I didn't believe it at first but after watching the show, Dead Boy Detectives was so obviously crafted to be catnip for the Tumblr girlies(gn), cause like. Homoerotic ghost detectives. Sassy psychics. Weird girls. Witches. A literal cat king. Sad twink that's actually a crow. Hot goth lesbian butchers. Slowburn ft. immortal beings. Gay confessions in hell. This show was crafted in a lab for us, and I LOVE IT. Go watch it if you haven't already.

Thanks for answering my ask.....if you don't mind me asking (again), who are your favorite romantic relationship's couples in books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series (can be canon or non-canon)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before......Thanks....

Hi! Thanks for another fun ask! I actually have one post up about some of my favorite OTPs from books from a little while ago. All are canon couples from book series. But you can find that here in this post:

But why would I NOT take the chance to share more OTPs that I love, especially if I can dip into some of my favorite non canon ships too and now ive got some new ones and from other media as well. 🤣 the limitations of only 10 though is always hard. Here are another 10 of my current favorite ships I obsess over. I won't include any from the post above though even though I'm still in love with ALL of them too. Some of my favorite couples, 10 of them, in no particular order:

Victuuri (Yuri On Ice, Anime)

I watched this anime and fell in love with it and their chaotic but adorable and sweet relationship SO HARD. And the relationship is right there in canon which is SO NICE to see in anime where it's just another small portion of their lives. The way they are both obsessed with each other too 😍

Edwin and Royai (FMAB, Anime)

Both canon. Royai is canon, argue with the wall! Lol I guess Royai is like half canon, but whatever. Explicit confirmation is not needed to know those 2 are married. Ed and Winry are the peak childhood friends to lovers arc in the most adorable. Plus she is a badass mechanic. HIS badass mechanic. The way their love grew organically is adorable and so sweet. They take such good care of each other. And Royai are the epitome of a married couple. They also are both so equally badass and have such infinite and complete trust in each other?? It's AMAZING. The way they literally trust each other with their lives and their mental well being. The way Roy literally trusts her to be his eyes when needed also? He literally calls her his queen. I love them so much

Clexa (The 100, TV Show)

CANON yet they did us dirty with the bury your gays trope. But like the "I'm only soft for you" bullshit they had going on. UGH I ate it up so hard. Lol they are both such extreme badasses, morally Grey anti heroes. OF COURSE THEIR RELATIONSHIP WAS INTENSELY PERFECT TOO! I love the bellarke ship with the best of them too, but out of all Clarke's relationships, the best and my favorite will always be with Lexa. She loved her SO MUCH and the way Lexa always protected her 😭

SasuNaru (Naruto, Anime)

Not canon, I know, but I'm obsessed with the ship anyway because it SHOULDVE BEEN CANON. I could write whole essays over how painfully gay and queer coded these 2 are. Canonically soulmates and everything. Lol their characters and their relationship was the most flushed out in the show and therefore, them being shipped together just makes sense. Especially with how homoromantic and angsty half the shit they did was.

Shakadolin (Stormlight Archive, Book)

Not canon, but the author said it would've been in a different timeline and that even in the current on, Adolin and Shallan (the Canon couple) probably would've been willing to go for it. Lol you can't convince me otherwise thay they aren't both lowkey in love with Kaladin. They invite him to be their bodygaurd on all their dates for a reason! 😂

HuaLian (TGCF, Donghua)

I've read these books for the first time recently and now these 2 live rent free. Like honestly, the OBSESSION with each other. The adorableness. The respectfulness of boundaries. The ICONIC one liners dropped. The do anything cross any line be wherever you need devotion. The way one of them is the sweetest human alive and the other embodies the "I hate everyone but you" trope. Lol the awkwardness of the positions they find themselves in. The jealousy of each other that they make up themselves. Lol the slow burn is painful!! It's been literally 800 years just tell each other you love each other and get married!!!!

So many ATLA ships lol but I love a good Zukka, Sukka, Zutara, Kataang, Korrasami, Rangshi, Suzukki as my ot3 love too lol (TV Show)

There is a good mix of canon and non canon ships here lol what can I say, I'm easy to please! But I will say that it speaks to my Sapphic soul in the best way that the wlw ships are CANON! Thank you ATLA universe for that blessing. And they are canon in the most amazing of ways. Korrasami will always be my favorite. The bi icons those girls are and they way they are EVERYTHING and are so freaking sweet and cute and BADASS.

Solangelo (PJO, Book)

Loves of my life, this relationship is grumpy x sunshine trope personified. They are so sweet, so cute, so perfect for each other it hurts. I clearly have a dynamic I love here. Lol because they are also both insanely badass. Plus the ghost king who controls death and his medic doctor boyfriend? Yes please. Literally made for each other and the way they help each other heal and be happy 🥺

The Iron Triangle, aka Yizhi, Shimin, and Zetian (Iron Widow, Book)

Love triangles done correctly and ended perfectly, aka bisexually. Lol to quote the author, "Iron Widow is just 400 pages of Zetian and Shimin suffering nonstop while Yizhi has the most bisexual time of his life." Lmfao. They are the morally Grey anti heros and lowkey villains in love badass scifi/fantasy cast of characters who ALL fall in love with each other and are only stronger for it. And it's a true triangle, where all 3 are in love and feel more complete for it. There is no choosing.

Darrow & Virigina, and Sevro & Victra (Red Rising, Book)

Unhinged characters falling in love. What could be better. They both match energies so well, bring out the best in each other and fight so hard for each other or sometimes fight each other too. These books are so good, but so brutal. Lol the relationships follow suit. But I freaking LOVE them. I cried so much reading it all and yet I'm obsessed and have been since I first read them. It'll probably never stop.

Predestination

About two weeks ago this year marked the 500th anniversary of The Reformation, which is generally thought to have begun with Martin Luther’s posting of 95 Theses on October 31, 1517. One of the least cheerful ideas rooted in the Reformation is the idea of predestination. This doctrine holds that salvation is predestined, which is to say that no works of the individual, however virtuous, will lead to salvation in the afterlife, because God alone decides, and in his infinite wisdom, he knows from the moment of your birth (or before) whether you are saved or damned. The leaders of the Reformation promoted this idea because Pope Leo X, successor to Julius II and Alexander VI, sought to finance the glorious reconstruction of the Basilica of St. Peter’s, the Vatican cathedral (and various other extravagances) through the aggressive sale of indulgences, which, in theory guaranteed salvation for a fee, an early version of the modern televangelist appeal. These three popes were each rich (Alexander was a Borgia, Julius was a della Rovere and Leo was a Medici), ambitious, avaricious and venal. All were guilty of simony and all were also guilty of most (and maybe all) of the seven deadly sins. All advanced their own family interest against the others, and all had a love of extravagance. Both Alexander VI and Julius II had sold indulgences to finance various wars, intrigues, elections and projects, e.g. Michelangelo’s refurbishment of the Sistine Chapel as well as the demolition of Constantine’s ancient Basilica of St. Peter’s and the beginning of Bramante’s and Michelangelo’s spectacular replacement. Leo X, however, succeeded to an inadequate treasury and his own extravagance soon led to enormous unpaid bills that required maximum new revenue from indulgences. Predestination was promoted by Luther because it would make paying for indulgences a pointless gesture, and tended to focus believers on the here and now, the one life every person could be certain about, rather than the promise of a more dubious afterlife in exchange for an advanced cash payment. Predestination has subsequently been blamed for all manner of mischief, including, inter alia, capitalism, usury, witch hunts, wars, the fire and brimstone sermons of Jonathan Edwards and Puritanism itself, which my favorite kind-hearted, contrarian curmudgeon, H.L. Mencken, delightfully defined as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be happy.” Of course, being myself merely a curmudgeon, I cannot know what true puritans actually thought or think. But in the 1980’s, with the development of chaos theory, predestination got a boost, because chaos theory, based on the necessity of random fluctuations (Lucretius again?) posited that perhaps, there was no free will at all, since randomness is by definition unpredictable (recall Edward Lorenz’ Butterfly Effect and Strange Attractor) but nonetheless deterministic, thus leaving everything to chance and nothing to choice. This unexpected revival was similar to the upending of the “nurture v. nature” notions (that made Benjamin Spock, the baby doctor, rich) by Judith Rich Harris even more recently. I believe, however, that puritans actually thought that since some were surely saved, all should behave as if they might be, and avoid any possible contamination which might make the lucky few even more disgusting to the immaculate perfect god waiting to welcome them. As it happens, Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote a delicious sonnet about the puritanical sorts that resulted from an overdose of predestination. Here it is: NEW ENGLAND Here where the wind is always north-north-east And children learn to walk on frozen toes, Wonder begets an envy of all those Who boil elsewhere with such a lyric yeast Of love that you will hear them at a feast Where demons would appeal for some repose, Still clamoring where the chalice overflows And crying wildest who have drunk the least. Passion is here a soilure of the wits, We're told, and Love a cross for them to bear; Joy shivers in the corner where she knits And Conscience always has the rocking-chair, Cheerful as when she tortured into fits The first cat that was ever killed by Care. I was born in New England, but did not live there, so I could not write about such characters with any familiarity. I did write a modest critique of puritanical notions in a light moment once, so maybe now, on the anniversary of the Reformation which spawned predestination and all its progeny, it is time to publish it: UNPOPULAR GENETICS If it is true that genes select Predispositions, great and small Then mine must be the kind you’d call Politically incorrect. They fail to fear portended threats From cigarettes or alcohol; From flaccid flesh, cholesterol Or fun or unprotected sex. Perhaps if I’m untimely dead There will be gleeful schadenfreude At how frivolity destroyed A life survivors think ill-led Compared to theirs, sensibly spent In abstinence as lean as Lent. Finally, I also wrote a more serious sonnet about predestination in the days when chaos theory was newer and more popular. It was really just an expression of some of the implications, like a draft for an essay. I suspect that some of the people burned as heretics during the Reformation (and both sides burned heretics) suffered the flames for thinking ideas similar to the ones in this sonnet. So we have come a long way since then. Maybe that was what was truly predestined. PREDESTINATION Suppose in fact no will is ever free That every willful act is preordained And no intent to do will ever change The least aspect of what is bound to be. No need then to compete. Morality Becomes irrelevant. We lose or gain By accidents we cannot rearrange To overcome evitability. The good are bound to be good and the worst Cannot be helped, nor can they help themselves. Life uses all in ways nobody delves In disregard of who is last or first; Indifferent to each individual one Life just shoots dice deciding what is done. © 2017 frankcmcclanahaniii

