🧠 Foundation Principles (1–20) 1. Invest in businesses, not stocks. Ex: Page Industries the business, not just ticker PAGEIND. 2. Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. Ex: Bajaj Finance in March 2020. 3. The best investment is in yourself. Ex: Learn to read annual reports like seasoned investors. 4. Never invest in a business you don't understand. Ex: Avoid complex pharma unless you're a domain expert. 5. Time is the friend of a wonderful business. Ex: Holding Titan for decades. 6. The market is there to serve you, not instruct you. Ex: Ignore daily volatility in stocks like HDFC Bank 7. You only need to do a few things right. Ex: DMart, HDFC Bank, and Bajaj Finance over the decades. 8. Our favorite holding period is forever. Ex: Long-term holders of Nestlé India. 9. Buy a wonderful business at a fair price. Ex: Titan in 2012–13, not a cheap PSU in distress. 10. The market transfers money from the active to the patient. Ex: Investors who held Eicher Motors long-term. 11. Avoid leverage. Ex: Yes Bank or DHFL failures due to excess debt. 12. Don’t watch the market too closely. Ex: Ignore daily HDFC AMC dips. 13. Invest with a margin of safety. Ex: Cash-rich small caps during crashes. 14. Focus on ROE, not just EPS. Ex: PI Industries, Bajaj Finance. 15. Avoid businesses that need constant reinvestment. Ex: Airlines, telecoms in India. 16. Stick to your circle of competence. Ex: Avoiding crypto stocks if you don’t understand them. 17. Great businesses survive average management. Ex: Asian Paints continuity despite management change. 18. Diversification is for ignorance. Ex: Concentrated portfolios in Infosys, HDFC, Titan. 19. Ignore short-term forecasts. Ex: Don’t trade based on budget day outcomes. 20. Cash is a call option on a future opportunity. Ex: Those who deployed cash in March 2020 won big.