Confessions of Stock Market Wizards

Name of Book:- Confessions of Stock Market Wizards

Author: - Safir Anand

No of Chapters: -26

Number of Pages: - 305

One line Description of the book: - Learn from top investors of India

What this book is about: -The Book is a collection of thoughts, mistakes, strategies and methods followed by top investors of India. The book includes thoughts of Ramesh Damani, Sanjay Bakshi, Devina Mehra, Raamdeo Agarwal, Sankaren Naren, Vijay Kedia, Amisha Vora and many more. Book provides beautiful insights how these big investor handles crisis situations, importance of team discussion about investment and acceptance of mistakes in ever changing scenario of Indian financial landscape.  

Some of the common points shared by various investors in this book are: -

1.     Reading is one of the most common things between these investors. They regularly keep on reading books, newspapers, journals to expand their circle of competence. Some of the investors even recommend reading fictions to understand psychology of characters involved in fiction.

2.     Mistakes are inevitable in market; they keep on happening despite putting best efforts and new mistakes will keep on coming. The method adopted by these investors  is accept your mistake as quickly as possible, take corrective action and learn from them.

3.      Investors should always be open to reverse their decision, if their decision has gone wrong.

4.      Every crisis or market crash is an opportunity for creation of wealth.

5.      Have a well-documented process in place for ease of screening companies for investment.

6.      Holding a company forever is applicable till the company is growing.

7.     In any investment decision, some of the obvious things like management with dubious track record, high debt can easily used for elimination process.

8.     Nobody in this market has 100 percent track record. The only thing we need to look is to have more rights than wrongs in our portfolio.

9.     Always keep on selling popular stocks to ensure outperformance of your portfolio. When mutual funds are launching thematic funds, then time for exiting that theme has come.

10.   Leave your ego. You can fail anytime in market, accept the fact.

11.   Have a well-structured checklist in place for scanning the companies and keep on updating this checklist.

12.   Always look for value buying to create wealth over a period. Have a list of good value companies with price range to buy at time of distress in market.

13.  Overreliance on historical data can cause severe mistake, as past performance is never guaranteed in market.

14.   Decisions for buying or selling must be support by data.

15.   Tenth Men rule:- 10th Men will always challenges the consensus decision.

16.   Be ruthless in removing bad investments from your portfolio in case of portfolio rebalancing.

17.   Follow 3 U principle:- Under-Valued, Under-Owned and Under-Performing for better results in portfolio.

18.   Improper allocation and selling the winners early are two most common mistakes made by most investors.

19.   Remember that stock market is indifferent to your emotions and ego.

 Recommended reading material: -

1.     Thinking, fast and slow: - Daniel Kahneman

2.     Margin of Safey: - Seth Klarman

3.     A Zebra in Lion Country: - Ralph Wanger

4.     Value Investing: - James Montier

5.     The Zurich Axioms: - Max Gunther

6.     Winning the Loser’s Game: - Charles Ellis

7.     Shoe Dog: - Phil Knight

8.     The Art of Thinking clearly: - Rolf Dobelli

9.     A Man for all markets: - Edward O Thorp

10.  The Man who solved the market: - Gregory Zuckerman

11.  Unflattening: - Nick Sousanis

12.  Market Wizards: - Jack Schwager

13.  Reminiscences of Stock Operator: - The life and times of Jessie Livermore

Final Thoughts:- This is one of the finest book that share insights from top investors of India on various aspects of investing. Book is a must read for one who wants to expand their investing knowledge and be a better investor.

Buy it here