This is Ray Dalio's favorite book.

He's been rereading it for 30+ years straight, and it inspired his most famous "debt cycle" framework.

Here are 7 lessons from "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" that made him the world's most successful hedge fund manager: 🧵 Ray Dalio found Paul Kennedy's book in 1987.

The book studies 500 years of empires...

How countries rise to power through strong economies, then fall through too much debt and military spending.

Dalio saw the investment opportunity immediately:

A 7th grade class picked stocks and beat 75% of professional fund managers.

Their secret? They bought companies they actually understood.

This is Peter Lynch's "explain it to a 10-year-old" rule that generated 2,475% returns.

Here's how the strategy works:🧵 From 1977 to 1990, Peter Lynch managed the Fidelity Magellan Fund.

He turned $18 million into $14 billion using a surprisingly simple approach.

But here's what made him different...

This is Howard Marks.

He's Co-founder of Oaktree Capital, who's managed $180+ billion for 29 years

In a Bloomberg interview he revealed why we're experiencing the 3rd major shift in investing in 50 years, and how to prepare...

Here are my top 7 takeaways:
(No. 4 is important) 1. The "easy money" era is officially over.

From 2009-2021, borrowing was practically free.

Fed rates went to zero. Companies could borrow at 2-3%.

He says a lot of private equity "geniuses" weren't geniuses, they were just riding the wave.

Now? That wave has crashed.

Nicolai Tangen just had Europe's most successful hedge fund manager on his podcast.

He revealed mind-blowing facts about investing that 99% of people wouldn't know.

Be prepared to have your mind blown...

Here are my top 8 takeaways: 🧵 1/ Growth is meaningless without MOATS

“The most important thing is high barriers to entry.”

Growth doesn’t matter unless a business is hard to compete with.

If anyone can copy you, pricing gets squeezed, margins collapse and eventually, so does the business.

You need moats:

This is Nicolai Tangen.

He’s the CEO managing Norway’s $1.7 TRILLION oil fund.

In a rare interview with David Rubenstein, he revealed shocking truths about global investing that 99% of people wouldn't know.

Here are my top 8 takeaways: 🧵
(No. 5 will blow your mind) 1/ Do the opposite of everyone else

In January 2025, while everyone was buying AI stocks, Tangen said: "Sell US tech, buy China, buy what's out of fashion."

People called him crazy.

Three months later, the U.S. market crashed.

Do exactly what scares everyone else.

The world's most secretive investor.

Mark Leonard hasn't made a public appearance since 2017.

His company returned 33% annually for 29 years, going from $25 million to $89 billion through software acquisitions...

Here are 8 of his best investing rules:
(No. 6 is fascinating) Leonard founded Constellation Software in 1995 after leaving venture capital with just $25M in funding.

He quietly created the most successful software conglomerate you’ve never heard of.

His strategy? Buy boring software companies nobody wants.

Here’s his rules to do that…

This man paid $650,000 to learn one idea from Warren Buffett.

That idea helped Monish Pabrai turn $1M into $600,000,000+

His “Dhandho” investing philosophy is so shockingly simple anyone can do it.

Here are 8 of his best investing rules: 🧵
(No. 6 is mind-blowing)
June 25, 2008.

Monish Pabrai sat across from Warren Buffett at a steakhouse in Omaha.

He had just paid $650,000 for this lunch.

No agenda. No notebook. Just one question on his mind:

“What mental model built Berkshire Hathaway?”…

The most dangerous investor in the world.

Carl Icahn made a 25.3% annual return over 40 years

He turned $8,000 into a $7.4 billion fortune by transforming dying companies into billion-dollar companies...

Here are 8 of his best investing rules:
(No. 6 is fascinating) Carl Icahn was born in 1936 in Queens.

His dad was a frustrated cantor who became a teacher.

His mom pushed him toward med school to survive in what she called a dangerous world.

But he had other plans...

Jim Simons was the greatest investor of all time.

He turned $1000 in 1988 into $4B in 30 years.

His hedge fund achieved 66% returns annually by hiring mathematicians and physicists instead of Wall Street experts.

Here's how a mathematician became the world's best investor: 🧵
As a kid in the 1940s, Jim loved numbers.

At just 4 years old, he discovered Zeno's Paradox in his dad's car:

"You could always use half of what gas remains, then half of that, so you'd never run out."

But his mind would soon take him somewhere far more complex...

I just returned from Warren Buffett's 60th Berkshire meeting.

Buffet revealed shocking truths about Japan, AI, and the future of Berkshire's $335B cash pile.

People are calling it one of the best meetings EVER.

Here's what happened (gets crazier as you read): 🧵 This was Buffett's 60th annual meeting and broke all attendance records.

19,700 people showed up just for the shopping day. See's Candy did $317,000 in sales, Brooks did $310,000, and Jazwares doubled their record.

Even at 94, Buffett still commands a room like no one else...

