do not just give up against problems, they also start taking shortcuts for getting solutions for staying away from problems such as alcohol, drugs & suicide. Shortcut never provide us with a permanent solution against problems, also its effect badly to our loved ones. We have to fight against those problems and solve it permanently. We have seen in the movie that Sanju has started to take drugs or choose to commit suicide to come out of the difficult situations but that did not provide him with a permanent solution. When he decided to fight against difficult situations then he got a proper permanent solution. I can say it from my experience, I have also faced a few situations which are similar to the movie, I also got depressed but I chose to fight rather take a shortcut. And I am sure many of us chose to fight rather to give up. Fight against difficult situation seems easy compared to short cut but always provide us a proper permanent solution.

Co-relation in investment life – Similar to our life, we have also face difficult situations in our investments career. Many of us face it, fight against it rather take a shortcut. We failed during our investment career many a time, our investment might work worst, and it might not perform as we have thought. If we learn from those difficult situations, increase our efforts to become stronger and decide to fight for the success of our investment career, then we can achieve success in our investment career also. Those who are not able to fight against difficult situations, they choose to take shortcuts such as leaving of investment field (suicide from investment career), taking investment ideas from others, getting dependent on others’ tips (such work as a drug for us). If we take a advice from the mentor for building our investment career more stronger and enhance our efforts to become stronger then it will be a permanent solution for the difficult situation during our investment career. We grow stronger, our investment decisions improve wiser when we face difficult situations and fight against it, learn from it.

  • Sometimes music / other than core work helps to heal us

Extract from the movie – Whenever we are depressed or found it difficult to focus on our core activities then it is better to work something else which can help us to getting heal from our depression and with it, we need to keep on trying to get back to the focus on slowly to our core activities. When we are depressed, distracted or disturbed then it will be difficult for us to get back our focus on our core activities. So that first, we should try to come out of the depressed situation. This really helps us to get back our concentration and become normal from depressing situations. I usually listen to music, do a workout or take a sleep which has to help me a lot to come out of the depressed situation and I can able to again focus on my core activities. We have seen in the movie that whenever Sanju got disturbed, distracted from his acting career, Mr.Sunil Dutt has helped him with music and music has healed his depression.

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Co-relation in investment life – Similarly when there is a depressing situation for us in our investing career then rather be getting panic, we should focus on the some of the activities which make us feel better and relaxed. This will reduce our stress, heal our depression so that we can again focus on the investing activities. We have faced such situations many a time during our investing career, investment does not work as we assumed, all assumptions are in place but still not perform in a manner it should perform, etc. These all make us depressed and if we continue to focus on investment with such a depressed mind then there will be a higher chance to make a huge error, bigger blunders. It is better first to be normal and be relaxed then need to again focus on investing activities. Many a time, Small happiness do big miracles. And making a temporary distance from core activities will help to come back with more strength.

  • Need a good circle of buddy

Extract from the movie – We have seen in the movie that Jubin has the spoiled life of Sanju. Due to Jubin, Sanju has started taking drugs & became abdicated to it. Whereas Kamlesh has helped to Sanju for coming out of his drugs abdication and also supported in tough time. If we have a good circle of buddy then they help us to put forward our views and get right views from them. They do not show selfish behavior to us but they provide us a view which is right for us, not views which feel us good. They make a debate with us on views, opinions which create stronger decisions, stronger execution. So that we need a friend like Kamlesh not like a Jubin.

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Co-relation in investment life – Similar to the investment field, we need a circle of a good friend who told us which kind of mistake we have made, who support us during our difficult time, who can make a debate with us on our investment ideas which make our decision stronger. This helps us to make a wise investment decision rather than a biased decision. We have to differentiate who provide us a right view and who provide us a view which makes feel us good. If we stay with the wrong circle of buddy then we always get biased views, they provide us a view which we want to hear. Such views feel us good but not build us wiser. Many a time, we may be missed some important points and if we have the good circle of buddy then we can make discussion with them, we get proper views. I learn that such circle should not be huge, we have few buddies, maybe a max circle of 3-4 members.

  • People will comment negatively, they are judgmental. Shut their mouth with success

Extract from the movie – We have seen in the movie that people, media has made negative comments regarding careers, drugs addiction, consider him a terrorist, etc. But Sanju has made a comeback and achieve a success. Media has put a question mark on his career, also everyone considers that he is finished & never able to come back to his earlier success. He has put efforts to develop himself and come back to his earlier success.

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Co-relation in investment life – Such kind of negative comments, we also get during our investment careers. When our investment ideas do not perform well, we have made some mistakes, we face the difficult time to get proper investment ideas; then we get criticism from people. Many negative comments we get from people, but rather getting depressed with those comments; we need to put efforts on our career. We should focus on putting efforts into our career rather than responding to people. We need to work on identifying our mistakes, learn from it and put efforts to build us wiser. We should work on identifying good investment ideas and build a good portfolio which helps us to create a wealth. Such wealth creation is a response to all negative comments made to us, rather to replying with words to everyone. Negative comments should work for us as a motivation to develop ourselves rather depress us. And if we found useless negative comments from people then need to remember ustaad no. 3 from the movie – “Kuch toh log kahege logon ka kaam hai kahena, chhodo bekaar ki baton mein kaheen beet na jaaye rainaa”

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  • Always hope for the best days coming after worst days

Extract from the movie – We should not give up by experiencing difficult days whereas we should hope for the best time. Our life also works in a cyclical manner, we have worst days also and best days also but never one remain forever. We have seen in the movie that Sanju became a drug addicted but after proper treatment, he again became normal. Also, he has faced many failures in acting career but after putting efforts, be able to achieve success.

Co-relation in investment life – Many a time in an investment career, we faced difficult days but we should put an effort also during those days with the hope of best time is on the way. Sometimes our investment does not work in terms of stock price but all our assumptions for investment are in place then we have to keep faith and hope for the best and have a patience.

  • There is another side of the story, do not just blindly believe in whatever we see or hear

Extract from the movie – We have seen in the movie that Anushka Sharma has played a role where she does not believe blindly to any of the information. She searches for the evidence, truth, and meet people who can help her to reach for truth. If she believes in the information which was given by Jubin then she is not able to reach the truth of the story. But she takes his information as a starting point for an investigation and searches what is the truth.

Co-relation in investment life – It is very essential for us to not believe any of the information blindly. We always look at the information suspiciously and try to find out evidence for the information. If we blindly believe on the information and those information proves wrong then we may incur a huge blunder with our investments. We have to see the story from different angles then only we identify and reach the conclusion that whether it is correct in the way it seems on the first instants. As an investor, it is our duty to check the available information to us rather believe in it and make an action.

If we trust ourselves then we can achieve success in our life.

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