This is like, months late I’m sorry please forgive me

This was a questions tag thing that went around like a month ago, and it’s been sitting in my drafts waiting for me to finish it

I forget the rules, and I think everyone has answered these already, so I’m not going to bother tagging more peoples, but if you haven’t done this yet, and want to, answer any 11 of these questions!

3 people tagged me, so this is long

@thecrazyexfangirl tagged me for these:

1. What are you studying or what is your profession? 

I’m studying economics! I’ll graduate with an honours undergrad degree next year, and then I want to complete a masters in economics, a masters in public policy, and a phD in economics, then spend my career writing macroeconomic policy for governments. Basically I want to run the world 

2. I read a lot of opinion about FMAB and FMA03 Mustang, but what is your opinion about FMAB and FMA03 Edward?

I have opinions, and I am going to start on that essay post soon! 

3. Where are you from? 

I grew up in Victoria BC 

4. What is your favourite film/book and why? 

Across the universe is my favourite movie, because I love Beatles music, and I think the movie is just so well done. and Harry Potter is my favourite book, because, well, why does anyone like Harry Potter? It’s the first book I read all the way through, because it came out when I was a smol, the first book that had enough diverse characters that I could identify with, and rereading it it’s feels like catching up with an old friend❤ 

5. If you get a role in the FMA live action, which role would you play? 

I would love to play Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong, but I think honestly, I would want more of like an extra role, because I’d be too busy fangirling to actually act, plus, acting isn’t really my thing 

 6. FMA03, FMAB or FMA manga? 

Good golly, that’s tough. I haven’t read the manga yet, I have a processing disorder that makes it hard to read black and white manga. Between 03 and brohood, brohood is definitely a better series, but 03 is important to watch. I really love Ed’s character development in 03, and I LOVE satan Tucker’s fate. Death is too merciful for him, I love that he sufffeeeerrrrrrrrrsssssss 

7. If you get an opportunity to meet with an author who would you choose? 

I think Arakawa would be a really cool person to meet. From the little that I’ve read/heard about her, I feel like we’d get along 

 8. Which fictional character would be your best friend? 

I think Mai from atla would be my saltmate for sure 

9. Favourite fandom? 

Definitely fma 

10. When did you join to the tumblr community? 

I think I made a tumblr in like 2012, but didn’t really get into it, then after watching fma, I started looking at fanart, and found royai fanfics that soothed my soul, and then I started using Tumblr, so mid 2016. 

11. Do you make fanarts, fanfictions, amv etc.?

I wish. I am an artist, but I paint impressionist landscapes, so fanart isn’t really my domain. And I’ve never really been a writer.

@queenxolivier tagged me in these:

How did you get into fandom? What was your catalyst to finding the tumblr community?

This was kind of answered with when did I join Tumblr. But I got into fma after my brother nagged me to watch it. I got into fandom back in the days of My Immortal and the Harry Potter fandom, but I didn’t have a tumblr back then, so it was more looking at hp fanart on deviantart and MySpace, and googling fanfics, but I was never part of a fandom community until I found fma

What’s your favourite part about your favourite fandom?

I love that the fma fandom is still thriving, like, brohood ended 6 years ago, and people are still joining the fandom, making new art and fics, it’s awesome!

If you could spend the day with any fictional character, who would it be and why?

I’d love to spend a day with Katara, she’s so incredible, and I think I could learn a lot from her, like just how to be a better person in general

What fictional character has had the biggest impact on your life or has inspired you the most?

Hermione was the first character to have an impact on me. And it was because I have gigantic teeth just like her. Seriously, my front teeth are like twice the size of my husbands, and I’ve had these teeth since I was a tiny 8 year old. So I latched onto her character, and started to find more similarities between me and her, and she taught me it’s ok to be smart and a girl

Talk about your favourite book (I KNOW IT’S HARD but if you had to pick one).

Lol hp fo sho. It's just so perfect, like even now, there's still more I'm learning about the Harry Potter universe, and so many more headcanons I can get behind...and more reasons to hate Snape 

Do you have any accomplishments or anything in your life you feel the most proud of?

Ha, way too many. I have a super interesting back story, but that will take to much to talk about here

Tell us about a project you have going on! Or if you don’t have one, maybe something you’ve always wanted to write or draw?

Right now I’m doing an econometric analysis on whether minimum wage increases have impacted the CPI in British Columbia for the last 30 years, and I’m also writing about how Canada’s economy wouldn’t have developed without the help of the Indigenous Peoples

How do you feel about AU’s?

Meh. I like the funny au headcanons, like the one @izumiicurtis proposed, where everyone wears period clothing, except ed still looks like he robbed hot topic in the dark (that is the best joke in the fandom I swear) but I never really got into au's

Do you have any favourite composers or soundtracks?

I really love the Rent soundtrack 

In your opinion, what is the best Disney movie to come out since Disney’s Golden Age?

Wreck it Ralph

Fangirl about something, really go wild.

Major. General. Olivier. Mira. Armstrong. that woman is a goddess and could kill me and I’d be ok with it. She’s so powerful and doesn’t take any crap and she’s so smart and always plans ten steps ahead of everyone and she’s not afraid to admit she doesn’t know everything and she loves her brother so much and does so much to protect her family plus she’s absolutely beautiful like her hair is made of silk I swear and the way she fights with a sword instead of guns I just love swords

@haganenobeato tagged me in these

1. Would you wanted Solf J. Kimblee perish a deserving death on that train? Yes or yes? 

Yes. He should have died RIGHT THERE 

2. Is there fanart or fanfiction you feel needs to be made but doesn’t exist yet or w/e? FMA or otherwise? 

There should be more RizBecca (Riza and Rebecca) fics/ art, and more Marier (Maria Ross and Olivier Mira Armstrong) fics/art. Just more wlw content in general in the fma fandom 

3. What do you think Hayate’s Cream Shiba’s name is? 

well, I think that dog must be Roy’s, and Roy is a nerd, so he probably named her similarly to how Riza named Black Hayate

4. Knowing the FMA baddies masterplan, what would you have tried to do to stop Father? 

lol I’m 5 feet tall and I’ve never been in a fight in my life, If I tried to stop them, I’d somehow trip and accidentally press the big red button that sets the plan in motion (oh there’s no big red button that does that? surprise, when I’m around, there’s suddenly a big red button that does The Bad Thing(tm) )

 5. Which is your favorite AU? 

Idk, I’m not really into AU’s

6. What fictional character would you have a comfortable silence with? 

Riza. I feel like she’s the type who doesn’t do small talk, but when she gets to know you she starts like, making puns and when she has a topic to talk about, she really gets into it. And she doesn’t seem like the type to be awkward with silence

7. Which fictional character would you introduce to your family? 

Riza. I think she’d have a lot of fun with my family, and I think my family would like her. I would say Olivier, but she doesn’t seem like the ‘meet the parents’ type of person to me

8. Which fictional character deserved better? 

Katara in legend of korra, they really did a horrible job with her character 

9. Which FMA character (assuming they don’t know alchemy, even if they do in canon) would you rather be stuck on an island with? 