This billionaire predicted the 2008 crash when no one believed him.

Now, Ray Dalio is warning that America faces an economic disaster that's worse than anything in 90 years.

The terrifying part? It's already beginning to unfold.

Here's what he says is coming next: 🧵 Ray Dalio built a $125 billion hedge fund.

He predicted the 2008 crash before anyone else.

After studying 500 years of economic cycles, he spotted a pattern that precedes every major collapse.

This pattern just appeared for the first time since 1930...

The world's most feared investor.

Paul Singer hasn't had a down year since 1977.

His fund returned 14% annually for 46 years, going from managing $1.3 million to $72 billion through activist investing...

Here are 8 of his best investing rules:
(No. 6 is fascinating) 1/ Protect your capital at all costs.

Singer lost 88% of his mother's $50,000 savings in the 1974 bear market.

This is where his #1 principle came from.

"When big losses happen, people lose their minds and judgment."

Always protect the downside first.

The most powerful force in investing isn’t timing, diversification, or analysis.

It’s patience.

Chris Mayer studied every 100x stock since 1962, and found most people had already owned one… but sold.

Here's a 12-part checklist for finding (and keeping) 100-baggers: 1/ The most important rule from analyzing 365 companies that returned 100X:

Buy right, then hold on much longer than feels comfortable.

Most investors sell winners way too early, missing 80-90% of potential gains.

Time is your only real edge in the market.

This man broke every investing rule.

He bought 1,400 different stocks when experts like Buffett, Munger, and Graham said to focus on 20.

Then he crushed the market by 29% yearly for 13 years straight.

Here's how Peter Lynch's "bucket system" changed investing forever:🧵 1,400 stocks at once.

That's not a typo.

Lynch built from 60 to 1,400 stocks from 1977 to 1990, buying dozens in the same industry.

Wall Street thought he had lost his mind. But he discovered something that would make him a legend...

Dev Kantesaria from Valley Forge Capital has grown its Assets from 300k USD in 2007 to 4 Billion.

With a concentrated portfolio, he achieved a 15% CAGR.

Here are the 5 major lessons
⬇️ First about Dev:
🟠Dream to become a surgeon
🟠Starts med school but quit in his 3rd year
🟠On to Mckinsey as a consultant for 2 years
🟠Worked in venture capital: biotech for 18 years
🟠Starts a hedge fund in public equities, mainly long

I mostly used multiples, instead of yields when investing. Didn't see the benefits

Until Buffett showed me the way through farming and inversion.

Here's a 9-step yield analysis applied to $DNP, $INMD, $ADYEY, $DUR and $BABA

Which will reign supreme? Let's first look at 6 yields from the past and go through them 1 by 1.

Then we'll look at yields for the future.

Warren Buffett has beaten the market without using Excel

In his mind, he uses the Quality to Value ratio

I've included it in my investing process

Here's what I've come up with
🧵👇 Here's the gist of it:

🟥Measure the Quality of a company
🟠What is the Valuation of the company?
🟨Q/V gives us the quality of the investment
🟢Rank the companies based on Q/V and other criteria
🟦Only add companies to a portfolio that strengthens the portfolio Q/V value

Most investors do not beat the market over the long term.

Polen Capital has with a net 14% yearly return over 35 years and 66 Billion USD under management

Their secret?

Keep it crayon simple

Here’s their radically elegant approach in 6 steps 1. David Polen founded Polen Capital in 1979 and was a broker during Black Monday (1987)

He devised a strategy that could endure and sit out a crisis.

He created the Focused Growth fund, now led by Dan Davidowitz

➡️Fish for the biggest and best fish in the waters

Dino Polska ($DNP.WA) has grown at a 30% sales CAGR over the last decade.📈

Price has followed: It's a 10-bagger since the IPO

Is this a good time to take a position?
👇🧵 1. Performance

🟠Margins have declined a little
🟠Sales growth has slowed versus 2022 (only 30%)
🟠But 2022 was an unusual year, with inflation spiking

Performance seems solid

633 Billion USD can be unlocked by 'simply' optimizing working capital.

I must admit, as an investor, I wasn't aware of this.

Until I read the 2023 report by JP Morgan on the cash conversion cycle!

Here's what you need to know (applied to Dino Polska $DNP.WA)
👇🧵 1. What is the cash conversion cycle (CCC)?

➡️The number of days it takes for a company to convert its inventory into cash
➡️How long each dollar spent is tied up before it is converted into cash again
➡️A measure of the efficiency of the company

I've been investing for a decade now.

All this time, I was struggling with discounted cash flow models and intrinsic valuation.

Then I spent the past months reading Mauboussin's writings.

Here are several key insights that I learned
👇🧵 1. In valuation, it's not about the model.

It's about making assumptions explicit.

P/E multiples or relative valuations are shortcuts, rules of thumb.

Making your hypothesis explicit is the first step in building a sound valuation of a company.