A summary of the people who'd influenced my Investing Learning Journey,
Warren Buffett
I was inspired by his being able to become one of the richest man in the world through Investing. I only really started reading and learning more about Investing Approach after that.
Benjamin Graham
Even though my mind just go blank most of the time whenever I try to read his books, his concepts of Margin of Safety and Intrinsic Value rings a bell with me. I learn to be 'kia-su' and 'kia-si', the more so if I'm looking at higher risk stocks + I run very fast at the 1st sign of trouble for such stocks. It also provide the cornerstone for me to do arm-chair research and analysis, relying mainly on the internet, as I have little luxury to even attend AGMs.
Peter Lynch
The strongest influence on my Investing Philosophy (if you can call that). I learnt to classify my stocks into different categories and adopt different approach to each. I also learnt to look at my P/L based on entire portfolio rather than individual stocks ie. it's ok to have loss making stocks (we are not perfect - learn from it and move on, don't cling on to false hopes) but the profitable ones in the portfolio must out-weigh the losses. Lastly, focus on biz that we are familiar with, starting with those that we have interactions with in our daily lives (for me, that means SPH - Newspapers, SingPost - Postal Services, Transport - SBS, SMRT, Comfort,..) + those that are within our Job Expertise.
Philip Fisher
He showed the way to the meaning of,
More Effort = More Knowledge = Better Odds of Making $$ = More Confidence (to Invest or Not)
His approach involves more legwork and talking to the different people (Key Mgmt, Competitors, Suppliers,...). With the advent of the Info Age and the internet, I have the luxury of doing some of these tasks sitting on the armchair (although nothing beats an eyeball-to-eyeball kind of info gathering exercise).
Warren Buffett
Full circle for me, back to him again. His approach is Graham + Fisher + Charlie Munger + John Keynes (?). The key is, we have to find the combo that's best for our own temperament and adapt to our our unique environment.
Perhaps I'm slow as I'm not Accounting / Finance trained. Since buying my first stock more than 2 decades back, I'm still learning and evolving my strategies / methodologies.... Ya, but the ride had been fun + profitable so far!