Mundy: What can Sherlock teach us about investment?

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Investec's head of contrarian investing, Alastair Mundy, has deduced the fictional detective's methods may hold the answer to some investment puzzles.

While idly flicking through some online book reviews I noticed some glowing praise by Nassim Taleb (of The Black Swan fame) for A Few Lessons From Sherlock Holmes by Peter Bevelin. Bevelin pulls out a number of thoughts direct from Arthur Conan Doyle’s works to highlight the clarity, simplicity, and logic of Holmes’ work. While reading this book, I was amazed at the similarities between Holmes’ approach and that of veteran investor Charlie Munger, although that emotion was rather diluted when I later discovered that Bevelin and Munger are good friends. Bevelin is therefore probably...