Learnings from Buffett's 2017 Annual Letter

This year Buffett dealt with a few important points. I found his lengthy discourse on the superiority of index funds intriguing - but not really applicable for the Indian markets as here, maybe unlike in the US, there is significant outperformance by good funds over the index.

On being in the market

The years ahead will occasionally deliver major market declines – even panics – that will affect virtually all stocks. No one can tell you when these traumas will occur – not me, not Charlie, not economists, not the media. Meg McConnell of the New York Fed aptly described the reality of panics: “We spend a lot of time looking for systemic risk; in truth, however, it tends to find us.” During such scary periods, you should never forget two things: First, widespread fear is your friend as an investor, because it serves up bargain purchases. Second, personal fear is your enemy. It will also be unwarranted. Investors who avoid high and unnecessary costs and simply sit for an extended period with a collection of large, conservatively-financed American businesses will almost  certainly do well.

Having a portfolio of good businesses, without being leveraged and not needing to pull out of the market when there is a downturn, can produce good results over a long period of time.

On share repurchases

It is important to remember that there are two occasions in which repurchases should not take place, even if the company’s shares are underpriced. One is when a business both needs all its available money to protect or expand its own operations and is also uncomfortable adding further debt. Here, the internal need for funds should take priority. This exception assumes, of course, that the business has a decent future awaiting it after the needed expenditures are made. The second exception, less common, materializes when a business acquisition (or some other investment opportunity) offers far greater value than do the undervalued shares of the potential repurchaser.

Here, I think, the Indian tax laws on dividend distribution has skewed the investor giveback so that companies are looking at share repurchases as an alternate mode of returning cash to shareholders. But, in general, the principle outlined by Buffett holds true.

On insurance operations

A sound insurance operation needs to adhere to four disciplines. It must (1) understand all exposures that might cause a policy to incur losses; (2) conservatively assess the likelihood of any exposure actually causing a loss and the probable cost if it does; (3) set a premium that, on average, will deliver a profit after both prospective loss costs and operating expenses are covered; and (4) be willing to walk away if the appropriate premium can’t be obtained. Many insurers pass the first three tests and flunk the fourth. They simply can’t turn their back on business that is being eagerly written by their competitors. That old line, “The other guy is doing it, so we must as well,” spells trouble in any business, but in none more so than insurance.

This is important bit of wisdom to be kept in mind, since we are seeing listed companies in this space now in India. Insurance is a long gestation business which has the potential to create significant wealth for shareholders.

My takeaways from Howard Marks' presentation

My notes from Howard Marks' presentation on 2-Mar-17:

• Definition of "great" companies is dubious. Very difficult to identify great companies over a very long period
 
• Investing is not a matter of buying good things, but buying things well (buying assets which are out of favour)
 
• Forecasting is not possible as the future is not knowable. Try to know the knowable. Focus on specific sectors, industries, companies
 
• The main decision to make at any point in time - whether to play defensive or offensive. You cannot play both at the same time.

• Low purchase price is more important than anything else (including quality of company)
 
• Have to think differently (variant perception) and better - need to have some knowledge different from everyone else
 
• Most investors behave pro-cyclically
 
• You need to have a philosophy and process that you can stick to even in most trying of times
 
• Most corrosive of emotions is to sit up and watch others make money
 
• Plan to survive the "worst day" in the market without having to sell. The challenge is we don't know what the "worst day" will look like, but can get an idea from the past.

• Hubris, ego, over-confidence are enemies of an investor
 
• Your approach needs to be consistent with your personality
 
• Turn cycles to your advantage
 
• Look at E/P and compare with interest rates to get a sense of overall market valuations

Overall, it was a great presentation with some very good Q&A. Thanks to Prof Bakshi for inviting me and hosting such a fabulous and memorable event.

Building the Right Investment Temperament - Excerpts from Howard Marks - Part 6

Finding bargains
• Investment is the discipline of relative selection
• Our goal isn't to find good assets, but good buys. Thus, it's not what you buy; it's what you pay for it.   
• The necessary condition for the existence of bargains is that perception has to be considerably worse than reality.

