Charlie Munger
The rerelease of Charlie Munger’s bountiful wit and wisdom is a celebration of nearly a century of success and deserves to be at the top of our reading lists.
Who are the greatest investors of all time?
Back in 1991, when I was about halfway through a two-and-half year work-travel adventure that took me from Cape Town, South Africa, to mucking out stables on a horse farm in France, fruit-picking in Australia, and various stints in London, including staffing the front of house at a theater in the West End, I stumbled upon the late Oliver Sacks's wonderful book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
It was an eventful week: In their annual letter, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger revealed to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders what has made the company such a success. Chai Jing, an investigative journalist, released a documentary on the sources of China's air pollution, which almost instantaneously attracted 100 million viewers. Read more about the letter, the documentary, and the most debated dress on the planet in this latest edition of Weekend Reads.
Charlie Munger once said: "In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none. Zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads — and how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”
After examining his own and others' current thinking, A. Michael Lipper, CFA, believes our low level of activity in the market could indicate that we have become petrified.
What can investment managers learn from military strategists? According to Charles D. Ellis, CFA, quite a lot. “I think all of us who are involved in investment management would be very, very smart to be sure that we — and everyone in our organizations — are trying to find new ways of thinking,” Ellis says.