📖Jeremy Grantham

Capital Allocation Assessment

🌿 Intermediate★★★★★

Evaluate management's capital allocation skills.

💬

The most important skill for a CEO is capital allocation. Evaluate how management deploys capital — do they create or destroy value with their decisions?

— GMO Quarterly Letters,2017

🏠 Everyday Analogy

Valuation is like buying a house: the asking price reflects mood, but true value comes from structure, location, and long-term utility. Good assets still need sensible prices.

📖 Core Interpretation

In Capital Allocation Assessment, Jeremy Grantham focuses on the gap between price and value. Returns come from paying less than what a business is worth, not from guessing short-term market moves.
💎 Key Insight:Capital allocation is the CEO's most impactful decision.

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❓ Why It Matters

Ignoring valuation turns even good companies into poor investments. Overpaying compresses future returns and leaves little margin when assumptions are wrong.

🎯 How to Practice

Estimate intrinsic value with conservative assumptions, set clear buy ranges, and act only when price offers a meaningful discount with acceptable downside.

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

Confusing a low price with true cheapness
Using one metric without business context
Overly optimistic assumptions that erase margin of safety

📚 Case Studies

1
Dot-Com Bubble Avoidance (1999)
Grantham warned clients about tech stock overvaluation and shifted portfolios away from momentum-driven internet names despite intense client pressure and underperformance.
✨ Outcome:When the bubble burst in 2000–2002, his value-tilted portfolios preserved capital and outperformed tech-heavy benchmarks significantly.
2
Pre-Crisis Housing and Credit Bubble (2007)
Grantham highlighted the U.S. housing and credit bubble, reducing exposure to risk assets while others chased returns in financials and leveraged structures.
✨ Outcome:During the 2008 crash, GMO strategies suffered less drawdown and recovered faster, validating the contrarian, valuation-driven stance.

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