Several hundred Motley Fool One members met in San Diego last week to talk about investing, our finances, and life.
We hold these gatherings a few times a year. They're truly one of the highlights of being part of our community.
The event included talks from Tom Gardner, Jeff Fischer, Andy Cross, Google director Suzanne Frey, LouAnn Lofton, myself, and many others.
Here's a video of the highlights. Watch below, then keep reading for a few of my favorite takeaways from the event -- and how you can watch the full event.
In his opening remarks, Tom listed four traits of successful investing. This one struck a chord with me:
Now, rule of the road No. 1 is I believe that everyone should buy 15 to 30 Motley Fool recommendations at a minimum. I know it can be tempting to dip in and buy one or two and see if they work, or three or four, but really if you want to replicate the kinds of market-beating returns that we've gotten at The Motley Fool for more than 20 years, you need to own 15 to 30 business that we've recommended.
This is so important, because we sometimes meet people who have most of their portfolio in a handful of stocks. Remember that we know and expect that a percentage of our picks won't work out over time. That's a normal part of investing. Extreme concentration is one of the surest paths to regret.
Next, Pro and Options advisor Jeff Fisher talked about setting your expectations before the market declines:
The only anchoring I do — and we all anchor — I anchor to the high-water mark, whatever it was of my portfolio, and I assume it's 20% lower, because I know at some point it's going to be at least 20% lower.
So if you're going to anchor, anchor in that way, and then the volatility is part of your expectation, or you try to internalize that it's going to happen.
Inside Value advisor Rich Griefner gave a good talk on the power of business moats. Here are his thoughts on Moody's:
Do you guys know Moody's? They're one of the largest credit-rating organizations. They rate debt and the companies that issue that debt. Moody's did a really bad job of rating debt in the 2007-2009 time frame, and it nearly caused the destruction of the global economy.
But even so, Moody's is still strong today. Still earns 30% return on capital and they still have a 40% market share. How did that happen? Why has nobody come in to compete with Moody's? The answer is to become a nationally recognized statistical ratings organization, you have to jump through all kinds of hoops. It's really hard to become qualified to compete with Moody's. So even though they almost destroyed the entire global economy, Moody's is still earning 30% return on capital and are converting 30% of their revenue to free cash flow. That's what it means by "30/30 club."
Finally, Google director Suzanne Frey talked about the power apps play in our life. By saving everyone time, they have become the great equalizer:
I'm going to talk about an unusual commodity today. Most people may not call it a commodity, but when you think about the most precious commodity we all have... well, of course, it's time. It can't be traded. It can't be bought and sold. Whether you're Elon Musk, you're Warren Buffett, or you're someone just trying to make ends meet, we all have exactly the same amount of time ... 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is the grand equalizer and it's something that we take quite seriously in everything we do.
If you're interested in checking out more from these presentations and 15 sessions from the all-day event, you can now tune in with a digital pass -- the first time we're making this exclusive access available to everyone. Click the button below to learn more:
