Investing Mastermind Podcast

Signe and Michelle analyzed Warren Buffett's 2022 Letter that came out with Berkshire Hathaway's 2022 Annual Report at the end of February 2023. We especially found noteworthy how Buffett referred to Berkshire shareholders as individuals with their savings in the form of Berkshire shares. Buffett must have had death on his mind in mentioning it across many business and personal scenarios. Buffett paid tribute to his best friend and business partner, Charlie Munger, who is still going strong at 99 years young. In running Berkshire for 58 years, Buffett has reached a milestone unmatched by most CEOs. He seemed to reiterate the moral duties and company culture that he expects Berkshire's future CEOs to uphold, especially in continuing to be the Chief Risk Officer and capital allocator as Buffett has been faithfully. When Signe quoted Buffett, "Nothing Beats Having a Great Partner," we shared our mutual gratitude to be business partners in this podcast adventure of trying to follow Buffett and Munger in their footsteps. There is much wisdom to be gained from Buffett in this year's letter, and we hope you enjoy the first part of our discussion on this subject.  If you'd like to read Berkshire's annual report and Buffett's letter, visit: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/reports.html.

We are so excited to share an interview we did with The Investor's Podcast Network's Millennial Investing Podcast hosted by Rebecca Hotsko. We shared our journey of how we are trying to invest like the best investors, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. We broke down Buffett and Munger's investing strategy and how everyday people can apply these investing principles to their own portfolios. We dove into the key steps of how to value businesses like Buffett does, and what is a sufficient "margin of safety" for an investment. We are so grateful to Rebecca and TIP for including us in their investing community and for sharing our investing experiences and lessons we have learned. Check out the Millennial Investing Podcast and their episode of our interview #MI258 by visiting: https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/millennial-investing

Today Michelle and Signe from Investing Mastermind Podcast have invited a special guest onto the show. Wesley Chambers is an investor from London, England, and he's also an amazing content creator who inspires us so we wanted to learn more about him and his investing style.  Wes shares signature content on Instagram and his blog on company valuations. From time to time, he also shares background information about the Warren Buffett style investing methodology.  We are so grateful to have spoken with Wes and we hope you enjoy his investing insights!  If you want to know more about Wes and follow his content you can find him here:   Blog and Newsletter: https://substack.com/profile/74821602-wesley   Instragram: https://instagram.com/investingwithwes  Twitter: https://twitter.com/investwithwes1

Part five of an ongoing series on Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's 4 principles of investing. We walk through these investing principles in the form of a checklist that you can download here: https://www.aahus.com/2021/05/one-of-most-important-artifacts-or.html   We go through these steps in a company before we invest in its stock. The 4 investing principles/steps we discuss in this series are: 1) Understanding the business (circle of competence), 2) Management (honest & competent), 3) Moat (favorable long term prospects), and 4) Margin of Safety (available at an attractive price). A bonus, or 5) Inversion to make sure you fully understand the potential drawbacks of an investment idea.   Charlie Munger is famous for saying "invert, always invert" to destroy your best loved investment idea and understand all of the reasons why one should not invest in a particular asset. We discuss a few examples among Costco, Peloton, and more.

Part four of an ongoing series on Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's 4 principles of investing. We walk through these investing principles in the form of a checklist that you can download here: https://www.aahus.com/2021/05/one-of-most-important-artifacts-or.html We go through these 4 steps in a company before we invest in its stock. The 4 investing principles/steps we discuss in this series are: 1) Understanding the business (circle of competence), 2) Management (honest & competent), 3) Moat (favorable long term prospects), and 4) Margin of Safety (available at an attractive price). Today's topic is especially exciting on the subject of Margin of Safety, or buying something of high quality at a discount to its value. In the context of investing, you want to figure out the "intrinsic value" of a company during your research or homework phase of studying businesses. It's important to note that the stock market's price on a company is not always equal to the company's value. Once we figure out the company's intrinsic value per share, we then would want to buy its stock at a discount (margin of safety) by calculating a final stock buy price using various valuation methods that we discussed in this episode. Learn more about Signe's investing workshop at: https://www.aahus.com/p/workshop.html 

Part three of an ongoing series on Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's 4 principles of investing. We walk through these investing principles in the form of a checklist that you can download here: https://www.aahus.com/2021/05/one-of-most-important-artifacts-or.html We go through these 4 steps in a company before we invest in its stock. There are 2 rules of investing according to Warren Buffett: Rule #1: don't lose money, and Rule #2: never forget Rule #1. We don't want to lose our hard-earned money so that's why it's important to do this "homework" before we buy any stocks. The 4 investing principles/steps we discuss in this series are: 1) Understanding the business (circle of competence), 2) Management (honest & competent), 3) Moat (favorable long term prospects), and 4) Margin of Safety (available at an attractive price). When we invest in a wonderful company, it's because it has a durable, competitive advantage that is known as its moat. Many companies might not have a moat at all, so it's key to identify the business's strengths and weaknesses. Much like the medieval castle moat, a business moat helps prevent its competitors from taking away market share. You want to look for business advantages that sustain the business for a long period of time, such as these moats: brand, switching, network effects, secrets, toll bridge, price/cost. We discussed examples of moats. Note: We apologize for some audio issues we had in this episode, and have made adjustments for improved future episodes. Thank you for understanding.

