What is investment? - Chinese language
什么是投资？投资到底怎么赚钱的？投资的好处是什么？每个人都适合投资吗？许许多多的问题最近都在我脑子里。 其实，我觉得投资者更多的时候应该是在思考而不是操作。很多时候一次性赚一百万不如每天一百块。许多人都希望一夜暴富，我也希望，但是我知道这个是不可能的事情。每一次和客户的交谈，我尽可能的希望他们能够投资投资。当然不是所有人都喜欢我，即使你是世界上最有名的明星，也会有人讨厌你。没关系，我吸取教训，下次再接再厉。如果有信任的客户，我会对他们更加的关照，因为他们的信任是我最大的荣誉。我当然不能辜负了他们的信任。
接下来聊聊投资。对我来说投资就是投的未来。用合适的价格来买公司未来的价值。投资股票，就是投资公司，你可以反对，也可以不相信我，但是，投资真正的真谛就是公司本身，这也是股票出现的价值。所以，当我们买入一家公司的时候，就是买入这家公司的价值。他会升值，相对于公司拥有者就会赚钱。它会贬值，那么我们的投资就会缩水。这就是投资的真谛。
投资的好处是什么？很简单，当投资人睡觉的时候，钱也在增值。这就是投资的好处，它可以给你带来你能力所达不到的回报（但是你的眼光和公司分析能力一定要好）。 投资，可以让我们了解不同的行业，了解不同的知识，学习到更多的文化。这也是我作为投资者的目的。我不停的投资，我也不停地学习。
很多人问我，是不是每个人都适合投资。我的回答是不是。为什么我说不是。投资不仅仅是公司的投资。我们的人生也是投资。学习是对未来的投资，朋友是对生活的投资，运动是对身体的投资。所以不是每个人都能把握好投资的真谛。如果你不能够爱上这门艺术，你应该交给爱的人帮你去做。你可以用心做你喜欢的事情，让钱赚钱就去交给更厉害的人做。其实很多基金经理，他们的目的就是赚钱，对我来说，我希望去投资改变世界的公司，比如特斯拉，医疗，新能源。很多人问我，我能够了解吗。我会给你说，我不了解但是我喜欢，所以我愿意去学习，我愿意花时间去了解。我本不是一个爱看书的人，但是因为投资，我喜欢上了看书，我喜欢上了运动。我和父母的感情更加友好。我更加珍惜我的父母。 短期的投资，以及投机。我不反对。不过对我来说投资者应该把投资的本质看得更加清楚，更加明确。当我们决定了的事情，就要一心一意做到底。投资，是一场无形的战场，也是培养士兵的军营。我们就是指挥官，去寻找，去培养，最好的士兵。
Never invest in a business you can't understand
It is essential to understand the value of the company. Many people ask me at the conference that what do you think about private equity or hedge fund. I will say, realize what do you buy, and know the value of the company. Many people believe investing is so simple, and some people think it is tough to understand. To me, it is straightforward for financing, but it is very hard for understanding. We need to understand the business before we put the money into the market. There are many ways to study and learn the company, such as a financial report, management team, and business culture. For example, many people love the iPhone, and they all know if we want to make money in the market, buy Apple company stock shares. How many people own the Apple stocks have ever take a look at their financial report. Many people know it is an excellent company, but they don't know their financial statements. Maybe it was a good company last year, and its revenue is decreasing this year. Then, if an investor bought its stocks last year, they will lose money next year even if everyone said it is a very good company, and many people love their products. Many people know how much to buy the iPhone, but very few people know how much cost for an iPhone. The investor must understand the company and make sure they understand how the company makes money and how much money they make. For my speech at the December finance conference, I said many times that investors should know what they own. They can't make money by not knowing the company. They shouldn't call themselves investors; they are spectacular. Too often people invest in stocks market without a clue as how a company generates revenue, cost expenses, and produces profits. Only investor can make money from understanding the economic process of the company. That’s what Warren Buffett called “intelligent investor”.
