The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 17 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Batnick: Predatory life insurance sales harm clients more than bad stock picks
“If you're selling somebody, you know, a shitty stock or mutual fund, whatever, they're giving you know, 10 grand. And sure, that sucks to lose that, but when you're selling life insurance policies to somebody, and you're asking for giant commissions premiums, …”
Batnick: Even the best analysts face limits with value investing
“You could be the best business analyst in the world, and you might have a great long-term track record and things might be okay, but there are limits to value investing, obviously.”
Investment backtests are bullshit because nobody publishes the failing ones
“Because when you show, you know, the back tests, which I think are, you know, back tests are bullshit. This looks amazing, of course. We're not, nobody's going to implement a strategy with a bad back test.”
Batnick: Momentum and Trend-Following Can Never Be Arbitraged Away
“Rising prices attract buyers and falling prices attract sellers. And it is literally that simple. And I don't care how many computers or geniuses get involved. That alone can never be arbed away.”
Batnick: Jack Bogle Once Started an Unsuccessful Technical Analysis Fund
“It was in, ah, maybe Clash of the Culture is one of his books, where he spoke about, he started a fund based on technical analysis, and obviously, ah, it didn't do so well.”
Batnick: Legendary investment mistakes stem from emotion, not valuation errors
“But one common theme that we all make mistakes on is the emotional side. Like none of these mistakes were because somebody used too aggressive of a growth assumption or an inappropriate discount rate or didn't understand the business. It was always like either…”
Batnick: Keynes wrote the best chapter on investing in history
“And he wrote, in my opinion, the best chapter ever on investing. I don't know if it's 11 or 12 in general theory, but everything that you hear from Howard Marks and all these guys really started with Keynes in this chapter.”
Batnick: Charlie Munger's 1973-74 Losses Stemmed from Concentration, Not Mistakes
“He got crushed in the 73, 74 bear market like everybody else did. And I guess you can nitpick because he was so heavily concentrated in this company, blue chip stamps in particular, but you're right. He didn't make any mistakes. He, you know, he lost money whe…”
Batnick: Hindsight '$10K invested' charts ignore the emotional pain of holding
“I think that looking at the growth of a dollar, you know, a lot gets lost in the charts, the emotions of it and what it took to hold on. I just think that like people that are, oh, if I should have bought Amazon, I knew it. No, you didn't. If you did, you woul…”
Batnick: Benjamin Graham beat the market by almost 2% annually
“Now, he did beat the market by almost two percent a year for a decent amount of time, so they were very good.”
Batnick: Jesse Livermore repeatedly failed to follow his own trading rules
“The irony is that he couldn't even follow his own rules. And he made and lost several fortunes. And every single time he came away with this soliloquy and these beautiful words and Every time he just couldn't do it.”
Batnick: Stock investing obscures embedded expectations unlike sports betting
“And that's the hard part about investing is that, like, if you want to bet on the Golden State Warriors, well, you're not going to get very good odds, right? Because everyone knows they're going to win. Same thing with horses. But when you're buying a stock, y…”
Batnick: T-Bills Had a 50-Year Period of Negative Real Returns
“And if you don't like it by T-bills and if you know, and even that comes with a lot of pain, I think they went 50 years with negative real returns.”
Batnick: Chris Sacca Passed on Airbnb, Snapchat, and Dropbox
“But he actually said no to three of the best potential investing opportunities. I think it was Airbnb, Snapchat, and Dropbox. It's not like they came to him. He looked at them and said, nah, no, no, no.”
Batnick: Wellington Fund Collapsed to Lowest Decile Under Boston Managers
“And they brought in a group of young managers from Boston and basically blew the fund up, and they went from, you know, top decile to lower, to lowest decile, and this is a true story.”
Batnick: Regret Over Timing Errors Is Poisonous to Investors
“I think probably regret is one of the most poisonous things that enters into investors' brains, either selling too soon or buying too early. And the problem is that those moments stay with you, right? And you always remember what happened last time, even if it…”