📖Jeremy Grantham

Integrity Above All

🌱 Beginner★★★★★

Integrity is the most valuable asset.

💬

Reputation takes a lifetime to build and moments to destroy. In investing and in life, integrity is the most valuable asset you can possess.

— GMO Quarterly Letters,2017

🏠 Everyday Analogy

Market cycles resemble seasons: planting, growth, harvest, and winter. Using one strategy in every season leads to repeated mistakes.

📖 Core Interpretation

Jeremy Grantham sees markets as cyclical rather than linear. Understanding cycle position improves risk-taking decisions more than trying to call exact tops and bottoms.
💎 Key Insight:Reputation, once lost, is nearly impossible to rebuild.

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❓ Why It Matters

Ignoring cycles repeats the same mistakes: excessive optimism at peaks and excessive pessimism near troughs. Context matters for position sizing.

🎯 How to Practice

Monitor credit, valuation, earnings, and sentiment signals; reduce aggressiveness in euphoric phases and preserve flexibility in fearful phases.

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

Treating short rebounds as full cycle turns
Extrapolating peak conditions indefinitely
Becoming maximally defensive near valuation troughs

📚 Case Studies

1
Avoiding the Tech Bubble (1999)
Grantham underweighted expensive tech stocks despite client pressure as valuations broke from historical norms.
✨ Outcome:Clients lagged during the final bubble phase but were largely spared the 2000–2002 crash, preserving capital and careers for patient managers.
2
Early Exit Before Global Financial Crisis (2007)
GMO reduced risk in equities and housing-related assets as Grantham warned of a major credit and housing bubble.
✨ Outcome:Some clients left due to short-term underperformance, but remaining investors suffered far smaller losses in 2008–2009, validating a risk-first approach.

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