Everyone says “buy the dip.”

Until the market crashes 30%.

Then most freeze, panic, or quit.

Here’s the truth about buying the dip (and why almost no one actually does it):🧵 Buying a 5% dip?
That’s easy.
Feels like a bargain.

Buying a 30% dip?
That’s terrifying.

It feels like the world is ending—and your portfolio with it.

Nobody knew Lehman would collapse.

Nobody knew Covid would shut down the world.

Nobody knows what Trump’s tariffs will do now.

But when uncertainty reigns, great investors don’t freeze — they act.

Howard Marks’ latest memo breaks down exactly how: 🧵 1. The best time to invest is when chaos reigns and others are frozen.

In 2008, most investors panicked.

Marks put $10B to work in deeply discounted distressed debt — while everyone else waited for “clarity.”

Warren Buffett once said:

“You’ve got to be prepared for your stocks to drop 50%—and be comfortable with it.”

Investors quote it.
But few TRULY live by it.

Here are his 13 principles to navigate brutal markets: 🧵 1. Volatility is not risk

Buffett defines risk differently than Wall Street.

“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”

A falling stock price doesn’t make a business worse. It just makes it cheaper—if you understand it.

Howard Marks just spoke on Bloomberg.

Not to panic.
Not to predict.

But to explain how Liberation Day reshapes the rules of investing.

Here are my distilled insights:🧵 1) The world isn’t ending.

But the rules are changing.

For decades, investors benefited from one major tailwind: globalization.

Trade was open. Supply chains were efficient. Goods were cheap.

That tailwind is fading.

Howard Marks just went on Bloomberg.

Not to sell fear.
Not to time markets.

But to explain how Liberation Day redefines how we should think about investing.

Here are my 2-min insights from the full interview:🧵 1) The world isn’t ending.

But the rules are changing.

For decades, investors benefited from one major tailwind: globalization.

Trade was open. Supply chains were efficient. Goods were cheap.

That tailwind is fading.

"Give me $1 million, and I’ll turn it into 50% returns a year. Guaranteed."

In his early years, Warren Buffett often hit 50%.

But his strategy back then was nothing like today’s.

I studied his letters from 1959-1969. Here’s what I found: 🧵 Before execution, Buffett sorted every opportunity into one of four categories:

• Generals – Private Owner Basis
• Workouts
• Control Situations
• Generals – Relatively Undervalued

Here's what each category entails:

$GOOG is the most obvious 2x opportunity in big tech.

• Cloud is exploding.
• YouTube is a sleeping giant.
• AI is accelerating beyond search.

Yet it’s the cheapest of the Magnificent 7—by far.

Here's what everyone is missing:🧵 1. Dominance in Search is STILL unmatched.

Google owns 90%+ of global search.

Even if AI shifts search behavior, Google still has the distribution, user base, and data advantage to adapt.

And let’s not forget: Search ads = high-margin cash cow.

Charlie Munger once said:

“People calculate too much and think too little.”

Most investors obsess over numbers.
(PE ratios, margins, earnings growth)

But the best investors think differently.

Here’s how top investors use mental models to win: 🧵 1) First Principles Thinking

Google’s Waymo built fully autonomous vehicles from scratch instead of improving driver-assist tech like Tesla.

Result: 20M+ driverless miles—leading the race for true self-driving.

Disruptors rethink industries, not just improve them.

Many believe DeepSeek will slow $NVDA ’s demand…

They’re missing some key facts.

Here’s what most people aren’t seeing: 🧵 1. AI is expanding beyond chatbots:

• Multimodal models (video, images, audio) need more compute

• Industry-specific AI (finance, healthcare, robotics) is booming

• Autonomous AI agents are emerging, requiring constant GPU power

Mohnish Pabrai was a personal friend to Charlie Munger.

He turned $1M into $600M using just 3 rules.

Started as an IT engineer, now outperforms 99% of hedge funds.

His strategy is surprisingly simple:🧵 Rule #1: Only invest in businesses you fully understand.

Pabrai spent 6 months studying trucking before his 1st investment in 1994: Motor Cargo.

His reward: A 10x return.

If you can't explain a company in 1 sentence, don't invest.

Buffett says Charlie Munger transformed him, from a value investor into a fortune builder.

Their shared secret?

Munger’s mental models that revolutionized their thinking.

