aspie investors?

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I've recently got into investing because I realize that if I stick with it I could be financially set in 10-15 years. Any investors on here and do you have any tips. None of the "no" or "I don't invest/gamble" responses.

Buffettology and The New Buffettology, both by Mary Buffett. Mary was married to Warren Buffett's son Peter until 1993, when Peter dumped her for reasons that she doesn't disclose. The books are her revenge, since Warren is so anal about keeping his investing techniques a secret. You need to read both books, but once you do you can get a full idea of what he does. You'll also need a business calculator, the Texas Instruments one she recommends in the first book, written in 1997, is no longer made, but equivalent calculators are easy to find, especially the Hewlett Packard ones. I use a HP 10B, which I believe is still available if possibly under a different name. Warren Buffett's investing style is surprisingly simple-once you know what to look for, play with the equations and wait until you can buy it profitably.

I was in commodities for a while on a shoestring budget that was really not adequate for that purpose. I did reasonably well for a novice (and an undercapitalized one at that) but ultimately could not afford to stay in and closed out the account to pay rent. I learned from mailorder courses by Ken Roberts (good for the basics) and Larry Williams (more sophisticated strategies, but simply taught, very understandable). It has hurt my morale to see a lot of commodities rally enormously in the last two years. Lot of missed opportunities there. But the truth is there's always opportunities coming up in futures. I don't know when I'll ever have enough money to get back in, but that's what I'll do if I get it.

What do you do for a living if you don't mind me asking?

i went by buffets house when I was in omaha a few weeks backs. It seemed relatively modest. No, I didn't take this picture.

Warren Buffett has owned that house since the late 1950s. He lives on $100k a year. Drives a low end Cadillac. He seems to have no need for the outlandish superspending of so many new rich people, including most of the new Wall Street titans. I find it interesting, and I wonder if he isn't on the spectrum a little bit himself-financial genius with little need for social climbing. He typically avoids interviews; I've gathered that he's somewhat awkward socially. He gives speeches and writes long annual letters, but typically avoids reporters.

He also has a history of making eyebrow raising comments, like his putdowns of the lavish spending of hedge fund titans, his abhorrence of inherited wealth (his exact term was "food stamps for the rich", an unusual choice of words), and his declaration that wage earners pay more taxes than the rich asset owners do-his famous "my secretary pays more taxes than I do" comment, which was later shown to be mathematically possible if his secretary earned a wage and he earned capital gains. After he relented and bought a low end private jet in 1999, he joked that he should name it The Indefensible, since he'd criticized lavish private jets in the past.

As for that house, I'm guessing that it dates from the late 1930s, since those "barn style" houses seem to mainly be from that era, with a few built in the 1950s but with typically exaggerated "Western" ornamentation, which that one doesn't have. Some of the houses in that district are from the 1890s, with a fair share of Craftsman houses (1910s) from what I've read. I bet that inside it has a lot of 1950s furniture from when he first moved in. After the mid 60s furniture makers largely moved to particle board and masonite, and quality tanked. Apparently the house has five bedrooms, so I'm guessing that he bought it for practical reasons-a bedroom for each of his three kids, one for him and his wife, and one to use as an office, since he ran his operation from home for a while.

I think that his modest lifestyle is a big part of his success-most of today's rich spend so much that they break even at best despite huge incomes, and many are deep in debt, so deep they can't afford to invest. He reportedly drove Volkswagens in the 1970s rather than "waste" money on a fancy car instead of investing it. He's definitely single minded.

I invest full time and specialize in Chinese companies that are listed in China, Singapore, United States and Hong Kong. My background is in investment banking but I got fired from every job that I ever got. Aside from professional credentials in accounting, I am good enough at tools like Excel to write macros. And of course I am bilingual.

If you are looking to invest your own money, make sure that you take it seriously. Successful investing is actually harder than your running your own business because of the greater degree of separation from reality. Reading books about Buffett is a waste of time because no one really understands why he is so successful. Even the definitive biography on Buffett, “Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett” by Andrew Kilpatrick, does a pathetic job of tracking his investments. I am such a fan of Buffett that I spent a week digitizing Berkshire Hathaway’s 13-F filings with the SEC to understand Buffett’s investment decisions. And if I had the money, I would fly to Washington D.C. to retrieve the pre-1999 filings that are not digitally available. Understanding the companies he invests in is perhaps the best way to understand his investment technique.

