2021 Q1 - Endurance, Market Wizards, & 100 to 1 in the Stock Market

Endurance by Alfred Lansing

This fantastic book was recommended by a Quarterly subscriber. What a read! 

It’s an incredible true survivor story about 27 men led by famed British explorer Ernest Schackleton who were marooned on an ice float off the coast of Antarctica for over 2 years (1914-1916) before returning to civilization. While they failed at the mission of crossing the Antarctic continent, they succeeded in accomplishing something so much more than they could have imagined.

Some of the challenges they faced included:

  • Abandoning ship after it got stuck in an ice float for ~9 months many dangerous miles from the continent

  • Surviving on a float of ice for another 5+ months

  • Managing a treacherous voyage on lifeboats to escape a disintegrating ice float

  • Doing something nobody everyone thought was impossible to finally reach civilization

Ernest Shackleton deserves nearly all the credit for saving all of his 27 men in this harrowing experience that lasted over two years before they reconnected with civilization. Here are a few things that came to mind during the read:

  1. How did they avoid scurvy? Was it the fact that they ate every part of any animal they captured? Penguin liver was a special delight.

  2. It is possible to be relatively healthy while avoiding fruits & vegetables for ~2 years. Does this lend more credence to the idea of fruits & veggies as generally unnecessary? My thinking is that a persistent eskimo/carnivore diet could (over time) lead to a narrower tolerance of wider ranges of foods.

  3. The fact that they survived one of the most brutal winters on our planet in 1914 shows us that we can truly endure unthinkable conditions. Human ingenuity is a marvel.

  4. This has to be turned into a movie… and, it’s in the works!

  5. There has to be a detailed youtube video (with pictures and videos) on this expedition. And, there is!

Market Wizards by Jack Schwager

The stock markets are going crazy right now. So, for some perspective, I decided to read a bit about some incredible market traders from the past. This book is a series of interviews of traders from the 1980’s. It provides an interesting sense of history and reveals what it took for these individuals to “strike it big”. The best part of the book, however, is tucked away in the final 15% when the author interviews a psychologist who provides therapy sessions for these high level traders. Although I originally read this on my kindle, the final interview sold me on a physical copy. One of the many lessons in this book is that there are many profitable ways to trade/invest, and one of the keys is to find an investing/trading strategy that works well with your unique personality and tendencies. 

100 to 1 in the Stock Market by Thomas Phelps

From late 2013 until today, Bitcoin has returned $460 for every 1$ invested. That is an astounding investment return. I decided to pick up a book originally published in 1972 that took a deeper look into stocks that managed to return their invested money not by a factor of 100%, but by a factor of at least 10,000%. To my amazement, there are many more stocks that provided these handsome returns that I could have imagined. So how do you find these gems? Here’s what the book recommends you look for companies offering:

  1. “Inventions which enable us to do things we have always wanted to do but could never do before.

  2. New methods or new equipment for doing things we long have had to do but doing them easier, faster, or at less cost than before.

  3. Processes or equipment to improve or maintain the quality of a service while reducing or eliminating the labor required to provide it.

  4. New and cheaper sources of energy such as kerosene replacing whale oil, fuel oil replacing coal, and electricity generated by atomic power replacing them all.

  5. New methods of doing essential old jobs with less or no ecological damage.

  6. Improved methods or equipment for recycling the materials, including water, required by civilized man instead of making mountains of waste and oceans of sewage.

  7. New methods or equipment for delivering the morning newspaper to the home without carriers or waste, yet having it instantly available for review at later dates. [He foresaw THE INTERNET!!!]

  8. New methods or equipment for transporting people and goods on land without wheels.” (!)

Of course, all of this is MUCH easier said than done. Another thing to keep in mind when reading classics (especially in the non-fiction category) is that what you are looking to learn are concepts, not necessarily word-for-word advice. The reason for this is if you can understand the “why,” then it’s less likely you’ll be caught in a web of dogma.  Happy hunting!

Links!

Jason Boddu