value investors, india

I don't like value investors, and I have made it clear. I don't like money managers too, and I have made it much clear. There are self-proclaimed value investor communities in India, and do I have to say more about how much I loathe them?

There are groups of course, and each has sort of a leader, whom the members look up to and say, awesome every time the leader spits out something whether spoken or written. They tell stories, write blogs, and thus attract naive men and women. And then they find ways to make money for themselves by asking money from the naive to manage or through conducting teaching sessions, or something else. 

They talk about teaching investing to the public, and their own portfolio is created through mutual funds. Oh yeah, some of them are so sloppy about their work that they discount earnings. Can't tell the difference between EBIT and EBITDA; don't understand that depreciation is a genuine expense. 

Many of them are SEBI registered investment advisors. Man...if you are good at investing, can't you stick to your philosophy and invest your own cash, and be an honorable person? Do you have to use someone else's money to pay your bills? Some of those, who don't invite cash for investment, charge fees for their gibberish. Man...can't you just be honest about the fact that you ain't no good for the investment game, and therefore need cash to pay your bills?

Man...you discount earnings? whatever happened to depreciation, capital spending, and working capital requirements? You guys talk about CAPM and its evils, yet, use higher discount rates for riskier cash flows. You harp about margin of safety, and yet, implicitly use a method to protect your follies in estimating cash flows, which is another way to say that cash flows are riskier. 

You make a living out of Graham, Buffett, and Munger, and some lesser mortals. Some shame guys, before you tell stories to idiots, who are incapable of knowing that they can earn market returns very easily without any efforts. 

I admire those, who use their own money to invest, or even borrow to invest, which means two things: one, they are confident about their skills, and two, they have skin in the game; they eat their own cooking. And there is the third, they are confident of paying their bills through their investing skills, not through fees generated from either managing money or teaching lessons. 

Twitter has made the game much easier to play. It's a pity that the public is stupid enough to be gamed.