Zen- Vesting: The Road to Graham-and-Doddsville - The Journey's End

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by. And that has made all the difference." (Robert Frost)

Maybe there has not been anything in the investing world more talked of, and less understood, than outperformance. It is every investor's wish to outperform the peers and the relevant benchmark. And yet, the great majority of investors do not achieve it. However, do those investors live in a blind and eager pursuit of it. And the more haste they make about outperformance, the further they part from their journey's end.

Wall Street: The Beaten Track That Leads To Nowhere

Most investors are obsessed with outperformance. They follow the cry of the masses and dedicate most of the time scrutinizing the outcome of their actions, and compare it to those of their counterparts.

Investors listening to the siren sound of consistent outperformance should expect to end up on Wall Street. A place occupied by few wealthy and many filthy. They must expect to continue their days in wandering and error.

Wall Street is a beaten track that leads to nowhere and thus, is the most dangerous road to follow in investing. And their companions on this road, instead of helping, try to constantly misguide them. Sooner or later one of those investors following the way to Wall Street will stumble and fall. And then another tumbles upon him. And so they follow, one upon the neck of another, until the road is littered with the corpses of those misguided investors.

That is Wall Street. A street that turns out over and over again to be nothing else than a heap of miscarriages.

Off the Beaten Track to Investment Success: The Road to Graham-and-Doddsville

Let us now turn our attention to what it is the way we should be at in order to “outperform” the beaten track of Wall Street.

If we are on the right track, we will wonder why we are alone for such a long time. Furthermore, shall we find every day how much wisdom we have sought and attained concerning our investment process, companies, ourselves and about others, Irrespectively of the daily, monthly or yearly results of our action or inaction.

Hence, investors who have good chance to "outperform" the market on the long- run are highly concerned about their process. And they are concerned about taking along with them a reliable compass about the companies they invested in, themselves and about fellow investors on their journey. Those investors will end up off the beaten track. A track that leads them to a place of repose. To a little village called Graham-and-Doddsville.

The true felicity of life in Graham-and-Doddsville is that it is free from noise. Here the investor can enjoy the present without any anxious dependence upon the future. In this little village he does not have to amuse himself with either excessive hopes or fears. He can just rest satisfied with whatever security he is holding. Because the margin of safety is abundantly sufficient for the investor that is aware of its ignorance and does not expect anything.

Tranquillity is maybe the most important trait of a “Value Investor”. It is a certain equality of mind. And no condition of fortune and misfortune can either exalt or depress it. Nothing can make it less, because it is the state of the “Value Investor's” perfection.

The value investor that thinks independently, judges correctly, is persistent and enjoys a perpetual calm is the one that will be the most successful. Because he takes a true prospect of the companies he invests in, Mr. Market, live and himself. He observes an order and measure in investing and existence, and squares his professional and individual life in accordance with that reasoning.

He does care about his investments, about the market and life, but he does so without any trouble. And he does so with an indifference towards the wheel of fortune and the opinion of others. Most importantly does he not fear, because fear makes a discord. The investor that fears the market will serve the market. But the market will serve those who are tranquil in mind and patient.

The investor who wants to excel in the business of “Value investing” therefore should not follow the crowd, like lemmings. He must leave the crowd, and govern his actions by reason and not by example.

The question of successfully investing is not to be decided by vote. Far from it. The plurality of voices, especially when diversity has broken down, is an argument of the wrong. Common investors find it easier to believe than to judge. They content themselves with what is conventional, and never examine whether it is right or wrong.

 

Reference:

Frances and Henry Hazlitt; The Wisdom of the Stoics; University Press of America 1984