One of my favourite
series of childhood bedtime stories were Aesop's Fables. The
stories were very allegorical and anecdotal and served to
describe human strengths and failings.
But who was Aesop? Aesop,
a Greek slave, lived about 600 B.C. and was a remarkable
narrator who utilized animal fables to spin a common sense
vignette to illustrate a moral point. The stories centered
on animals who would act and speak like people relating a
truism of profound wisdom. Ultimately we were left with an
unforgettable lesson. Moreover, given that animals acted out
our human failings and offered indelible teachings through
these fables, they have become endeared and etched in our
memories forever. These stories have withstood the test of
time because they were wonderfully simplistic yet insightful
tales.
For over two and a half
thousand years millions of people worldwide have relished
such stories about the hare and the tortoise race, the lion
and the mouse, the fox who couldn't reach the grapes, the
goose who laid the golden egg and the lazy grasshopper and
the prudent ant. Quite frankly, I cannot point out my
favourite story since I have enjoyed them all. However, from
my vantage point I believe Aesop's Fables bear incredible
insight and relevance to our investment industry.
The basic human failing
of greed, the primary downfall of many past and present day
stock market investors, is well portrayed and immortalized
in many of Aesop's Fables. The profound common sense and
logic of these stories over 2500 years old still bear
remarkable relevance today in our frenetic investment world
of 2002. In addition, many of the morals or conclusions such
as the race between the hare and the tortoise deeply
illustrate the keys to investment success such as patience,
perseverance and discipline.
In the fable, the
overconfident and undisciplined hare continuously exhibits
many of the attributes of today's unsuccessful investor. The
plodding tortoise, on the other hand, features the primary
necessities toward investment mastery. He is singularly
focused (on successfully completing the race), extremely
disciplined (he is not distracted by any outside influences
or diversions) and possesses a well-grounded confidence and
optimism (he was neither intimidated nor resigned to defeat
by the hare's overwhelming advantages of speed, agility,
etc.)
Overall, it is true that
serious investors can glean a lot of market information from
well-known investment and economic publications and the
numerable investment dealer reports. It is my sense,
however, that a pleasant afternoon's worth of reading
through Aesop's Fables can offer many useful investment
insights toward attaining superior rates of returns and
monetary success.
Irwin A. Michael, CFA
