Category: Best Of

There’s a popular Druckenmiller’s quote circling the Internet as of late:

The first thing I heard when I got in the business, not from my mentor, was bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get slaughtered. I’m here to tell you I was a pig. And I strongly believe the only way to make long-term returns in our business that are superior is by being a pig. I think diversification and all the stuff they’re teaching at business school today is probably the most misguided concept everywhere. And if you look at all the great investors that are as different as Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn, Ken Langone, they tend to be very, very concentrated bets. They see something, they bet it, and they bet the ranch on it. And that’s kind of the way my philosophy evolved, which was if you see – only maybe one or two times a year do you see something that really, really excites you… The mistake I’d say 98% of money managers and individuals make is they feel like they got to be playing in a bunch of stuff. And if you really see it, put all your eggs in one basket and then watch the basket very carefully.

If you don’t look at it from different perspectives, you might get disillusioned that Druckenmiller recommends to always take very concentrated bets. There are some nuances that you have to consider:

1. He always has an exit strategy. When Soros and Druckenmiller made their famous bet against the British Pound, the knew exactly how much they could lose – their entire YTD gain of 12%.

Soros is also the best loss taker I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t care whether he wins or loses on a trade. If a trade doesn’t work, he’s confident enough about his ability to win on other trades that he can easily walk away from the position. There are a lot of shoes on the shelf; wear only the ones that fit. If you’re extremely confident, taking a loss doesn’t bother you.

2. He says that the right conditions to make a concentrated bet happen only once or twice a year. Not everyone is able to recognize those conditions. Proper Timing is Everything when you trade big. A good entry point allows you to go through normal market reactions.  An amazing entry point allows to use tighter stop and therefore bigger position size. Here’s hedge fund manager Scott Bessent on Stan Druckenmiller:

One of the things that I learned from Stan Druckenmiller is how to enter a trade. The great thing about Stan is that he can be wrong, but he rarely loses money because his entry point is so good.

3. You have to earn your right to bet big first.

It’s my philosophy, which has been reinforced by Mr. Soros, that when you earn the right to be aggressive, you should be aggressive. The years that you start off with a large gain are the times that you should go for it.

The way to build long-term returns is through preservation of capital and home runs. You can be far more aggressive when you’re making good profits. Many managers, once they’re up 30 or 40 percent, will book their year [i.e., trade very cautiously for the remainder of the year so as not to jeopardize the very good return that has already been realized]. The way to attain truly superior long-term returns is to grind it out until you’re up 30 or 40 percent, and then if you have the convictions, go for a 100 percent year. If you can put together a few near-100 percent years and avoid down years, then you can achieve really outstanding long-term returns.

They say that two types of people are the most dangerous in the stock market: those who know nothing and those who act like they know everything. The more important question is, who are the types of people that make the most money in the stock market? I would say they are those who have a very good understanding of how markets work and those who end up being right about something about which the majority of people are wrong.

If you want to achieve outsized returns, you have to do something that most people are not willing to do. If something feels psychologically difficult to do in the stock market, it is often the right thing to do. If it were easy, everyone would do it, and therefore the end result would not be anything spectacular.

Doing something that is psychologically difficult does not guarantee you success, but it does guarantee you outsized returns if you end up being right. The only way to make big money is to be right about something about which almost everyone else is wrong. If you are right about something about which everyone else is right, you will only achieve average returns. Sometimes being average is not a bad outcome, but we are striving for more than that, right?

What are some of the signs that other people are not on the same page as you? They will tell you. Your idea will seem so ridiculous to them that they will make fun of it. You know what? This is a really good sign. It means that you are onto something big. It means that if you are right, your payback will be huge. Being a contrarian doesn’t always work, but when it does the payoff is ginormous.

This is an excerpt from my new book – The Next Apple: How To Find Stocks That Could Go Up 1000%

I have a new book out. I hope you enjoy it. Here’s the introduction:

Intro – No Company Is Too Small To Succeed Or Too Big To Fail

“Change is the only constant.” This is one of the most frequently used expressions in the financial world. And it’s true – consider these early 2015 facts:

• Only 71 companies from the original 1955 Fortune 500 list remain today.
• Some of the biggest stock market winners of the new millennium were either near bankruptcy, small private companies or young IPOs 15 years ago. In other words, no one could predict how successful these companies would become, including the founders.
• None of the established big names from the 1990s turned out to be among the best performers in the 21st century.
• Some of the best performing stocks of the ‘80s and the ‘90s are bankrupt today or have been terrible investments in the new millennium.

