5 investing lessons learned from Charlie Munger that will stand the test of time

financialpost.com:

Billionaire Charlie Munger, who passed away in November at the age of 99, spent many decades alongside Warren Buffett at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Together, they grew Berkshire from a small textiles firm into a massive and diversified conglomerate with a market capitalization of about US$780 billion at the time of Munger’s passing.

Over the years, I was fortunate enough to attend the company’s annual general meetings in Omaha, Neb., on many occasions. I started attending these meetings 20 years ago in 2004 with some friends and colleagues from Toronto, and continued almost every year until the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to in-person meetings in 2020.

I found the Berkshire AGMs — which are commonly referred to as “Woodstock for Capitalists” — to be as entertaining as they were intellectually stimulating. A big reason for this was for the wit and wisdom of Munger. During his career, he demonstrated himself to be an unconventional thinker, one who applied the importance of psychological factors to better understand business and investing.

Here are five of the many investing lessons we have taken from Munger over the years.

At Goodreid, we strive to invest in quality companies, which was a core component of Munger’s approach to investing as well. He was credited for influencing Warren Buffett to focus less on price and more on the quality of the business that he was buying.

“Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices,” he is known to have said. “Instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.”

Buffett famously transitioned from buying the cheapest businesses he could find, known as “cigar butts,” to buying quality businesses with strong brands, competitive advantages and the ability