Development Jan1st-Dec31st 2024
Hello dear readers,
I am back with another yearly annual report. This time, for the first time, on my newly developed website.
There is a lot, yet at the same time, somewhat few things to talk about. Today I am 23 years old, soon to finish my MSc degree at Uppsala University. Life can go so incredibly fast, and looking back at my previous five year plan, it is quite apparent that very few things turned out how I expected it to. When I started this investment blog, all the way back to when I was 18, I had grand dreams and plans for my future. I thought I would break out onto the scene as a young 18-year old guy. Aiming for a CAGR of 20% and my grand plan, was that after my studies, at the ripe age of 24-25, I would have both capital and a solid 5-7 year track record of 20% CAGR. With these two “merits and tools”, my plan was to start my investment firm right out of school and live “la vida loca”, my dream. To be an investor full time. And most of all, manage capital for the people closest to me, friends, family and loved ones.
Yet, as I mature as an investor and as a person, I realize how hard this craft is. Knowing, but most of all experiencing it, is very different from being prepared for it. I have to be honest and confess, for these past 5 years I have not achieved basically anything that I set out to do. I neither have the amount of capital I thought I would have today or the solid track record to prove my skills.
Somehow, I feel like I have not achieved anything during this time. But at the same time.. I feel like I have never been closer, ever before.
As I grow and learn, my journey and the idea about the journey I will have continuosly changes. In all senses of objectivity, I have not completed any of the steps I set out to do during these five years. Yet today, I stand as an individual much stronger and smarter in comparison to my 18-year old self.
My dreams and goals are still the same as when I first set out on this journey. And they will be so, until I have completed them in this lifetime.
- Be a person of integrity: Honest to the core
In a world filled with lies, short term dopamine and fast packed action. There are few, if any, that can delay gratification to say the things that actually mean something. We see it everywhere. Everything of substance, is slowly turning to everything of entertainment. News meant to inform, becomes news to entertain. Books meant to teach, becomes books of superficiality. Honest words from human to human, becomes a “show-off” power struggle, about who can “flash” the most and make the most noise. The company I want to drive will stem from integrity and honesty, to myself and to my shareholders. This annual report is written from the heart, truly unfiltered. And that is the style, that I want to keep forever. Because what is a “letter to shareholders” or an “annual report”? If it is not written by the people responsible for business, and instead written by “experts in communication”?
2. Have a track-record worthy of my future clients
This is still the main struggle. Although good intentions and good characters, might make the journey meaningful. What matters for the client and the company, is my skills as an investor. And without the essence of a superb investor, my dreams will never amount to anything. In the end, what people care about is results. And the same truth applies to myself. If I did not know myself and looked at myself from a third person perspective. I can wholeheartedly say today, that I would not invest with me. How can you entrust your entire savings, to a person who can’t show a solid 5-7 year track record? What difference would there be between me, and the scammers out on wall street? I sincerely dont know if I will ever amount to a good investor. Maybe I will die trying. But thats better than “die giving up”. Just thinking about that possible future is gut wrenching. But as they say, life goes on.
Now, lets talk mistakes. This year I read Christopher Bloomstran’s Annual report. And to be quite frank, his is a lot better than mine. Which is perhaps not surprising to many of you reading this. When I read Christopher’s annual report, I was struck by how self-critical and harshly truthful he was to himself. Evaluating himself, as if he was not the investor himself, but a shareholder using a microscopic lense on himself. His view of himself was so bleak, that on a 90 page annual report, he couldn’t even be bothered to say even one good thing about himself. Semper Augustus is truly a magnificently run investment firm, one I strive to emulate.
With that said, mistake #1. Making myself look better than I really am. Re-reading my own blog posts and annual reports, I feel truly sick of myself. All this time, I have borne a deep dislike for misleading CEOs, fake fund managers and straight up executive liars. Yet, when I look at myself, and compare it to them, I did not see that much of a difference. Truly mind blowing. I, a student in my 20s, with no pride or history to my name, felt compelled to make reality look better than it actually is. And that is when I could feel sympathy for my fellow humans. So to combat this irresistible human urge, I will conciously do the opposite, to balance out or incredibly strong human instinct to always try to make ourselves look good, especially in moments of stress.
Mistake #2, I should really rename my website and my alias. When I started this blog, I was a mere fledgling bearing huge dreams. Laztum was the alias I chose and a comic drawn sun-wukong, was my chosen Avatar. Today, these designs are long overdue and no longer fit my persona or my ambition. As my cousins boyfriend, very well pointed out. “Why is your website called Laztum. It inspires zero trust and I would never invest with you”, was a very hurtful thing to hear in the moment. Yet as time flows, I grow more and more thankful for these “hurtful” words. Yones, my cousins boyfriend, is truly an upstanding person. He was the one who planted the seed within my mind to start a piano teaching business, which I later went ahead and executed successfully. And now, he is again helping me on this investing journey. Although I dont have regular contact with him, im always incredibly grateful for his sharp and impactful messages. With that said, I have been thinking about doing something similiar to Christopher Bloomstran’s Semper Augustus, Bruce Flatt’s Brookfield or Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway. Having a name that “rolls nice around the tongue” and that has real meaning and story behind it, is incredibly impactful. Not only externally, but also internally. A good name, can remind you of your own values and keep the company shooting straight for its mission. With my dad we though about “Pax Invictus”, although I like it, it seems a bit “strong worded”, just from instinct. “Berkshire Hathaway” is a name that inspires trust, gives a feeling of “authenticity” and also “feels grounded and elegant”. I might ask GPT to source me some ideas. Which is not a bad idea now that I think about it.
Mistake #3. Moving around too much. An investor is rewarded by deeply understanding the business he is invested in, and becoming a “sitting duck” with his partners. Moving around only has a negative effect on investor returns, as friction creates cost. When you sell or buy you always pay the broker, but when you sit on your ass doing nothing, you also pay no fees. The investor that buys 1 time a year and that is all he does, compared to the investor who buys 10-20 stocks, sells half of them, to later rebuy them again, is not truly investing. He is timing the market, unbeknownst to both himself and his investors. I need to learn to sit still and become more deeply strategical about the moves that I make. In a sense the world is chaotic, but as an investor I need to strive to become the stable lighthouse of the dark chaotic sea.
Mistake #4. Mindfulness. Investing is an art form that requires strategic execution and not precisely hard work. Making sure you are at top-notch mental capacity and fortitude at the time you expose yourself to the markets, is of immense importance. The truth is, as an investor, we choose when we want to be exposed, and when we want to not have a look. With this in mind, there truly is no good reason to continuosly and regularly be exposed to the volatility of the market, it is neither helpful or useful to the intelligent investor. Being not only strategical in portfolio execution, but also strategical in market exposure can become a powerful weapon, in keeping yourself in check. One in which I plan to use thoroughly.
With that said, this will be the end of 2024 annual report.
Eric Tsung
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