Part two of an ongoing series on Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's 4 principles of investing. We walk through these investing principles in the form of a checklist that you can download here: https://www.aahus.com/2021/05/one-of-most-important-artifacts-or.html In this style of investing, we learn a lot about companies before we invest in their stocks. The 4 investing principles/steps we discuss in this series are: 1) Understanding the business (circle of competence), 2) Management (honest & competent), 3) Moat (favorable long term prospects), and 4) Margin of Safety (available at an attractive price). Today we're focusing on the role and expectations of a company's management, especially the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The Board of Directors also makes up management, and their job is to choose and oversee the CEO. We discuss both quantitative and qualitative ways of evaluating the CEO's performance in running a company. Can we trust and believe the CEO? How do we know they have integrity and talent? While the CEO is often known as the company's top salesperson, arguably the CEO's most important role is that of a capital allocator. How they decide to allocate capital in the form of human resources or money is important to analyze as to whether they are making the appropriate decisions to grow the company. The more you study a company's management, the more you can envision whether a company is aligned with your values and expectations as an investor.

This podcast episode is the first in a discussion series about Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's 4 principles of investing. We walk through these investing principles in the form of a checklist that you can download here: https://www.aahus.com/2021/05/one-of-most-important-artifacts-or.html In this style of investing, we learn a lot about companies before we invest in their stocks. The 4 investing principles/steps we discuss in this series are: 1) Understanding the business (circle of competence), 2) Management (honest & competent), 3) Moat (favorable long term prospects), and 4) Margin of Safety (available at an attractive price). Today's deep dive is focused on the circle of competence or working toward the point where we truly believe we understand the business. We provide new investors with ways they can brainstorm in getting to know a company they might wish to invest in. We also discuss how guru investors (the best investors) can give us ideas about potential investments we may wish to study. One way that we learned how to figure out what businesses could be within our circle of competence is called the "Three Circles Exercise." Learn more about how this exercise works by watching Michelle's video: https://youtu.be/7HP5Ky__zso Before we invest, we want to make sure the business matches our personal values and ethics. We also consider how the company impacts the world. It's also important to define the boundaries of our knowledge so that we don't invest in companies or industries that we don't fully understand.

Today we want to give you glimpse into our lives behind the scenes of this podcast and share more of who we are and why we wanted to share our knowledge and passion about investing with the world. Both Signe and Michelle come from non-financial professional backgrounds and they discuss their investing learning journeys. We had been searching for an investing strategy that made sense to us. When we read and listened to the "Invested" book and podcast by Danielle and Phil Town, we finally found the Warren Buffett investing style that resonated with us. We discussed how many financial advisors are paid fees regardless of how their clients' portfolios perform, but sometimes professional financial help can be really helpful depending on the situation.  We explained our investing practices and how we live and breathe the investing lifestyle. We reminisced about our incredible experiences at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska and seeing Buffett and Munger live at least once. We met amazing investors like Mohnish Pabrai and Guy Spier. It wasn't a "Wolf of Wall Street" kind of party but a "Woodstock for Capitalists," where a community of like-minded investors came together in the spirit of kindness and sharing. Michelle discussed how she uses practice shares (a concept from Danielle Town) to start having "skin in the game" when researching potential stock investments. Signe's 12 month investing practice resource: https://www.aahus.com/2021/09/investing-practice.html Signe's investing checklist: https://www.aahus.com/2021/05/one-of-most-important-artifacts-or.html

In today's episode we discuss why now is the perfect time to learn about investing in companies, especially in the way that Warren Buffett invests. You might be wondering if it's a good time to invest since the stock market has been down for the last year. Even though many people could be selling stocks, there could be significant buying opportunities if you find undervalued equities. Just as one would be excited to buy one's favorite food items for 50% off at the grocery store, the same framework applies to investing. We explain how high prices for stocks are not necessarily reflecting the quality of the underlying businesses. Buffett has said "price is what you pay, value is what you get," and it's important to know that a market price is not always equal to a company's intrinsic value. We started introducing Signe's investing checklist as a helpful resource, which you can check out here: https://www.aahus.com/2021/05/one-of-most-important-artifacts-or.html Another resource is how we might come across potential investment ideas, and Michelle mentioned how helpful the "We Study Markets" newsletter is and it's totally free. Anyone can sign up to the Investor’s Podcast Network’s full daily commentary and expert insights in the We Study Markets newsletter: https://sparklp.co/p/9f8a748fff

