Thai VI

Munger likes to find areas where the competition is “dumb”:

“Don’t go where the big boys have to be. You don’t want to look at the drug pipelines of Merck and Pfizer. Go where there are inefficiencies in which you can get an advantage and where there are fewer people looking at the stocks. Go where the competition is low.”
http://www.gurufocus.com/news/93302/201 ... ting-notes

Charlie once described a friend who is a chess master and said in business rather than competing with the equivalent of him, you want to find an area where you are the best and competitors are not so talented. He likes investing in businesses which have “no or dumb competition” and the investors who want to invest in them are similar.

Another way to avoid making mistakes is to own businesses that even what Charlie calls your “idiot nephew” could run fairly well.

“Network TV [in its heyday,] anyone could run and do well. If Tom Murphy is running it, you’d do very well, but even your idiot nephew could do well.” http://www.designs.valueinvestorinsight ... _Notes.pdf

Having to make one hard financial decision after another in running a company can be damaging to your financial health even if you or your mangers are very talented. Munger is emphatic on this topic:

“We’re partial to putting out large amounts of money where we won’t have to make another decision.” http://www.tilsonfunds.com/motley_berks ... 1notes.php

ESPN is an example of a company that could probably be run by your “idiot nephew” since its moat is so strong (moats will be the subject of the next post in this series). Coca-Cola, Snickers and Wrigley’s are strong businesses that pass this test.

It is worth emphasizing that Munger is not saying management does not matter (another subject this series of posts will get to later). Instead what Charlie is saying that he would prefer to have a business that passes the “idiot nephew” test *and * for the business to have talented management.....

Munger especially recommends paying attention to so-called “mistakes of omission” (mistakes you make by not doing something):

“The most extreme mistakes in Berkshire’s history have been mistakes of omission. We saw it, but didn’t act on it. They’re huge mistakes — we’ve lost billions. And we keep doing it. We’re getting better at it. We never get over it. There are two types of mistakes: 1) doing nothing; what Warren calls “sucking my thumb” and 2) buying with an eyedropper things we should be buying a lot of.” http://www.tilsonfunds.com/motley_berks ... 1notes.php

“Our biggest mistakes were things we didn’t do, companies we didn’t buy.” http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag ... /index.htm

The list of big business mistakes is long. But for an ordinary investor the simple act of not saving or contributing to a 401(k) can be a huge mistake of omission.

For Charlie, thinking in terms of “opportunity cost” is essential when it comes to mistakes:

“We are apparently slow learners. These opportunity costs don’t show up on financial statements, but have cost us many billions.” http://www.tilsonfunds.com/motley_berks ... notes.php3

“Since mistakes of omission don’t appear in the financial statements, most people don’t pay attention to them.” http://www.buffettfaq.com/

Munger and Buffett not investing in Wal-Mart is just one example of a mistake of omission. Buffett has said that just this one mistake with Wal-Mart cost them $10 billion. In 1973 Tom Murphy offered to sell some television stations to Berkshire for $35 million and Buffett declined. “That was a huge mistake of omission,” Buffett has admitted. .