I studied and distilled 15 of the best (out of 100s):

(You’d want to save this)
1) Inversion

Start with what could go wrong.

Analyze potential failures before potential success.

When Munger evaluated BYD, he considered pitfalls like competition with Tesla.

Do this: List their key risks and mitigation strategies before any major decision.

Howard Marks just released his new memo.

Yes, the ones that even Buffett reads.

Here's a 2 min summary of the 5000-word masterpiece:🧵 1) "What is a bubble?"

For Marks, a bubble is not just about high prices; it’s a state of mind.

Key signs:
• "No price too high" thinking
• FOMO driving investments
• Blind faith in "this time is different"

Psychology > numbers.

I analyzed 400+ acquisitions Berkshire made from 1965–2024

And found the exact criteria Buffett uses.

His “secret” checklist is hiding in plain sight.

Let me show you (You might want to save this):
1. Hoard cash years before crashes

In 2006, Berkshire held $43B in cash.

By 2007, it was up to $47B.

By Q3 2024, Berkshire’s cash reserves reached a record $320.3B.

History rhymes.

This is value investor, Allan Mecham.

He dropped out of college at age 22 to start his fund, Arlington Value.

From 2008-2016, they did a CAGR of 30% over 8.5 years!

And in his fund letters, he shared his best frameworks for investing in companies.

Here's a breakdown of each: 1. Adopt a mindset for longevity

He focuses on variables that affect a business' durability.

Stuff like valuation doesn't matter if the business quality is misjudged.

Since a company's value is determined by its future cash flows...

Hence evaluating its future is key

One of the great investors of our time: Li Lu

During his talks at CBS and Peking Uni, he’s shared many of his thoughts on:

- Researching a stock
- Thinking like an owner
- Behaviours of a good investor

Here’s a breakdown of 15 of his investing mental models: 1. Think Like a Business Owner

Your fortunes go up and down with the nature of the business.

You don’t think of yourself as a paper shuffler.

But instead, as a real owner.

And because you only own a small piece, you need a margin of safety before buying in.

How to read an Annual Report in 1 hour.

A step by step guide for busy people:

(also for investing newbies) 1. For me, reading a 10k is purely to understand one thing:

A company's business model.

That's it.

This includes:

- what products they sell
- how they make $$
- basic unit economics

Fine tune your antenna to look for that.

17 life-changing lessons from "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Taleb that gave me a mindf**k.

I hope it does the same for you too: 1. Hard work and work ethic is BS

Those who merely work hard generally lose their focus and intellectual energy.

Work ethics draw people to focus on noise rather than the signal.

Secrets on how to find 10-100 baggers

My top 8 tweets: 1. Turning $3.6k into $1M

Someone else shared this, but their account went private.

I don't take any credit for this.

But it's a good lesson.

This guy from Reddit bought 300 shares of $AMZN at $12.50 in 2001. It has now become a 280 bagger.

Read his thought process here:

90% of business acquisitions fail.

But there are exceptions:

Mark Leonard, Founder of Constellation Software $CSU, is one of them.

He's acquired over 500 companies in the last 2 decades...

Turning $25 Million into $39 Billion.

Here's his "Growth by Acquisition" playbook: Okay I'm a jerk.

This is the real photo of Mark Leonard.

Now let's get to the serious stuff...

5 lessons from Mark's "Growth by Acquisition" Playbook:

1. Focus on niche players
2. Focus on sticky softwares
3. Buy founder led companies
4. Decentralization
5. Keep teams small

One of the best investors who bought Amazon in early days: Nick Sleep.

His fund generated over 18% compounded for 12 years.

Legend!

In his 200 page fund letter, he shared 15 powerful investing frameworks for picking high quality companies.

Here's a distillation of each: 1. Customer relationships are king

The wealth you receive as investors come from the relationship that companies' employees (using the company as a conduit) have with their customers.

It is this relationship that is the source of aggregate wealth created in capitalism.

17 life changing lessons from "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Taleb.

They gave me a mindf**k.

They made me see that we easily fall victim to stories.

They also showed me how human beings suck at shutting out noise in the stock market.

Let's dive in: 1. Hard work and work ethic is BS

Those who merely work hard generally lose their focus and intellectual energy.

Work ethics draw people to focus on noise rather than the signal.

Don't be fooled by stories of hard work.