Hi all, this is my first post in the board. Hopefully there will be many others.
I was watching a talk given by Mohnish Pabrai about a month ago. I quickly forgot about it after I had watched it, but a week or two later I was thinking about the video again. I realised there was an extremely valuable exercise which I missed.
Mohnish recalled that he was giving a seminar and a person in the audience ask him what stocks were on his wish list, and would he mind sharing a couple of those companies with the audience. Mohnish replied that he couldn’t answer to the question, but not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t actually have a wish list of stocks. The question itself prompted Mohnish to start thinking and developing a wish list.
And so to the purpose of this thread - developing a wish list of stocks, and the benefits of doing so.
I interpreted a wish list as any stocks in a fantastic company which you don’t own (or don’t own enough of), but if conditions were right you would buy. Those conditions might be that the company is overvalued, or there are some short term risks for that company and you want to wait, or it may be that you don't have the cash right now to buy it.
When I was thinking about my own wish list I identified several major weaknesses of mine:
My market knowledge is shallow. I only know what I know, and I am too focused on my own investments. I couldn't give an account of other companies and sectors, and how they were currently performing.
The wish list I drew up was very small, I feel this is a reflection of my lack of knowledge in point 1. I hope to add more stocks over time.
Nearly every stock that I wanted to buy are all well known. Of course good business are well known, but there was not a single emerging stock on the list.
Here is my list in no particular order. It's not sexy, it's still a work in progress, new stocks will be added, and some might be removed:
- Amazon
- Alphbet
- Visa
- Mastercard
- Paypal
- Bank of America
- Well Fargo
- Costco
- Starbucks
- Walmart
- Microsoft
(Yes, no Apple)
Hoping that others will share their list (if they have one), and for those who don't have a wish list, perhaps they can find some benefit in participating in this exercise.