Investec's Mundy: How to be content when leading a life of misery

'Market participants with opposing views are simply blockheaded'

In 1986, Charlie Munger - American investor, businessman, and philanthropist - was invited to speak at Harvard.

He modelled his speech on an earlier commencement address made by The Tonight Show's 30-year host Johnny Carson, who told his audience that while he couldn't tell the graduating class how to be happy, he could tell them from personal experience how to lead a life of misery. Having had my fill of investment books with promises of untold riches conditional on strict adherence to a specific strategy, I wondered whether, à la Carson and Munger, it was possible to invert the idea and produce a strategy ensuring underperformance. The mindset is all important if a fund manager, let's call ...