Admission Open for My Value Investing Workshops (Offline): I’m excited to announce admissions to my upcoming in-person value investing workshops in the following cities:
- Bengaluru – Sunday, 13th July 2025
- Hyderabad – Sunday, 27th July 2025
- Mumbai – Sunday, 10th August 2025
Click here to know more and book your seat.
Seats are limited in each city. The first 20 participants can claim an early bird discount.
While working as an equity analyst a few years ago, I met a lot of company managements, especially in the small and midcap space.
Many of these meetings happened in modest offices, often tucked away in industrial pockets of cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Coimbatore. I remember one company from Delhi vividly that I met sometime around 2006. It was a mid-sized construction company with government contracts across multiple states. The promoter was articulate and spoke with the kind of confidence that made you believe everything was under control.
“We’ll double revenues in three years,” he said during our meeting. “Margins will expand as we move into annuity-based infrastructure. We know where we’re headed.”
As most inexperienced analysts do while face to face with a charismatic founder, I suffered from the ‘halo effect’. And so, his words felt reassuring and predictable.
Yet just a couple of years later, that same company was struggling with payment delays, project cancellations, rising debt, and a liquidity crunch.
The stock tanked. The story changed. Or rather, reality reminded me that it was never that simple in the first place. But back then, I didn’t question the certainty. I didn’t even notice how eager I was to believe it.
That meeting was a turning point for me.
In this line of work (equity analysis, investing etc.), there’s always a pressure to know. To be the person with the answer, and one that sounds certain. We don’t like to admit doubt. In fact, saying “I don’t know” can feel like failure. But over time, I’ve learned that needing to know is often what leads us into trouble.
I’ve caught myself doing it more times than I’d like to admit. I’ll start reading about a company with an open mind, but within 20 minutes, I’ve already decided it’s promising. From there, I’m no longer learning but just reinforcing. Every article and every metric becomes ammunition for a case I’ve already built in my head. And when something doesn’t fit the story, I dismiss it.
Looking back, I realise the problem wasn’t that I reached a conclusion. It was that I reached it too fast and comfortably. And then I didn’t leave any space to revisit it.
I wonder now: What would have happened if, instead of asking “How soon should I invest?” I had asked, “What am I still unsure about?” What would I have noticed if I had let the question hang in the air a little longer instead of rushing to answer it?
There’s something uncomfortable about sitting with uncertainty, and we’re wired to escape it. Especially in markets, where noise is constant and everyone seems to have an opinion. But investing isn’t a test where there’s one right answer. It’s more like an evolving conversation with the business, with the numbers, and with time. And if we conclude too early, we stop listening.
I remember once investing in an auto ancillary company (again based out of Delhi!) that had all the makings of a “no-brainer.” Demand for its products was rising, it had a reasonably strong brand, and a clean balance sheet. I wrote a glowing thesis for myself. But when the CFO suddenly resigned and margins dipped sharply, I clung to my original view. I kept thinking, “This is just short-term noise.” But maybe what I should’ve been thinking is, “What is this telling me that I haven’t wanted to see?”
That small shift from “I already know” to “What am I not seeing?” is difficult. It doesn’t make for interesting conversations with your investor friends. But I think that’s where good investing begins. Not in answers, but in questions.
Even today, when I look at a company that excites me, I try to watch my own reactions. Am I getting carried away? Am I too eager to connect the dots?
If everything feels too smooth, too clean, maybe that’s when I need to pause…to doubt the completeness of my understanding.
I still fall for stories. I still overestimate my ability to predict. But I’m getting better at slowing down (maybe, that’s what age does for you). At asking simpler questions like: “What would need to be true for this to work?” or “What could I be missing entirely?” This has now become a habit, like a voice coming from the back of my mind every time I am about to make a decision.
I’ve noticed that the best investors I know don’t rush to conclusions. They speak in probabilities, not predictions. They’re okay saying, “Let’s see how this plays out.” They understand that uncertainty isn’t the enemy. In fact, uncertainty is the environment, which is something to work with.
It’s taken me a long time to accept that there’s no medal for being sure and no prize for being early. You can be early and wrong. Or sure and broke. In fact, some of my biggest mistakes came not from a lack of knowledge, but from a refusal to say, “I’m not sure anymore.”
These days, I try to hold my views more lightly, both in investing and life. I still build theses, I still take positions, but I don’t worship them. I treat them like working drafts that can be revised. And when I feel myself wanting to be “right” more than I want to see clearly, I take that as a warning sign.
Now, this doesn’t mean I have achieved some enlightenment of sorts as an investor, but just what’s keeping me sane. Because the more I invest, the more I realise that good decisions don’t come from knowing more. Instead, they come from needing to know less. From being comfortable with not knowing, for a little longer. And watching, without rushing to conclude.
There’s a beautiful freedom in that, the kind that lets you stay in the game. And that’s all what I want to focus on as an investor. Staying in the game.
Two Books. One Purpose. A Better Life.
“Discover the extraordinary within.”
—Manish Chokhani, Director, Enam Holdings
“This is a masterpiece.”
—Morgan Housel, Author, Psychology of Money