Also, investor should understand the history of the company. "This time is different." This sentence probably cost most stock market investors far more than they know. Indeed, every period of time is different. Nonetheless, we can learn from history a lot of lessons that should guide how we invest today. Failure to learn from other people's past mistakes can be detrimental to your property. The history will tell people if the company was truthful company, and also if the company was keeping the promising. When there is company promise to achieve their goal five years ago and they didn’t reach it, then there is big probability they will fail this time again. In almost all aspects of human behavior and thought, history repeats itself, in that way, economic cycles replicate themselves. Basically, a financial market is the result of millions of collective human thoughts / behaviors shown on a price chart. You can use some of the collective thought. Many people think this time will be different. In inside of system, there are many things similar to each other. For example, fear and greedy. So, understand the business is very important in investing.
There are some questions that I could help people to understand the company more:
Is the business simple and understandable?
Does the business have favorable long-term prospects?
Does the business have strongly negative debt issue?
Does the business have a consistent operating history?
Is management work with shareholders?
What’s the business’s return on equity?
We could focus on many ways to understand the business in business aspect, management aspect, and financial aspect.
“Heavy is the head who wears the crown."
The one trying to wear the crown must withstand the weight.
From Shakespeare:
“Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
欲戴其冠，必承其重。这句话早是出自于莎士比亚的文章里。这次我的主题会以这句话来写。为什么我会用中文来写这篇文章？因为，目前而言，这个问题普遍出现在亚洲地区，特别是快速发展的经纪形式，比如抖音。 网络媒体的出现造就了许许多多的红人。比如网络主播，网络网红，以及自媒体。非常好的趋势，这样可以让更多的人学到只是，也会让更多的人出人头地，成名成功。 当然，这不是一个好事。很多人问我为什么成名成功不是一件好事？你有钱了，你有名了想做什么都可以啊，压力也少了。当然就像开头我说的，你带了这个王冠，就必须承受王冠的重量。
最好的例子就是网红，简称网络红人。很多人都想成为网红，但是你真的意识到后面的艰苦与奋斗吗。不是那么简单去当一个网红，发一张照片有几万个人点赞。既然你想成为网红，你就要承受其带来的压力（网络压力）。会有人喜欢你，就会有人不喜欢你。你总不能让所有人都喜欢你吧。拿着网红所带来的优势，却不想有人批评你，或者承受不了别人的批评，那么就不要去做这个行业。你是明星，大家都会关注你，然后你想要别人的关注，又想有平常人的隐私，这是非常难办到的。当你成为了明星，赚了许许多多的钱，然后反过来说你没有隐私每个人都关注着你，这就是一个非常矛盾的思想。
