The successful investor is not very different from an investigative journalist or a crime detective
Most useful data are public.
The only difference between the successful investor and a mediocre one is the amount of work he is willing to dedicate towards validating all the key assumptions.
Investment relationships team of all public companies are very willing and helpful with providing information.
More qualitative data can be obtained by calling up customers or ex-employees of competitors
Once you are able to reconstruct a company’s business model, you will be able to predict generally whether a company will make or miss earnings
Legacy technology companies tend to have a longer half life than expected. The key is to determine how much longer the half life is and if there are legal protections that will extend it.
Beyond the core functionality, it is important to go into the realms of human psychology (adrenaline and dopamine) to figure out the defensible strategy
Smaller funds are structured to incentivize playing to win (1%-2% carry) while bigger funds are structured to incentivize playing not to lose (expecting only returns matching LIBOR rate of 2.5%) . The difference in mind set results in very different strategies.
Related References
Knee jerk oversell on news of new entrant into market
