investing etc. 0013

An offer you can’t refuse, the joy and agony of learning, making the task fit the time, systematic investing, An African History of Africa, Next 15, Judges Scientific, Churchill China, XP Power

investing etc. 0013 should be the superstitious edition, but it’s not. It’s the joys and agony of learning edition.

In investing etc. 0011 a little over a month ago, I fretted about a forthcoming investing Q&A. The choice of format was mine: A way of avoiding the more terrifying prospect of a presentation to fill most of a long time slot.

I also basked in the unplanned joy of reading two strongly contrasting books about a similar subject, simultaneously. 

Well, I’ve done the Q&A and started another simultaneous reading, and I’ve learned a lot - not all of it painlessly.

For tips on how not to prepare a presentation, read on...

You’ve got this

With less than two days to go, and due to pressing circumstances at home, I learned that I would not be travelling across the country to the Q&A after all. Instead I offered to appear by Zoom. 

In my fevered mind, the event transmogrified from a cosy fireside chat back into a full blown presentation. With so little time to prepare, the prospect terrified me because:

1. I have a poor memory and fear I will blank

2. I am good at making connections between things but bad at knowing in the moment whether they make sense

When you lose your mind you revert to type, which for me means bashing the keyboard. But writing is a poor way to prepare a presentation and I spent a panicky afternoon attempting to type out a novella length talk. 

There lay insanity.

I could not wing it, though, not with a 99% chance of blanking and a 100% chance of veering into slapstick. 

To avoid melting into a stress puddle, I had to make the task fit the time, which by then was a couple of hours. That meant winging it with guardrails.

I made a few slides about data and concepts that I absolutely could not explain without visual aids. Most of them were images from articles I had already written or screenshots from the Decision Engine. And I wrote down keywords to remind me of talking points that I would be very disappointed to forget.

In retrospect, the talking points look lame, but, in the moment, I didn’t have time to worry.

The plan (I don’t expect you to make sense of it)

You’re probably wondering how it went. Two hours (in actual time) and about 15 minutes (in perceived time) after we started, I was hoarse and people were smiling. They had asked questions. One was whether I would return. They must have been hungry because the lunch I had forsaken was getting cold.

I learned a lot. As I unburdened myself pacing around the house, my family said, “You talk about this all the time, you’ve got this”. They had faith in me, but I did not have faith in myself. 

Though I worry that anxiety will get the better of me and I will let myself down, it didn’t and I didn’t. So why worry about it?

By explaining my investing process I gained more confidence in it. In the retelling it was coherent, and people saw value in it. Some learnings:

1. 5 Strikes is an enjoyable party game (for investors). They call out a share, and I explain what’s wrong with it! My latest 5 Strikes update, incidentally, found 5 companies with less than three strikes to their name. I also took a closer look at business consultancy Next 15.

2. Investors appreciated how being systematic makes things easier by focusing my attention on a particular kind of share, and particular qualities in those shares. Recently, I have focused my attention on Judges Scientific and Churchill China.

3. They also recognised that by automating trading decisions, the Decision Engine solves a problem that vexes them, which is when to sell. My last Share Sleuth update explains why XP Power was the obvious “sell” in May.

Out of Africa

So much for the agony of learning. Now for some unbridled joy.

My last simultaneous reading was two books about the ongoing colonisation of the Earth’s orbit. The two books I am currently reading start with ancient history: The settlement of our planet by Africans. 

The books, An African History of Africa by Channel 4 presenter and much more Zeinab Bedawi, and Africa: The Definitive Visual History of a Continent, foreword by historian David Olusoga, are sitting on my desk bringing African history to life for me.

African history is everyone’s history

First impressions: Bedawi doesn’t waste a word. Reading her book is delightful because it is scholarship without the verbosity that often goes with scholarship. But it does not have pictures, and only has rudimentary maps. 

The visual history is magnificent. It is a compendium of art and artefacts, filled with ancient engravings and modern culture, but also beautifully constructed timelines, maps and photographs.

Africa is beautiful, and though I cannot hope to experience it as I did when we lived and worked in Tanzania, the book combination is achieving more than the sum of its excellent parts.

Ask me anything!

In my very first newsletter, I introduced the Livingstone Tanzania Trust, a charity close to my heart that supports education and small business projects in and around the town of Babati in Tanzania.

I have some exquisite postcards featuring original artwork from Babati. I thought it might be fun to send them to you, without obligation on your part but with a small obligation on mine.

We like the art so much, we have two prints in our lounge

Ask me anything relating to investing in the widest sense of the word (richard@beddard.net, include your address) and I will do my best to write a pithy perspective on the back of a postcard and send it to you.

Thanks for reading

The best Africa correspondent I know is Charles Onyango-Obbo. 

Sometimes the world around us can feel parochial. His tweets remind me how rich and wonderful and yes, sometimes harsh and unfair, our world is. 

If you know of a continental correspondent of similar verisimilitude reporting from elsewhere, please tell me.