Perhaps the first thing that all investors need is to achieve a certain minimum competence. You must understand basic financial accounting beyond just looking at revenue growth, earnings or EBITDA. It is not hard but it will take time to learn. The goal here is to learn the accounting so that you can understand the business; which in turn is Buffett’s most repeated advice. A textbook in intermediate accounting used by business majors would help.

You should also learn how information can be found. If you are operating in the United States, then the most important resource is the SEC’s website (www.sec.gov). Click on “Search for Company Filings” and you can start looking up financial filings for your favorite company. The next step would be to familiarize yourself with the various forms that a public company would file. You should know the difference between a 10-K and 10-Q and what a 10-K/A means and so on.

There are numerous financial websites like Yahoo! Finance or Google Finance from which you can get information. Your local library would also probably have resources that you can tap into.

Before making any investment, it is vital that you spend at least a year or two just studying the market. Financial markets are treacherous places where stealing from the innocently uninformed is actually legal. Look at Crocs (Ticker: CROX) for an example of what can happen to people who read popular investment books (in this case Peter Lynch’s “One up on Wall Street”) but have no real understanding of the market or of business.

The most important thing that you must do is to read the 10-Ks of the sectors that interests you. And do not just read the 10-K for one year, make sure that you read the 10-Ks for the last few years. If, like me, you have problems remembering all the numbers, then it will be very useful to develop a comp sheet in Excel so that you can track the performance of the company. This is what the pros on Wall Street do and if you are in the market, you are parri passu with them, which means that if you do not do it, then you are just disadvantaging yourself. The idea is to gain insight into the business so that you can properly assess it.

I do this every day and believe that investing money is very suitable for Aspies because it is a solitary activity that calls for laser like focus on drudgery. But be warned, it is not easy.

I'm interested in investing. I don't think I have enough capital to do it full time, but I'm curious what size of capital you guys are willing to start investing with?

Im seriously considering stocking up on scrap gold & silver. More for insurance than investment.

Ill use ebay. 1st getting a machine to test for purity.

You can start with some small investments first, to get your feet wet, maybe a few hundred, it doesn't take a lot of capital to get into investments. I would like to learn some more, but I am a little nervous about making or having large investments, because of my dad losing his life savings to an oil well investment back in the 80's, its helped to bankrupt the family, and contributed to the loss of our family business. So its very important to follow the stock trends, and keep your stock trader under a watchful eye, which was something my dad failed to do.

There are different forms of capital that an investor brings to the table: a) what you own; b) what you know; and c) what you are. Most people only focus on the amount of money when they think of investing. People who do not know anything are likely to lose everything when they engage the market. And people who do not have the personality to sit patiently will usually trade their way into subpar returns.

There are certain minimum amounts of financial capital that you would need to start investing. A sum of at least $10,000 is perhaps the smallest amount that you would require to justify the effort. If you want to live off the capital, then it would have to significantly larger than $10,000 and the required amount would depend on how you choose to live.

Beyond money, I wrote about making sure that you tank up on the other forms of capital which you need if you wish to engage the market. The internet has made it painless to look up information and to learn. If learning about individual companies is too hard at the moment, then it would be useful to learn about broad social and economic events. The subprime credit crisis is an excellent starting point because that will lead to many other avenues like how the financial economy affect the real economy or other asset classes like real estate and so on and so forth. Figuring out how the credit crisis might be resolved could also prove to be the most profitable thing you could do. Financials have been beaten down dramatically and if you can figure out when they might come out of the tunnel, you are likely to earn a very handsome return on your invested capital. Get it wrong and you will be smarting like the investors of Bear Stearns and IndyMac.

There is nothing you can do about what you are except give yourself an honest appraisal. Over time, you will discover just what sort of an investor you are. When asked why he thought that no one has ever come close to emulating him, Warren Buffett said it came down to temperament. Very few people can sit and wait on an investment like Buffett; most of the time we are anxious to lock in little gains or cut our losses at the worst possible moment.

Even if you do not have the financial capital to make investments, that should not stop you from acquiring the knowledge base to prepare yourself.