Michelle Marki and Signe Lonholdt explain Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's four principles of investing. Instead of blindly buying a stock, then waiting and hoping that the stock will go up in price, we carefully take the first step before we even buy the security. The difference is that instead of just hoping for an increase in the stock price, this first step will help you understand if the stock is trash or treasure since there are many aspects of a stock besides its price. These investing principles are critical to understand if you would like to invest in stocks like the best investors of all time. The great news is these principles are not complicated to learn. The first principle or the first step is what Buffett calls the "circle of competence," which is just a way of saying that you can understand the business. The second principle is "moat," which comes from the protective body of water surrounding a medieval castle. In the investing context, moat means a business's durable, competitive advantage(s). The third principle is "management," as in does the CEO have integrity and talent in running the company? The fourth principle is "margin of safety," which means to buy a wonderful company at a discount to its intrinsic value. By buying the company at a lower price to its "real value," you would allow for some margin of error in judging what a company is really worth. While it's not easy, investing can really be this simple if you follow these steps diligently!

Since it's the holidays, Signe and Michelle at the Investing Mastermind Podcast just wanted to wish you and your families a wonderful holiday season! We're so happy you're tuning in and listening to the show, and we're so grateful for your feedback! If you have a question that you would like us to answer, please send us an email at InvestingMastermindPodcast@gmail.com.  Please remember to subscribe to our podcast so you get the next episode right when it's hot off the press. We'll be back with new episodes in 2023! See you in the new year!

We consider Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger to be the masterminds of  investing. We tell the backstory of how Buffett and Munger became  legendary investors at Berkshire Hathaway.  While Buffett's investing  style was heavily influenced by his mentor, Benjamin Graham, his style  evolved after he became best friends and partners with Charlie Munger.  Many people associate Buffett with this notion of "value investing," but  it might be best to think of this style in the way Munger put it: "all  good investing is value investing."  Buffett's investing genius lies in  his ability to adapt to changing business environments and re-allocate  capital into better investments. Much of Berkshire's success stems from  their ability to recognize undervalued, quality businesses and buy them  at a discount to their intrinsic value.  When there is an economic  downturn that causes the stock market to decline, then wonderful  companies may be available for us to buy at fair prices. We explain how  Buffett saw volatility not as a risk, but as an opportunity to buy  wonderful businesses.

Signe Lonholdt and Michelle Marki explain the meaning behind our Investing Mastermind Podcast. The word "mastermind" is powerful because it's a collective of minds who invest like our role models Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. We consider our listeners to be part of this mastermind as we aim to foster a community of like-minded investors. By sharing our thoughts together, we can help each other become better investors.  We also have a conversation about which investors we like to learn from: Phil Town, Danielle Town, Guy Spier, Mohnish Pabrai, Ben Graham, Philip Fisher, Howard Marks, and other inspirational investors. We share what our investing practice is like to stay connected with these investing gurus and investing trends. At a high level, we discussed how we find great businesses that we then further investigate.

As individual investors, Podcast hosts Signe Lonholdt and Michelle Marki explain why we are doing this podcast. We share our learning journeys along a path toward investing in a way that makes sense to us. Both Michelle and Signe came across a way to invest in the stock market that was unlike anything we had seen before. A type of investing that had proven to give the best rates of return compared to other strategies and that didn’t require complicated models but a good portion of common sense. We are striving to reach our financial goals by investing like legendary investors Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.  In this episode we discuss the money stories we grew up with in our families. We share the aspects of this investing style that really resonated with us, such as having a business owner mindset and the idea of investing for the long term. There was a realization about the powerful merits of having a concentrated portfolio compared to a highly diversified portfolio which is counter to everything we had learned before we discovered Buffett and Munger.   Since stock market investing financial concepts can be really confusing for beginner investors, we hope that our experiences can shed light on ways to invest and inspire others to pursue investing for generational wealth too. Now is a great time to learn how to invest because economic uncertainty is causing some of the stock market to go on sale in 2022. It's an exciting time because there could be opportunities to buy wonderful companies' stocks at a price that makes sense. So be sure to subscribe to the show and tune in when we release new episodes on Tuesdays! Even though we are not financial professionals and none of this is investing advice, we hope you enjoy! Visit our websites: www.michellemarki.com and www.aahus.com.

Michelle Marki and Signe Lonholdt created the Investing Mastermind Podcast, and this is our introductory episode. We are everyday investors who are on a journey of investing like the best investors Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, and they are the inspiration for this podcast. We seek to inspire and encourage people, and especially women, to become their own investors. We’re so excited to share what we’re continuously learning about investing. For us, investing is a part of our lifestyles. Even though we are not financial professionals and none of this is investing advice, we hope you will gain some educational benefit through listening to us. Thank you and we hope you enjoy.