Michel Ingenbleek: Staying Intact: The Behavioral Discipline of Long-Term Investing

Michel Ingenbleek (0:00)

The way I looked at it is like, okay, the margin of safety, the way I proposed it in the book, and it's been written a couple of times in the book, is like, okay, the gap between the stress the portfolio will produce and the stress the investor can actually absorb without compromising the decision making of the investment. I mean, the financial margin of safety determines the price at which the asset is worth buying. That's pretty mean. But the behavioral margin of safety determines the size, which is worth holding. I can give you an example that maybe resonates a little bit better. For example, say you buy something for 50 cents on the dollar, to keep in the US terms. You could argue there's plenty of financial margin.

But if that is 30 percent of your portfolio and that portfolio piece drops another 30 percent before it being proven right, then in some cases that behavioral margin is breached and you get quite anxious and nervous. So I think there's a distinction there between what the price does and what the volume actually does in that portfolio. And that's why I thought, well, you need to know for yourself, basically, before you buy, ask yourself the question.

It's not only if the price is right, but also what size are you still holding and are you comfortable with in the end.

Bogumil Baranowski (1:31)

Welcome to Talking Billions. We talk about big ideas, big inspirations, big topics. We take on the hardest topic of all, money. How to make it, save it, keep it. But our conversations lead us to an even bigger question, what it means to live a rich life beyond money.

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None of what you're about to hear is investment advice. This episode is brought to you by Fiscal AI. Fiscal AI is a modern financial data provider for global equities. In addition to their web-based terminal, Fiscal is one of the leading data connectors for Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini. With their self-serve API, you can get structured real-time data plugged directly into your AI of choice. That includes 20 years of financials, ratios, filings, transcripts, news, fund letters and much more. And unlike other providers, their data updates within minutes of earnings reports, not days. Personally, I see Fiscal AI solving a real challenge. The sheer volume of new data coming in every day and the time it takes to find, analyze and evaluate it. Being able to use your preferred AI platform with data whose source you actually know and trust makes a real difference in the research process. Whether you want a powerful out-of-the-box research terminal or a data plug-in for your AI, you can use my link Fiscal AI slash Talking Billions to get 15% off. Again, it's Fiscal AI slash Talking Billions. The link will be in the show notes. My guest today is Michel Ingenbleek. He's an investor, a writer whose career took an unusual road from leading teams in the Dutch Corps' Commandotroepen, you'll pronounce it better than I do, and Royal Netherlands Marine Corps to two decades running offshore energy projects and corporate strategy at companies like Subsea 7 and Technip. These days, he writes Capital and Character, a weekly substack on the psychology of long-term investing.