I found myself laughing out loud earlier today. Do you ever believe in something enough to stake your entire life on it? I didn’t think I did either, but that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’ve even been advised to seek psychological counseling, but didn’t pursue it because I believe in statistics. It bothers my friends and family to know that I’d rather spend my time undressing financial reports than in bed with a super model. Yeah, I’m crazy.
I went through the routine motions that I was the stereotypical path for success till about age 22. I was a 3.9 at Penn High School, 3.9 Purdue Industrial Engineer — working for GE to pay for college — and then something clicked. My experience pursuing an MBA turned from a crisp classic corvette weaving down the Transfagarasan on a warm summer night into a slow motion head on collision. I became addicted to the academically destructive habit of questioning underlying assumptions. Nothing was safe. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on if you’re my teacher or my investor I was positively reinforcing another habit — Thinking for myself.
I would say that a lot of things amaze me, but everything makes sense when you’re looking at it from the right angle. It’s just that this is a rare skill to have.
I’m only interested in learning about things that I can use. I’m terrible at crosswords, random trivia, and Jeopardy. I specialize in avoiding things I suck at.
Inefficiency bothers some people, but I try to make the most of it. Up till about age 20, I was told that for the most part I sucked at writing. I didn’t really like reading books. I still don’t like reading those types of books. I like reading manuals, financial reports, economic statistics, and musings of millionaires/billionaires. I figure, they ought to know something that I ought to try to learn. Anyway, somehow I write for the largest financial publication in the world now. I guess it’s in the family, as my dad enjoyed writing sports for 25 years and my uncle was an editor at the local tribune. My dad even wrote a few books that I haven’t read. It’s worth noting that I’m not even concerned that I don’t feel bad about this. Reading about women’s sports just isn’t making the top of my to-do list. Is there such a thing as Financial Humor? That’s something that I should start doing. I bet I wouldn’t suck at that. I giggle when stock prices go down. It’s funny to me when the cheapest companies in the world get cheaper. Nobody understood them to begin with. Why should more people understand them enough to buy them? There just is a shortage of intelligence out there. Everyone enjoys joining the crowded trades and losing money. Plus the really smart people out there know that this is possible and just wait for lower prices anyway. Others’ panic is their profit. What does really cheap mean to me? P/E of about 0.25 and growth.
I’d try to write a book, but I just can’t dedicate that much time to completing something. That’s why I like stocks. Once I convince myself that I should buy them, I don’t have to explain my reasoning, I just buy. The edge goes to those who can get the right answer in the least amount of time. I was terrible at showing work throughout engineering and math classes. Sometimes, I’d have to reverse derive the question from the answer… just to have stuff written down in the “show your work” section of homework/exams.