“Advice to new investor” from super-investors.

RAMESH
​

​DAMANI
● Understanding the power to compounding early in the life is
very important.
● It is very important to have independent thinking with integrity.
● One should have their own thought process.
● Make investment decision based on your own investment
decision.
● Making money is more enjoyable than actually spending it.
● One should maintain individual frugality.
● You don’t need a 180 I.Q. in the stock market, it is fine to have
I.Q. of 110-120. (Warren Buffett)
● People try to be super smart, time the market, & stumble along
the way. You should approach it the right way.
● The market values Integrity, Intellectual independence, &
Patience.
● Too clever by half people lose more than what they bargain for,
by trying to be very smart.
● The market is graveyard, with tombstones of people who failed.
● The successful people are those who buy good business & keep
them.
● It is not a place to get rich quick – one in a million might do it.
● Market is a place to create long – term wealth. Legends are told
of how successful one has become so soon, but that’s not true.
We all grind it out for years​.

​RAAMDEO

​AGRAWAL
● First is to be very positive.
● Second is having patience.
● The one who has vision, courage & patience makes the most
money.
● Patience is the most difficult.
● Equity is about investing in future.
● Knowing your Circle of Competence is very necessary.
● Don’t be a short-term oriented.
● Starting early at the age of 23-24 years is very important to see
the history of companies unfolding over a period of time.
● Being ambitious is important but doing it the right way is
equally important.
● You should not be hesitant to do things differently.
● There will be hundred people going the beaten path, you have
to find your own.
● Most people fail due to their behaviour.
● Most people fail because they think they are too smart.
● Markets don’t require half the I.Q. of IIT-IIM type people have.
● One needs to be very patient.
● Everyone will have their own path.
● People with little money have a better chance to make it big
than people coming from a comfortable background.
● It is important to be in a field with strong tailwinds.
● Don’t forget the rule no. 1 – don’t lose money & rule no. 2 – do
not forget rule no. 1 (Warren Buffett). Buy stocks in a way that
you don’t lose money.
​RAJASHEKHAR
​IYER
● One very important habit is to rely on your own thinking.
● Reading is a very important habit.
● Reading books written by successful investors will help you
develop your own approach to the market.
● Writing down what you are doing & the reasons why you are
doing it – whether it is buying a stock, selling a stock or not
selling a stock – is useful.
● Don’t let the fear of missing out drive your actions.
● Taking random decisions is one of the easiest but also one of
the worst habits to fall into.
● Motivation, self-confidence & the ability to work hard on
learning & practice – are the things that keeps you going.
● In investing, what other people think of you doesn’t make any
difference. If you are right, you will make money.
● Operate on your own confidence & judgement you form.
● You don’t have to look for endorsement from others.
● If you are convinced of your contrarian view, it is great.
● Rely on yourself & it only comes from self-confidence.
● You have to figure out what works for u & what not, don’t rely
on someone else’s view.
● Hard work means reading more, thinking more & analysing
yourself as much as external analysis.
● Listen carefully don’t be in a hurry to jump to any conclusion.
● Evaluating & decision making comes later – first you have to
capture everything, even seemingly irrelevant stuff.
● Find big winners, manage drawdowns, & figure out the big
trends in the market.
● The index only indicates the broad trends in the market.
● We need to remain focused on trying to figure out which
companies & stocks are likely to be the better performers over
a longer period of time, it is possible to pick stocks that will turn
out to be big winners in the market.
● Finding big winners is the key & it is relatively easier for small
investors than large portfolios because they have greater
choice.
● Allocating meaningful money to your best ideas can be
challenging as your portfolio size grows.
● You need to manage your drawdowns well.
● Drawdown management requires good risk management
processes & decisive decision-making. You have to survive to
succeed.
● The final thing - if you need one skill in the market that is more
important than researching & valuing stocks, it is the skill to
know when a bear market or a bull market is starting.
● The ability to recognize when the bull market is over is very
important if you don’t want to give up a large portion of the
 gains made in the bull market. Figuring this out requires a good
understanding of history.
● Reading & re-reading books written by successful investors &
traders, & relating them to your own experiences will help.
● Your biggest enemy in search of a fortune may be your own
thinking patterns.

ANIL GOEL
​

● Stock market is one of the most attractive places to be in.

● One should have a critical thinking ability & a questioning mind.
● It’s important to lead a disciplined life; only that can give clarity
of mind. It helps to follow a daily schedule & also motivate
oneself daily.
● One should remain within its Circle of Competence.
● Don’t venture into sectors where you don’t have competence.
● Don’t get married to a stock.
● Be quick in changing mind & being aware of new
developments.
● Many investors try to do everything – they chase whatever is in
fancy. (Don’t do that).
● Many investors stray outside their Circle of Competence & are
not focused. (Don’t do that).

