Investing is half science and half art. Everyone is focused on the science part. Research and analysis, data and information. Countless books have been written on how the valuation should be done. But how you can implement the art part of this equation in practice? How to deal with ever-present uncertainty? Be creative in the research and come up with great investment ideas?
Story Investing provides a conceptual framework for dealing with the art part.
With this book, you can appreciate the power of narrative thinking, learn about techniques of great writers and storytellers, and apply these insights to investing.
“Great investment is a great story“
INVESTING: FROM SCIENCE TO ART
The investment management industry is deeply entrenched in the reductionist thinking paradigm. But all the benefits of reductionism at the same time are its limitations.
Models are only means and tools to accomplish objectives and create meaning. They contain certain aspects of truth but do not capture complex reality entirely. Markets and economy are dynamic social processes and the world’s most successful investors acknowledged that a purely scientific and rational approach is not enough to succeed.
Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger with the latticework of mental models, George Soros with the reflexivity paradox, quantitative investors with the technological attempts to capture the whole of market reality, and activist investors with dramatic stories and efforts to influence companies.
Any solution “scientists” can propose will always be deficient.
“To succeed in markets we have no choice but to add a creative dimension to our work: address unfolding reality, embrace uncertainty, compose a story, revive emotions, achieve empathy and understanding of other, and paint the complete, whole picture”
RISK INVESTING
This book aims to address the issue of risk in equity investments by trying to solve “the observer and the observed paradox”.
To achieve good results, investors should simultaneously play two roles: the player and the judge. They can do this by looking at investment situations where the solution to “the observer and the observed paradox” is integrated into an equity investment itself. For example, a sum-of-parts valuation thesis makes one less dependent on other market participants.
Risk Investing will give you a range of solutions for addressing the risk problem by looking at the level of an individual security or company itself, as opposed to top-down portfolio and risk limits.
“Investors have to identify risk structure at the level of an individual company itself“
TIME INVESTING
Investing takes place in time. But there is a surprising lack of focus on time. We deal with valuation, risk, establish price targets.
But what about time and timing? Not everybody has a lifelong commitment to own the shares forever. Can you establish time and not only price targets? Is there a way to cross the conceptual chasm between market and real value of a stock? Is there a way to extract value from time? Get paid on an ongoing basis for waiting? Improve our results by time management of the research process?
Time Investing offers the reader a range of ideas for working with time dimension in investing.
“You invest not only in business, you invest in time“
WALL STREET: BACK TO BASICS
This book will help you improve your investment decision making and will offer you a range of thinking approaches that you can implement to achieve your investment objectives.
Includes such topics as special dividends, share buybacks, activist investors, time arbitrage and other useful concepts. Each chapter is supplemented with case studies of actual investment situations that illustrate the discussed concepts.