In 1990, a class of Boston schoolchildren beat most Wall Street professionals with one simple rule. Peter Lynch turned it into a two-minute test any ordinary investor can use before buying a share.
A market price is an offer, not an order. Benjamin Graham’s quiet rule — and the three simple arrangements that make sure no crash can ever force you to sell a good business at a bad price.
Value Investing — Educational Series Two neighbours build houses on the same street in the same summer. Both look solid. Both are freshly painted. Relatives visit both and say very nice things. For eight dry months, nothing separates the two
Value Investing — Educational Series Think of two family weddings, a few years apart. At the first one, you mention that you have started investing in shares (small pieces of ownership in a company). Your uncle quickly changes the subject
Value Investing — Educational Series Have you ever noticed how, on one busy market lane, the moment a single sweet shop starts doing well, three more sweet shops open within a month? Or how, in a boom year, one builder
Value Investing — Educational Series Watch: why forecasts don’t help — and what to watch instead — in about a minute. The uncle who is always waiting for the right time You have almost certainly met him. At every family
Value Investing — Educational Series Picture yourself driving from your town to the city on a national highway. After a while you slow down at a toll plaza. A small amount — maybe forty or fifty rupees — quietly leaves
Value Investing — Educational Series Picture a busy market on a Sunday. There is a shiny new stall in the corner with bright lights and loud music, selling the latest must-have gadget. A crowd is pushing to get in. Everyone
Value Investing — Educational Series Picture two neighbours in the same building. Both put one lakh rupees into the stock market on the same morning. The first one, Sharmaji, spends an hour reading about a simple, steady business he understands
Value Investing — Educational Series Open the steel almirah in many Indian homes and you will find the family’s life savings arranged in a familiar way. There is gold jewellery wrapped carefully in cloth. There are the papers for a
Value Investing — Educational Series Picture a second-hand scooter parked outside a house. It will not start on the first kick. Some mornings the engine coughs and dies; other days it leaks oil onto the floor. The owner keeps spending
Value Investing — Educational Series Imagine your grandfather slipped a ₹100 note into a steel almirah (cupboard) back in 1995 and then forgot all about it. Today you open that almirah and there it is — the same note, crisp
Value Investing — Educational Series Walk into your nearest kirana shop (the small neighbourhood grocery) and look at the salt. Often there are two choices. One is loose salt, scooped from a sack, with no name on it. The other
Value Investing — Educational Series Think back to your school days. There was always one classmate who was frighteningly clever — the topper who solved every maths problem in seconds and remembered every date in history. And there was another,
Value Investing — Educational Series Think about your own mobile phone for a moment. Every month, almost without noticing, you recharge it. You pay your operator, the phone keeps working, and a few weeks later you pay again. You will