​GOVIND
​PARIKH
● Humility is the most important attribute that one should have.
● The market on the whole is bigger than any individual investor,
so one has to be humble.
● Discipline & patience are important attribute.
● One has to be open minded & quick to correct its mistakes
which is very important to be a good investor.
● One should read as much as possible & meet as many experts
as possible – both investors & companies.
● One should look at long term picture.
● One factor that makes lot of investor fail in the market is by
being arrogant & over confident.
● People have made a lot of mistakes by looking short term only.
● Many smart people don’t create bear market buying power.
They think they are too smart, but the market is a jungle with
different animals thinking differently – that’s why it is called the
‘Market’.
● Stock market is not a rocket science.
● People make market complex by trying too hard and miss
simple things.
● When correction happens, one has to be alert.
● A lot of people who go short on the market keep lowering the
target price & do not cover their position & same thing with
selling also, same people keep raising the target & forget all
their investment rationale.
● So many things are visibly wrong but people don’t see them.
● Sell, regret (when price go up after you sell) & grow rich (when
the prices come down later & you have cash to deploy).
● In today’s condition one should target 20-25% CAGR.
● Once one hit big take then one should take out same cash &
follow the same principle again with the rest of the money.
● Sometimes when market crash one can deploy the previously
earned cash than it is possible that 20% CAGR could become
80% CAGR for few years & one’s capital can grow by three to
four times.
● One should avoid making big mistakes.
● One should A-class companies & avoid B & C grade companies –
even if you make less money or have to wait for opportunities.
 ​BHARAT
​JAYANTILAL
​PATEL
● You have to understand the business in which you invest
reasonably well.
● You should have the conviction.
● Do not be fearful when market is down. Do not be greedy when
it is going up. This means – Buy Low & Sell High.
● Invest in promoters where corporate governance compliance is
in its true spirit.
● Do not buy on hearsay & do not take investing casually or as a
side activity.
● Many start feeling like god, after some level of success and/or
atmosphere around them starts making them feel like that &
they start taking money in a casual way. (Don’t be in that zone).
● One needs to develop patience with their investment as if it is
their own business.
● Many don’t want to even open an annual report and without
proper research one won’t get the conviction & will go by
hearsay. When one go on a hearsay story, one will sell when
things are not good & will depend on market. (Don’t be in that
zone).

​HIREN VED
● You have to be inquisitive, curious – if you are not, then you
will not be a self-starter.
● Learnability, from two points of view: knowledge point of
view-the world is dynamic & you are investing across sectors,
but that is the technical aspect of learnability. The other is in
terms of how you improve your process & judgement. That
 comes from reflection & a keen observation of other successful
investors.
● Reading & reflecting are critical.
● Meeting company’s clients & understanding what’s happening
in their business, sometimes gives you very good insights.
● Continuous talk in the ecosystem is important.
● Many investors fail due to lack of discipline & self-awareness.
● Investing is a closest one comes to a zen-like state.
● Investing is all about controlling emotions.
● If investor think he is bigger than market & people would work
up to its ego then the investor is gone.
● One have to feel the vulnerability at every stage – if one don’t,
then the one is dead.
● It’s important to have extreme adaptability, learnability &
flexibility. If one is rigid, one is dead.
● One must have ability to judge risk.
● One can’t afford to lose all capital.
● It is important to get the risk reward right.
● One need to have a long term time horizon, patience & the
ability to size your bets with high conviction.
● Never use leverage.
● Leverage can compound your wealth dramatically, if you get it
right. But very few people have those attributes & the success
rate is also very low. It’s off the table for majority of the people.
● The first lesson a trader learns is that he is nothing & is totally
subservient to the market. The market is bigger than the trader.
● If one is investor, one can stand against the market. One have
time on its side. It’s one’s patience vs the market.
 KENNETH
​

​ANDRADE
● How to use the market data is very critical now days.
● What has worked for one is to continue to do what has worked
for one the best, & when one does that, one stops making
mistakes.
● Investing is not about getting everything right; it’s about getting
nothing wrong. But you have to go through the grind in the
initial years.
● Patience & discipline are the important attributes one must
inculcate.
● You got to learn to say ‘NO’.
● One should not be wanting to be at all parties at the same time.
One have to pick one & stay for long.
● Correcting mistakes quickly is important.
● Markets are superior to all of us put together so there is no
point of holding the mistake to eternity.
● Most money is made in the third cycle as an investor. If you
observe it closely, most investors get seasoned after the age of
50. They just stop making mistakes.
● One needs to start with a little bit of money, have a lot of
patience, & follow his natural investment style.
● If one has a single parameter on which he invests, he should
keep that parameter for all the companies in the portfolio. This
approach has worked for me.
● One should not try & get deleveraging & earnings growth in a
single company. Just work on a single parameter & it will work.
If one is good, one will get 60%+ right.

