Nabil

Investing and learning

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

Maya Angelou said it right:

“Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn't know before you learned it.”

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

I’m in love with this sentence:

“The art of not being ready and doing it anyway will take you so far.”

[Nabil @casabeach]

@TedHZhang A father’s good spirit lives on through his son 🙏

[Steve Burns @SJosephBurns]

This is how you explain a STOP LOSS to new traders.

[Ted Zhang @TedHZhang]

Quote of the Day:

"Remove hope from your trading lexicon. Hoping a stock will do something is the true form of gambling."

~ Jesse Livermore

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

I get blown away every time I read this paragraph by Carl Jung:

To love someone else is easy, but to love what you are, the thing that is yourself, is just as if you were embracing a glowing red-hot iron: it burns into you and that is very painful. Therefore, to love somebody else in the first place is always an escape which we all hope for, and we all enjoy it when we are capable of it. But in the long run, it comes back on us. You cannot stay away from yourself forever, you have to return, have to come to that experiment, to know whether you really can love. That is the question-whether you can love yourself, and that will be the test.

[Mindset Machine  @mindsetmachine]

I come back to this speech every week

[Steve Burns @SJosephBurns]

"Be patient, keep studying, and be 100% prepared. Later, at the least expected time, when all the news is terrible, winter will ultimately pass and a great new bull market will suddenly spring to life."

- William O'Neil

[Muthukrishnan Dhandapani @dmuthuk]

"If you buy at 16, which is the average PE, you'll get the average return, which is 10. If you buy at a PE of 22, which is high, you get two to minus two, which is low. If you buy at eight, which is low, you might get a return of 15-20, which is high. The higher the price you pay, the lower you return, makes sense.

But of course, if you're a real long term holder and indifferent, you just strap yourself in and you hold for the long run and you hope once you get past your period of overpricing and underperformance that you regress toward 10. But if you bought in 2000, which I mentioned I think you made no money for the next 12 years. That was an extreme overvaluation, but valuation matters." - Howard Marks

[Steve Burns @SJosephBurns]

Charlie Munger: "If you just get up every morning and keep plugging [away] and have some discipline and keep learning, it's amazing how it works out okay."

"I did not intend to get rich — I wanted to get independent — and just overshot."

[Muthukrishnan Dhandapani @dmuthuk]

"Since World War II, if you average everything out, the Dow, the S&P 500, the big American companies making real products earning real profits, you'll notice something strangely consistent.

The market almost always trades between 10 times earnings and 20 times earnings. That's the range. 10 to 20. It's like the market's resting heart rate, healthy, normal, predictable in a weird human nature kind of way.

Below 10, people are terrified. They think the world is ending. The economy is dying and capitalism is going to be replaced by goat farming. Above 20, people are euphoric. They think they've discovered a financial fountain of youth and stocks will rise forever powered by optimism and caffeine.

This pattern isn't theory. It's not a model. It's not my opinion. It's simply what has happened for more than half a century." - Peter Lynch

[Finding Compounders @F_Compounders]

A tour of Warren Buffett’s office

[Jack @alphacharts365]

Stanley Druckenmiller's Investing Framework:

1. Top-Down Global Macro Framework
- Starts with the big picture: central bank policy, interest rates, currency regimes, inflation/deflation, growth vs. recession regimes.
- Constantly asks: “What is the current economic regime, and what is priced in?”

2. Liquidity is King
- One of his most famous quotes: “I never use valuation to time the market. I use liquidity.”

3. High Conviction + Extreme Concentration
- Regularly puts 20–30% (sometimes more) of the portfolio into a single idea when conviction is highest.

4. Asymmetric Risk/Reward & Aggressive Sizing
- Focuses on trades where the upside is multiples of the downside.

5. Quick to Admit When Wrong (Short Holding Periods When Losing)
- Average winning position is held for years; average losing position is cut in weeks or months.

6. Regime Change Detection
- Obsessed with identifying when the old trend is ending and a new macro regime is beginning.
- Examples:

7. No Permanent Ideology – Pure Pragmatism
- Has been long and short the same asset at different times with equal conviction.

In his own words:
- “The most important thing is having the right liquidity framework and understanding where we are in the economic cycle.”

