📖Li Lu

Market as Your Servant

🌱 Beginner★★★★★

Use the market as your servant, not your guide.

💬

The market exists to serve you, not to guide you. Use market prices to your advantage — buy when the market offers bargains and sell when it offers premiums.

— Li Lu Columbia Lectures,2010

🏠 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 Market as Your Servant, Li Lu 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:The market offers prices; you decide whether they're fair.

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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
Post‑Crisis Bank Holdings (2009)
After the 2008–09 financial crisis, Li Lu bought U.S. bank stocks trading at deep discounts amid fears of prolonged turmoil.
✨ Outcome:Patient holding through regulatory reforms and recovery produced strong multi‑bagger returns over the following decade.
2
BYD Early Investment (2002)
Li Lu invested in Chinese battery maker BYD when it was small, cheap, and misunderstood, with a strong technological edge and capable management.
✨ Outcome:Huge multi‑bagger over the next decade, validating a deep margin-of-safety approach based on intrinsic value and business quality.

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