There are some similarities in
football and investing with a few exceptions. Being a Pats fan, I was motivated
by the impossible and greatest comeback of the Patriots in Super Bowl LI to
write this article. Hence I use Brady/Belichick as an example as often as
possible.
Belichick
He is the greatest chess player.
In most of his talks after a win, he always shows he is the ‘loser’ in his
monotone voice. He moves his facial muscles to a minimum. Politely speaking, he
is boring. Do you want a boring coach who gives results? I sincerely like his
boredom. I prefer him over the well-presentable x-CEO of Pennies or the
best-seller written by a Ph.D. telling us to exit the market in 2009 (I am not
100% sure as I do not have his original edition).
Belichick and Brady’s philosophy
It is quite simple and most are
applicable to investing and actually to most we do in life.
·
The coaches and players have to love football.
·
Work hard.
·
Evaluate all possibilities and prepare for them.
Study the match ups.
In investing, select the stocks that have the highest
appreciation potential at acceptable risk in the current market conditions. To
illustrate, select high-dividend stocks when interest rate is low or defensive
stocks in risky markets.
·
Understand the opposing coaches will work on
your last hero; use the last hero as a decoy if possible.
·
Eat humble pies; do not motivate your opponent
team.
·
Concentrate on your next game (next stock to
trade in investing).
·
Multiple skills. If you say you play one
position only, you do not fit into their system. Investing requires multi disciplines
from evaluating, psychology to simple computer skills.
·
Draft the best players at reasonable prices.
Brady is a sixth round pick. In investing, buy low and sell high.
·
The Pats never spend a lot on one or two
players. In investing, we do not put all eggs in one basket.
·
Trade the player who does not fit in with the
team such as the backup quarterback when Brady is playing at his peak. In
investing, trade stocks to improve the portfolio.
·
Prefer players with potentials, not what they have
accomplished. From the last two SB wins, God must be a fan of Pats. It is
similar to trading value stocks.
·
A successful person does not depend on luck although
luck has something to do with this Super Bowl win to me.
·
Take advantage of the misfits, changes and their
bad decisions. The Falcons defense was exhausted for working too hard and too
long in the first half. In the last quarter, Falcons could win easily by
running with the ball. In investing, it is the contrary investing to
institution investors but ensure they are really making errors.
·
Never give up. When you had 25 points to make up
against a worthy opponent, do not give up.
It is a little exception in investing: Sometimes we
have to give up bad stocks due to our original bad evaluations or the
fundamentals change.
·
Brady and most successful quarterbacks throw the
ball to the open receiver consistently, not always to the star receiver. In
investing, it is called diversification.
·
Adjust your strategy if appropriate. Being a
Monday quarterback, I would like the Pats to adjust the strategy in the start
of the second quarter.
In investing, no strategy is evergreen and no metric such
as P/E always works. Only use the ones that work recently – adaptive investing
in my term.
Football is a team work. Everyone in the team contributes. No one including Brady cannot be replaced. Hightower and White contributed a lot to the comeback. In investing, do not depend on your own research only but check out other researches from reliable sources.
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