- “Earnings don’t move the overall market; it’s the Federal Reserve Board… focus on the central banks and focus on the movement of liquidity.”

- “When I see a bubble forming, I rush in to buy, adding fuel to the fire. That’s not irrational; that’s the trend.”

[Steve Burns @SJosephBurns]

“In the end, it’s all pattern recognition. And mathematics is the ultimate pattern-recognition machine.”

- Jim Simons

[Vitaliy Katsenelson @vitaliyk]

Time feels different at 52 than at 25. My kids don’t need help tying their shoes anymore. There’s a quiet shift when you realize you’ve gone from being their entire world to becoming a chapter in their expanding life.

My father passed a few years ago. My mom passed when I was eleven. I live with the unfortunate truth of knowing exactly how many more moments I’ll have with them, and the number is zero.

I’d trade everything I’ve earned for one more hour with them.

Seneca said "Life isn’t short, we just waste it." I’ve wasted plenty. I’ve rushed when I should have slowed down. I’ve attended meetings that drained life instead of adding value. I’ve said yes when I should have kindly said no.

Marcus Aurelius said: “You could leave life right now.” One day you’ll wake up for the last time and not know it. That doesn’t depress me. It sharpens me. It brings everything into focus.

Mortality shows up quietly: a child outgrowing a phase, laughter at the dinner table evolving into deeper conversations, friends moving away as life reshuffles itself, opportunities you once assumed would always be there slowly fading.

I’m not trying to optimize every second. That’s a stress trap. I’m choosing what matters.

If I don’t want to spend time with someone, I don’t.
If something drains me, I drop it.
If I’m tired, I rest.
If one of my kids wants to talk, I close the laptop.
When I care, I go deep.

And here’s the upside: when I spend time with someone, they know I truly want to be there. I show up with more presence, more patience, more warmth. I connect more honestly. I feel more like myself because everything I’m doing is aligned with who I choose to be. I’m living by design, not by inertia.

I’ve lost money. I’ve made bad decisions. Money is replaceable, time isn’t.

Many people talk about urgency and clarity that mortality brings. My perspective is different: don’t treat time as a motivator — use it as a filter.

If I had ten good years left instead of forty, I wouldn’t retreat from life. I’d let go of more nonsense. I’d keep fewer grudges. I’d be slower to irritation and quicker to laughter.

Mortality is a filter. It quietly asks:
Is this how you want to spend today?
Is this conversation worth having?
Is this relationship worth nurturing?
Is this work worthy of your life-force?

I’ve had the very human misfortune of attending many funerals over the years. Don’t wait for tragedy to wake you up to what you already know.

The reminders are around you: in your relationships, your aging body, your memories, the irreplaceable moments that slip by unless you notice them.

“You have two lives, and your second life starts when you realize you only have one.”
– Confucius

[Steve Burns @SJosephBurns]

“Luck can come and go, but a solid strategy and disciplined execution are what lead to consistent results.” - Jim Simons

[Jay Yang @Jayyanginspires]

A wise mentor once told me: “Before you play the game, study the winners. If you don’t want their life, don’t play their game.”

[Muthukrishnan Dhandapani @dmuthuk]

"Worry about the possibility of loss. Worry that there’s something you don’t know. Worry that you can make high-quality decisions but still be hit by bad luck or surprise events.

Investing scared will prevent hubris; will keep your guard up and your mental adrenaline flowing; will make you insist on an adequate margin of safety; and will increase the chances that your portfolio is prepared for things going wrong.

And if nothing does go wrong, surely the winners will take care of themselves." - Howard Marks

[Muthukrishnan Dhandapani @dmuthuk]

“If you look at the earnings and the p/e ratio together, you can save yourself a lot of grief. A company can be growing at 25 or 30 percent a year, but if the p/e is 50 or 60, you’re paying for the next ten years of growth in advance. The stock has already discounted all the good news. One little hiccup and you’re dead.

But the same company growing 25–30 percent a year selling at 12 or 14 times earnings is a totally different story. That’s the kind of situation where you can make five or ten times your money.” - Peter Lynch

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

“Read books because you will never be able to meet and spend uninterrupted time with the thoughts of so many brilliant and unique people.”

― Mark Manson