Your broker's statement records every mistake that lost you money. It records nothing about the great opportunities you sold too early or never studied. Indian value investor Sanjay Bakshi keeps a second ledger for exactly that.
In a famous Sherlock Holmes story, the clue that solved the case was something that did not happen. The same habit, noticing what is missing, can help an ordinary investor read a company far more carefully.
In 1935 the best pilots in America crashed a brand-new bomber because of one forgotten step. The fix was not more training. It was a short list. Here is why the same simple idea can protect an investor from the mistakes that clever people make.
A bank is a shop that sells money, and the price it pays for the money it buys matters as much as the price it charges. Seeing why the cheapest money is the hardest to copy shows what separates a strong bank from an ordinary one.