Insights

The recently deceased Nobel Prize winner, Daniel Kahneman, once wrote that overconfidence is “the most significant of the cognitive biases.” Using compelling examples from various fields, the author advises both individuals and organizations to reflect on how to avoid overconfidence and strive to be “less wrong.” From thinking in confidence intervals to considering the average opinion and relying on data, investors and investment firms can likely improve personal and professional performance. Investors should trade less often and sell their losers while organizations should find ways to reward well-intentioned failure. The book may help investors better calibrate their own confidence and help take Voltaire’s words to heart: “Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is an absurd one.”

We have read a lot of books about great investors. This one sticks out as particularly insightful and easy to read. The investors range from the very well known, like Bill Miller and Charlie Munger, to the less well known, like Nick Sleep and Arnold Van Den Berg. The author interviewed these legendary investors on multiple occasions over many years and their subtle wisdom jumps off the pages. The writing flows and is a pleasure to read – we suspect this will become a classic over time.

Gallwey, a tennis pro, encourages his students to embrace and works toward “relaxed concentration.” Rather than obsess over minute technical details, tennis players are probably better served to stop trying so hard, calm their mind, and focus on the play at hand. We think many investors would be well served to read this book, let go of their personal criticisms, and let the market’s opportunities happen as they will.

For those of us that have yet to tackle the very well-regarded From Third World to First: The Singapore Story – 1965-2000, this book may serve as a handy “warm-up.” Yew led a small island-nation in Southeast Asia in 1965 with a very diverse population into one of the economic centers of the world. This book presents his views on topics ranging from China’s ambitions to the United States' superpower status and his preference for following “what works.” Investors should be eager to study an individual that Henry Kissinger described as “a man of unmatched intelligence and judgment.” One of our favorite investors, the late Charlie Munger, clearly appreciated Yew’s teachings as his home contained just two busts; one of Benjamin Franklin and the other of Lee Kuan Yew.

Lower turnover, long-only fundamental equity investors may not appreciate this book. However, as committed “no-averaging-down” investors, we think this book offers something for all investors. The author spends the first half of the book diving into the importance of grit, self-control, and self-discipline. We preferred the second half that detailed the importance of risk controls and money management techniques.

The book provides a collection of tools for minimizing bias, so decisions and forecasts are made in a rational fashion. The author catalogues frameworks developed over six decades of working with U.S. intelligence agencies where poor analysis can result in lost lives. While our decisions do not have fatal consequences, they can impact the financial lives of our clients, something we feel the utmost responsibility of protecting. This book aided us in our never-ending quest of improving the way we process and act upon information.

With the arrival of a bitcoin ETF this month, we thought we would share some of our favorite books and sites on the topic. Some of us find it particularly fascinating, especially as the daily bitcoin production will decline from 900 bitcoins per day (well below the 7,200 bitcoins per day when the illusive Satoshi Nakamoto developed Bitcoin during the GFC) to just 450 bitcoins per day in April 2024; dramatically increasing bitcoin mining breakeven costs. Macroeconomic analyst and electrical engineer by training, Lyn Alden, provides the most comprehensive deep dive into the topic with her Broken Money book, but we suspect many investors are looking for easier reads. We enjoyed these quick, but technical, reads from a software developer and an engineer to provide a basic understanding of how the network works. Many hard money advocates and Austrian economists suggest the financial world struggled through the Bretton Woods era (reads like a Russian spy novel), completely lost its mooring when the economy lost its connection to gold in 1971, and dream of a Bitcoin Standard. Professors, financial advisors, and entrepreneurs have written interesting books on the topic, tried to model its value, and develop helpful sites for potential investors.

One of our favorite investors, the recently deceased Charlie Munger, clearly appreciated Yew’s teachings as his home contains just two busts: one of Benjamin Franklin and the other of Lee Kuan Yew. In this podcast, Munger described him as “the greatest nation builder that ever existed, including Pericles and everybody in all history. ”For those of us that have yet to tackle the very well-regarded From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965 - 2000, this book may serve as a handy 'warm-up.' Yew led a small island-nation in Southeast Asia in 1965 with a very diverse population into one of the economic centers of the world. This book presents his views on topics ranging from China’s ambitions to the United States’ superpower status and his preference for following 'what works.' Investors should be eager to study an individual that Henry Kissinger described as “a man of unmatched intelligence and judgment.”