OLIVIER MIRA ARMSTRONG 

10. What scene brings a smile to your face each time? 

the EdWin proposal, it’s just so cute, and so awkward, and so appropriate for how Ed/Winry propose to each other

11. FLAIL AND CAPS LOCK SOMETHING, ANYTHING

IDK WHAT TO CAPS LOCK ABOUT. NOW I’M THINKING OF EDWIN SO MAYBE I’LL FANGIRL ABOUT THAT. THEY’RE JUST SO PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER AND THEY’RE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS AND BEST FRIENDS AND ARAKAWA WROTE THEIR RELATIONSHIP SO WELL AND IT’S SO SUBTLE AND BUILDS OVER TIME AND THEY’RE SUCH A SUNSHINEY COUPLE AND THEY HAVE SUCH A CUTE LITTLE FAMILY AND I LOVE MY BABIES

if you read this all, you’re my new best friend

I hate it when I play a game and then I Essay instead of doing real work.

I beat BG2 and Throne of Bhaal with the Edwin romance mod installed because heck if I’m not gonna romance the snarky wizard, given the option. The whole way through I’m waffling on whether the mod is good or not, because it’s got some problems, but it’s also genuinely funny and I like both the secondary characters it introduces. And then the epilogues are just. A culmination of everything wrong and I must drag my hands down my face and write a post about how I could fix it.

1) Dear god, especially when it comes to written, selectable dialogue, brevity is the soul of wit. In the unmodded game, Edwin has an excellent vocabulary and a flair for the dramatic, but he’s actually not too verbose. He’s all pithiness over prattle. Step one: Remove about 60% of his adjectives.

2) Incidentally, that Thayan (read: Russian) accent actually inclines a listener to expect certain speech patterns and sentence structures. This isn’t a jab at people who speak with accents, by the way - far from it. But if English is your second language, you may build sentences and choose words differently. And if we hear a Russian accent, even if it’s in a fake fantasy setting, we subconsciously expect those structures. Take the canonical re-invitation dialogue in ToB:

“You have regained your senses and recognized my indispensability! This is good, this is very good.”

“This is good, this is very good” is very different from a phrase with similar meaning but a different structure, such as “Excellent! You’ve regained your senses...” etc.

The point is that if you read Edwin’s dialogue you should be able to hear it flowing in the accent his actor has chosen. This doesn’t always happen in the mod. Obviously, the easiest editing method here is to read everything aloud in a Russian accent. I’m serious. Oh and also I think it’s Thayan and not Thayvian?

3) He’s got that added-comments-in-brackets dialogue quirk, which is a wonderful tool to see inside Edwin’s head, but it does need to be used with care. It’s best for contrast, when he’s internally seething but externally trying to keep his composure. The mod takes the opposite tack and uses it for when he’s internally swooning, which I kind of love because it’s hilarious, but it could still make better use of the contrast at times. Not-as-smooth-as-he-thinks-he-is on the outside, internally hyperventilating - that’d be something to see.

4) Back on the topic of brevity - the Bhaalspawn’s responses need to be toned down about eight notches. The player needs more space to project himself or herself onto the PC. More than once, the lengthy, detailed responses made me cringe, and I didn’t want to choose any of them, because I thought “My bard would say this, but not that...she agrees with this, but wouldn’t say it in that way...” etc, etc. (I distinctly remember the “supply of emergency chocolate” line because I started wondering if chocolate had been invented yet, and that destroyed the suspension of disbelief. It can get too silly.) When writing for customized PCs, you have to stay away from detail that would be necessary in the dialogue of an NPC (i.e., Edwin’s). The simpler the sentence is, the easier it is for more people to imagine their Bhaalspawn saying it. This is clearly written for the modder’s Bhaalspawn, not every Bhaalspawn - because even the highly evil responses carry the same over-the-top sarcasm as the good or neutral-chaotic-ish responses.  DA:O’s Alistair romance is a good example of how to pull this off properly while keeping the comedy intact. Everybody remembers the “lamppost in winter” conversation, but Alistair gives you all the bizarre prompts, and the PC chooses how to play off it - sincerely or teasingly. That’s an awesome tactic.

5) I read one review of the mod that was like “Edwin is too sweet by the end” and...that’s kind of it, but also kind of not. If you shift him to True Neutral (I did) the sweetness does kind of make sense (plus, it’s alluded to canonically. “Eddie” /snort). The problem is that the last four conversations or so flatten him out a lot. Being “sweet” is easy, but being selfless is not. Edwin is pretty much an ignoble, selfish brat, and I think it makes way more sense for him to struggle with the Bhaalspawn’s fate than instantly accept that she will transcend beyond him. Who the heck is above Edwin Odesseiron, huh? Psh. Nobody. He claims he’s ready to beat up Elminster (and by the time you level him up in ToB I bet he could do it I mean holy shit he can summon like 6 planetars a day fuck off everybody). In canon when you drag him to hell he’s like “Eh, I was already headed here. Maybe I’ll stick around and see if there’s some profit in this”. He’s a schemer, not a martyr. He’s ambitious. At least, he is naturally. Seeing him struggle with accepting the Bhaalspawn’s destiny and learning that there are powers and fates beyond his, and then preparing to let her go, would be way, way more powerful than him being like “ah yes farewell my deva I have always Predicted this. Even though I lack such foresight that I’m completely unable to learn divination spells.”

6) (On the other hand, A+ for the “my deva” conceit. That is perfect. Edwin’s a conjurer, so of course his pet name of choice would be one of the most powerful pets you can summon. I love it. That’s the creepysweet I’m looking for in a Lawful Evil romance. Plus it sounds good in his voice in my head. It’s perfect. GAH.)

So yeah. I’ve been thinking a lot about writing Evil romance since working on Devils - I might try and break this one down too, and see how I would do it. Writing exerciiiiiiise \o/

DECEMBER GIRL THE FIRE OF A LIONESS THE HEART OF A HIPPIE THE MOUTH OF A SAILOR POSTER

One strategy to increase communication skills with team players involves feedback. In fact, the journal article, Tell Me So I Can Hear argues for creating a feedback culture between all teachers, assistant principals and principals. The authors Eleanor Drago-Severson and Jessica Blum-DeStefano explain how instructors can learn to give feedback in a way that improves relationships and increase development. They even went over the four ways of knowing, including instrumental, socializing, self-authoring, and self-transforming. “In a 2014 survey of district and school leaders in New York City, 75% responded that giving feedback was the most important skill they want to build and grow.” December girl the fire of a lioness the heart of a hippie the mouth of a sailor This illustrates how important feedback is for teachers because they can apply what they learned from their discussions and improve their lessons for their students. Teachers are flexible when willing to hear from others what they did write and wrong. Moreover, teachers should be able to open up to constructive criticisms and how Besides the enjoyment of helping others, I want to become a Human Service worker to provide the assistance that was not available to me while I was growing up.To emphasize, everyone is treated equally when Teacher B helps all students, even for those who do not receive special education.

December girl the fire of a lioness the heart of a hippie the mouth of a sailor poster

I don’t just want to help people; I also want to save a specific group of people that I sense are in danger. From personal experience living in a dangerous neighborhood in the Bronx, I feel that my knowledge and experiences will enhance my effectiveness in this field, because I can comprehend what my client is going through and what are their everyday struggle since I personally been through it myself. Having good social and communication skills is also going to improve my success in this field because I will be able to properly assist my clients with what they need to hear and what. December girl the fire of a lioness the heart of a hippie the mouth of a sailor Even though my entire family is very strict, sadly not everyone of us turned out to be perfect, and that one was my brother. Attending college since 2014 I finally declared my major early in 2016, which is Human Services. After a lot of research and observing I can happily say I believe I chose the right major for me. You’re currently reading my professional essay and this will inform on why Human Services is the right major for me. 2. Being a young minority in the Bronx is honestly not easy at all. We face a lot of situations from being discriminated to deficiency of opportunities. Facing these issues especially in a low income area like most neighborhoods in the Bronx, it forces minorities into wrongful paths. A perfect example of this is my brother, Edwin.

How to buy it?

Being the oldest and raised into speaking Spanish only he was bullied while growing up and wasn’t presented much opportunities due to the fact that he didn’t speak English. This slowly led him to turn into gangs for protection and earning money the easiest way he can get it, this later led to him into getting incarcerated for numerous of crimes. I’m informing my readers with this because Edwin is not what but who influenced me into pursuing a career in Human Services. December girl the fire of a lioness the heart of a hippie the mouth of a sailor I want to provide help for minorities in the Bronx, I want to be able to present opportunities for those in need of some. After doing some How the Large Families Could be better than Small Families The family size has always been a moot point and a hotly-discussed topic in the society. In fact, the Family size has had been of interest to many sociologists. There are people who feel comfortable to have a small number of children while others want to have large families. Those people who want smaller families often mention the capabilities to give better consideration to their children, without stretching themselves too much monetarily and socially. As well, they believe that they are able to devote more time of other family needs and requirements.

Homepage: Dnstyles.com

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16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot

What do you call an investor who earned 16% per annum on average over a 47 year period – that’s a 1,070-bagger – and is not called Warren Buffett?

