Many people ask for simplifications - explanations that their 6-year old child or mother can understand. Surely there must be just a single sentence that can explain, how to be rich? Maxims such as, a bird in hand is worth two in a bush, or It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price, come to the mind of this investor. There is No Holy Grail Unfortunately, getting rich is simple, but not easy. It is simple and not rocke

Imagine an old man who’s spent his entire life up in a small town. He’s the Lifer. No detail of the goings-on in the town has escaped his notice over the years. He knows the lineage, behavior, attitudes, jobs, income, and social status of every person in town. Bit by bit, he built that knowledge up over a long period of observation and participation in town affairs. The Lifer knows where the bodies are buried and who buried them. He knows who owes money to whom, who gets alon

The average trader or investor believes that money is made by watching the stock market charts. He or she believes that there is a magic formula, through which the floor and ceiling or momentum of the stock market can be predicted with a very high probability if not certainty. Yet this method of trading has been criticised for its inconsistent and volatile results over the years. Per Share Value In contrast, one of this blogger's prescribed way of profitting in the stock ma

The preconception of investors is that they must be particularly intelligent to do what they do. They must know-it-all, and must be able to tell people about a phletora of different subject-matters, at the tip of their finger tips. Peter Lynch, in his book, One Up on Wall Street, may beg to differ. How to Use What You Already Know to Make Money in the Market Peter Lynch instead, goes sofar as to use the language, "dumb money". He argues that the average investor can profit

"And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good - Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?" Robert M Pirsig, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - an Inquiry into Values Is the above picture good, bad, or fair? Robert M Pirsig tells a story about his journey through America, in the 4-part book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It tells a story about himself, and his relationship with the motorcycle(s) he (and his son and 2 friends) use, as they cut ac

If you're going to invest money in something you want to be entirely certain in what you're doing. You want to cross every t and dot every i. You want to know every number there is to know. Some even take pride in their track record. It gets to the point where they are superconfident and superintense in their business dealings. You cannot, ever, get anything wrong. Gambling? At the other end of the extreme, is a belief that business and investing is like gambling. There

Everyday in the news we hear about the rise and rise of artificial intelligence - is a powerful computer or AI subscription all that we need nowadays to get rich? Historical Data Peter Bevelin had argued that as human beings, we would be wrong to rely exclusively on the reasonings and thinkings of a computer. In the infamous pre-2000 chess matchups between Gary Kasparov and the artificial intelligence, Deep Blue, it appeared that man may have had met its match in the game of

Glitz, glamour, trends and fads - if you're going to invest, you want to be the life of the party and the talk of the town with your selections. After all, growth goes onwards and upwards, if you choose the right business (technology). If you're going to do something, do it extraordinarily well? Do something hip, contemporary and something that is in the news all the time - something that you want to wake up for every single day. The popular belief is that the investing publi

Confucius said that real knowledge is knowing the extent of one’s ignorance. Aristotle and Socrates said the same thing. Is it a skill that can be taught or learned? It probably can, if you have enough of a stake riding on the outcome. Some people are extraordinarily good at knowing the limits of their knowledge, because they have to be. Think of somebody who’s been a professional tightrope walker for 20 years—and has survived. He couldn’t survive as a tightrope walker for 20

"Every morning, millions of Malaysians wake up surrounded by invisible fortunes; companies that generate 10x, 50x, even 100x returns for investors. Yet most people have no idea these wealth machines even exist. Meet Encik Rahman, a civil engineer in Kuala Lumpur. His day is about to reveal a secret: the greatest investment opportunities aren't always the ones with flashy logos or celebrity endorsements. They're hiding in plain sight, powering every moment of Malaysian life

Author John Huo in the Malaysian number one book bestseller, Malaysian Multibaggers, gives a blueprint for finding companies that delivered 10x-100x Returns on Bursa. He writes about the "genetic code" of a 100-bagger, and states that if you can find a company that has all four of these genes, you have found your "durian tree sapling". Indeed, it is a content heavy book that is rife with potential about succeeding on Bursa Malaysia, and particularly in the growth stocks (and

"KEEP A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF If you bend to every demand, there'll be nothing left to justify the transaction. And yet if you demand everything, there'll be no transaction. There's a great episode of Taxi in which Louie De Palma, the character played by Danny DeVito, is given an opportunity to literally fill in a blank check to complete a deal, and he pulls out his few remaining hairs in coming up with a figure. He knows there's a number that will make his benef

"Embracing “I’m not sure” is difficult. We are trained in school that saying “I don’t know” is a bad thing. Not knowing in school is considered a failure of learning. Write “I don’t know” as an answer on a test and your answer will be marked wrong. Duke, Annie. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts (pp. 26-27). Penguin Publishing Group." Annie Duke argues that life (and investing) is a lot more akin to poker than it is to chess. Chess, r

"The Battle of Long Island was a disaster for George Washington’s army. His ten thousand troops were crushed by the British and its four-hundred-ship fleet. But it could have been so much worse. It could have been the end of the Revolutionary War. All the British had to do was sail up the East River and Washington’s cornered troops would have been wiped out. But it never happened, because the wind wasn’t blowing in the right direction and sailing up the river became impossibl

Come war, oil supply shocks or a change in hegemony in the global economy, the belief is the Government is capable of and will take care of you. Inflation, interest rate, money supply, credit supply and even food on the table will all be taken care off to perfection by the Government of the day? Indeed, there are people who may even believe that water finds its level - that wealth will be redistributed from the rich to the poor! More taxes will be paid by the rich, and that