CDOQ

https://www.barrons.com/articles/charlie-munger-close-up-warren-buffett-berkshire-bff539ca

My hero, Charlie Munger , passed away on November 28th, 2023. He was 99 years old.  I met Munger in 2007 at my first Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting . It was admiration at first few words. I liked his depth of understanding in multiple domains, his honesty, and his willingness to share his wisdom. Since then I have read all his available writings and seen him many times in Omaha or Los Angeles at various shareholder meetings. He profoundly influenced Warren Buffett and the entire investing and business world. The world has lost a great leader, thinker, and teacher.  Munger's response to my letter      Since meeting Munger, I continue to learn from him and share what I am learning.  Following are a few Munger teachings that have become my habits:  1. Inversion: When you want to solve a problem, start with inverting the problem. For example, if you have to figure out how to keep the airplanes safe, work on figuring out how they can crash...

Charlie Munger, age 99, still sharing his wisdom, humor, and mistakes.  Notable Munger line from the Daily Journal ($DJCO) shareholder meeting - dumb is forever. 

I am writing this post to internalize the lessons learned from my investing (in public companies) mistakes over twenty years.   Chapter 1 (2000 - 2003) My journey of investing in public companies began around year 2000, at the peak of the  dotcom bubble . At the time, all I remembered about investing from my recent MBA was that companies trading over a  P/E  (Price Earnings Ratio i.e. price of the stock divided by earnings per share) of 15 were overpriced. People were very excited about investing at the time, stocks were what everyone talked about in social gatherings. I worked with people I liked and respected. They were making money every day in the market and how much money everyone was making was the lunch topic every day. I brought up P/E ratios in the conversations and they all laughed and said it was a new economy, old rules didn't apply. I thought this is why people say that reality is different from school. I was applying what I learned in sch...

Investing legend Charlie Munger on investing, the buyback debate and much more from CNBC .

Although I have an MBA, my learnings about investing come from Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, Vice-Chairman and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. I have attended Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meetings about dozen times and the four basic rules of investing that I have learned are:  Do you understand the business you are buying (think of buying stock of a business like buying the entire business)?  Can you predict the earnings of the business for the next five to ten years?  Does the business have a competitive advantage (i.e. does the business have something that a competitor would find hard to copy)?  Is the stock fairly priced?  Amazon headquarters in Seattle, WA. Photo Credit: Wikipedia These four rules are easy to understand and hard to implement. A few years ago, when Amazon stock was trading below $300 and its  P/E  (Price to Earnings ratio), which is one way to determine if the stock is fairly priced, was above 2,000. ...

On May 2nd, 2015, I was in Omaha to participate in my annual ritual of attending the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting. I like Warren Buffett and I absolutely adore Charlie Munger. Both are my heroes. They are full of wisdom and have shaped my thinking. 40,000 people standing in line to get into a shareholder meeting!  Following are highlights from the meeting: Human Behavior 1. For some reason, no-haggling business breaks down after a while. People say that they don’t like to negotiate but they like getting a deal especially on big-ticket items. 2. “If people were not often wrong, we would not be so rich.” – Munger 3. There is no formula for buying businesses. Do business with people you trust. 4. When ego is involved people tend to do things that they are not supposed to do. 5. Jack Ringwalt, former CEO of National Indemnity, used to yell at his subordinate every time he brought the news of claims to be paid. The subordinate did not like to be yel...