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Howard Marks의 『The Most Important Thing』을 바탕으로 2차적 사고(second level thinking)의 중요성을 설명한 교육 콘텐츠다. 결론: 뛰어난 투자자가 되려면 대중과 다른 차별화된 통찰, 즉 2차적 사고가 필요하다. 1차적 사고는 빠르고 쉽지만 표면적 정보에 기반하며, 많은 사람이 같은 결론에 도달하므로 평균 이상의 수익을 내기 어렵다. 2차적 사고는 결과의 확률 분포와 '그다음에는 무슨 일이 일어날까'를 묻는 심층적 사고다. 대중의 기대와 자신의 기대 차이, 가격 경로까지 고려한다. 예시: 패스트푸드 기업은 1차적으로는 좋은 회사라 매수, 2차적으로는 모두가 좋다고 믿어 과대평가되었다고 보고 매도. 시장 패닉 시에는 1차적으로 매도, 2차적으로 좋은 자산이 싸게 나온 기회로 보고 매수. 투자는 제로섬 게임에 가깝기 때문에 평균을 이기려면 우위가 필요하고, 이때 2차적 사고가 그 우위가 될 수 있다. 경쟁이 치열한 S&P 500 같은 시장에서는 2차적 사고가 더욱 중요하며, 소형주처럼 분석가가 적은 시장에서는 비효율성이 커서 상대적으로 덜 중요하다. 2차적 사고는 많은 두뇌 자원을 요구하므로 큰 투자 결정이나 진로·거주지 선택 같은 인생의 중대 결정에 선별적으로 적용하는 것이 바람직하다. 이전 에피소드의 Charlie Munger 인지 편향 논의와 연결되며, 투자가 틀릴 수 있는 이유를 찾아보는 것도 2차적 사고의 일부다.
다듬은 글
n this week's episode I want to go over a few important ideas that Howard marks covers in his book the book is called the most important thing apart from being a self-made billionaire Howard marks is the co-founder and chairman of oak tree that's an investment firm that's known for their expertise in distressed Securities essentially they're experts at investing in loans for businesses facing bankruptcy that was Howard Mark's bread and butter in investing lots of people avoided that area of investing because the potential losses are big when you're dealing with companies that are facing bankruptcy but at the same time it was a great hunting ground because there wasn't that much competition for Howard to go up against so here's Howard's 32nd bio he was born in Queens New York in 1946 and went to Wharton for his undergrad he later worked at a company called TCW and he was the big boss in charge of their U.S Bond Department here's where it gets interesting while at TCW he ended up organizing this distressed bond fund apparently it was one of the first distressed bond funds from a major company so it was quite an Innovative idea at the time so you can see that Howard was used to thinking outside the box to get unconventional investment results in 1995 Howard and four other colleagues decided that they've had enough of the corporate Rat Race and wanted to leave and start their own firm it was a pretty high profile move because the people leaving TCW were very senior so it made the headlines Howard was 49 when he started oak tree huge props to him for having the entrepreneurial Spirit at that age I'm sure at that point he had enough money to retire and spend the rest of his life snorkeling in Hawaii but it's hard to retire when you're doing something you love oak tree went on to be a big success their assets under management today are around 140 billion Howard himself has made a fortune from his original equity in the company so his net worth is around 2 billion dollars today from what I've seen that's a very common thing in investing where the really good investors that stand out get most of their wealth from the equity they have in their Investment Company Howard has a great track record and he writes these quarterly memos that are really well known in the investment industry you can usually find them online if you search around anyway in 2011 he wrote this book called The most important thing today the most important thing is probably how to survive the pandemic with your sanity intact but the book is from a decade ago so it's all about investing I enjoyed this read I really liked the few points from the book that I want to share with you the section I'm referring to is where Howard talks about first level thinking and second level thinking in the book he's pretty much saying that investing is really hard so in order to be an above average investor you have to have Superior Insight this Superior Insight is what he calls second level thinking first level thinking is fast and easy first level thinking happens when we make a decision based on superficial information first level thinking is when your solution to a problem solves the immediate problem without considering the consequences for example you can think of this as I'm feeling hungry so to resolve this hunger I'm gonna eat a donut the donut solves the immediate desire but it's not the best solution second level thinking is more deliberate it's thinking in terms of probabilities and looking at a series of outcomes that can happen second level people ask themselves and then what in our donut example it's asking yourself the question of what will happen if you eat a donut each time you're feeling hungry by asking that question you'll see the consequences of your decision this type of thinking would probably lead you to eating something healthier when you're feeling hungry in investing first level thinkers all look pretty similar everyone reaches the same conclusions first level thinking is what the majority of people think about a stock so if you look at a stock and there's 30 analysts covering it and 25 of them have it as a buy first level thinking would be to buy the stock this is where things get interesting according to Howard marks the road to being an amazing investor can't come from first level thinking by definition an amazing investor has to stand apart from the crowd if they're just part of the crowd then they're an average investor and not an amazing investor this means that to be an amazing investor they're investing decisions have to be different from the consensus by the way when I say consensus I'm just referring to the other investors in the market unusual investing performance has to come from an unusual way of making decisions or seeing something that the majority of people don't see I want to go over some examples from the book to illustrate this concept more let's say you have a fast food stock first level thinking is just super simplistic it's all about this is a good company there are a number of restaurants has grown a lot in the past five years their food is great and people love the brand let's buy the stock second level thinking would be well it's a good company but