#38. WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART
“You have to be very patient, you have to wait until something comes along, which, at the price you're paying, is easy. That's contrary to human nature, just to sit there all day long doing nothing, waiting. It's easy for us, we have a lot of other thins to do. But for an ordinary person, can you imaging just sitting for five years doing nothing? You don't feel active, you don't feel useful, so you do something stupid.”
- <THE TAO OF CHARLIE MUNGER> (with commentary by DAVID CLARK) 중에서
본문에서조차 이미 언급했던 내용이란 걸 밝히고 있지만 해당 장의 내용이 너무 마음에 들어서 기록! (내용도 좋고 표현도 재밌어서)
And believe me when i tell you that out of the forty thousand people who attend the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, which includes thousands of investment professionals, there might be ten people their who actually understand this piece of advice and are able to put it into practice.
↑위 내용은 밑줄 친 부분이 좋아서 인용. 진짜 퍼오고 싶은 내용은 아래에 기록.
Most investors are impatient. Because of this they fail right out of the gate. Why? Because stocks are almost always selling at prices that are way above their long-term intrinsic value. It is the nature of the beast. If you wake up one morning determined to invest your money, your chances of finding an investment that would meet Charlie's standards is almost zero. So you settle for something less, when you could have have gotten something more if you had just waited. Which Charlie says is easy to do because you don't have to pay anyone to wait.
Charlie's approach is contrary to human nature, but right there it should tell you that it is a winning investment strategy. For one of the most successful of all investment strategies is to be a contraian investor - to go in the opposite direction - to buy when others are selling. And not being in a hurry is contrary to everyone who is in a hurry, which is just about everyone else in the world.
Think of it this way: Charlie isn't out looking for an invetment, he is waiting for the right long-term investment - at the right price - to come to him. Yes, he keeps his eyes wide open to make sure he sees it when it arrives, which is why he reads a lot, to make sure he sees it when it shows up. But if it doesen't show up, he just keeps on reading. Is that hard to do? Imagine that you go see an investment adviser and he tells you it might take five years to find the fight invetment. Most people would stand up and leave and go find another invetment adviser. It truly is not on people's nature to wait, which is the advantage Charlie has over all of us.
Because most people are in a rush, because they can't be like Charlie and wait five years for the right long-term invetment - at the right price - to show up, and since most of the time stocks sell at tprices in excess of their intrinsic value, most investors end up overpaying for the stocks thery are buying. So my question to you is this: Are you one of the 99% of investors who are in a rush and end up overpaying for your investments? Or are you part of Charlie's 1% club who have the patience to wait five years, if necessary, to find the right long-term investment selling at the right price?
이 글을 옮겨쓰다보니 '이번에 올 대세상승장이 지나고 나서, 나는 인내심을 가지고 다음 상승장을 기다릴 수 있을까?'하는 생각이 든다. 아직 상승장이 온 것도 아니고, 그 상승장이 지나는 데 10여년 정도 걸리겠지만... 그때는 내가 그만큼 더 성장해있을까 하는 의문 반 호기심 반.
어쩌면 그때쯤엔 찰리의 1% 클럽에 들어가 있을지도.
(PC에서 영어 본문이 모니터를 뚫고 옆으로 가버리는건 무슨 이유인지 모르겠다.)
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