Some Investing Things I Think (In No Particular Order)

• If you find a business you want to own and the only thing holding you back is valuation, maybe it's time to start a small position and follow it with the goal of adding down the line opportunistically.
• Adding to winners is tough at first but it gets easier the more you do it. Think about it this way: A good company doesn’t continue to throw resources at losing ideas. It finds the winning ideas and devotes resources to those.
• A great aspect of diversity in one’s stock portfolio is that it helps prevent selling potential big winners too early. Spread that money out and it’s easier to keep truckin’ on.
• Some basic qualifications that I like to see met before I consider digging in deeper to an idea: I need to understand the business and want to follow it, I need to believe in leadership, I need a short-term event or long-term trend that will create value and I need a fair price.
• When an investment thesis is busted don't just assume selling is the sensible next step. The next step is to determine if there is still value to be recognized; often times there is. Always aim to take the longest timeline you possibly can.
• There’s a certain satisfaction in supporting the companies in which you own shares.
• Buy quality businesses with a long-term mindset. Information travels today at the speed of light. No business is immune to the daily machinations of the market and even the great ones will suffer from time to time. The big difference though is that in time, it’s the quality holdings that recover and continue their march upward. Because they’re quality holdings.
• Sometimes you need to be content with just taking a pass on something because you know you don’t know enough about it. Just be OK with taking a pass and missing it if you can’t crystallize the thinking on why it’s a good idea.
• One of the toughest things to do is to separate your personal feelings about a product/service/idea from those of the greater market opportunity. Just because you like it doesn’t mean everyone else does too. And just because you hate it doesn’t mean everyone else hates it too.
• Often the best action is inaction. Whatever has you all worked up, just sleep on it. Chances are things will make more sense with a little more thinking, time and patience.
• In investing and in life often you can find more value in being wrong than being right. Embrace mistakes, be humble and always keep an open mind. No matter what you may think you know, there’s always someone out there smarter than you.
• Good investing is less about making awesome decisions and more about just not making stupid decisions.
• While it’s not a strategy, don’t dismiss the power of house money. Getting shares for free is pretty compelling.
• So many people view investing in stocks as “too risky” however the data over the long-term clearly shows that the bigger risk is not investing at all.
• Don’t be a contrarian just for contrarian’s sake; it's not an endearing quality. Have a compelling reason(s) to take the other side of the coin.
• If you’re picking stocks you are going to have winners and you are going to have losers. Your winners speak for themselves. Make sure to have the humility to embrace your losers, shine a light on them and learn lessons from them. (There are also plenty of lessons to learn from winners as well).
• You will never buy at the bottom nor sell at the top. Get used to it.
• Never deny the role that good old-fashioned luck (or whatever you prefer to call it) plays in our lives. Most things are completely out of our control.