Investment and Life Lessons - Part 8

Here's the PART 8 of our Investment and Life Lessons series. These are the ideas we've gathered from our various readings on business, stocks, economy, money, war, love and life. Our list is getting too long again hence we're sharing it with the Filipino Investors out there for them to learn a thing or two. Cheers!

1. (On Quantitative Investment strategies) We have learned that no one is going to be able to stick to these kinds of strategies unless they know a lot about them - POS
2. One of the largest retail foreign exchange dealers in the United States is Foreign Exchange Capital Markets (FXCM). In 2005, Drew Niv, chief executive of FXCM, remarked to the Wall Street Journal “If 15 percent of [currency] day traders are profitable, I’d be surprised.”
3. The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. - Mark Twain
4. It is my duty to work with men regardless of their nature. I will not be affected by them - Marcus Aurelius
5. Leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say - Andy Stanley
6. We believe in probabilities not possibilities - JOS
7. Self-attribution bias refers to our propensity to ascribe our successes to our skill, while blaming our failures on bad luck, rather than a lack of skill. For example, the stocks we buy that go up show our great stock picking skills, while those we buy that go down do so because of some outside factor, like Congress changing the law or the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates
8. We are predictably irrational - Dan Ariely
9. As much as we all like to think we can add something to the quant model output, the truth is that very often quant models represent a ceiling in performance (from which we detract) rather than a floor (to which we can add - James Montier
10. We think we know better than simple models, which have a known error rate, but prefer our own judgment, which has an unknown error rate - Montier
11. Paradoxically, when ‘dumb' money acknowledges its limitations, it ceases to be dumb - W. Buffett
12. If you ask a fearful investor why they are selling, they usually won’t say, “Because I’m afraid”; rather, they might cite negative economic events. Emotional investors are unaware that it is not facts that are driving their outlook, but perceptual distortions caused by feelings
13. Out of sample tests can actually be the same time period but different market/place
14. If the world would become rational I have a lot less to do - Cliff Asness
15. We get smarter in all kinds of ways but we don't get smarter emotionally, it's just human nature - W Buffett
16. Your words mean nothing when your actions are the opposite - Wise Man
17. The fabric of your life comes from your mental factory - J.R.
18. Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal - Earl Nightingale
19. Wake up and live
20. Plato spent his life helping people achieve the state of “Eudaimonia” or fulfilment
21. Philosophy is a  deeply useful skill that should be learned and practiced by all in order for us to live and die well - Plato
22. Wisdom starts with owning up to ignorance - Plato
23. I’ve had thousands of problems in my life, most of it never actually happened
24. There is no such thing as having it all figured out - illacertus
25. A man who limits his interests, limits his life - Vincent Price
26. The allegory of the cave - Plato
27. Fixed-value investments can be soundly chosen only if they are approached in the Spinozan-phrase “from the viewpoint of calamity” - Ben Graham
28. Nihil timendum est
29. You can’t eat risk-adjusted returns after all
30. You get what you give - New Radicals
31. There are two times when people forget their principles: at the top of the market and at the bottom - Phillip A. Lowe
32. Those who have knowledge don’t predict. Those who predict don’t have knowledge - Lao Tzu
33. Analysis should be penetrating not prophetic - Graham
34. The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge - Daniel Boorstin
35. There is a danger of changing too much in the search for perfection - Agnetha Faltskog
36. Do not eat the children of your savings, make them work for you - Algamish
37. Your money is your slave Arkad, you have to make them work for you - Algamish
38. I decided to myself that I would claim my share of the good things in life. I would not be one of those who stand afar off enviously watching others enjoy - Arkad, the richest man in Babylon
39. Remember, only the insecure will bite back
40. Replace pretending to be creative (on social media) with being creative
41. Always make sure that your motives are selfish and selfless at the same time. Balance is key. Ego is the enemy - Ryan Holiday
42. Develop a child like curiosity and the prowess of a well versed master - coined as the ‘Dimensional Mind’ by Robert Green
43. Dad, why does the wind blow? - example of child like curiousity
44. The difference between stupidity and genius, is genius has its limits - Albert Einstein
45. Never regret something that once made you smile
46. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. - The Dalai Lama
47. It is the present that we are concerned with and the future that we should be prepared for - Duterte
48. When the facts change I change my mind, what do you do sir? - Keynes
49. Despite the fact that long-term IPO underperformance is a very well documented fact, investors keep stepping up to the plate and purchasing IPOs. I suspect this is because the stories overwhelm the evidence - James Montier
