Rubbing Your Nose in Your Mistakes – Philippe Le Blanc’s commentary

2023-05-19

Two types of errors that await the investor: errors of commission, those that we have committed, and errors of omission, made up of all the decisions that we did not make, but that we should have made.

I won’t dwell too long on errors of omission, although we’ve no doubt made many of them over the years. I am thinking in particular of our decision not to invest in the Costco stock when it was right in front of our noses. Not only did we know this company well as consumers (between them, my colleagues, Marc and Sébastien, have ten children. Needless to say, they regularly visit the Costco warehouses!), but we also knew it very well as investors.

Charlie Munger, whom we have followed closely for many years, has owned shares of the company since its inception and sits on its board of directors. What’s more (sorry, Claudine), a colleague at the office strongly recommended that we consider the stock several years ago. However, we remained seated … and the stock continued to enrich the shareholders of the company.

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