I just wanted to share a quick thought: there are a lot of ways to successfully invest. You have to find what works for you. Saul is incredibly successful, and has been amazingly generous in sharing his knowledge, techniques, and even monthly portfolio moves (with explanations behind his thinking). But at the end of the day, what works best for Saul may be different than what works best for you, and what works best for you may be different than what works best for me. It’s silly to bicker about it all, trying to prove who is right and who is wrong. What matters is that we all achieve our goals.
We’re all learning and growing, and that includes failing on occasion too: we learn and grow through our mistakes just as much (or more) as we do through our successes. There’s nothing wrong with failure, especially if it’s used to improve our future processes. Don’t fear failure or mistakes, and don’t feel bad when you make them. If anything, they should make you excited that you’ve been given a clear opportunity to improve yourself.
For folks on the board who are feeling frustrated for whatever reason, my advice is simple: forget about the individual stocks and portfolio moves for a moment, and instead focus on your process that leads you to make decisions. What elements have led you to your successes, and which to your failures? Are there maybe one or two small things you can do to improve things for the future? Small improvements add up over time. Perhaps you might find a couple of ideas in Saul’s Knowledgebase (even if you’ve read it before). There’s a link to it on the right side of this page. There’s so much we can learn from each other, even if we have our own separate styles.
I’ve been pretty quiet on this board lately. There are a lot of reasons for that, but a big one is that I’ve taken time away to step back and really reflect on my own investing processes. Individual companies and stocks come and go, but our processes are something that we can improve over the course of our entire lives, and perhaps even pass on to others (as Saul is doing). This board was largely about process when it began, with discussion of specific portfolio decisions serving primarily as context or examples of how that process might be used in practice. Somewhere along the line, the focus of the board seems to have shifted to the actual makeup of Saul’s portfolio, with lots of ensuing drama around individual companies. I’ve been just as guilty of it as anyone, but I’m posting now to say that I personally don’t think the shift has been an improvement.
Year-end always provides a nice opportunity for reflection. There’s no doubt that this has been a crazy year for many of us, but sometimes it’s the extremes that best expose what elements of our processes are working well and which perhaps deserve some more attention.
Happy holidays to everyone!
Neil