Charlie Munger Challenge

[Eldad]

The art of doing less. 

 

The accounts of my wife and children handily beat my main account every year. They basically own the same stocks. The difference is they only hold the 10 best stocks and I don’t even log into those accounts unless there is a major bargain to be had. 
 

I tried to limit myself to 15 buys or sales of any kind last year and failed miserably. 
 

I am trying to start again today with 10 for the remainder of 2025. 
 

I invite you all to join me in doing less. Like any other addiction, one day at a time. 

[73 Reds]

10 minutes ago, Eldad said:

The art of doing less. 

 

The accounts of my wife and children handily beat my main account every year. They basically own the same stocks. The difference is they only hold the 10 best stocks and I don’t even log into those accounts unless there is a major bargain to be had. 
 

I tried to limit myself to 15 buys or sales of any kind last year and failed miserably. 
 

I am trying to start again today with 10 for the remainder of 2025. 
 

I invite you all to join me in doing less. Like any other addiction, one day at a time. 

I buy stocks occasionally when they are on sale but haven't sold a stock outside of a small retirement account since the turn of this century.  Does that qualify?

[Rainier]

Just now, 73 Reds said:

I buy stocks occasionally when they are on sale but haven't sold a stock outside of a small retirement account since the turn of this century.  Does that qualify?

Wow! That is extremely impressive. Are you never dissatisfied with companies you own? The thesis never changes?

[73 Reds]

2 minutes ago, Rainier said:

Wow! That is extremely impressive. Are you never dissatisfied with companies you own? The thesis never changes?

As previously posted, I only own a handful or two of stocks and the thesis hasn't changed, or at least not enough to sell and incur a large tax bill.  

Edited April 25, 2025 by 73 Reds
missed line

[Charlie]

@Eldad

The addiction gets better if you are looking for another hobby, like traveling, reading or sport and only get interested in stocks if they are down 30% or so.

Easier said than done. The world is short-term driven. Sometimes reading discussion boards can be counterproductive.

[Eldad]

3 minutes ago, 73 Reds said:

I buy stocks occasionally when they are on sale but haven't sold a stock outside of a small retirement account since the turn of this century.  Does that qualify?

That is awesome.
 

If you buy it, it should be with an extremely long time horizon. Even if the investment doesn’t pan out, it may be better to just hold and let its percentage slowly sink, because it will further engrain the discipline of Munger. 

[Eldad]

1 minute ago, Charlie said:

@Eldad

The addiction gets better if you are looking for another hobby, like traveling, reading or sport and only get interested in stocks if they are down 30% or so.

Easier said than done. The world is short-term driven. Sometimes reading discussion boards can be counterproductive.

Yes thank you. I have found that to be true. Getting too excited about tariffageddon has definitely been counterproductive this year. 

[73 Reds]

1 minute ago, Eldad said:

That is awesome.
 

If you buy it, it should be with an extremely long time horizon. Even if the investment doesn’t pan out, it may be better to just hold and let its percentage slowly sink, because it will further engrain the discipline of Munger. 

Yep.  Current holdings are those left over from a lot of investing mistakes made in my youth and/or lessons learned from those mistakes.

[LC]

@dealraker Said something similar a while back: just buy stocks you like when they  are cheap, and hold them. Ignore the sell decision, just focus on the buy decision. 30 years later you have a giant pool of stocks purchased at (presumably) great prices.

[Eldad]

10 minutes ago, LC said:

@dealraker Said something similar a while back: just buy stocks you like when they  are cheap, and hold them. Ignore the sell decision, just focus on the buy decision. 30 years later you have a giant pool of stocks purchased at (presumably) great prices.

I always thought about Berkshire’s never sell a wholly owned subsidiary promise as a way to get better, family owned businesses to sell to them. But it also makes you act with extreme buy discipline. 

[Charlie]

One of my favourite Buffett qoutes is: 

“Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.”

MAGA/Trump is making buying stocks cheap difficult. It will be interesting what Buffett will say about the economy and the stock market next weekend.

