investment philosophies(投资金融学方面的书籍)ch1.pdfVIP

1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION We all dream of beating the market and being super investors and spend an inordinate amount of time and resources in this endeavor. Consequently, we are easy prey for the magic bullets and the secret formulae offered by eager salespeople pushing their wares. In spite of our best efforts, most of us fail in our attempts to be more than “average” investors. Nonetheless, we keep trying, hoping that we can be more like the investing legends – another Warren Buffett or Peter Lynch. We read the words written by and about successful investors, hoping to find in them the key to their stock-picking abilities, so that we can replicate them and become wealthy quickly. In our search, though, we are whipsawed by contradictions and anomalies. In one corner of the investment townsquare, stands one advisor, yelling to us to buy businesses with solid cash flows and liquid assets because that’s what worked for Buffett. In another corner, another investment expert cautions us that this approach worked only in the old world, and that in the new world of technology, we have to bet on companies with solid growth prospects. In yet another corner, stands a silver tongued salesperson with vivid charts and presents you with evidence of his capacity to get you in and out of markets at exactly the right times. It is not surprising that facing this cacophony of claims and counterclaims that we end up more confused than ever. In this chapter, we present the argument that to be successful with any investment strategy, you have to begin with an investment philosophy that is consistent at its core and which matches not only the markets you choose to invest in but your ind