A tipping point is invisible, as we just saw in Greece. In most situations, everything appears fine until it's not fine, until, for example, no one shows up at a Treasury auction.
Seth KlarmanAt equal returns, public investments are generally superior to private investments not only because they are more liquid but also because amidst distress, public markets are more likely than private ones to offer attractive opportunities to average down.
Seth KlarmanOnce you adopt a value-investment strategy, any other investment behavior starts to seem like gambling.
Seth KlarmanWe suppose that could be considered a hedged position for the awards committee, one that would never occur in the hard sciences such as physics and chemistry, where a prize shared among three with divergent views would be an embarrassing mistake or a bad joke. While a Nobel Prize might well be the culmination of a lifeโs work, shouldnโt the work accurately describe the real world?
Seth KlarmanInvesting is the intersection of economics and psychology. The analysis is actually the easy part. The economics, the valuation of the business isn't that hard. The psychology - how much do you buy, do you buy it at this price, do you wait for a lower price, what do you do when it looks like the world might end - those things are harder. Knowing whether you stand there, buy more, or whether something has legitimately gone wrong and you need to sell, those are harder things. That you learn with experience, by having the right psychological makeup.
Seth Klarman