Related books:
Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor
Poor Charlie's AlmanackFPA Crescent Fund: Second Quarter 2015 Commentary [H/T ValueWalk] (LINK)
Complete video of Bill Miller and Jeff Gundlach at Delivering Alpha (LINK)
China stocks tumble, suffer biggest one-day loss in 8 years (LINK)
Chinese shares tumbled more than 8 percent on Monday amid renewed fears about the outlook for the world’s No. 2 economy, reviving the specter of a full-blown market crash that prompted unprecedented government intervention earlier this month.Drones and driverless tractors – is this the future of farming [H/T @Sanjay__Bakshi] (LINK)
Malcolm Gladwell: More data doesn’t mean you know everything [H/T value and opportunity] (LINK)
Hussman Weekly Market Comment: Memorize This, Earn a Dollar (LINK)
If I were to choose anything that investors should memorize – that will serve them well over a lifetime of investing – it would be the following two principles:
1) Valuations control long-term returns. The higher the price you pay today for each dollar you expect to receive in the future, the lower the long-term return you should expect from your investment. Don't take current earnings at face value, because profit margins are not permanent. Historically, the most reliable indicators of market valuation are driven by revenues, not earnings.
2) Risk-seeking and risk-aversion control returns over shorter portions of the market cycle. The difference between an overvalued market that becomes more overvalued, and an overvalued market that crashes, has little to do with the level of valuation and everything to do with the attitude of investors toward risk. When investors are risk-seeking, they are rarely selective about it. Historically, the most reliable way to measure risk attitudes is by the uniformity or divergence of price movements across a wide range of securities.
I've called these The Iron Law of Valuation, and The Iron Law of Speculation. I've repeated them frequently. They deserve to be repeated. They’re not Kipling, but if you remember both of those principles through the ups and downs of the market cycle, I expect that they’ll replace a great deal of grief with a great deal of success over a lifetime of investing. They also explain virtually every major success and occasional stumble I've experienced in three decades as a professional investor.
Brain Pickings: A Zen Master Explains Death and the Life-Force to a Child and Outlines the Three Essential Principles of Zen Mind (LINK)
Related book: Dropping Ashes on the Buddha
Related podcast: Maria Popova answers 10 questions