We bought an investment in a panic and sell it at the boom. Such an opportunities, we get during the market cycle. But sometimes being inactive and wait for the opportunity works better in an investment.

We bought an investment in a panic and sell it at the boom. Such an opportunities, we get during the market cycle. But sometimes being inactive and wait for the opportunity works better in an investment. We should not be going for chasing an investment rather we should wait for investment opportunities to come to us. When we are chasing an investment then it might happen that we might not get an opportunity at a bargain. We only get bargain where the seller is motivated to sell and such opportunities provide us a bargain.

Every time a great bargain will not be available, cycle – pendulum not at an extreme where we can go against it. Many a time, Market situations are balanced and fairly priced. In that case, we have to make an investment decision from what is available to us.

In cricket, we do not try to hit each and every ball. We try to identify proper pitch to hit and till that opportunities, we just need to wait for a proper pitch or just keeps on rotating strikes.

Same with the investment, we should always wait for the proper pitch which is in our competence area and then needs to hit on it.

In investing, the penalty is the loss of our capital. And if we try to eliminate such possibilities of getting penalized then, of course, we only remain with the rewarding investment opportunities. But many a time, we also need to miss some winning opportunities for getting our perfect pitch. And that can be bearable compared to the penalty of losing our capital. Staying on the pitch is more important compared to sitting at the stadium and seeing dreams of playing well for winning the match.

We should wait for the profit-making opportunities with the control on risk. If we lost our focus on protecting our capital then huge waiting period and higher returns also might not be able to provide us above average returns.

Many a time, we get lucrative profit-making opportunities but for getting those opportunities, we need to take a higher risk and sometimes, we do not even know that we are taking a higher risk.

Generally, people shift towards higher risk investments while they do not get desire returns from the safer investments.

Before the credit crisis occurs, people tend to take borrowing at a cheaper cost and make an investment into the high return opportunities with the belief of low risk.

When prices are keeps on going higher and higher than, we cannot refuse to have a lower returns with the higher risk. Mr.Howard Marks mentioned few aspects while lower returns environments exist.

There is no easy way to cope up with such situations. One major mistake people make is reaching for the returns and forgetting the risk. Always seeing dreams for making a century in every match and forget the risk of losing a wicket before hitting a century.

When there is a low return environment then we need an exceptional skill, high risk bearing capabilities and huge luck for generating higher returns.

The major opportunities for buying an investment comes where the holder of an asset are forced to sell it. Such situations create a bargain opportunities for us. When baller is frustrated and then only there will be a chance of occurring a mistake by him and that creates an opportunity for a batsman to hit six. But for hitting a six, we need to protect our wicket and need to stay on the pitch. We get a good opportunity to make a good score when baller is frustrated and throwing lousy balls; not when he is sharply bowling and chance to lose our wicket is higher. Or batsman is frustrated and want to make score then he will lose his wicket. Similarly with the investment; we do not get good investment returns while we are frustrated and want to make an investment or all our friends are earning & we have missed out opportunities. We get good investment returns while all are negative or frustrated and we have the capability to capture the opportunity.

Sometimes question raised in our mind that seller can be well informed and rational also then why he sell something at the bargain price?

When forced sellers come to sell their assets then market requires a liquidity to buy assets at a bargain price. So that the person who is waiting for an opportunity those only can capture such opportunities.

Read for more detail: The Most Important Thing Illuminated by Howard Marks