Always, always, always check yourself.
Checking for yourself is the true essence of science.
And you are not a scientist if you don’t check yourself.
Put faith in your own research, your own analysis — not anyone else’s.
Nobody is going to be as careful as you.
Do the field research.
Field research tells you, intuitively, what analytical research cannot.
It is one of the most underrated sources of investment edge.
Go out and live the business.
You have to test the product, visit the factory, talk to employees, talk customers, test the customer service, etc.
Research is not just reading or building spreadsheets.
Quotes:
“Value investors are journalists at heart who feel compelled to gather their own facts and do their own analysis.”
— Jeff Gramm
“There is the surface business, but then there is what’s really going on. Really trying to understand what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, how they’re doing it: that’s often the puzzle. My favourite thing is to lie down and just really try to think about these things pretty deeply.”
— Carson Block (on short-selling)
“When I came to blackjack, I didn't really know the history of the proofs that showed there weren’t any winning gambling systems. I knew that people had established that, but I didn't know the details, so they didn't seem important to me. I just did my own thinking. Had I been trained in mathematics properly in that area, I probably never would have even considered trying to beat blackjack, because I would have assumed that blackjack is just another game that’s been proven to be unbeatable.”
— Ed Thorpe
“Can you really explain to a fish what it's like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value.”
— Warren Buffett
Thanks for reading. Tell your friends.