在这世界上，每个事情的背后都会有一个花费。任何事情都会付出了才会得到。我一个朋友是华尔街投资银行的老总。之前和他聊天，他给我看过一个他的日程表两个月跑了27个城市，分别4个国家，大概2天一个城市而且中间只有一天的休息。他赚了很多钱但是赚钱的背后就是付出。那么有些人问我，懒人可以不付出啊。错了！一样你要付出，那么就是你需要承受别人可以享受的生活，而你不行。别人在奋斗工作，你在家玩着游戏喝着啤酒。那么你就要承受别人可以去各种地方旅游，而你只能在家待着。或许你并不觉得这个是一个付出，其实这是，这样子来说吧当你因为喝酒而身体健康出现了问题，这就是你的花费，而别人每天健身的人就可以有一个良好的身体。当然他也付出了，在你休息喝酒吃着自己喜欢的甜品的时候，他，正在挥洒汗水，抑制自己的贪婪，这也是他的付出！
对于我们的事业，要选一个自己喜欢的能够一直做下去的行业，当然你也要了解这个行业的辛苦与汗水。我自己在做投资，在做私募，我既然选择了这个我就要去了解他，学习他。我在大学的时候就开始投资股票，一心想着别人赚钱赚得好多好厉害，满脑子都是这样的想法都没有好好去学习。我付出的就是我的金钱。我亏掉了很多，因为我不去学习他不去了解他。就拿私募举个例子，每一个项目都是不一样的公司，公司的背后就是学习的知识，向我这样一个新兴管理者我需要做的就是每一个项目我都要去了解他。危险在哪，未来的路在哪，我也要去学习会计，财务报表以及管理学。这家公司到底能不能管理好，以及这家公司的财务会不会有大问题。很多人觉得你是基金经理不需要去了解这些，但是往往这就是决定成败的原因。并不是仅仅给钱就是了。特斯拉和未来汽车都是一样的想法，都筹集了非常多的资金，但是一个成功，一个失败。很多时候我们不仅仅要从成功者学习经验。还去失败的公司了解他们失败的原因。就算现在给你一个亿，你或许也不能成功的留住这笔资金。所以每个路，都要去好好的走，都要好好的坚持，因为每一个选择背后都是付出。
每个人都会做出选择，而你，需要为你的选择付出努力，任何选择都是需要付出的，及时你的懒惰，你的贪婪，也都会标上价格。没有一切是免费的。我也希望大家能够好好地选择自己的路，欲戴其冠，必承其重。
投资的精神 Spirit of investment
这一次我会用中文写一篇想法。 因为这个想法更多的影响到中国人的投资观念。 整篇文章会围绕着一句话来讲：“慢慢的有钱，仔细的分析。”现在的潮流是一些快节奏的生活。当然不是指“快节奏”，而是“快赚钱”。 比如我们耳熟能详的抖音，自媒体的火热，游戏的主播。当时各种爆火的游戏主播以及所谓的抖音网红确确实实让很多人富有了起来，也让许多人找到了出路。这些“快节奏致富”帮助非常多的人改变了他们的生活以及家人。但是，随着时间的推移，目前我们耳熟能详的人都消失不见了，为什么呢？因为这是快节奏赚钱的后果。 捷径，许许多多的人都喜欢走捷径，因为他们可以付出较少的努力而获得大的成就但是问题就在于能否持续这样的方式。美国非常火的零售店“forever 21”-永远二十一，今年签了破产保护。曾经世界各地女生都喜欢的时尚品牌落到了需要去申请破产保护而且当我走进商店时他们几乎所有的商品都在打折促销，即使这样去的人也不是特别多。是什么造就了一些巨型的成功又如何失败的？ 这些都与投资以及“慢慢的赚钱，仔细的分析”有关系。
现在这个时候，大家都想一夜暴富，通过抖音让自己出名，通过自媒体让自己成为明星，但是都忽略了背后的付出以及事业的苦难。太多人的看到Facebook的创始人20几岁就成功了，或者一些拍抖音的美女也是一夜走红，他们一夜成名，成为了大家关注的焦点。很多人就看到了这样的成功而开始眼红。自己为什么不能像他们一样一夜就成名。或许明天我就是大家关注的焦点，或许明天我就会去小巨蛋开演唱会，或许明天我走在路上就可以遇到经纪公司和我签约。 但是大家都忘记了一个巨大的问题，也是财富背后的问题，那就是付出。
任何事情都需要有付出，做一个懒人要付出，做一个记者要付出，做一个明星要付出，做一个投资人要付出。他们都会有不同的付出，让我来讲讲不同的成功所需要不同的付出吧。举个简简单单的例子，明星，许许多多得人觉得我当了明星我就是有钱人所有的人都会来关注我。 当然，非常准确，而且背后的付出就是你很难有自己的隐私，这就是公众人物的问题。你想成文公众人物，但是又不想为之所付出那是不肯能的。作为懒人，有基本的工作，不想去减肥，不想付出，那么你就会有健康问题。不想有健康问题那就需要花时间去运动，也需要忍住垃圾食品的诱惑。所以任何事情都会有个“付出或者花费”。巨大的财富所需要的就是慢慢的积累，慢慢的成功。巴菲特是一个非常好的例子，巴菲特从小就喜欢赚钱当然也非常喜欢存钱（重点知识！！存钱）。 巴菲特的投资理念非常的简单，那就是：找一个很好地公司长期持有它。为什么这么简单的问题大家都成功不了。因为他需要花时间，需要投资人好好地分析公司（这就是非常大的学问，找到好的公司，我之后会和大家讲解），需要投资人有耐心去了解公司并且以一个非常低的价格买入，但是这些所有的一切都需要时间。不是一年，不是两年，而是一辈子。我在3年前采访霍华德马克思（橡树投资公司的创始人），他问过我一个问题，你是否是真正的喜欢投资。我说：是的，我非常的喜欢。 但是他立刻否定了我的回答，因为我的年轻，我的经历我还不能说真正的喜欢投资。要经历失败并且不放弃它才叫做真正的喜欢。巴菲特几十年的投资没有放弃过。我们或许可以看到许多人想要退休想要出去玩，这就好好的证明他们并不是真正的喜欢。时间是一个很好地朋友。我有个基金经理好朋友叫做“Robert”他非常的聪明（他持有特斯拉在特斯拉最低的时候 不仅没有卖出还大量的持有，当然他分析特斯拉这家公司用了快1000个小时）。他当时说过是不是好的投资者时间可以证明一切。 现在许多成功的网红，有钱的主播慢慢的褪去了当年的光环，他们一时的富有并不能持久。所以“慢慢的成功，仔细的分析”才是投资的最好的策略。
Fake investor VS Real investor ---- where your money goes matters to you.
