📖Bill Ackman
Wisdom for Investing and Life
Investment principles apply to life too.
The principles that make you a great investor — patience, discipline, humility, and continuous learning — are the same principles that lead to a great life.
🏠 Everyday Analogy
📖 Core Interpretation
Bill Ackman advocates a repeatable process: define criteria, execute consistently, and review decisions against evidence. Process quality drives outcome consistency.
💎 Key Insight：Character virtues drive success in investing and life.
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❓ Why It Matters
Without process, there is no reliable feedback loop. Structured execution and review improve decision quality over time.
🎯 How to Practice
Run a decision loop of research, thesis, execution, and post-mortem; document assumptions and update playbooks with evidence, not hindsight bias.
⚠️ Common Pitfalls
Having opinions without execution criteria
Reviewing outcomes but not decisions
Abandoning rules during volatility spikes
📚 Case Studies
1
Bill Ackman’s COVID-19 Credit Hedge (2020)
In early 2020, Ackman believed COVID-19 would trigger a credit shock. He bought credit default swaps on investment-grade and high-yield indexes. The cost of protection was a small percentage of Pershing Square’s assets, but a severe widening of spreads could make the position explode in value, while the maximum loss was the premium paid for the CDS.
✨ Outcome：When markets panicked in March 2020, the hedge gained about $2.6B on a ~$27M cost—roughly 100x. This allowed Ackman to reinvest profits into cheap equities, exemplifying highly convex, asymmetric payoff design.
2
Bill Ackman’s Herbalife Short Campaign (2012)
In December 2012, Bill Ackman publicly revealed a $1 billion short position in Herbalife, delivering a detailed, widely broadcast presentation alleging the company was a pyramid scheme. He used media interviews, slides, and conferences to pressure regulators and inform investors.
✨ Outcome：FTC later forced Herbalife to restructure its U.S. operations but stopped short of calling it a pyramid scheme. The stock eventually rose, and Ackman exited with losses. Lesson: public advocacy can trigger scrutiny and change, but market timing and opposing advocates matter.
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