Seth Klarman is one of the best investors in the world. He returned over 20% for more than 40 years. His book Margin of Safety sells for over $1,700 on Amazon. Let’s share 10 key investment lessons today. Who is Seth Klarman?Seth Klarman is a legendary value investor. He is known as “The Oracle of Boston” and is highly respected in the investment world. Klarman was born in 1957 in New York City, and used to spend a lot of time reading baseball statistics in the newspaper. The next section in the newspaper was the Finance & Investing section. That made Klarman getting interested in investing, and at the age of 10, he bought his first stock: Johnson & Johnson (J&J). Seth Klarman was no ordinary student. After graduating from Cornell, he earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, where his sharp mind quickly stood out. As he was finishing his degree at age 25, a group of his professors approached him with an unusual offer: They wanted Seth to help them invest and manage their money. Klarman weighed the choice carefully. He had offers from top Wall Street firms that came with huge paychecks, but he was more interested in building something meaningful. So in 1982, he said yes to his professors. That year, Klarman and four Harvard professors founded The Baupost Group, a firm built on the timeless principles of value investing. Over 40 years, Baupost Group grew to one of the largest hedge funds in the world. They manage over $24 billion today and achieved an average annual return of over 20%. Seth Klarman has been the CEO since the beginning and made himself a fortune of $1.3 billion. He explained all his secrets in his book ‘Margin of Safety’. Copies of the book are very limited, they sell for $1,000 or more on Amazon today. One of the reasons he’s so successful? He is willing to make bold bets. Sometimes, Seth Klarman sits on 30-50% cash, waiting for the right timing to swing heavily. Someone who looks up to Klarman’s excellent risk management? Warren Buffett. Margin of SafetyHis book Margin of Safety was published in 1991. At that time, the stock market was booming. Wall Street was selling IPOs, bonds, and complex new products like crazy. Investors were chasing quick profits and ignoring risk. They were acting like speculators, and not intelligent investors. Klarman wrote Margin of Safety to remind people about the core principles of value investing and the importance of protecting your money. But nobody wanted to listen when making big profits seemed so easy. The book was a commercial flop, and quickly went out of print. Klarman even gave away copies for free. Then came the dot-com crash and the 2008 financial crisis. Stocks collapsed, speculators lost everything, and only disciplined value investors, like Klarman, held up. That’s when things changed: everyone wanted to learn from him. Margin of Safety became one of the most sought-after investing books ever written. Klarman never reprinted it. He preferred it to stay rare and low-profile. That’s why today, original copies sell for over $1,000 online. |