The reason I want to write this article about real and fake investors because I see too many fake investors call themselves expert and “educated wealth manager”. It is so sad for people who believe how fake smart they are and loss people’s money again and again. However, they don’t lose money at all because they will charge their clients management fee and get money from that. Many hedge fund and private equity manager will charge 2% management fee even when they have bad performance on market.
Most people will go to school and learn stock market or trading class about investment bank such as M&A. However, 90% of school’s teachers don’t have real experience in stock market or never work with investment bank ever. How can they teach investment? And how could people learn from them? I will give a very good example of trading stock market and fake teacher vs real teacher. Many teachers will tell you to try paper trading which is fake money and image people buy stocks to avoid making mistake. However, good wealth managers are learning from their mistake like Ray Dalio and Peter Lynch. If we don’t make mistake how could we learn from trading and avoid making same mistake to be better? This is fake teacher. Another point is about emotions. Real money and fake money will treat investor different because you probably will lose your lunch meal for next week because you can’t hold your emotions and scared to lose all your or your parents’ money. Fake teacher will lead fake students. And fake students will become future fake wealth managers.
I started trading stocks three years ago and still make a lot of mistakes. Even Ray Dalio went bankrupt when he was 30 years old. We are humans. We will make mistake, and this is how we could learn more knowledge from our mistakes and change it then make it better.
From the beginning, we think we know more things than we know. Then, we will make mistake and we notice that our actual knowledge. Then we will study it and learn from the mistake and make it better. This is how real-life learning and studying circle. Most people just avoiding mistake and keep move to another part, but they will make the same mistake again and again.
This is the biggest gap between real investors and fake investors. Learning, most hedge fund managers and private equity managers don’t study from their mistake. They try to avoid it and they don’t try to change it. My weakness is financial report. Then, I try to read one report every week and find the most important information in the company’s report and study for it. I am not saying that I am real investor. However, I study hard for my mistake and my weakness. Also, I will keep posting my thoughts on the market and my personal investing life with people.
Diversify--- the investment of my life
This is my second article of my thought thru my time. This time, I want to talk more about investment of diversify. Why we want to diversify our investment? “Don’t put all your eggs to one basket.” This is very famous phrase in Wall Street. Before Wall Street people use it for getting more commission fees because they can make people buy more different stocks and they could have more commission fees for themselves. As the time goes by, diversity is becoming more important strategy for investment. We all know the trade war between China and America. The trade war makes a deep decrease for both Chinese and American stocks and economy. This is very sad news for both. We don’t like that. However, we can’t stop it, and nobody can image this will happen when Trump become the president of the United State.
The trade war between China and America will have good result for both countries. I strongly hold my positive attitude for it. As a Chinese living in America, I wish good for both countries. We will figure it out by win-win situation for the trade war. However, when market is uncertain, we could use diversity investment strategy to avoid big lose for our investment. Many investors are not actually investors (I will explain this in future articles). For example, when Chinese stocks go up, American stock market go down. If investor only hold American stock, they will lose money. However, if investor hold both country stocks, they may get even return or maybe a little profit if up more than down. In my company, we are investing in equity (stocks and bond), we also investing in filming such as bridge loan for secure investment return to make sure we could make profit for our investors.
There are some different investments:
Stocks in the United States. Companies of different sizes should be included. The price of the business is measured by market capitalization. Include in each portfolio small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap.