Ultimately, we are all looking to make money from stocks. So, even though HUL is a great business, it is unlikely to make to really wealthy. A good business is not always a good stock and vice versa.

Patient Opportunism
• Sometimes we maximize contribution by being discerning and relatively inactive. Patient opportunism - waiting for bargains - is often your best strategy.

Patience and being emotionally able to sit tight on a position or with cash is critical, although one of the toughest things to do. This is where the right investing temperament is required. As Jesse Livermore said famously and is also oft repeated by Charlie Munger, "Throughout all my years of investing I've found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was made in the waiting."

Having a sense of where we stand
• Most people strive to adjust their portfolios based in what they think lies ahead. At the same time, however, most people would admit forward visibility just isn't that great. That's why I make the case for responding to the current realities and their implications, as opposed to expecting the future to be made clear.

Move beyond "hope trades" to discerning what is going on in the markets today and calibrate your actions based on that.

Investing defensively
• If we avoid the losers, the winners will take care of themselves.
• Investing scared, requiring good value and a substantial margin for error, and being conscious of what you don't knowand can't control are hallmarks of the best investors I know.
• Worry about the possibility of loss. Worry that there's something you don't know. Worry that you can make high quality decisions but still be hit by bad luck or surprise events. Investing scared will prevent hubris; will keep your guard up and your mental adrenaline flowing; will make you insist on adequate margin of safety; and will increase the chances that your portfolio is prepared for things going wrong. And if nothing goes wrong, surely the winners will take care of themselves.

Avoiding Pitfalls
• The success of your investment actions shouldn't be highly dependent on normal outcomes prevailing; instead , you must allow for outliers.
• Loss of confidence and resolve can cause investors to sell at the bottom, converting downward fluctuations into permanent losses and preventing them from participating fully in the subsequent recovery.

Shit happens. Be prepared, atleast mentally to deal with it. Don't put all your eggs in one basket no matter how good and insulated the basket is!!

Reasonable Expectations
 • Investment expectations must be reasonable. Anything else will get you into trouble, usually through the acceptance of greater risk that is perceived.

Don't try to overreach. Having an unreal and unjustified return expectation is the beginning to investment mistakes. Don't pick a return (like 25% or 30% or 40%) out of thin air and hope to make that every year. It will necessarily make you do things which will eventually lead you to losses.

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This concludes the learning and musings from Howard marks' The Most Important Thing Illuminated.

You can read the previous posts in order:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Building the Right Investment Temperament - Excerpts from Howard Marks - Part 5

Being attentive to cycles
• Just about everything is cyclical. Cycles always prevail eventually. Nothing goes in one direction forever.
Awareness of the pendulum
• There are a few things of which we can be sure, and this is one: extreme market behaviour will reverse. Those who believe that the pendulum will move in one direction forever - or reside at an extreme forever - will eventually lose huge sums. Those who understand the pendulum's behaviour can benefit enormously.

This is one of my core beliefs. In sports, we call this by "law of averages" or "rub of the green". Mean reversion works, but in some cases, you may need to have a suitable long term time frame to judge its impact.

Combating negative influences
• Many people will reach similar cognitive conclusions from their analysis, but what they do with those conclusions varies all over the lot because psychology influences them differently. The biggest investing errors come not from factors that are informational or analytical, but from those that are psychological.
• From time to time greed drives investors to throw in their lot with the crowd in pursuit of profit, and eventually they pay the price. We must constantly be on the lookout for things that can't work in real life. In short, the process of investing requires a strong dose of disbelief. Inadequate skepticism contributes to investment losses.

Again, something very very core to my belief system. Temperament is what differentiates the good investor from the bad. And the ability to say "No" to things or stories that don't make sense regardless of who is saying it.

