Hey there and welcome to my new blog! As some of you might know, I used to run a blog called Tuckerinvesting.com. You can still find the site, I pay a menial fee to keep it up and running. I ran the blog for about a year, but ultimately gave it up when I failed to attract a meaningful following. I figured it simply wasn’t worth taking the time to write up a post if nobody was going to read it. Well, hell with it! After a long hiatus, this blog boy (shout out Kevin Durant) is finally back in action and better than ever.

Every now and then I like to reminisce and read some of my old writings. Sometimes I was right, sometimes I was wrong, but mostly I think I was young and naive. Naive in my thinking, naive in my belief that you could only invest the same way I do, and moreover naive in how easy I thought it would be to attract readers without doing any real marketing.

Why The GARP Investor?

Part of my problem was that I failed to identify my niche and therefore failed to find the right readers.  In order to be successful, every investor has to identify the style that fits their personality. There are all kinds of ways to be successful in investing. Some people focus on commodities, shifting in and out when they find price discrepancies. Others like to short companies, capitalizing on failing businesses. Some can even find success investing in cryptocurrencies(though you won’t find me barking up that tree.) None of these are necessarily wrong, they just don’t work for me personally.

After doing some soul searching, I finally arrived at my own style. It is commonly referred to as GARP investing or growth at a reasonable price. I’ll leave it up to Warren Buffett to explain it in his words found in the Berkshire Hathaway 1996 annual report:

 

To invest successfully, you need not understand beta, efficient 
markets, modern portfolio theory, option pricing or emerging markets.  
You may, in fact, be better off knowing nothing of these.  That, of 
course, is not the prevailing view at most business schools, whose 
finance curriculum tends to be dominated by such subjects.  In our view, 
though, investment students need only two well-taught courses - How to 
Value a Business, and How to Think About Market Prices.

Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational 
price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose 
earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and 
twenty years from now.  Over time, you will find only a few companies 
that meet these standards - so when you see one that qualifies, you 
should buy a meaningful amount of stock.  You must also resist the 
temptation to stray from your guidelines:  If you aren't willing to own a 
stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes.  
Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march 
upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio's market value.

Astute investors will obviously notice why I have named this blog The GARP Investor. I am indeed paying homage to the grandfather of value investing, Benjamin Graham, who famously wrote The Intelligent Investor

With that, I encourage you all to follow along and subscribe.

Thanks for reading!