What if I told you that this investor…

Did not care about corporate earnings

Rarely spoke to managements and analysts

Did not watch the stock market during the day

Never owned a computer, and

Did not even go to college

…you would not say anything but just ask me to reveal his name fast, so as to re-confirm whether such a super-investor has ever existed in the investment circles.

Well, before I tell you this man’s name, you must read what Buffett had to say about him…

…He doesn’t worry about whether it it’s January, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s Monday, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s an election year. He simply says, if a business is worth a dollar and I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me. And he does it over and over and over again. He owns many more stocks than I do — and is far less interested in the underlying nature of the business; I don’t seem to have very much influence on him. That’s one of his strengths; no one has much influence on him.

Now, if you haven’t already read below to find out who I am talking about, let me now disclose the name of this man, whom Buffett termed a Super Investor in his famous essay, The Superinvestors of Graham-And-Doddsville.

The Name is Schloss…Walter Schloss “Walter who?” you may wonder if you have not read much about the world’s best-ever investors.

Walter Schloss was an outlier among outliers, and yet you’ve probably never heard of him. Even I didn’t hear about him until a few years back, while I was in the process of discovering about value investing.

Schloss graduated high school in 1934 during the Great Depression and got a job as a “runner” at a small brokerage firm. As a runner, his job was to run and deliver securities and paperwork by hand to various brokers on Wall Street.

The next year, in a stroke of luck, when he asked his senior for a better profile at the brokerage, he was asked to read a book called Security Analysis by Ben Graham.

After Schloss read Security Analysis, he wanted more, so he convinced his employer to pay for him to attend Graham’s classes. Subsequently, he started working during the daytime while studying at Ben Graham’s classes at night.

Schloss became an ardent follower of Graham, and even helped him write part of The Intelligent Investor. Anyways, this was when World War II broke out and Schloss enlisted in the army for four years.

He, however, stayed in contact with Graham, which paid off when he got an offer to work for Graham’s partnership upon returning from the war in 1946…under the man who had once rejected Warren Buffett for a job.

So, if you wish to become a successful value investor yourself (who doesn’t?), and wonder which MBA to do or which brokerage to start your career with, you can take a leaf from Schloss’ books.

As he showed, you don’t need a prestigious degree or a great pedigree to start your work towards becoming a sensible, successful value investor.

Of course, Schloss had his stars extremely well-aligned in terms of getting to work alongside Graham and Buffett, but then remember that he started as just a ‘paperboy’ without a college degree, before working his way through investing stardom.

As a matter of fact, Schloss left Graham-Newman in 1955 and, with US$ 100,000 from a few investors, began buying stocks on his own.

But Where is Schloss Hiding? You may wonder why there’s not much ever written about Schloss, despite the fact that his investment track record almost compares to Buffett’s and Graham’s?

Perhaps the reason is that Schloss’ investment philosophy was so simple that there isn’t much to say about it.

Schloss, as his friends including Buffett reveal, hated stress and tried to avoid it by keeping things simple.

“Investing should be fun and challenging, not stressful and worrying,” he once said.

His son Edwin, who worked for him for many years, said this in a memoir after Schloss died in 2012 at the age of 95…

A lot of money managers today worry about quarterly comparisons in earnings. They’re up biting their fingernails until 5 in the morning. My dad never worried about quarterly comparisons. He slept well.

Investing Lessons from Schloss Keeping things simple and keeping stress away while investing are two of the several big lessons that Schloss has to teach us investors.

When it comes to analyzing stocks/businesses, a lot of people get stressed trying to perfect their analyses, and thus work extremely hard to seek a lot of information, most of which is useless.

But as Schloss’ life and experience teaches, unless complexity can improve the explanation of something, it is better to proceed toward simpler theories.

While fund managers and other stock experts were breaking their heads with complex financial models and theories, Schloss stuck with the simple application of value investing that had been around for decades…at least since the time Graham was teaching. He multiplied his original capital 1,070 times over 47 years while handsomely beating the S&P 500 by simply comparing price to value.

Warren Buffett wrote this in his 2006 letter to shareholders…

When Walter and Edwin (his son) were asked in 1989 by Outstanding Investors Digest, “How would you summarize your approach?” Edwin replied, “We try to buy stocks cheap.”

So much for Modern Portfolio Theory, technical analysis, macroeconomic thoughts and complex algorithms.

Another big lesson Schloss taught was the importance of paying right prices for stocks. He perfectly mastered Graham’s teaching that you must buy stocks like you buy groceries (you want them cheap), not the way you buy perfumes (expensive is better).

He also laid importance on buying good businesses when their stock prices fell from where he bought them the first time.

As he said in one of the very few conference speeches he gave…

…you have to have a stomach and be willing to take an unrealized loss. Don’t sell it but be willing to buy more when it goes down, which is contrary, really, to what people do in this business.

Schloss also stressed about the importance of independent thinking. When asked at the same conference that given the market sometimes knows more than the investors, how can one justify whether buying a falling stock would be a right decision or not, Schloss replied…

You have to use your judgment and have the guts to follow it through and the fact that the market doesn’t like it doesn’t mean you are wrong. But, again, everybody has to make their own judgments on this. And that’s what makes the stock market very interesting because they don’t tell you what’s going to happen later.

Staying true to your own self and knowing our strengths and weaknesses was also what Schloss was great at.

He told this to students at a lecture in Columbia Business School in 1993…

Ben Graham didn’t visit managements because he thought the figures told the story. Peter Lynch visited literally thousands of companies and did a superb job in his picking. I never felt that we could do this kind of work and would either have to quit after a few years or I’d be dead.

I didn’t like the alternatives and therefore, went with a more passive approach to investing which may not be as profitable but if practiced long enough would allow the compounding to offset the fellow who was running around visiting managements.

I also liked the idea of owning a number of stocks. Warren Buffett is happy with owning a few stocks and he is right if he’s Warren but when you aren’t, you have to do it the way that’s comfortable for you and I like to sleep nights.

Revisiting Schloss’ Legacy Schloss stuck to a strict set of rules when he was making his investment decisions, and invested purely on balance sheet analysis and valuation metrics that he knew and understood. Also, as I mentioned earlier, he never visited the company managements and if he couldn’t understand something, he would just stay away.

As a matter of fact, both these factors – not meeting managements and avoiding things I don’t understand – have also worked very well for me in my personal capacity as an investor.

Anyways, Schloss’ developed his investment wisdom through his closeness to Graham and Buffett and decades of practicing what really worked in the stock market.

But as a readymade guide for us, he put together a list of 16 timeless principles for becoming a better investor. These principles were published by Schloss on a one-page note in March 1994 titled – Factors needed to make money in the stock market.

Click here to download the original note, or click on the image below.

Here is a summary of Schloss’ investment approach as he practiced over 47 long years…

Source: The American Association of Individual Investors; * ‘Campbell Soup Companies’ meant those with a long history and that Schloss considered stable and well known Overall, Schloss screened for companies ideally trading at discounts to book value, with no or low debt, and managements that owned enough company stock to make them want to do the right thing by shareholders.

If he liked what he saw, he bought a little and called the company for financial statements. He read these documents, paying special attention to footnotes.

One question he tried to answer from the numbers was: Was the management honest (meaning not overly greedy)?

All this paid Schloss and his investors very well, especially because he stayed true to this philosophy for a long-long time.

Before I close, here is Buffett again on what Schloss was all about, as he wrote in his 1986 letter…

Tens of thousands of students (who were taught Efficient Market Theory) were therefore sent out into life believing that on every day the price of every stock was “right” (or, more accurately, not demonstrably wrong) and that attempts to evaluate businesses – that is, stocks – were useless. Walter meanwhile went on overperforming, his job made easier by the misguided instructions that had been given to those young minds. After all, if you are in the shipping business, it’s helpful to have all of your potential competitors be taught that the earth is flat.

Maybe it was a good thing for his investors that Walter didn’t go to college.

While it might be difficult to practice Schloss’ approach (especially of buying things very cheap) in the current times of most quality businesses lacking margin of safety, there still are many lessons that we can learn from this master of deep value approach to investing.

Schloss was truly a Super Investor, who deserved a greater limelight than he received.

But then, thanks to being in the shadows, he was and still must be sleeping peacefully.

More on Walter Schloss:

Sixty Five Years on Wall Street

Walter Schloss’ Lecture at Columbia Business School

The Superinvestors of Graham-And-Doddsville

The post 16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

Two weekends ago I attended Vanessa Martir’s Writing Our Lives Workshop, and one of the questions we pondered on was, “WHY WE WRITE”.  I’ve been giving thought to that question and have realized that there are many reasons why I write and why I’ve always written, but if I can pinpoint when I started to write, I was six-years-old.  Writing was the only voice I had.  The only voice that mattered.  I clearly remember the first time I asked my mom for a diary.  We were at the Hello Kitty store, my favorite store in the world as a child, and I wanted the Hello Kitty diary with the key-lock on it.  She had no clue what a diary was used for, she simply thought it was a notebook for school.  This diary became my best friend, my confidant.  The only thing I could pour my heart and soul into without any judgment, and without having to worry about anything ever getting back to my mom.  Especially, when writing about the crazy and outrageous dysfunction my brothers and I were subjected to.  I guarded that diary with my life, it was my only friend.  

