Seth Klarman vs Bull Market Psychology: Why Prudence Looks Foolish Until It Doesn’t
byBull markets do something more corrosive than make people greedy. They make prudence look falsified. The investor who buys expensive assets keeps getting paid….
Legends
Seth Klarman’s Special Situations Playbook: Complexity, Distress, and Mispriced Securities
byA security can be obscure, distressed, delisted, legally tangled, illiquid, and surrounded by sellers who want nothing more than to be rid of it….
Seth Klarman on Cash: The Option Value of Doing Nothing
byCash is easiest to admire after the market has collapsed. By then, the argument has already been won. Prices are down, forced sellers are…
Seth Klarman’s Margin of Safety: Why Avoiding Losses Comes Before Chasing Upside
by“Margin of safety” has become one of those investing phrases everybody admires and almost nobody has to define. A stock falls 40%? Margin of…
Seth Klarman and the Discipline of Absolute Return Investing
by“Absolute return” is one of those investment phrases that sounds precise until someone is forced to define it. The label has been pasted onto…
Philip Fisher’s Long-Term Holding Philosophy: When Selling Becomes the Hardest Decision
byPhilip Fisher’s holding philosophy is usually remembered in its most soothing form: buy an outstanding company, hold it for a very long time, and…
Philip Fisher vs Benjamin Graham: Growth Quality Against Statistical Cheapness
byThe usual Philip Fisher versus Benjamin Graham story has been flattened into something close to investment astrology. Graham investors are supposedly bargain hunters peering…
Philip Fisher’s 15 Points: What Makes a Company Worth Holding for Decades
byPhilip Fisher’s 15 points have suffered the fate of many great investment ideas: they became easier to repeat than to use. The usual treatment…
Philip Fisher’s Scuttlebutt Method: Research Beyond the Financial Statements
byPhilip Fisher’s scuttlebutt method is usually flattened into a pleasant little slogan: talk to customers, suppliers, competitors, employees, and management before buying a stock….
Philip Fisher and the Rise of Qualitative Growth Investing
byPhilip Fisher is often compressed into an investment slogan so smooth that most of his actual method slides straight off it: find an exceptional…
John Templeton’s Spiritual Discipline as an Investing Edge: Humility, Patience, and Detachment
byThe clean version of John Templeton’s story is almost too easy to admire. He prayed before investment meetings. He preached humility. He remained patient…
John Templeton vs Domestic Investing: The Case for Looking Where Others Refuse to Look
byDomestic investing has one tremendous public-relations advantage: it rarely has to defend itself as a strategy. Buying foreign securities is treated as a decision….
John Templeton’s Pessimism Principle: Why the Best Investments Feel Terrible at First
byJohn Templeton’s pessimism principle is often reduced to a line that sounds brave and becomes dangerous the moment anyone tries to use it: buy…
John Templeton’s Global Contrarian Strategy: Searching for Bargains Beyond Home Bias
byJohn Templeton’s global strategy is usually translated into a pleasant modern instruction: invest internationally. That version is easy to package, easy to sell and…
John Templeton and the Art of Buying at Maximum Pessimism
by“Buy at the point of maximum pessimism” is one of the best investment ideas ever compressed into one sentence—and one of the easiest to…
Benjamin Graham’s Mr. Market: The Investor Psychology Lesson That Never Ages
byMr. Market has been flattened into self-help. The familiar version says markets become emotional, sensible investors stay calm, and fortunes eventually flow toward whoever…
Benjamin Graham vs Modern Markets: Does Classic Value Still Work?
byBenjamin Graham now functions as both an investor and a Rorschach test. To one group, he is proof that disciplined investors can still uncover…
Benjamin Graham’s Net-Net Strategy: Deep Value Investing at Its Most Extreme
byNet-net investing becomes dangerously easy to misunderstand the moment it enters a stock screener. The screen produces a company whose market capitalization sits below…
Benjamin Graham’s Margin of Safety: The Concept Investors Quote but Rarely Practice
byMargin of safety has become one of investing’s most flattering labels. Estimate a company’s value. Knock 20% or 30% off the result. Announce that…
Benjamin Graham and the Birth of Defensive Investing
by“Defensive investing” has become one of those labels finance attaches to anything wearing a tie and speaking quietly. A portfolio owns large companies, dividend…