In 2015, the world is more interconnected and changes faster than at any time in history. We live in an era where technology and society are evolving quicker than the ability of many organizations to adopt. Many simply cannot keep up with the pace of innovation, or after they reach certain size, they become too complacent and stop growing. Wall Street has never been a great forecaster, and the global, social, mobile world has only made forecasting and analyzing more difficult.

There are no sure things in the stock market. Nothing is promised or guaranteed to anyone. Yet every decade like clockwork, the stock market has delivered hundreds of stocks that go up 1000% or more. Even better, the best performing stocks have consistently shared similar characteristics.

The more the world changes, the more things stay the same. Patterns repeat in the financial markets. Only the names of the winning stocks change.

In the bull market run of the ‘90s, everyone won. Things turned upside-down after 2000. The first 10 years of the 21st century were not kind to the average investor. Some even ventured to call them the lost decade. The market survived several “once in a hundred years” crashes – in technology, housing and finance, yet at the end, most market averages recovered and made new all-time highs.

It took 13 years for the S & P 500 to substantially surpass its highs from the dot-com boom. If you invested a dollar in the S & P 500 in early 2000, you would have had a dollar by early 2013 – a dollar that would be worth a lot less at the time because of the diminishing impact of inflation on purchasing power. The S & P 500 basically delivered no returns for 13 years, but under the surface, there were huge winners among individual stocks. Fortunes were made and lost.

Ten-thousand dollars invested in Apple in 2003 is worth about $1.5 million in 2015. Despite two of the scariest recessions in financial history and enormous market volatility in the first 15 years of the millennium, the stock market provided the opportunity to invest in hundreds of stocks that went up 1000% or more.

The market is an opportunity machine. Some trends last only several quarters before they fade, while others continue for years and deliver fantastic returns. Sooner or later, though, every trend ends. This is not an opinion. It is a fact. Knowing when to sell is just as important as knowing what and when to buy.

This is not a book about the company Apple or its stock. This is a book about finding the next Apple or at least hundreds of “mini-Apples.” The next Apple could and should change your life. The good news is that over the next 10 years – in any 10-year period – there will be multiple stocks that will advance a 1000% or more. The principles in this book will improve your odds of finding those stocks and, more importantly, riding them until it makes a difference in your returns.

The quality of our lives depends on the decisions we make every day. It’s not a secret that the best return you will ever get is by investing in your own business. Not everyone has a brilliant idea and, more importantly, the means, the skills or the desire to build a great business. Let’s get real – how many could actually create the next Facebook, Apple, Under Armour or Tesla? Warren Buffett says that he prefers to own part of a wonderful company than 100% of a so-so business. Everyone could invest in companies with great potential and participate in their growth. The stock market gives you that opportunity, but you also have to learn how to play the game. You have to learn how to speak its language.

If your goal is to achieve average market returns, just consistently put money into low-cost indexes and get it over with. If you are going to spend time, effort and money on learning how to invest, make sure it’s worth it. The only reason to actively pick stocks is to achieve returns that will make a real dent in your universe.

When you are done with this book, you will know everything you need to know in order to find and profit from the next Apple, Starbucks and Tesla of the world. You will be a smarter and more knowledgeable investor.

Here is a brief sample of questions we answer in the book:

• Can you find the next Apple, Google or Tesla?
• Do what you love and success will follow is the most frequently given advice. Is “Invest in what you love/know” an equally bright idea?
• Does past performance impact future returns? The answer might surprise you.
• How to find the best performing stocks in any given year? It’s a little counter-intuitive, but if you do what everyone else does, you cannot expect to achieve superior results.
• George Soros says that sometimes the market could predict its own future. Is the market always correct, and more importantly, how does that affect you as an investor?
• Timing is everything in investing. When is the absolute best time to buy, and which stocks should you buy?
• Some trends last only several quarters before they fade while others continue for years and deliver fantastic returns. Sooner or later, every trend ends. This is not an opinion. It is a fact. How do you make sure you keep your profits when a trend inevitably ends?
• Why don’t you need to know the future in order to consistently make money in the stock market?

The only question that will remain is whether you will put that knowledge to work and create a better life for you and your closest people.

It is available on Amazon.