VIJAY KEDIA
​
● For a new investor, he should do the BSE/NSE course in the
stock markets & start investing in mutual funds.
● The best way to get knowledge is by reading brokerage reports,
see management interviews, & learn about various industries &
companies.
● One has to learn to cut the clutter.
● If someone tells me about the company, I tend to quickly grasp
whether I can understand that company or not.
● Investor need to think long-term – without that, nothing is
going to happen.
● Investor need to think about stock market investing as a
business.
● Once the investor see the stock market investing as a business,
all things will be aligned.
● One should think like a promoter.
● One should just stop thinking about becoming a millionaire
overnight – that is a very important step.
● Stock markets are not gamble, but a full-time business.
● Stock market is a high risk, high reward, volatile business.
● One should be able to do risk management & stress
management.
● One should always avoid ‘Bhangar Cap’ (crap stocks).
● One should always look for the management track record.
● Keep focus on the companies where you can make substantial
investment. Don’t waste energy over small allocations – there
is a price to that energy.
● One should also read a lot of brokerage reports to know about
more industries & companies.
● Education is not sufficient. Not all CAs will be Rakesh
Jhunjhunwala.
● Courage is important. Without courage, you can’t bet big.
● Building a huge amount of wealth is a slow process.
● A person who has not seen a bear market is not a seasoned
investor in my view.
● The key to success is how many stocks you have seen failing, &
how many bear markets you have seen.
● Make bear markets your friend. History tells us that people
have made big money by buying stocks in bear market. Nobody
makes big money by investing in bull markets.
● Being successful is one thing, creating big wealth is different.
● Your mental capacity has to exceed your financial capacity.

​SHYAM
​SEKHAR
● One should enjoy every minute of the journey. It should not
feel like a burden.
● Over time, one should learn to manage cynicism.
● One should develop the equipoise to handle the market’s
irrationality. (A person who has seen several cycles will react
very differently from one who is in his first market cycle.
● The only thing market always demonstrates is irrationality.
● As an investor, one must learn to be indifferent to Mr. Market
& keep himself focused on what one is doing.
● An investor must run the race at a pace he is comfortable with.
(Referring to Hare & Tortoise metaphor).
● Every investor must know how to build himself & his ecosystem
up.
● Openness to hear other viewpoints is critical.
● An investor must remain open for long years.
● Reading the dailies is important.
● Reading at-least one annual report everyday helps one stay
sharp & curious.
● Making notes on companies, documenting expectations clearly,
& reviewing them periodically is sure to make one a better
investor.
● I think one should simple hang in there until they do very well.
● The fact that one failed in one cycle should not deter them
from generating endless positivity & purpose in the next cycle.
● One should simply break free & learn how to reinvent oneself.
● Compounding is sustainable over long periods of time & one
only needs to be focused, disciplined, knowledge driven &
demonstrate the right investment behaviour.
● Stocks that create multi-bagger wealth never provide linear
returns. But over 20 years, it is very much doable. Don’t be
obsessed about getting there.
● Understand that compounding is about time not capital.
 ​CHAITANYA
​DALMIA
● It’s best to keep investing simple.
● One must have the temperament to see the idea losing 20-30%
on paper.
● Re-evaluate your thesis all the time & ‘invert’ as Charlie says.
● Remain convinced or cut your losses if you think you made a
mistake & move on.
● Disciplining yourself to keeping your head when the markets
are going berserk is a very important attribute.
● Do not let the feeling of being left out get the better of
investor, because one will always miss a lot of ideas.
● Remain dispassionate, continuous re-assessment, staying away
from consensus, avoiding traps & paralysis, developing
 conviction, invert, trying to be broadly right than precisely
wrong, admitting & tolerating your own mistakes, getting used
to doing nothing (in terms of buying/selling transactions) for
prolonged period if required, etc. – One should inculcate these
few specific habits to become a better investor.
● One should try out value style of investing. It’s probably the
best strategy to optimise your returns, adjusted for risk, when
you don’t have a problem of too much capital.
● It’s good to remember what Vanguard taught us; transaction
costs & taxes can eat a lot into your returns.
● If one don’t have time to do research then one must do SIPs
regularly & one should hopefully reap the benefits when its
children grow up.
● Without taking inordinate risks & dollops of luck, it’s not that
easy to create a massive amount of wealth.

Disclaimer:
The above written article is taken from “MASTERCLASS WITH
SUPER-INVESTOR” book. I Meet Shah ​(twitter @ms89_meet) ​request
everyone to read the book completely. The book contains heaps of
wisdom from these super-investors. The wisdom presented in a very
simple & understandable format written by VISHAL MITTAL &
SAURABH BASRAR. I thank them both for offering such GEM to our
investor community. One can order the book through
www.altaisadvisors.com​ please note I am in no way associated with
altais advisors neither I am doing any marketing of the book. I
honestly shared my view with all. Please read the book.
 ​Vishal Mittal
​(Twitter @vishalmittal22)
 ​Saurabh Basrar
​(Twitter @basrars)

​THANKING YOU