everyone thinks it's an amazing company and it's not it's just good so the stock is overrated and overpriced let's sell the stock in this example second level thinking is all about standing apart from the crowd by the way that's an uncomfortable place to be so it's hard being a second level thinker not only do you need to have better Insight but there is also the social pressure of being different from the crowd here's another example first level thinking says there's a negative outlook with low growth and Rising inflation in the economy let's sell our stocks second level thinking in this case would be well the Outlook is really bad but everyone is selling in a panic it's time to buy because people are selling good and bad stocks so there's some deals to be had if you look at the past two big Market Corrections in 0809 and 2020 you'll see that a lot of great investors bought companies that very attractive valuations at those times they saw the opportunity instead of being driven by fear second level thinking is about digging deeper and trying to understand what possible outcomes might happen that's super hard and that's why second level thinking is rare Howard marks says that when you're using second level thinking you're thinking about things like the range of possible future outcomes which outcome is likely to occur and maybe the probabilities of each outcome and the probability that you're right I think that makes a lot of sense I think the future has a range of outcomes that might happen and each of them has a probability second level of thinking is about exploring the possible outcomes and thinking about the probabilities of each of them happening second level thinking also involves deciding about what is everyone else thinking of the stock and how is their expectation different from your expectation also are the majority of people more optimistic or more pessimistic about the company and what will happen to the price if you turn out to be right and what would happen to the price if the majority of the investors out there turn out to be right those are the types of questions that are hard to answer and require a really deep understanding of the company and the industry that's one of the reasons that investors like Warren Buffett recommend to focus on certain industries where you're the expert doing second level thinking is a lot easier if you're an expert doing this type of second level thinking is similar to what we covered in last week's episode on Charlie munger's mental biases in that episode we discussed how important it is to look at reasons your conclusion about an investment might be wrong if you're buying a stock Charlie's thinking says to see all the possible ways that the price can go down that's a form of second level thinking because it's all about going deeper into the decision making process and looking at all the possible outcomes so second level thinking helps you stand out from the crowd and it also helps you avoid some mental blind spots a lot of people consider investing to be a zero-sum game essentially for someone to win in investing another person has to lose as a really simple model that makes sense because if you buy a stock from someone and the stock price goes up you're essentially winning at their expense if you buy a stock and it goes down the seller wins at your expense it gets more complicated than that but we can just use that as a simple model anyways so if investing is a zero-sum game and you want to do better than the average investor you have to bring some sort of advantage or some sort of edge second level thinking can be one type of advantage if most investors are first level thinkers you can have an advantage over them by using second level thinking Ray dalio is another great investor and he talks about this as well his perspective is that when you're making a decision the first available option that you go with or the First Choice you make about a stock can often be the wrong choice you probably have these mental blind spots that are affecting your decisions so it's important to explore the investment from lots of angles to see what you might have missed in your analysis I think that second level thinking becomes more important when you look at really competitive markets let's say if you're looking at companies in the S P 500 which is pretty much the 500 biggest companies in the US the top companies will have 20 to 40 analysts covering them that is super competitive so if everybody's access to information is about the same then to beat the competition you have to be able to have better insight second level thinking is the superior Insight that can be an advantage now if you're looking at a company that's not widely followed maybe a micro cap stock like the ones that Mike Berry used to invest in 15 years ago you're probably going to see more inefficiencies in those types of markets if there's only a few analysts covering a particular stock there may be bigger inefficiencies in that type of market so second level thinking would probably not play as big of a factor as it would in a super competitive market I guess Howard's point is that second level thinking can be a great tool in any Investor's toolbox when your investment landscape is super competitive you'll need to use something to stand apart from other investors having said that second level thinking is super hard to do and it takes a ton of brain power I think it's a good goal to apply second level thinking to the really big decisions and this applies in investing and in life big money investing decisions or life decisions like where you should live or which university you should go to which career to choose and so on those are the types of decisions where it makes sense to do the extra work of second level thinking these decisions have a big impact on your life so you want to do everything you can to make sure that you're making the best possible decision
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