If you’re able to find true value for money as you go through life, this will help you enormously and may even set you free.
It seems that the ability to find true value, though, is something within us that is either there or just isn’t there. The legendary value investor Benjamin Graham, often called the father of value investing and the mentor to Warren Buffett, said as much in his best-known work, The Intelligent Investor. Perhaps ironically, Graham also pointed out that we don’t need to be tremendously intelligent or capable to get an edge in value investing—we just need to be able to spot value for money and to ignore the market’s wild fluctuations. Graham, in particular, liked intrinsic value, finding companies at a discount to their net tangible assets such as cash and property, then buying shares and waiting for that value to be eventually recognized by the market.
Graham and his protégé Buffett demonstrated the success of this approach over many decades of successful investing. But the same principles hold true for all of us in all walks of life—whether we’re buying a second-hand car or going to the supermarket for the weekly shop. Finding value and living well within your means to use the surplus to then invest in more value will set most people free of the yoke of debt, eventually. But do you have what it takes—and can this really be leaned or is it simply an innate genetic trait?
No-one really knows the answer to this question, though you probably know already within yourself if this kind of value-led approach to life’s finances is really “you” or not.
With investing, this approach gives patient (and perhaps contrarian-minded) investors a real edge. And interestingly, it’s exactly the same principle when it comes to sports betting and keeping an eye on the latest developments in whatever sports you choose. Very few people manage to be able to make a steady profit, or even a living, in this sort of arena. But there are plenty out there who do manage to do so—and they do it by having an informational edge on the rest of the market in some way, by doing their homework to glean that information—and being able to recognize true value in the situations they identify.
The same principles hold true in both examples cited, with investing and with sports betting etc. you will never win them all. But what you can hope to do, if you have what it takes, is to win more than you lose and, therefore, to come out steadily ahead.
The best way to see if you have what it takes is to trial your chosen field with a relatively small amount of money—over a period of time sufficiently long enough for you to be able to take that trial seriously.
Patience, an acceptance of some losses, endless research, ignoring the vagaries of the market, and a determination to succeed should help.
Graham Harrison
Latest posts by Graham Harrison (see all)
- Finding Value In All Situations - November 30, 2015
