The Virtues of Great Investors

Written by Jeff Jorgensen, Chief Investment Officer

In my early years, I thought investing was all about modeling, comps tables, valuation precision, etc.—down to the third decimal point in a 10-year forecast.

But over time, I realized that basic financial analysis is just table stakes. Thousands of analysts can build a good model.
 
Emotion and psychology are WAY more important and harder to come by.

Jason Zweig, of The Wall Street Journal fame, describes the seven virtues of great investors:

1. Curiosity
2. Skepticism
3. Independence
4. Humility
5. Discipline
6. Patience
7. Courage

Does the Cap Six team possess these virtues? I certainly hope so, and I like to think we've learned from the mistakes of the past.

More importantly, we’ve created systems, rules, and guardrails to promote these attributes and protect us from bias and emotion.

We are all about PROCESS, PROCESS, PROCESS.

Even more, our journey has been shaped by these virtues in other ways:

1. Curiosity – led us to ask—is there a better way?
2. Skepticism – drove us to question the traditional business model.
3. Independence – was our answer; we left to do it on our own.
4. Humility – reminded us that we weren’t perfect and needed better tools and processes for our investors.
5. Discipline – keeps us on track and shields us from natural biases.
6. Patience – has been crucial in testing, launching strategies, and building track record—it will continue to be.
7. Courage – well, betting on yourself always takes courage, as any entrepreneur knows.