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Beta and modern portfolio theory and the like - none of it makes any sense to me.

Charlie Munger

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Charlie Munger
Age: 100
Born: 1924
Born: January 1
Business Person
Financier
Investor
Lawyer
Omaha
Nebraska
Charlie Thomas Munger
Charles T. Munger
Charles Thomas Munger
None
Theory
Modern
Sense
Makes
Like
Beta
Portfolio
Portfolios

More quotes by Charlie Munger

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To me, it's obvious that the winner has to bet very selectively. It's been obvious to me since very early in life. I don't know why it's not obvious to very many other people.
Charlie Munger
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The ethos of not fooling yourself is one of the best you could possibly have. It's powerful because it's so rare.
Charlie Munger
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It's a finite and very competitive world. All large aggregations of capital eventually find it hell on earth to grow and thus find a lower rate of return.
Charlie Munger
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We try more to profit from always remembering the obvious than from grasping the esoteric.
Charlie Munger
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What do you want to avoid? Such an easy answer: sloth and unreliability. If you're unreliable it doesn't matter what your virtues are. You're going to crater immediately. Doing what you have faithfully engaged to do should be an automatic part of your conduct. You want to avoid sloth and unreliability.
Charlie Munger
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Darwin paid particular attention to disconfirming evidence. Objectivity maintenance routines are totally required in life if you're going to be a great thinker.
Charlie Munger
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Most people are too fretful, they worry to much. Success means being very patient, but aggressive when it's time.
Charlie Munger
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The world of derivatives is full of holes that very few people are really aware of. It's like hydrogen and oxygen sitting on the corner waiting for a little flame.
Charlie Munger
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In the 1930s, there was a stretch where you could borrow more against the real estate than you could sell it for. I think that's what's going on in today's private-equity world.
Charlie Munger
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It would be nice if this [finding really cheap stocks] happened all the time. Unfortunately, it doesn't.
Charlie Munger
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In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and or minimizing one or a few variables - like the discount warehouses of Costco.
Charlie Munger
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In engineering, people have a big margin of safety. But in the financial world, people don't give a damn about safety. They let it balloon and balloon and balloon. It's aided by false accounting.
Charlie Munger
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You must know the big ideas in the big disciplines, and use them routinely - all of them, not just a few. Most people are trained in one model - economics, for example - and try to solve all problems in one way. You know the old saying: to the man with a hammer, the world looks like a nail. This is a dumb way of handling problems.
Charlie Munger
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Here's one truth that perhaps your typical investment counselor would disagree with: if you're comfortably rich and someone else is getting richer faster than you by, for example, investing in risky stocks, so what?! Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy.
Charlie Munger
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Every business tries to turn this year's success into next year's greater success. It's hard for me to see why Microsoft is sinful to do this. If it's a sin, then I hope all of Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiaries are sinners. Someone whose salary is paid by U.S.taxpayers is happy to dramatically weaken the one place where we're winning big?!
Charlie Munger
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All intelligent investing is value investing - acquiring more that you are paying for. You must value the business in order to value the stock.
Charlie Munger
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Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay were caricatures - they were easy to spot. They were almost psychopaths. But it's much harder to spot problems at companies like Royal Dutch [Shell].
Charlie Munger
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Cicero's words also increased my personal satisfaction by supporting my long-standing rejection of a conventional point of view.
Charlie Munger
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You need a different checklist and different mental models for different companies. I can never make it easy by saying, 'Here are three things.' You have to derive it yourself to ingrain it in your head for the rest of your life.
Charlie Munger
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There is the sheer amount of Franklin's wisdom. And the talent. Franklin played four instruments. He was the nation's leading scientist and inventor, plus a leading author, statesman, and philanthropist. There has never been anyone like him.
Charlie Munger