Bill Ackman on Investing

'Everything' You Need To Know About Finance And Investing In Under An Hour

Key Learnings:

1. Start investing early, in order to benefit fully from the power of compounding.

2. Higher returns are usually compensating you for higher risk. You should be able to find bargains where people are overestimating the likelihood, and potency of risk, as this usually results in undervaluation. Conversely, if you are planning to short a company (this is arguably much harder to do in a successful manner over a very long period of time), you must believe the opposite. i.e You must believe the people have underestimated risks.

3. William Ackman's "Keys to Successful Investing":

• Understand how the company makes money.
• Is it a reasonable-or bargain-price?
• Invest in a company that could last forever.
• Find a company with limited debt.
• Look for high Barriers to entry, and consider how these barriers are changing.
• Invest in a company immune to extrinsic factors.
• Invest in a company with low reinvestment costs.
• Avoid Businesses with controlling Shareholders