My four brothers and I grew up in a home where our voices didn’t matter. Literally.  We had no say in what we wore, what we felt, what we believed, the fact that we didn’t want to still be bathed, as teenagers, or that I did not want my mom to comb my hair in 20 moñitos while in seventh grade!  (Which by the way, I would undo all of them as I walked down the stairs on my way to school. Many times being caught by her as she peeped through the window, shouting, “mira Carmen Rosa, sube para arriba ahora mismo antes de que yo baje y te caiga a correaso!”  Of course, I’d get my ass back upstairs.  I would get a whoop ass, she’d redo all the buns with ribbons that would match my outfit, and then send me off to school.  This time I’d walk down the block completely humiliated before I yanked them all off.  I would rather deal with another whoop ass when I got home from school, then to show up at school looking that crazy, and that was a fact!)  And the list can go on.  We simply were not entitled to speak our minds nor have an opinion.  And I won’t even go into what would happen when we did because that’s not what this essay is about.  In having my voice silenced growing up, I needed a place where I could release everything I was holding inside.  Everything I was forced to suppress because without it, I would have suffocated.  And this, is when the page became my escape.  This, is what kept me from insanity...

Though I had this outlet, it didn’t prevent me from growing up with depression. And even though I poured my blood onto the pages, my heart was full.  Full of anger, full of resentment, full of secrets, full of lies, full of hurt, full of denial.  I spent most of my life navigating the world with pain and confusion; a walking zombie having become numb, not knowing how to express myself verbally, and looking for love in all the wrong places, looking for acceptance, looking for guidance.  I needed an outlet.  I was choking.  After my first attempt of several months of therapy, I left the clinic one day and never went back.  Never returning their phone calls, emails or correspondences, never giving them an explanation.  My therapist would repeatedly ask me questions about my childhood, shit I did not want to talk about.  Why the fuck does this woman want me to talk about my childhood when I’m here to be taught how to cope with my son’s autism diagnosis!  I ran out of there one afternoon and never looked back.   

It was April 1, 2011, when I received an email from my good friend Pooja about a free one-day writing class being offered at Gotham Writers.  She knew how much I loved journaling and how badly I needed an escape.  I quickly enrolled, and immediately decided to commit to a 10-week memoir writing workshop.  I completed level one, and then enrolled in another 10-week workshop for level two.  I was excited to be learning about the writing craft, but as the only Latina there, I found no connection or comfort with the people I shared these workshops with, making it difficult to share my stories.  It was also really awkward showing up to a MEMOIR class where we knew nothing about the facilitators life.  Towards the end of the workshop was when I found out he had written a memoir about his experience as a college student, who served a 3 1/2 year sentence in a South Korean jail for smuggling hashish.  It wasn’t until September 23, 2011 that I attended my first Writing Our Lives Workshop with Vanessa Martir.  She was someone I had known for years and was not only pursuing her writing career, but was now also pursuing her teaching career.  I had read her first novel and was enamored by her ability to write shit people wouldn’t normally write about.  Though her first book was a novel, I knew her enough to know she was the protagonist in her book.  Growing up in the same neighborhood and having experienced similar things, she inspired me deeply.  It was in Vanessa’s class where I learned to express myself as a Latina woman on the page.  It was here where I learned about voice.  “Carmen, you don’t need to sound all smart and shit to write your stories.  Write them with your voice.  I know you, this is not how you speak”.  Though for a long time I was confused, and didn’t know how to change my mindset, she was right.  During this time, I was writing about my son’s autism diagnosis and the immense pain my family and I were experiencing.  The tons of doctors appointments, the never-ending therapies, the disappointment and shock, the confusion, the loneliness, the abandonment we felt by everyone, and how we had no idea how to cope with such a life altering situation.  I attended about 6 or 7 more of Vanessa’s workshop, finally finding the courage to apply to VONA (Voices of Our Nations Art Foundation) in March of 2013.  She’d always speak about VONA and how it changed her life, and I made it a goal of mine to one day apply.  Applying to VONA was nerve wrecking, and I didn’t believe I could be accepted into such a competitive workshop, but I did it anyways.  In May 4, 2013, was the first time I was accepted as a participant to VONA, (which by the way, are writing workshops for writers of color), in the Political Content in Memoir, Story and Poetry Workshop with the one and only, Elmaz Abinader.  I was overjoyed and accepted their invitation.  It was here where my life transformed as a writer.  It was here where I had my awakening, and since, my life has never been the same.  It was here where I started to share the deepest and darkest parts of my soul.  It was the first time I shared my childhood traumas with complete strangers, never imagining that once I opened myself up, I would never be able to shove those memories back down again.  It was like opening up a pandora’s box, and this was when my real battle began.  This is when I finally understood what Vanessa meant, “the more you write, the more you remember.”  I was remembering things I did not want to remember, and upon returning from my weeklong VONA workshop at the University of Berkeley, I began secluding myself.  These memories, causing me to go into a deeper depression; one that I was not ready for, one that I was no longer able to run from.  It was at VONA when I first realized I was walking this world as a zombie; when I first realized why I had spent all of my twenties numbing myself from the pain I was feeling internally.  It was the awakening I needed...  And this was when my transformational journey began.

While in complete isolation, I began to privately write about my depression.  It was completely consuming me and I desperately needed an outlet.  This writing life had found me and I couldn’t hide from it no matter how hard I tried.   “Carmen, the only way out, is in,” Vanessa would consistently repeat.  On October 25, 2015, I enrolled to yet another workshop.  Writing From the Womb with the wonderful and most sweetest, Alicia Anabel Santos.  I didn’t know her, but had heard great things about her.  Having Alicia as my midwife, as she calls herself, for the birthing of my first essay about depression, was exactly where I needed to be.  Her expectations for her class was to complete a polished essay by the end of the workshop for submission to at least 5 or 6 writing contests, and that, we did.  On March 2016, I submitted my second application to VONA. This time, knowing I would be accepted and simultaneously, trying to silence the negative voices in my head.  I was feeling this urgency to write about my depression as much as I did not want to.  I was ashamed about what people would think if they knew I had a mental health issue.  I was ashamed by the possibility of being labeled and called weak-minded.  I was ashamed to show the world that, no, I did not have it all together.  In having made the decision to abandon the life I led before my son’s autism diagnosis and becoming a full-time mom, I had no where else to run and no where else to hide.  I was forced to look at myself in the mirror and deal with all the shit I was hiding, including all the shit I didn’t like about myself.  I had to look fear in the eyes and rebel against the stigma that the word DEPRESSION carries.  I dove into it wholeheartedly, wanting to know everything about it.  Needing to understand and make sense of the reasons why so many people numbed themselves with all kinds of addictions, why so many people committed suicide because of this illness, including people we thought had the perfect life, became my mission.  I myself having tried to commit suicide, not to mention all the times I felt I’d be better off dead.  I began researching the “how”, and in some cases, the “why” people committed suicide.  In honoring the lives of those we’ve lost to mental illnesses, here is a list of those that suffered from depression, just to name a few...  

Vincent van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist, gunshot to the chest (1890), Virginia Woolf, English author, essayist, publisher and writer of short stories, drowned herself (1941), Edwin Armstrong, inventor of FM radio, jumped from a 13th floor window (1954), Faith Bacon, American burlesque dancer and actress, jumped from hotel window (1956), Ernest Hemingway, American writer and journalist, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize recipient, gunshot wound to the head (1961), Marilyn Monroe, American film actress, overdose (1962), Kurt Cobain, Nirvana musician, singer, songwriter, guitarist and visual artist, overdose (1994), Isabella Blow, English magazine editor and muse to fashion designer Alexander McQueen, poisoned herself (2007), once declaring, “I’m fighting depression and I can’t beat it.” Alexander McQueen, British fashion designer and couturier, asphyxiation and hanging (2010), Robin Williams, American comedian and actor, hung himself (2014).  I was the most devastated by his death at that time. And LAST, BUT NOT LEAST, MY BEST FRIEND, Roz De La Rosa, (2016)...  My heart forever broken, taking a big chunk of me with him. 

I was at VONA in the Memoir Workshop with Reyna Grande at the University of Miami this past summer when I received the worst news I could have ever imagined.  My best friend committed suicide because of depression.  A battle he will never win.  His death broke me.  His death was a confirmation that I should continue to write about this disease.  His death has given me the conviction to be his voice, the voice, of all who suffer from depression. Especially, those like myself and so many who suffer from depression and other mental illnesses in silence because of the fear of being judged and looked down upon.  I want to invite you ALL to please help me be that VOICE for all of those we’ve lost to suicide because of mental illnesses, and to those that today, suffer in silence.  TOGETHER WE CAN END THE STIGMA.  TOGETHER WE CAN LIFT THOSE UP AND SHOW THEM THAT THEY’RE NOT ALONE, AND THAT IT’S OK TO SEEK HELP.  MORE IMPORTANTLY, AS HUMANS, WE CAN LEARN THE SIGNS AND LOOK AROUND US TO SEE WHO IS NEEDING SUPPORT IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE.  YOU’LL BE SURPRISED..

