Bill Ackman is a well-known and widely followed hedge fund manager. During the Covid market selloff in early 2020, he made several billion dollars by timely moving in and out of the markets. First, he bought credit default swaps to hedge against panic in the bond market. That … [Read more...] about Keeping it simple, unlike Mr. Ackman
MarketTiming
Did you double your money since the recession?
I didn’t! If you have been following the financial media, you must have seen recent headlines like this one: “If you’d bought stocks in March 2020, you would have doubled your money by now”. This one was from Yahoo! Money. There were similar mentions in CNBC, Financial Times, and … [Read more...] about Did you double your money since the recession?
A bear market in rear view
About a year ago, I wrote a blog post wishing that all long-term investors get at least one bear market in their investing journeys. In that post, I made the case that a bear market is a blessing in disguise, rather than a curse, for all patient investors. Here we are one year … [Read more...] about A bear market in rear view
The odds of making money in stocks
Whether we like it or not, we investors are always making bets. We invest our capital with the expectation that down the road we will be able to recover all of it plus some. But since the future is unknowable, we implicitly make a bet every time we invest. Specifically, … [Read more...] about The odds of making money in stocks
Are we in a short correction?
This stock market crash is looking more like a short-but-deep correction than a conventional bear market. Since its March 23rd trough, the market has been relentlessly going uphill. As of today, the S&P 500 is just about 12% off from its prior peak level. Not that I am … [Read more...] about Are we in a short correction?
When’s the market bottoming?
Things have settled down a bit in the stock market. Since that nasty crash in March, stocks have mostly been on an upward trend. So, has the stock market already bottomed out? Or would there be another leg down from here? I can’t say. I admit it would be a useful thing to know … [Read more...] about When’s the market bottoming?
Gratuitous advice with no accountability
At the Markel’s shareholder meeting in Omaha in June, someone from the audience posed this question to the company management: “I met a very large international money manager last night for dinner and he warned me that now is not the time to invest in US stocks. What do you think … [Read more...] about Gratuitous advice with no accountability
Investor anxiety
2018 was a brutal year for individual stock investors. Following the relatively calm performance in 2016 and 2017, the US stock market in 2018 was marked with high volatility. It went down by 10% in the first quarter, and then gradually recovered. It dropped again in the fourth … [Read more...] about Investor anxiety
Investing amid volatility: My 4Q update
What a quarter that was! The US stock market first reached a new high in October and then dropped 10%. It bounced around for a while. And then in late December, it dropped again—this time more than 15% off its peak. By some measures, it actually dropped 20% briefly (intra-day) … [Read more...] about Investing amid volatility: My 4Q update
Anchor on a business’s value, not its price
The other day, I came across an interesting, albeit hypothetical, auction scenario: Ten companies were bidding for the right to drill in a land tract. Each had done a geological survey of the land and privately assessed how much oil is in there. These surveys were known to be … [Read more...] about Anchor on a business’s value, not its price