Mistakes

During our investment journey, we are likely to make many mistakes. How should we look at these mistakes and what can we learn from them. I have selected some comments on mistakes from successful investors and how do they deal with their mistakes.

“The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.” Theodore Roosevelt

“A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it, is committing another mistake” Confucius

“The only way to avoid mistakes is not to invest — which is the biggest mistake of all” John Templeton

“To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing mymistakes is a source of pride. Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes” George Soros

“In investing it is never wrong to change your mind. It is only wrong to change your mind and do nothing about it” Seth Klarman

“There’s an old saying in the investment game: “It’s okay to be wrong: it’s not okay to stay wrong” Scott Fearon

 “I want to be able to explain my mistakes. This means I do only things I completely understand” Warren Buffett

“We do post-mortems on all of our positions -as well as regular position reviews of what we own – to constantly assess what we got right and what we didn’t. That matters because we want to learn frommistakeseven if the investment outcome turned out fine because we were lucky. Luck is not a sustainable way to make money as an investor. Avoiding mistakes that you’ve made before is” Shawn Kravetz

“The big difference between those who are successful and those who are not is that successful people learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others” Sir John Templeton

“I look very carefully at the mistakesand say, why did this happen; are there lessons here that can help in the future? It’s best to learn from other people’s mistakesbecause they are a lot cheaper. But still, your own mistakeshit home the most and one is likely to learn the most from them” Mohnish Pabrai