Contrarianism
• You must do things not just because they are the opposite of what the crowd is doing, but because you know why the crowd is wrong.
• Establishing and maintaining an unconventional investment profile requires acceptance of uncomfortable idiosyncratic portfolios, which frequently appear imprudent in the eyes of conventional wisdom.
• Only a skeptic can separate the things that sound good and are from the things that sound good and aren't. The best investors I know exemplify this trait. Skepticism and pessimism aren't synonymous. Skepticism calls for pessimism when optimism is excessive. But it also calls for optimism when pessimism is excessive.

Taking a view that is different from the majority is a psychologically difficult thing to do. But the best results are obtained by people who are able to stand apart from the crowd.

Guru Speak - Charlie Munger speaks at the Daily Journal annual meeting

Always instructive to hear Charlie Munger.

Building the Right Investment Temperament - Excerpts from Howard Marks - Part 4

Howard Marks has written extensively on risk and its management.

The riskiest things: the most dangerous investment conditions generally stem from psychology that's too positive. For this reason, fundamentals don't have to deteriorate in order for losses to occur; a downgrading of investor opinion will suffice. High prices often collapse of their own weight.

The greatest risk doesn't come from high quality or high volatility. It comes from paying prices that are too high. This isn't a theoretical risk; it's very real.

Most investors think quality, as opposed to price, is the determinant of whether something's risky. But high quality assets can be risky, and low quality assets can be safe.

Risk is inherent in the price you pay for stocks. The higher price you pay, the higher risk there is. Irrespective of the quality of the business.

The possibility of a variety of outcomes means we mustn't think of the future in terms of a single result but rather as a range of possibilities.

No one knows the future, so deterministic projections make little sense. It is better to think in terms of a range of outcomes that covers the most likely future scenarios.

Invariably things can get worse than people expect. Maybe "worst case" means "the worst we've seen in the past". But that doesn't mean things can't be worse in the future.

Careful risk controllers know they don't know the future. They know it can include some negative outcomes, not how bad they might be, or exactly what their probabilities are.

Case in point, 2008, was much worse that what most investors had expected.
 

I'm very happy with the phrase "perversity of risk". When investors feel risk is high, their actions serve to reduce risk. But when investors believe risk is low, they create dangerous conditions. The market is dynamic rather than static, and it behaves in ways that are counter-intuitive.

My core investment assumption is that the market is a complex adaptive system and is auto-correcting in nature. we cannot determine outcomes from a linear thought process.

The road to long-term investment success runs through risk control more than through aggressiveness. Over a full career, most investors' results will be determined more by how many losers they have, and how bad they are, than by the greatness of their winners.

If you minimize your losers, the winners will take of itself!

Building the Right Investment Temperament - Excerpts from Howard Marks - Part 3

There are two essential ingredients for profit in a declining market: you have to have a view on intrinsic value, and you have to hold that belief strongly enough to be able to hang in and buy as price decline suggests you are wrong. Oh yes, there's a third:you have to be right.

This will only come from experience of being right about your view.

For a value investor, price has to be the starting point. It has been demonstrated time and time again that no asset is so good that it can't become a bad investment if bought at too high a price. And there are a few assets so bad that they can't be a good investment when bought cheap enough.

There's no such thing as a good or bad idea regardless of price!

This is a critical point that people miss in their quest for "quality" stocks!! **Quality is not irrespective of price.**

Investing is a popularity content, and most dangerous thing is to buy something at the peak of popularity. At that point, all favourable facts and opinions are already factored into its price, and no new buyers are left to emerge.

There is no easy way of identifying when the peak of popularity is reached. But one should have a general sense of when prices have gone up way beyond their worth. And then the trick is to have the emotional fortitude of getting out of the position.

The safest and potentially mist profitable thing to do is to buy something when no one likes it. Given time, it's popularity, and thus it's price, can only go one way: up.

This requires a certain mindset of contrarianism and ability to sit through extended period of non-performance of stock price. This may specially be difficult when other stocks are running up consistently.