Successful investing is hard work because it means disciplining your mind to do the opposite of human nature. Buying during a panic, selling during euphoria, and holding on when you are bored and crave action.

More from Ian Cassel

Great post. Lots of similarities with how you invest and successful microcap investing. The first bet is about the broad strokes. The subsequent bets is when you see the details fill in and average up. Buy low and then don’t be afraid to buy higher - sometimes aggressively.

Spoke to a group of students from London School of Economics this morning. So many great questions. As usual, multiple Qs gravitate around \u201chow do you know?\u201d Or how did you know or how could you know? It\u2019s the reason I wrote this. https://t.co/aECMjIFxw0
— Ho Nam (@honam) June 27, 2021

Ian Cassel
@iancassel

One of my favorite

Forbes estimates that Beanie Baby creator Ty Warner’ net worth is $2.7 Billion. This is an amazing achievement considering a bulk of it was earned during a 3-year time frame selling a $5 per unit stuffed animal.

The fact that Ty Warner’s Beanie Babies were able, without the benefit of a single ad, to outpace the combined annual profits of the largest toymakers in the world for even a few years is unprecedented.

To illustrate how quickly the bubble grew - In 1995, Ty Warner’s company Ty Inc had sales of roughly $28 million. In 1996 sales were $280 million with $90 million in pre-tax income. By 1998, Ty Inc sales reached $1.34 billion with pre-tax income of $700 million.

In Ebay’s 1998 Annual Report it disclosed Beanie Babies as material. “At times, approximately 7% of our listings involved Beanie Babies”. Furthermore, it was said that 10% of Ebay sales at the time were derived from Beanie Babies.

Ian Cassel
@iancassel

I became financially independent in 2008 at age 27. Or as my Father likes to say, I retired. Yeah right. It’s more like you exchange security for total insecurity.

I get asked a lot about how much capital you need to become a full-time investor. That answer will be different for everyone. It’s a personal decision. I was single with no kids living in Lancaster, PA. It was a great time to make that decision.

I would say a much better question is how much pain can you endure.

Can you sustain a 30-40-50% drawdown while also drawing it down to pay bills?

How would this affect you emotionally, psychologically?

Would two or three bad years in a row cripple you?

At what point would your investment strategy start to crumble by these emotions?

At what point does my advantage of “focus on the long-term” shift to “this next quarter needs to be good” or else..

Am I mentally prepared to perhaps go to my wife and tell her I failed and can’t support us anymore? That I need to get a job, that she needs to get a job.

Ian Cassel
@iancassel

Your portfolio will naturally concentrate itself, the way it should be, into your winners if you just stay out of the way.

Ian Cassel
@iancassel

We are all fighting the same battles: Riding a winner deciding if you should hold it. Holding a loser deciding if you should sell it. Sticking with a stock that has gone nowhere for quarters/years questioning your thesis. You aren’t alone. We are all fighting the same battles.

More from Wise investing

ValueStockGeek
@ValueStockGeek

Things I learned from back tests:

1) Value works. It really doesn't matter what the metric is.
2) Bad balance sheets are fine until there's a 2008.
3) Ignoring valuation works until there is a 2000.
4) There isn't a an all-equity portfolio that will resist a 2008/73-74.

I also found a bunch of strategies that delivered 20% CAGR's and at some point had a catastrophic drawdown. Also found strategies that seemed 'safe' with hyper CAGR's like 20%+ that stopped working the moment I invested in them. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Ram Bhupatiraju
@RamBhupatiraju

Ben Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" is a horrible book if you're using it purely for the quant formulas in today's Markets, but probably THE BEST BOOK if you're interested in learning about the core investing concepts, and eternal truths about the Markets & its participants.

Below are few of my fav quotes organized by topic.

1⃣ Discipline

2⃣ Investing vs Speculation

3⃣ Mr. Market

4⃣ Bear Markets

Vetris_stocks
@vetris_stocks

Investing tid bits..

Size of your
REWARD and TALENT

Stock market is the only place where the size of the REWARD is far higher than the TALENT

I am an above average ordinary individual. But the markets have rewarded me hugely.

All it needs - Passion, Learing & temperament

D.Muthukrishnan
@dmuthuk

Stocks are bought and sold based on short term price movements. Even institutions don't take more than four quarters view. As an individual investor, you can completely ignore short term and take a decadal view. That's why each one gets different result from the same stock.

Tren Griffin
@trengriffin

@morganhousel Expected long-term cash flows, discounted by the cost of capital—not reported earnings—determine long-term stock prices.

In the short-term, Mr Market is bipolar and very susceptible to stories and what is fashionable.

The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x

$Brianne Kimmel \U0001f4ac$

Brianne Kimmel 💬...
@briannekimmel

Shocking fact: Millennial men are less likely to work than any other age and gender demographic in America.

Today, there are 500,000 young men missing from the U.S. workforce.

Research suggests video games & improved leisure tech plays a role in the problem. 👇 Thread:

Following the 2007 to 2009 recession, 25 to 34 year old men exited high school with fewer middle-skill job opportunities than years prior.

During this time, we saw an increased number of men living with parents & choosing unemployment over lower paying jobs.

It's estimated that 24M millennials live w/ their parents.

1 in 4 living in their parents’ home neither go to school nor work.

What's more surprising? 9 in 10 who lived with their parents a year ago are still living there w/ no plans to leave.

Economists are calling millennial men a lost generation.

According to economist David Dorn:

“If you get to the point where you’re turning 30, you’ve never held a real job and you don’t have a college education, then it is very hard to recover at that point.”

Economists suggest this choosiness is a generational trait.

Forbes interview w/ a high school educated man:

"I’m very quick to get frustrated when people refuse to pay me what I’m worth."
“People feel that they have choice nowadays, and they

Indian Quant
@indian_quant

Nano Course On Python For Trading
==========================
Module 1

Python makes it very easy to analyze and visualize time series data when you’re a beginner. It's easier when you don't have to install python on your PC (that's why it's a nano course, you'll learn python...

... on the go). You will not be required to install python in your PC but you will be using an amazing python editor, Google Colab Visit https://t.co/EZt0agsdlV

This course is for anyone out there who is confused, frustrated, and just wants this python/finance thing to work!

In Module 1 of this Nano course, we will learn about :

# Using Google Colab
# Importing libraries
# Making a Random Time Series of Black Field Research Stock (fictional)

# Using Google Colab

Intro link is here on YT: https://t.co/MqMSDBaQri

Create a new Notebook at https://t.co/EZt0agsdlV and name it AnythingOfYourChoice.ipynb

You got your notebook ready and now the game is on!
You can add code in these cells and add as many cells as you want

# Importing Libraries

Imports are pretty standard, with a few exceptions.
For the most part, you can import your libraries by running the import.
Type this in the first cell you see. You need not worry about what each of these does, we will understand it later.