Sound advice.

Regarding my original question, I think given my relatively modest lifestyle, I could easily live comfortably on £15,000 a year, which is about $30,000 I think. I'm interested to know what you or others think a reasonable starting capital is to make this much income per annum when I dedicate myself to fulltime investing. I appreciate all the different factors to consider make it difficult to make a guess, but lets try anyway. Heres a basic equation, which is completey inaccurate, but I reckon is good enough to give a rough guess:

If
a= what i know,
b= what I am
c= starting money capital

then given.

£15,000 = (b+a)*C (got a better equation?)

What does C have to be if a & b are high, and what does it have to be for the opposite case. If you don't mind sharing what are a & b for you?

Given current average interest rates from street banks I can get 5.5%, and lets assume that's tax free. I would need starting capital of around £272,727 to make 15k.

Also, how much time do you reckon I will spend on average per week and how this will change with time depending on variations with b & a (assume C remains constant)? I want to see what the hourly rate is like and if it's worth it.

Investing money is a rough and tumble affair. No matter how you do it, there are really no guarantees. There are certainly no simple equations that can help define whether or not you will be successful. Why do you think that Warren Buffett is feted as such a genius and the rest of the monkeys in the game are not?

Let me give you an analogy. Let's say John and Jake go to Vegas each with $10,000 to play Black Jack. The difference between the two is that John goes there to gamble whereas Jake has spent countless hours mastering probability theory and has trained his memory so that he can count cards.

Who do you think is more likely to win money?

Now let me ask you another question, whatever outcome you have chosen, is it certain?

Jake is my choice for the likely winner because I believe that whatever game you play, it is possible to get better at it. If you master the art of counting cards, you would also know when a deck is hot and when it is not. Assuming that Jake is able to act coolly and rationally, over numerous encounters, he should outperform John who, because he is acting from gut instinct, is often misled by his own emotions. But it does not mean that Jake will always do better than John. Countless factors could come into play. Jake might not be constitutionally suited to play cards, Jake had a few bad breaks or perhaps John just got lucky. At the end of the day, any attempt to say who the winner might be is really only a guess.

The same thing can be said about investing. You can become a master accountant who can derive Black-Scholes in 3 different ways and spend all of your waking hours reading financial statements, but it does not mean that you will definitely do well. If you want a reliable source of income, your best bet is to buy an annuity, or, as you have suggested, earn interest on bank deposits. Investing in other asset classes like equities, commodities or real estate brings with it the sort of volatility that accompanies higher returns.

You must not underestimate the element of chance, or as some would suggest, vicious manipulation that goes on in financial markets. It is simply not as easy as people think it to be.

Sorry, didn't check this thread for a while.
I don't do much for a living. I live with relatives and work as little as possible for other people, since I despise being employed. I'm an artist with a lot of interests and tendencies (science, chess, calculated risk taking) that predispose me to like the commodity sector for investing, or more accurately 'speculating'.
Zeno's comments on self-examination are on point. Rule 1 is "know thyself". Your temperament - how you perform when faced with financial choices paired with strong emotions like hope and fear - can even dictate what markets or types of investing are suitable for you. Weak stomach, tendency to transpose fear and hope = avoid commodities.

I like the attitude , but it comes at a price. Every now and then I think of getting a job or starting a business, but the thought of having to please other people just gets on my nerves. As an investor there is the benefit of not having to bother with what other people think -- indeed, one must not bother with the opinion held by others -- but the acceptance of poverty is the price I pay. Some people invest to make money, I invest because it is one thing I can do that allows me to hold my independence while at the same time engaging the world on my terms.

It is a vicious game though. The market in Singapore is small and despite being a recluse, the local small cap hustlers know who I am. Recently I filed a thirty-nine page complaint (ninety-three pages if the appendices are included) against a Chinese company that is listed in Singapore. If I am successful, it will lead to the criminal indictment of a lot of people. However, going up against the rich and powerful carries with it untold risks. But just like how it was at work, I cannot look away and pretend that I do not know what is happening. Some of these people think that I do it for the money. If I wanted the money, I would have joined them in scamming the hapless retail speculator or wiggled my way back into investment banking to scam institutional clients. No, we will have blood, because what I want is for these miscreants to suffer.