Your first approach to “Value” is critical. So it’s important to have and education about this as a young individual. Or, even if you don’t start very young, your first understanding of investing is equally important. I find totally unuseful to talk for hours with people that already think they know about stocks or investing and are completely out of tune about me being a supporter of “Graham and Doddsville” and of course of Buffett as a second stage of the same original background. You can’t easily break the chains of habit if you don’t agree immediately that every good investment is a Value Investment by definition!
It’s true if you, as a Grahamite, like to buy cheap stocks when are mispriced, and its true when, since times are changed, you buy a wonderful business at a reasonable, not cheap anymore but fair price. Buffett is not so known as you think. And then there are many Buffetts in a timeframe of more than seven decades. So, which one? The “learning machine” changed a lot because he’s smart and always learning, and times have been changing a lot during the span of his entire life-time. So everybody knows the same old stereotypes and stories, especially the professionals of money-managing. They know a little bit of everything, so this little-bit applies also to the greatest investor ever-existed. It takes a while and a big effort to study exclusively a single investor, a single man, for many years everyday to be able to understand more than seven decades of investing and quotes, articles, videos, interviews, letters, shareholders meetings. It’s a lot. And it’s a very very narrow circle of competence. Say, one! Like owning and cherish just one stock for an entire life, and never sell! Does that make sense to you? If it doesn’t we are not on the same page. And I tell you what: it’s just the beginning…. (to be continued)