I have fought tooth and nail to get better and to do whatever it takes to stay healthy, for my life, for my happiness, for my family.  And I’m okay with admitting this.

So why do I write?  I write for my sanity.  I write to seek answers.  I write to make sense of my life.  I write to raise autism awareness.  I write to raise mental health awareness.  I write to be the voice of the voiceless.  I write for therapy.  I write because it’s my calling.  I write because it’s the best way I can communicate with the world.  I write because writing brings me joy.  I write because it’s most of what I know how to do.  I write because I must fight through the fear of sharing my stories.  I write because my stories matter as much as yours do.  I write, because writing saved my life...  And as Vanessa always says, I write to get back my power!

16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot

What do you call an investor who earned 16% per annum on average over a 47 year period – that’s a 1,070-bagger – and is not called Warren Buffett?

What if I told you that this investor…

Did not care about corporate earnings

Rarely spoke to managements and analysts

Did not watch the stock market during the day

Never owned a computer, and

Did not even go to college

…you would not say anything but just ask me to reveal his name fast, so as to re-confirm whether such a super-investor has ever existed in the investment circles.

Well, before I tell you this man’s name, you must read what Buffett had to say about him…

…He doesn’t worry about whether it it’s January, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s Monday, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s an election year. He simply says, if a business is worth a dollar and I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me. And he does it over and over and over again. He owns many more stocks than I do — and is far less interested in the underlying nature of the business; I don’t seem to have very much influence on him. That’s one of his strengths; no one has much influence on him.

Now, if you haven’t already read below to find out who I am talking about, let me now disclose the name of this man, whom Buffett termed a Super Investor in his famous essay, The Superinvestors of Graham-And-Doddsville.

The Name is Schloss…Walter Schloss “Walter who?” you may wonder if you have not read much about the world’s best-ever investors.

Walter Schloss was an outlier among outliers, and yet you’ve probably never heard of him. Even I didn’t hear about him until a few years back, while I was in the process of discovering about value investing.

Schloss graduated high school in 1934 during the Great Depression and got a job as a “runner” at a small brokerage firm. As a runner, his job was to run and deliver securities and paperwork by hand to various brokers on Wall Street.

The next year, in a stroke of luck, when he asked his senior for a better profile at the brokerage, he was asked to read a book called Security Analysis by Ben Graham.

After Schloss read Security Analysis, he wanted more, so he convinced his employer to pay for him to attend Graham’s classes. Subsequently, he started working during the daytime while studying at Ben Graham’s classes at night.

Schloss became an ardent follower of Graham, and even helped him write part of The Intelligent Investor. Anyways, this was when World War II broke out and Schloss enlisted in the army for four years.

He, however, stayed in contact with Graham, which paid off when he got an offer to work for Graham’s partnership upon returning from the war in 1946…under the man who had once rejected Warren Buffett for a job.

So, if you wish to become a successful value investor yourself (who doesn’t?), and wonder which MBA to do or which brokerage to start your career with, you can take a leaf from Schloss’ books.

As he showed, you don’t need a prestigious degree or a great pedigree to start your work towards becoming a sensible, successful value investor.

Of course, Schloss had his stars extremely well-aligned in terms of getting to work alongside Graham and Buffett, but then remember that he started as just a ‘paperboy’ without a college degree, before working his way through investing stardom.

As a matter of fact, Schloss left Graham-Newman in 1955 and, with US$ 100,000 from a few investors, began buying stocks on his own.

But Where is Schloss Hiding? You may wonder why there’s not much ever written about Schloss, despite the fact that his investment track record almost compares to Buffett’s and Graham’s?

Perhaps the reason is that Schloss’ investment philosophy was so simple that there isn’t much to say about it.

Schloss, as his friends including Buffett reveal, hated stress and tried to avoid it by keeping things simple.

“Investing should be fun and challenging, not stressful and worrying,” he once said.

His son Edwin, who worked for him for many years, said this in a memoir after Schloss died in 2012 at the age of 95…

A lot of money managers today worry about quarterly comparisons in earnings. They’re up biting their fingernails until 5 in the morning. My dad never worried about quarterly comparisons. He slept well.

Investing Lessons from Schloss Keeping things simple and keeping stress away while investing are two of the several big lessons that Schloss has to teach us investors.

When it comes to analyzing stocks/businesses, a lot of people get stressed trying to perfect their analyses, and thus work extremely hard to seek a lot of information, most of which is useless.

But as Schloss’ life and experience teaches, unless complexity can improve the explanation of something, it is better to proceed toward simpler theories.

While fund managers and other stock experts were breaking their heads with complex financial models and theories, Schloss stuck with the simple application of value investing that had been around for decades…at least since the time Graham was teaching. He multiplied his original capital 1,070 times over 47 years while handsomely beating the S&P 500 by simply comparing price to value.

Warren Buffett wrote this in his 2006 letter to shareholders…

When Walter and Edwin (his son) were asked in 1989 by Outstanding Investors Digest, “How would you summarize your approach?” Edwin replied, “We try to buy stocks cheap.”

So much for Modern Portfolio Theory, technical analysis, macroeconomic thoughts and complex algorithms.

Another big lesson Schloss taught was the importance of paying right prices for stocks. He perfectly mastered Graham’s teaching that you must buy stocks like you buy groceries (you want them cheap), not the way you buy perfumes (expensive is better).

He also laid importance on buying good businesses when their stock prices fell from where he bought them the first time.

As he said in one of the very few conference speeches he gave…

…you have to have a stomach and be willing to take an unrealized loss. Don’t sell it but be willing to buy more when it goes down, which is contrary, really, to what people do in this business.

Schloss also stressed about the importance of independent thinking. When asked at the same conference that given the market sometimes knows more than the investors, how can one justify whether buying a falling stock would be a right decision or not, Schloss replied…

You have to use your judgment and have the guts to follow it through and the fact that the market doesn’t like it doesn’t mean you are wrong. But, again, everybody has to make their own judgments on this. And that’s what makes the stock market very interesting because they don’t tell you what’s going to happen later.

Staying true to your own self and knowing our strengths and weaknesses was also what Schloss was great at.

He told this to students at a lecture in Columbia Business School in 1993…

Ben Graham didn’t visit managements because he thought the figures told the story. Peter Lynch visited literally thousands of companies and did a superb job in his picking. I never felt that we could do this kind of work and would either have to quit after a few years or I’d be dead.

I didn’t like the alternatives and therefore, went with a more passive approach to investing which may not be as profitable but if practiced long enough would allow the compounding to offset the fellow who was running around visiting managements.

I also liked the idea of owning a number of stocks. Warren Buffett is happy with owning a few stocks and he is right if he’s Warren but when you aren’t, you have to do it the way that’s comfortable for you and I like to sleep nights.

Revisiting Schloss’ Legacy Schloss stuck to a strict set of rules when he was making his investment decisions, and invested purely on balance sheet analysis and valuation metrics that he knew and understood. Also, as I mentioned earlier, he never visited the company managements and if he couldn’t understand something, he would just stay away.

As a matter of fact, both these factors – not meeting managements and avoiding things I don’t understand – have also worked very well for me in my personal capacity as an investor.

Anyways, Schloss’ developed his investment wisdom through his closeness to Graham and Buffett and decades of practicing what really worked in the stock market.

But as a readymade guide for us, he put together a list of 16 timeless principles for becoming a better investor. These principles were published by Schloss on a one-page note in March 1994 titled – Factors needed to make money in the stock market.

Click here to download the original note, or click on the image below.

Here is a summary of Schloss’ investment approach as he practiced over 47 long years…

Source: The American Association of Individual Investors; * ‘Campbell Soup Companies’ meant those with a long history and that Schloss considered stable and well known Overall, Schloss screened for companies ideally trading at discounts to book value, with no or low debt, and managements that owned enough company stock to make them want to do the right thing by shareholders.

If he liked what he saw, he bought a little and called the company for financial statements. He read these documents, paying special attention to footnotes.

One question he tried to answer from the numbers was: Was the management honest (meaning not overly greedy)?

All this paid Schloss and his investors very well, especially because he stayed true to this philosophy for a long-long time.

Before I close, here is Buffett again on what Schloss was all about, as he wrote in his 1986 letter…

Tens of thousands of students (who were taught Efficient Market Theory) were therefore sent out into life believing that on every day the price of every stock was “right” (or, more accurately, not demonstrably wrong) and that attempts to evaluate businesses – that is, stocks – were useless. Walter meanwhile went on overperforming, his job made easier by the misguided instructions that had been given to those young minds. After all, if you are in the shipping business, it’s helpful to have all of your potential competitors be taught that the earth is flat.