[Castanza]

I've been leaning into Chris Mayer's writings a lot more this past year. This dip has been pretty beneficial for me as I've been able to repositioned quite a bit of my portfolio for what I feel are higher quality companies that I really don't have to worry about as much. Still have the odd 1-3% positions I trade around or mull over until I scale them up in size, but holding quality honestly feels way better. Knowing what it's worth (general direction) along with a high quality management team you are confident in is a much better framework for me personally. Hoping to spend much less time looking for new positions and instead adding to existing ones on dips the next few years. 

 

Check the portfolio less often (set price alerts)

Spend more time with family/friends and doing things I enjoy

 

[Eldad]

12 minutes ago, Castanza said:

I've been leaning into Chris Mayer's writings a lot more this past year. This dip has been pretty beneficial for me as I've been able to repositioned quite a bit of my portfolio for what I feel are higher quality companies that I really don't have to worry about as much. Still have the odd 1-3% positions I trade around or mull over until I scale them up in size, but holding quality honestly feels way better. Knowing what it's worth (general direction) along with a high quality management team you are confident in is a much better framework for me personally. Hoping to spend much less time looking for new positions and instead adding to existing ones on dips the next few years. 

 

Check the portfolio less often (set price alerts)

Spend more time with family/friends and doing things I enjoy

 

Chris is great. He says completely ignore the financial press. 
 

I love when Buffett starts going crazy on stats at the meetings.
 

30% of all liquid consumption in this country is soft drinks. Milk and coffee have been going down for decades.
 

When he reads, it’s statistical facts. Trade journals, government reports on train loads, Annual Reports, etc. Skip what the idiot financial journalist thinks and go to the source. 

[73 Reds]

1 hour ago, Eldad said:

I always thought about Berkshire’s never sell a wholly owned subsidiary promise as a way to get better, family owned businesses to sell to them. But it also makes you act with extreme buy discipline. 

Berkshire also demonstrates, and is itself a great example of the value of deferred taxes.  

[Spooky]

I Love it. It is hard to just sit on your ass(ets). I have been trying to follow Munger's advice but it is difficult. At this point I find myself spending less and less time on investing, I have a collection of great companies and some ETFs for diversification. There are more important things to spend time on in life!

[dealraker]

2 hours ago, LC said:

@dealraker Said something similar a while back: just buy stocks you like when they  are cheap, and hold them. Ignore the sell decision, just focus on the buy decision. 30 years later you have a giant pool of stocks purchased at (presumably) great prices.

I'm a tad annoyed with what seems to me (and I'm probably WRONG) an endless support for stock prices and bottom calling.  Regardless I did add some to Alphabet and Meta recently and today added to Willis (WTW) and Aon (AON).   My business partners and I had - outside the operating businesses - bought 450 acres of industrial land with what we thought would likely be a ten year workout.  And we've already gotten rock solid deposits and contracts to close now within a week -  surprisingly/astonishingly selling it all in just over a year.   So relative to my overall picture I am flushed with cash.

 

I absolutely enjoy owning certain businesses.  Today I received the book from Lars on Fairfax and I'm so excited I just about peed in my pants!   I have a long-long- and longer multifaceted connection to Fairfax and this experience gives endless good feeling to me.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2025 by dealraker

[Milu]

This discussion resonates well for me as my investment approach and philosophy is quite aligned. Have 9 positions, largest being about 16% of portfolio and smallest around 4% of portfolio. Might go a few years without adding any position and then could add 2 or 3 in a single year during a market downturn(2020, 2022) or when a quality company is selling for a cheap price (apple from 2013-2017). I don't sell too often but when I do I just fully exit the position, no real trimming. And when I buy it would always be a minimum of 5% position as I don't really subscribe to the concept of 'starter' positions. Don't want a load of cluttered sub 1 or 2% positions cluttering up my mental space and portfolio. Only add so far this year was a new position in LVMH at a 5% weighting. Cash weighting is 25% so would like to get that down to 10% eventually as I add further positions. Could take a few years for that though.