Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Behavioral Finance

A handful of readers have looked at my book as a reiteration of ideas. So, I wrote some these words to a reviewer of my book. Then, I realized that it helps to explain "the essence" I tried to express in my book:

Thanks for your positive words and review of my book. I appreciate yours and all the feedback I get. If possible, kindly mention to your readers that I intended to make this book a small and highly distilled look into this amazing invention within "Behavioral Finance."In my view, the genius of Buffett and Munger's for filters process was to capture all the important stakeholders in a "multi-variable" equation or formula. Imagine... Products, Enduring Customers, Managers, and Margin-of-Safety... all in one mixed "qual + quant" formula. In my view, that is the real genius of the Munger and Buffett collaboration.


Perhaps Munger does not get enough credit for this amazing formula because he enjoyed some of the profits and distributed some to family and charities along the way. However, their record speaks for itself. And, Buffett is always ready to mention that "Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre. You might think this principle is obvious, but I had to learn it the hard way. In fact, I had to learn it several times over... It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price. Charlie understood this early; I was a slow learner."


So, my book, "The Four Filters Invention of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger" is really a subtle tribute to their collaborative genius in Behavioral Finance. And, let me be the first in line to nominate both men for a Nobel Prize in Economics.


However, the significance of their ideas in Behavioral Finance will most probably be eventually recognized like the ideas of Rev. Thomas Bayes. Posthumously. As Bill Gates is keenly aware, "Bayesian Probability" is vitally important to Microsoft Windows software. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bayes )