In the last ten days, I’ve had lengthy conversations with a Prime Minister (Laos), a Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister (Vietnam), a former Prime Minister (Thailand), and a gentleman who served three times as Deputy Prime Minister (Thailand) and who, during his diplomatic career, met every Chinese leader from Zhou Enlai to Xi Jinping with photos to prove it!

The resulting jetlag and sleepless nights usually present two choices: existential musings on geopolitics or binge-watching an old TV series. This time, I chose a third - rereading The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. If markets can remain irrational for extended periods, so can my sleep schedule I ruminated. So, instead of counting sheep, I found myself counting margin-of-safety percentages hoping that, somewhere between Chapter 8 and Mr. Market’s mood swings, I might finally drift off.

To the contrary however … it is always incredibly refreshing and stimulating to revisit Graham’s wisdom at a time when AI-driven trading bots never sleep and economic uncertainty is the only certainty.
The concept of the margin of safety - never paying full price when a bargain is available - remains timeless. It was good to meet again Mr. Market, that reliable individual who can remain focused on long-term fundamentals rather than short-term noise in our current era of algorithmic trading, meme stocks and frenzied speculation.

In a world where many modern portfolios chase high-growth, unprofitable tech stocks or speculative assets without clear earnings potential, intelligent investors are also urged to follow the golden rule of emphasising sound investments backed by intrinsic value rather than mere market speculation. Sound advice indeed!

If The Intelligent Investor has steadied investors for decades, it can certainly help steady nerves today. At the very least it makes for more rational bedtime reading than the latest economic forecasts which are about as soothing as a margin call.

#valueinvesting #intelligentinvestor #benjamingraham #fundamentalanalysis #marginofsafety #longterminvesting #riskmanagement