Old School Value

A Brief History

I was never interested in finance. Never took a commerce, accounting, economics class or any subject related to finance in High school or University. I literally abhorred the whole financial industry and couldn’t care less about the economy.

While I was in High School my father started to invest. I remember telling him (with absolutely no knowledge and just from what I heard about the stock market) how risky the stock market was and it was close to gambling. I don’t recall the exact details of his investing portfolio but I do recall that he did find some winners and losers.. I remember he was devastated about some huge losses.. I figured my father would be able to handle the situation and I went on living in my own little world… How little it was…

Just Another Sucker

I was always led to believe that the professionals could make money for you. That I was never savvy or smart enough to know about the vast world of investing. That was before I got angry…

The Anger

As a favour (long story), I went to a see a financial advisor at AP Financial and listened to a sales presentation tell me how I needed to take action in order to receive the maximum benefit to prepare for my retirement. The first day, I listened to her explanations about how money had to be professionally managed through mutual funds and life insurance. I was pressured into signing some papers and on the second day I sealed my fate with the final signature. I failed to exercise my power of ‘NO’.

3 months and $3000 later, I wised up and realised that the financial advisor was selling me rubbish. She and the mutual funds were the only ones getting rich. My rate of return was close to 1% after all the fees and commission. I was pissed…

I cancelled my contract, lost the $3000 and started to learn with determination. I was pissed…

Old School Value

I subscribed to a few trial newsletters from Fool.com and read all the investing basics. I slowly saw the bigger picture and began to understand what investing was all about.

By chance one day, I picked up The Intelligent Investor that was lying around my fiance’s home. I started to read and read and read. I didn’t understand every single detail (I still don’t) but the concepts were clear and made perfect sense.

I was hooked with the concepts and it suited my personal attitude and character.

The Beginning

With a clearer idea on investing, I stumbled upon Joe Ponzio’s www.fwallstreet.com which is by far the best blog I have seen. I read and studied his methods and started to fully understand what investing was really about.

From there, I started to read up on Warren Buffett, his annual shareholder letters, books based on his methods as well as other great investing minds such as Philip Fisher, Charlie Munger, Monish Pabrai and Pat Dorsey.

So What Now?

Im here to offer my thoughts about investment in a value oriented way. There are so many investment blogs out there and it will be tough to fight with the herd. However, I hope I can add a twist or different view on investing conceptions and misconceptions, company analysis, books and other general things related to investing.

I am ALWAYS welcome to newer and better thoughts and reasoning behind any topic. Please help my leaving comments and thoughts.

As Charlie Munger puts it;

if a new and better idea comes along, we must be able to throw out our old ideas and replace it with the new.

Disclaimer

I am by no means an expert. I hold no responsibility for financial decisions made based on the contents of this blog. I offer a means to a start in broader thinking and research in investing.