50. Safety must be based on study and standards and that valuations be justified by the facts, e.g., the assets, earnings, dividends, definite prospects, as distinct, let us say, from market quotations established by artificial manipulation or distorted by psychological excesses - Graham
51. If something can’t go on forever, it won’t - Herb Stein
52. I would rather lose half my clients, than half my client’s money - Jean Maire Eveillard
53. We will learn an enormous amount in the very short term, quite a bit in the medium term, and absolutely nothing in the long term. That would be the historical precedent. - Jeremy Grantham
54. Self-attribution bias is our habit of attributing good outcomes to our skill as investors, while blaming bad outcomes on something or somebody else
55. Hindsight bias. This simply refers to the idea that once we know the outcome we tend to think we knew it all the time
56. Holding cash is uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as doing something stupid - Warren Buffett
57. Hustle until your hatters ask if you're hiring
58. Genius is eternal patience - Michelangelo
59. Steal like an artist - does not mean steal the same was as “stealing money” but rather by embracing influence from other artists and great ideas
60. Don’t just steal the style but also the thinking behind that style
61. You have to take advantage of life as it is, not as it should be. As it is. - Jim Rohn
62. Wala sa porma ang lakas - Ragnarok Online/Imbang Klase
63. Same goes in real life. Our society has gotten so concerned about “outside imagery” and “formalities” that they forget to focus on their “essence“. - Imbang Klase
64. Why are my allies so weak and pathetic? - Jah’rakal, the Troll Warlord
65. Darkterror the Faceless Void is a melee agility hero generally played as an off-laner or carry. Given a little time, he becomes a terrifyingly powerful hero capable of destroying entire enemy teams in seconds
66. Invest in the worst house in the best areas - Robert Kiyosaki
67. Stay close to home - Robert Kiyosaki
68. The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence - T.H. Huxley
69. I did not come here to win, I came here to surf - Bethany Hamilton
70. Why? I wouldn't sign up for that class. It’s just the way it is - Jim Rohn
71. We have no idea on how much most things should cost - Dan Ariely
72. Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners - Rio 2016
73. The bargains will keep coming – just because of the way the ‘system’ works. - Greenblatt
74. I am not a destroyer of companies, I am a liberator of them - Gordon Gekko
75. A fool and his money are lucky enough to be together in the first place - Gekko
76. It’s all about bucks kid, the rest is conversation - Gekko
77. It came as a surprise to me to learn recently that such an alternative (Thorium Nuclear Reactors) has been available to us since World War II, but not pursued because it lacked weapons applications - Victor J. Stenger
78. Economics is the study of rational choice under conditions of scarcity
79. Self sufficiency is inefficiency and inefficiencies lead to poverty
80. Fundamentally, in terms of our perceptions, we are all alone in our mind - Vsauce
81. Who asked the first question?
82. The ancient Chinese believed that it [green tea] should be sipped slowly in a pavilion, next to a lily pond in the company of a beautiful woman
83. Once we mix together the corporate complexity, with common sense that we learned from the streets, we can achieve a lot better - Injap Sia
84. Treat your money like blood - Injap Sia
85. But if you only have love for your own race then you only have space to discriminate and to discriminate only generates hate - BEP, Where is the love?
86. The sailor sees but never reaches the horizon
87. Getting rich is a result of doing things in a certain way - Wallace D. Wattles
88. If you are not scared then you are not taking a chance. If you’re not taking a chance, then what are you doing? Ted Mosby
89. When you want someone to keep around, you do something about it - Ted Mosby
90. Necessity is the mother of invention
91. If quantum mechanics does not shock you, you haven't understand it yet - Niels Bohr
92. Success is getting what you want and happiness is wanting what you get
93. Thomas was “a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn’t go the other” - Robert Frost’s Road not taken
94. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
    I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference
95. It seems that the one thing that doesn't change is people’s reaction to short-term conditions and their axiomatic ability to perpetuate them into the future - JOS
96. We will not trade reputation for money - Warren Buffett
97. Wealth is worthless if you’ve destroyed all your relationships to attain it - Warren Buffett
98. There’s no better way to be happier than getting your expectations down. Most unhappiness comes from misaligned and unrealistic expectations of life. Expect the world of yourself, but expect nothing of the world - Warren Buffett
99. Don’t try to understand women, women understand women and they hate each other - Wise man
100. Go to bed a little wiser than when you woke up. Nothing has served me better in my long life than continuous learning. If you are always learning you can never lose. Keep this as your only rule for the day and the world will be yours for the taking. - Warren Buffett