Maybe it was a good thing for his investors that Walter didn’t go to college.

While it might be difficult to practice Schloss’ approach (especially of buying things very cheap) in the current times of most quality businesses lacking margin of safety, there still are many lessons that we can learn from this master of deep value approach to investing.

Schloss was truly a Super Investor, who deserved a greater limelight than he received.

But then, thanks to being in the shadows, he was and still must be sleeping peacefully.

More on Walter Schloss:

Sixty Five Years on Wall Street

Walter Schloss’ Lecture at Columbia Business School

The Superinvestors of Graham-And-Doddsville

The post 16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot

What do you call an investor who earned 16% per annum on average over a 47 year period – that’s a 1,070-bagger – and is not called Warren Buffett?

What if I told you that this investor…

Did not care about corporate earnings

Rarely spoke to managements and analysts

Did not watch the stock market during the day

Never owned a computer, and

Did not even go to college

…you would not say anything but just ask me to reveal his name fast, so as to re-confirm whether such a super-investor has ever existed in the investment circles.

Well, before I tell you this man’s name, you must read what Buffett had to say about him…

…He doesn’t worry about whether it it’s January, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s Monday, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s an election year. He simply says, if a business is worth a dollar and I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me. And he does it over and over and over again. He owns many more stocks than I do — and is far less interested in the underlying nature of the business; I don’t seem to have very much influence on him. That’s one of his strengths; no one has much influence on him.

Now, if you haven’t already read below to find out who I am talking about, let me now disclose the name of this man, whom Buffett termed a Super Investor in his famous essay, The Superinvestors of Graham-And-Doddsville.

The Name is Schloss…Walter Schloss “Walter who?” you may wonder if you have not read much about the world’s best-ever investors.

Walter Schloss was an outlier among outliers, and yet you’ve probably never heard of him. Even I didn’t hear about him until a few years back, while I was in the process of discovering about value investing.

Schloss graduated high school in 1934 during the Great Depression and got a job as a “runner” at a small brokerage firm. As a runner, his job was to run and deliver securities and paperwork by hand to various brokers on Wall Street.

The next year, in a stroke of luck, when he asked his senior for a better profile at the brokerage, he was asked to read a book called Security Analysis by Ben Graham.

After Schloss read Security Analysis, he wanted more, so he convinced his employer to pay for him to attend Graham’s classes. Subsequently, he started working during the daytime while studying at Ben Graham’s classes at night.

Schloss became an ardent follower of Graham, and even helped him write part of The Intelligent Investor. Anyways, this was when World War II broke out and Schloss enlisted in the army for four years.

He, however, stayed in contact with Graham, which paid off when he got an offer to work for Graham’s partnership upon returning from the war in 1946…under the man who had once rejected Warren Buffett for a job.

So, if you wish to become a successful value investor yourself (who doesn’t?), and wonder which MBA to do or which brokerage to start your career with, you can take a leaf from Schloss’ books.

As he showed, you don’t need a prestigious degree or a great pedigree to start your work towards becoming a sensible, successful value investor.

Of course, Schloss had his stars extremely well-aligned in terms of getting to work alongside Graham and Buffett, but then remember that he started as just a ‘paperboy’ without a college degree, before working his way through investing stardom.

As a matter of fact, Schloss left Graham-Newman in 1955 and, with US$ 100,000 from a few investors, began buying stocks on his own.

But Where is Schloss Hiding? You may wonder why there’s not much ever written about Schloss, despite the fact that his investment track record almost compares to Buffett’s and Graham’s?

Perhaps the reason is that Schloss’ investment philosophy was so simple that there isn’t much to say about it.

Schloss, as his friends including Buffett reveal, hated stress and tried to avoid it by keeping things simple.

“Investing should be fun and challenging, not stressful and worrying,” he once said.

His son Edwin, who worked for him for many years, said this in a memoir after Schloss died in 2012 at the age of 95…

A lot of money managers today worry about quarterly comparisons in earnings. They’re up biting their fingernails until 5 in the morning. My dad never worried about quarterly comparisons. He slept well.

Investing Lessons from Schloss Keeping things simple and keeping stress away while investing are two of the several big lessons that Schloss has to teach us investors.

When it comes to analyzing stocks/businesses, a lot of people get stressed trying to perfect their analyses, and thus work extremely hard to seek a lot of information, most of which is useless.

But as Schloss’ life and experience teaches, unless complexity can improve the explanation of something, it is better to proceed toward simpler theories.

While fund managers and other stock experts were breaking their heads with complex financial models and theories, Schloss stuck with the simple application of value investing that had been around for decades…at least since the time Graham was teaching. He multiplied his original capital 1,070 times over 47 years while handsomely beating the S&P 500 by simply comparing price to value.

Warren Buffett wrote this in his 1986 letter to shareholders…

When Walter and Edwin (his son) were asked in 1989 by Outstanding Investors Digest, “How would you summarize your approach?” Edwin replied, “We try to buy stocks cheap.”

So much for Modern Portfolio Theory, technical analysis, macroeconomic thoughts and complex algorithms.

Another big lesson Schloss taught was the importance of paying right prices for stocks. He perfectly mastered Graham’s teaching that you must buy stocks like you buy groceries (you want them cheap), not the way you buy perfumes (expensive is better).

He also laid importance on buying good businesses when their stock prices fell from where he bought them the first time.

As he said in one of the very few conference speeches he gave…

…you have to have a stomach and be willing to take an unrealized loss. Don’t sell it but be willing to buy more when it goes down, which is contrary, really, to what people do in this business.

Schloss also stressed about the importance of independent thinking. When asked at the same conference that given the market sometimes knows more than the investors, how can one justify whether buying a falling stock would be a right decision or not, Schloss replied…

You have to use your judgment and have the guts to follow it through and the fact that the market doesn’t like it doesn’t mean you are wrong. But, again, everybody has to make their own judgments on this. And that’s what makes the stock market very interesting because they don’t tell you what’s going to happen later.

Staying true to your own self and knowing our strengths and weaknesses was also what Schloss was great at.

He told this to students at a lecture in Columbia Business School in 1993…

Ben Graham didn’t visit managements because he thought the figures told the story. Peter Lynch visited literally thousands of companies and did a superb job in his picking. I never felt that we could do this kind of work and would either have to quit after a few years or I’d be dead.

I didn’t like the alternatives and therefore, went with a more passive approach to investing which may not be as profitable but if practiced long enough would allow the compounding to offset the fellow who was running around visiting managements.

I also liked the idea of owning a number of stocks. Warren Buffett is happy with owning a few stocks and he is right if he’s Warren but when you aren’t, you have to do it the way that’s comfortable for you and I like to sleep nights.

Revisiting Schloss’ Legacy Schloss stuck to a strict set of rules when he was making his investment decisions, and invested purely on balance sheet analysis and valuation metrics that he knew and understood. Also, as I mentioned earlier, he never visited the company managements and if he couldn’t understand something, he would just stay away.

As a matter of fact, both these factors – not meeting managements and avoiding things I don’t understand – have also worked very well for me in my personal capacity as an investor.

Anyways, Schloss’ developed his investment wisdom through his closeness to Graham and Buffett and decades of practicing what really worked in the stock market.

But as a readymade guide for us, he put together a list of 16 timeless principles for becoming a better investor. These principles were published by Schloss on a one-page note in March 1994 titled – Factors needed to make money in the stock market.

Click here to download the original note, or click on the image below.

Here is a summary of Schloss’ investment approach as he practiced over 47 long years…

Source: The American Association of Individual Investors; * ‘Campbell Soup Companies’ meant those with a long history and that Schloss considered stable and well known Overall, Schloss screened for companies ideally trading at discounts to book value, with no or low debt, and managements that owned enough company stock to make them want to do the right thing by shareholders.

If he liked what he saw, he bought a little and called the company for financial statements. He read these documents, paying special attention to footnotes.

One question he tried to answer from the numbers was: Was the management honest (meaning not overly greedy)?

All this paid Schloss and his investors very well, especially because he stayed true to this philosophy for a long-long time.

Before I close, here is Buffett again on what Schloss was all about, as he wrote in his 1986 letter…

Tens of thousands of students (who were taught Efficient Market Theory) were therefore sent out into life believing that on every day the price of every stock was “right” (or, more accurately, not demonstrably wrong) and that attempts to evaluate businesses – that is, stocks – were useless. Walter meanwhile went on overperforming, his job made easier by the misguided instructions that had been given to those young minds. After all, if you are in the shipping business, it’s helpful to have all of your potential competitors be taught that the earth is flat.

Maybe it was a good thing for his investors that Walter didn’t go to college.

While it might be difficult to practice Schloss’ approach (especially of buying things very cheap) in the current times of most quality businesses lacking margin of safety, there still are many lessons that we can learn from this master of deep value approach to investing.

Schloss was truly a Super Investor, who deserved a greater limelight than he received.

But then, thanks to being in the shadows, he was and still must be sleeping peacefully.

