MICHEL PIREU: Four investment lessons from 2018
Michel Pireu shares shortened extracts from four investment books he believes are worth retelling
The most important thing. Few people have what it takes to be a great investor. Some can be taught, but not everyone. And those who can be taught can’t be taught everything. Valid approaches work some of the time but not all. And investing can’t be reduced to an algorithm and turned over to a computer. Even the best investors don’t get it right every time. The reasons are simple. No rule always works. The environment isn’t controllable, and circumstances rarely repeat exactly. Psychology plays a major role in markets, and because it’s highly variable, cause-and-effect relationships aren’t reliable. An investment approach may work for a while, but eventually the actions it calls for will change the environment, meaning a new approach is needed. And if others emulate an approach, that will blunt its effectiveness. Investing, like economics, is more art than science. And that means it gets a little messy. Because investing is at least as much art as it is science, I never want to sugge...
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