These are Hemingway quotes from his books, interviews and letters. Substitute ‘writer’/’writing’ with ‘investor’/’investing’ and they could as well have been from somebody like Buffett - bringing together two of my favorite legends.
This also reinforces my belief that all art at its best is the same.
1. The most essential gift for a good writer is a built - in, shockproof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.
All kinds of tall stories are pitched in a bull market. Avoiding something too good to be true can save a lot of capital. I often actively try to short ‘story stocks’.
2. Never confuse movement with action.
Action bias is one of the most prevalent behavioral biases in our industry. This is what makes most goalkeepers dive to one side while defending a penalty kick when the optimal strategy is just staying put in the middle. In our industry action bias leads to overtrading and unnecessary churning. The inclination to be seen as doing something, especially when under stress, is hard to resist.
3. Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.
Or as Munger says, “spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up”. Incremental improvements add and compound over time. The quote is also about discipline and work ethic. Before anything else, put in the damn hours.
4. If something is wrong fix it. But train yourself not to worry. Worry fixes nothing.
If the initial hypothesis for an investment/trade has been violated - get rid of the idea. Endowment bias (ascribing a higher than fair value to something you own) acts as a resistance and often leads to a slow bleed. Rarely, if ever, all ideas in your portfolio would pan out as expected. How much you worry about the underperformers is inversely proportional to how much thought you have put in behind those ideas. Act decisively once you have made up your mind.
5. There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
The returns for a value investor are often determined by the amount of pain he is willing to take. There would always be negative news flow associated with out of favor value investments. Contrarian bets by nature are psychologically taxing. It’s ‘simple, not easy’.
6. I need money, badly, but not badly enough to do one dishonorable, shady, borderline, or “fast” thing to get it. I hope this is quite clear.
Nothing is worth the anxiety of having to constantly look over your shoulder. Integrity matters.
A company with dubious management/promoters even with a large moat and compelling valuations is often a value trap.
7. Remember this too: all bad writers are in love with the epic.
All bad investors are in love with multi-bagger ideas. This is probably the single biggest mistake that amateurs investors make. Higher capital allocation to low risk uncertainties is orders of magnitude better than juggling high-risk high-return trades.
8. The more I’m let alone and not worried the better I can function.
One has to be focused but relaxed and let the ideas come at whatever pace they may.
9. “…sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
In my trading portfolio there are periods when it seems I can do just nothing right. During these times I try not to forget that I have been in such situations before and I have always managed to make some money eventually. I try to focus on my highest conviction trade and then move on to the next and then the next…
10. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.
Don’t take losses personally. Try to figure out the underlying dynamics at play and make the errors count by learning from them.
11. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements.
Or, avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance. You are probably wrong if at any point you feel you have an informational edge (legal). Stick to basics.
12. I happen to be in a very tough business where there are no alibis. It is good or it is bad and the thousand reasons that interfere with a book being as good as possible are no excuses if it is not.
The quality of your decisions will eventually reflect in your returns over a long enough period. And there are no excuses if they don’t. Objective evaluation of performance is one of the things that I like most about our business.
13. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day.
It’s really difficult not to constantly think about your portfolio. This is detrimental for the PnL. The constant background mind-chatter clouds ones perspective and receptiveness to new ideas.
14. Writers should work alone. They should see each other only after their work is done, and not too often then.
An investor has to be fiercely independent. Discussing ideas with others (especially ones with opposing views) helps but eventually the investor has to form his own hypothesis and own it.
15. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky?
Islay malt for me.
Even Hemingway had to constantly and deliberately work on his craft. Talent is overrated (I sometimes wonder if its even real). Be it writing, investing or anything else - process, perseverance and discipline will take you farther.
This also reinforces my belief that all art at its best is the same.
1. The most essential gift for a good writer is a built - in, shockproof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.
All kinds of tall stories are pitched in a bull market. Avoiding something too good to be true can save a lot of capital. I often actively try to short ‘story stocks’.
2. Never confuse movement with action.
Action bias is one of the most prevalent behavioral biases in our industry. This is what makes most goalkeepers dive to one side while defending a penalty kick when the optimal strategy is just staying put in the middle. In our industry action bias leads to overtrading and unnecessary churning. The inclination to be seen as doing something, especially when under stress, is hard to resist.
3. Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.
Or as Munger says, “spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up”. Incremental improvements add and compound over time. The quote is also about discipline and work ethic. Before anything else, put in the damn hours.
4. If something is wrong fix it. But train yourself not to worry. Worry fixes nothing.
If the initial hypothesis for an investment/trade has been violated - get rid of the idea. Endowment bias (ascribing a higher than fair value to something you own) acts as a resistance and often leads to a slow bleed. Rarely, if ever, all ideas in your portfolio would pan out as expected. How much you worry about the underperformers is inversely proportional to how much thought you have put in behind those ideas. Act decisively once you have made up your mind.
5. There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
The returns for a value investor are often determined by the amount of pain he is willing to take. There would always be negative news flow associated with out of favor value investments. Contrarian bets by nature are psychologically taxing. It’s ‘simple, not easy’.
6. I need money, badly, but not badly enough to do one dishonorable, shady, borderline, or “fast” thing to get it. I hope this is quite clear.
Nothing is worth the anxiety of having to constantly look over your shoulder. Integrity matters.
A company with dubious management/promoters even with a large moat and compelling valuations is often a value trap.
7. Remember this too: all bad writers are in love with the epic.
All bad investors are in love with multi-bagger ideas. This is probably the single biggest mistake that amateurs investors make. Higher capital allocation to low risk uncertainties is orders of magnitude better than juggling high-risk high-return trades.
8. The more I’m let alone and not worried the better I can function.
One has to be focused but relaxed and let the ideas come at whatever pace they may.
9. “…sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
In my trading portfolio there are periods when it seems I can do just nothing right. During these times I try not to forget that I have been in such situations before and I have always managed to make some money eventually. I try to focus on my highest conviction trade and then move on to the next and then the next…
10. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.
Don’t take losses personally. Try to figure out the underlying dynamics at play and make the errors count by learning from them.
11. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements.
Or, avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance. You are probably wrong if at any point you feel you have an informational edge (legal). Stick to basics.
12. I happen to be in a very tough business where there are no alibis. It is good or it is bad and the thousand reasons that interfere with a book being as good as possible are no excuses if it is not.
The quality of your decisions will eventually reflect in your returns over a long enough period. And there are no excuses if they don’t. Objective evaluation of performance is one of the things that I like most about our business.
13. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day.
It’s really difficult not to constantly think about your portfolio. This is detrimental for the PnL. The constant background mind-chatter clouds ones perspective and receptiveness to new ideas.
14. Writers should work alone. They should see each other only after their work is done, and not too often then.
An investor has to be fiercely independent. Discussing ideas with others (especially ones with opposing views) helps but eventually the investor has to form his own hypothesis and own it.
15. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky?
Islay malt for me.
Even Hemingway had to constantly and deliberately work on his craft. Talent is overrated (I sometimes wonder if its even real). Be it writing, investing or anything else - process, perseverance and discipline will take you farther.
Creating dots...to connect
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