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Had a conversation on Motley Fool Live recently about whether @DavidGardner’s spectacular track record puts him in the conversation as one of the best stock pickers alive. 1/x
While his stock picking is extraordinary, I think where David is truly amazing is in his capacity to *hold* stocks. Lots of people bought $AMZN in 1998. Besides David, how many actually held on? Same with Pixar, $NFLX, $MTCH, $BKNG and a not-small list of other companies. 2/x
Some of these stocks have had precipitous drops along the way. Other companies he has chosen have not done well at all, and yet his overall return is completely bonkers. What’s the key? 3/x
David is strong-willed, intelligent and principled. But I think that the emotional factor that David Gardner has in deep supply that has most informed his success is *serenity.* He does not sweat being wrong or, worse, seeming wrong. It doesn’t impact him. 4/x
The implications of this defining characteristic are profound. Having serenity gives David the space to be unconventional in his thinking, it gives him the space to remain consistent to his ideals whether the market is currently rewarding them or not. 5/x
Importantly this serenity flows to the remainder of the investor @themotleyfool. Most of our investing services have generated market-beating returns because there is no one looking over our analysts’ shoulders demanding answers for decisions that haven’t worked out. 6/x
I’ve seen the ways that really good institutional investors get sucked into worrying about shorter and shorter timeframes. I wish I could explain how liberating, how internally consistent David's philosophy is but perhaps our LT results bear better witness than I ever could. /fin
It’s been pointed out that I tagged the wrong David Gardner. Curses to Twitter and its lack of editing capability. We are of course talking about @DavidGFool. /extra fin