Fixed income from the U.S. The best is the United States. Treasuries and shares for savings. The federal government provides these. There are also very secure municipal bonds. You can also purchase short-term bond funds and money market funds invested in these protected securities. Corporate bonds offer higher yields with higher risk. Junk bonds provide the highest returns and risk.
Stocks from abroad. These include both established and emerging-market firms. When you spend domestically, you can achieve greater diversification. International investment can yield higher returns as emerging markets grow faster. But they are more risky investments because they have less central bank guarantees in place, they can be vulnerable to political change.
For our company, we do investment in equity, real estate and loan for filming industry. We diversify our investment to reach highest return and lowest risk for our investor. If there are big and absolute investment, I strongly suggest putting all the bet on that. However, for most people, we could diversify and investment different and more as we can.
Student/Entrepreneur/Investor
Tommy Chen and I come from China, but we are from different cultural backgrounds. It is important to understand and adapt to different cultures. As global citizens, we are aware of and understand the wider world and our place in it. We take active roles in our community and work with others to make the planet more equal, fair and sustainable (Oxfam, n.d). It is very important to be a good global citizen, and this is one of the reasons why we created our own company. Many people think of migrating to a better country or how to make their lives better. However, they should think more about how to make their own country better and how to distribute those benefits to the world. For example, being an actor or celebrity will make one have more money than a scientist. Many people want to be celebrities overnight, but that is not the way people become wealthy or financially independent. Making money in real estate will take a longer time than becoming famous in social media. We always talk to each other about how young people become rich. The following are three ways in which one can become rich.
Firstly, one has to be a good student in class. Many people will tell you that passing all the college classes and getting A grades is a good student standard. However, how many companies require a GPA when they are hiring people? How many people graduate with a master’s degree and are still sending their resume through the internet? How many straight A's students have real-world work experience? We need to think deeply about these questions? I don't mean all A's students are bad; there are many straight A's students who can do better jobs than other students because they know how to study and how to solve the problems. However, real-world business is different. My ‘Rich Father' told me that they use to hire a lot of students as interns in their organization, but they didn’t know how to solve problems by themselves. When they had problems, they will go to my father and ask questions on how to solve them. They never asked themselves how they could solve it! As all we know, knowledge is very important for people, but sometimes we need many other things to be good students in real-world. Therefore, Tommy and I started our own business when we were still in college because we could learn more than other people who only paid attention to school. We didn’t fear failure because we could learn from it and make it better next time.
Secondly, as Albert Einstein opined, imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. As entrepreneurs, we are started our business when we were in college. People who want to be entrepreneurs and investor need to have a vision for the future with knowledge empowered imagination. An entrepreneur will need to be a good student first then use the knowledge to empower imagination. It's not easy to have knowledge first then to be "GOOD" student. Investor and entrepreneur will make money by money itself. That's the reason Tommy, and I started working in the field of real estate, and we invested in studying more and to learn more about real-world business.
Last but not least, individuals get knowledge through experiences and failures. One of the things people talk about is luck; I do believe some people are luckier than others. But there’s also an expression that says, the harder you work, the luckier you get. Before we started this company, we tried many businesses, and we failed many times. However, I still love to do business, and I keep working on that. Losers complain about luck, and successful businessman develops their luck by working hard. Entrepreneurs and investor should work for the dream and not the money. We make real estate investment because we love it. It is our passion to build houses and buildings. The fact is, we do it for fun and we will try our best to make the game better than other people. If people don’t like what they do, they won’t spend extra time on that. Most successful entrepreneurs and investors spend 80 to 100 hours a week on work. This is the only reason they become successful in their business. Entrepreneurial life is harder than people think the! Many pressures come with one being an entrepreneur. Can you handle all the problems that you’re going to be confronted with? There will be many problems such as financial problems and health problems. We were thinking more before we started T&J brothers group. We came out with many plans to handle pressure, but still, there were many problems even when we had prepared for them. There are many smart people, and they can’t handle that pressure. They should work for someone and have a better life. If people can’t handle the pressure, companies’ should invest in people who can handle the pressure and make money for them. That’s a reason many failures who tried entrepreneurs but failed. People should know what they want and how to handle it. Tommy and I will keep it up and make a better life for people who trust us and support us.
Written by James Yang