"Civilization, Modernization, Value Investing and China" is a collection of essays by Mr. Li Lu, founder and chairman of Himalaya Capital. I am honored to meet Mr. Li Lu on my road to value investing. Mr. Li Lu is my beacon and mentor on the road to value investing. In the book, Mr. Li Lu advocates that he wants to build a Chinese value investor village in the future, so that all value investors can leave a clean long-term investment record here. The author is willing to become a member of the value investment village and hopes to leave a record of investment for decades. This will be my goal and spiritual wealth for the rest of my life. What impressed the author most was, "Your rate of return comes from a few insights, and the number will never be many, you can count them with two hands. You may get a few really important insights after working hard for 50 years throughout your life. But the insights you get are unique, and no one else has them."
Methodological Guidelines
Li Lujun wrote in the book: You must learn from the best people: listen, study, and read. But the best way to understand investment is to practice. Your circle of competence must be in a small circle. The real way to make money is not to know a lot, but to know the right things. Because individual investors have relatively limited time, investment must be more concentrated, and you must invest in a few stocks that you really know. This concentration is very important. Because the time, energy, experience, etc. of individual investors are concentrated in a few areas, you can only concentrate within these areas, and you must concentrate. Through long-term efforts, individual investors can also achieve this level. You might as well focus on investing in the best listed companies. The best way to learn is to work for the people you respect most, so you will learn very quickly. But there are very few such opportunities, especially for particularly outstanding investors who basically do not need to hire people.
The author's method is to follow. In the process of investing in Kweichow Moutai, I first listened to Mr. Dong Baozhen's sharing for many years, and then listened to the value investment course at Peking University Guanghua School of Management for five years. I was fortunate to join the Kweichow Moutai in-depth research team organized by Himalaya Capital and got a precious opportunity to work for my respected mentor. Of course, the best way is to learn by yourself. While learning by yourself, it is very useful to communicate with people who have already gone a long way on this road.
About Reading
Mr. Li Lu is knowledgeable and well-read, covering science, philosophy, history, biography, finance and economics. We ordinary investors should start reading from the list of books recommended by Mr. Li Lu. Mr. Li Lu also mentioned the "Moody's Manual" and "Value Line" in his book, not leaving out a single page, and Mr. Munger has been reading "Barron's" for decades. In China, I suggest you refer to "Red Weekly", "Snowball", "China-Europe Business Review" and other public WeChat accounts of the companies you follow.