More on Walter Schloss:

Sixty Five Years on Wall Street

Walter Schloss’ Lecture at Columbia Business School

The Superinvestors of Graham-And-Doddsville

The post 16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B

16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot

What do you call an investor who earned 16% per annum on average over a 47 year period – that’s a 1,070-bagger – and is not called Warren Buffett?

What if I told you that this investor…

Did not care about corporate earnings

Rarely spoke to managements and analysts

Did not watch the stock market during the day

Never owned a computer, and

Did not even go to college

…you would not say anything but just ask me to reveal his name fast, so as to re-confirm whether such a super-investor has ever existed in the investment circles.

Well, before I tell you this man’s name, you must read what Buffett had to say about him…

…He doesn’t worry about whether it it’s January, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s Monday, he doesn’t worry about whether it’s an election year. He simply says, if a business is worth a dollar and I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me. And he does it over and over and over again. He owns many more stocks than I do — and is far less interested in the underlying nature of the business; I don’t seem to have very much influence on him. That’s one of his strengths; no one has much influence on him.

Now, if you haven’t already read below to find out who I am talking about, let me now disclose the name of this man, whom Buffett termed a Super Investor in his famous essay, The Superinvestors of Graham-And-Doddsville.

The Name is Schloss…Walter Schloss “Walter who?” you may wonder if you have not read much about the world’s best-ever investors.

Walter Schloss was an outlier among outliers, and yet you’ve probably never heard of him. Even I didn’t hear about him until a few years back, while I was in the process of discovering about value investing.

Schloss graduated high school in 1934 during the Great Depression and got a job as a “runner” at a small brokerage firm. As a runner, his job was to run and deliver securities and paperwork by hand to various brokers on Wall Street.

The next year, in a stroke of luck, when he asked his senior for a better profile at the brokerage, he was asked to read a book called Security Analysis by Ben Graham.

After Schloss read Security Analysis, he wanted more, so he convinced his employer to pay for him to attend Graham’s classes. Subsequently, he started working during the daytime while studying at Ben Graham’s classes at night.

Schloss became an ardent follower of Graham, and even helped him write part of The Intelligent Investor. Anyways, this was when World War II broke out and Schloss enlisted in the army for four years.

He, however, stayed in contact with Graham, which paid off when he got an offer to work for Graham’s partnership upon returning from the war in 1946…under the man who had once rejected Warren Buffett for a job.

So, if you wish to become a successful value investor yourself (who doesn’t?), and wonder which MBA to do or which brokerage to start your career with, you can take a leaf from Schloss’ books.

As he showed, you don’t need a prestigious degree or a great pedigree to start your work towards becoming a sensible, successful value investor.

Of course, Schloss had his stars extremely well-aligned in terms of getting to work alongside Graham and Buffett, but then remember that he started as just a ‘paperboy’ without a college degree, before working his way through investing stardom.

As a matter of fact, Schloss left Graham-Newman in 1955 and, with US$ 100,000 from a few investors, began buying stocks on his own.

But Where is Schloss Hiding? You may wonder why there’s not much ever written about Schloss, despite the fact that his investment track record almost compares to Buffett’s and Graham’s?

Perhaps the reason is that Schloss’ investment philosophy was so simple that there isn’t much to say about it.

Schloss, as his friends including Buffett reveal, hated stress and tried to avoid it by keeping things simple.

“Investing should be fun and challenging, not stressful and worrying,” he once said.

His son Edwin, who worked for him for many years, said this in a memoir after Schloss died in 2012 at the age of 95…

A lot of money managers today worry about quarterly comparisons in earnings. They’re up biting their fingernails until 5 in the morning. My dad never worried about quarterly comparisons. He slept well.

Investing Lessons from Schloss Keeping things simple and keeping stress away while investing are two of the several big lessons that Schloss has to teach us investors.

When it comes to analyzing stocks/businesses, a lot of people get stressed trying to perfect their analyses, and thus work extremely hard to seek a lot of information, most of which is useless.

But as Schloss’ life and experience teaches, unless complexity can improve the explanation of something, it is better to proceed toward simpler theories.

While fund managers and other stock experts were breaking their heads with complex financial models and theories, Schloss stuck with the simple application of value investing that had been around for decades…at least since the time Graham was teaching. He multiplied his original capital 1,070 times over 47 years while handsomely beating the S&P 500 by simply comparing price to value.

Warren Buffett wrote this in his 1986 letter to shareholders…

When Walter and Edwin (his son) were asked in 1989 by Outstanding Investors Digest, “How would you summarize your approach?” Edwin replied, “We try to buy stocks cheap.”

So much for Modern Portfolio Theory, technical analysis, macroeconomic thoughts and complex algorithms.

Another big lesson Schloss taught was the importance of paying right prices for stocks. He perfectly mastered Graham’s teaching that you must buy stocks like you buy groceries (you want them cheap), not the way you buy perfumes (expensive is better).

He also laid importance on buying good businesses when their stock prices fell from where he bought them the first time.

As he said in one of the very few conference speeches he gave…

…you have to have a stomach and be willing to take an unrealized loss. Don’t sell it but be willing to buy more when it goes down, which is contrary, really, to what people do in this business.

Schloss also stressed about the importance of independent thinking. When asked at the same conference that given the market sometimes knows more than the investors, how can one justify whether buying a falling stock would be a right decision or not, Schloss replied…

You have to use your judgment and have the guts to follow it through and the fact that the market doesn’t like it doesn’t mean you are wrong. But, again, everybody has to make their own judgments on this. And that’s what makes the stock market very interesting because they don’t tell you what’s going to happen later.

Staying true to your own self and knowing our strengths and weaknesses was also what Schloss was great at.

He told this to students at a lecture in Columbia Business School in 1993…

Ben Graham didn’t visit managements because he thought the figures told the story. Peter Lynch visited literally thousands of companies and did a superb job in his picking. I never felt that we could do this kind of work and would either have to quit after a few years or I’d be dead.

I didn’t like the alternatives and therefore, went with a more passive approach to investing which may not be as profitable but if practiced long enough would allow the compounding to offset the fellow who was running around visiting managements.

I also liked the idea of owning a number of stocks. Warren Buffett is happy with owning a few stocks and he is right if he’s Warren but when you aren’t, you have to do it the way that’s comfortable for you and I like to sleep nights.

Revisiting Schloss’ Legacy Schloss stuck to a strict set of rules when he was making his investment decisions, and invested purely on balance sheet analysis and valuation metrics that he knew and understood. Also, as I mentioned earlier, he never visited the company managements and if he couldn’t understand something, he would just stay away.

As a matter of fact, both these factors – not meeting managements and avoiding things I don’t understand – have also worked very well for me in my personal capacity as an investor.

Anyways, Schloss’ developed his investment wisdom through his closeness to Graham and Buffett and decades of practicing what really worked in the stock market.

But as a readymade guide for us, he put together a list of 16 timeless principles for becoming a better investor. These principles were published by Schloss on a one-page note in March 1994 titled – Factors needed to make money in the stock market.

Click here to download the original note, or click on the image below.

Here is a summary of Schloss’ investment approach as he practiced over 47 long years…

Source: The American Association of Individual Investors; * ‘Campbell Soup Companies’ meant those with a long history and that Schloss considered stable and well known Overall, Schloss screened for companies ideally trading at discounts to book value, with no or low debt, and managements that owned enough company stock to make them want to do the right thing by shareholders.

If he liked what he saw, he bought a little and called the company for financial statements. He read these documents, paying special attention to footnotes.

One question he tried to answer from the numbers was: Was the management honest (meaning not overly greedy)?

All this paid Schloss and his investors very well, especially because he stayed true to this philosophy for a long-long time.

Before I close, here is Buffett again on what Schloss was all about, as he wrote in his 1986 letter…

Tens of thousands of students (who were taught Efficient Market Theory) were therefore sent out into life believing that on every day the price of every stock was “right” (or, more accurately, not demonstrably wrong) and that attempts to evaluate businesses – that is, stocks – were useless. Walter meanwhile went on overperforming, his job made easier by the misguided instructions that had been given to those young minds. After all, if you are in the shipping business, it’s helpful to have all of your potential competitors be taught that the earth is flat.

Maybe it was a good thing for his investors that Walter didn’t go to college.

While it might be difficult to practice Schloss’ approach (especially of buying things very cheap) in the current times of most quality businesses lacking margin of safety, there still are many lessons that we can learn from this master of deep value approach to investing.

Schloss was truly a Super Investor, who deserved a greater limelight than he received.

But then, thanks to being in the shadows, he was and still must be sleeping peacefully.

More on Walter Schloss:

Sixty Five Years on Wall Street

Walter Schloss’ Lecture at Columbia Business School

The Superinvestors of Graham-And-Doddsville

Walter Schloss: The Master of Deep Value

The post 16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

16 Investing Lessons from a Superinvestor the World Forgot published first on http://ift.tt/2ljLF4B