Comparing Fishing With Investing
Comparing Fishing and Investing
Do you like fishing? Well, I love it and like many people, one of my favourite pastimes is going out fishing either in the lagoon or out in the deep blue ocean. There is nothing compared to the exhilarating feeling you experience, just by knowing that you are going fishing and as you prepare the gear and slide the boat towards the water the feeling quickens. You are absolutely enveloped by it as the boat ploughs through the waves and the three of you feel the jolt caused by each one of them. You feel the sun in your face, the cool spray of seawater on it and the wind wiping everything away. It is a feeling like no other and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
I usually come home with a lot of fish especially tuna, trevally, wahoo, kingfish, but never shark as they cause too many complications and danger. It always feels good to catch a lot of fish, but there is a knack to it. Foremost, you must have a suitably sized boat and an outboard engine that will not falter during the trip. You must know how to select the size of your line (pole if you are going for skipjack), hook and lure type, stock up with about 10-20 litres of drinking water and some food. Above all, you have to know the best time to fish, the best place to fish and know the movement of the current at the particular time. It is a sport which requires the most intimate knowledge about one’s prowess, equipment, the environment and the prey. A fisherman who is armed with all of these skills usually oozes with confidence (which you usually don’t see ), and he always comes home with loads of fish with a big grin on his face (now you see it). Fishing is a sport and the true fisherman is good at it.
The sport of fishing engaged in by a fisherman is very much like the art of investing done by an investor. For both, there is that exhilarating feeling of an imminent engagement in something worthwhile and exciting. Both involve a trip through space; the fisherman ploughs through the ocean waves while the other moves through the very interesting corridors of the stock market. At the end of the day, both fisherman and investor reap the fruits of their efforts; the fisherman, the reward of his catch of fish and the investor the return on his investment in the form of dividends from his investment. Both also traverse through distances though different in size; the fisherman moving through only a limited expanse of sea or ocean, while the investor has the whole global economy as his sea and ocean.
The environments through which they move are also somewhat similar. For the fisherman, in his restricted area of fishing, there are many different kinds of species of fish for him to catch and he picks and chooses which ones to catch. In the case of the investor, there are literally millions of different types of companies, in which he can invest in, and just like the fisherman, he also gets to pick and choose which ones to invest in. In one environment, the fish are busy going about their business of living out the lives in a natural scenario of “survival of the fittest” while in the other, the companies also echo similar activities of busily going about their everyday business of buying and selling, hiring and firing, growing or dying. In both environments, some of the entities are energetic and productive, while others are weak and are being swallowed up by others; some are doing just fine on their own, but some are growing old and weak, while a few have reached the end of their tether.
The analogy continues. The fisherman has, at his disposal, his own physical and mental attributes, his outboard motorboat, pole, line and lure. With these, he can catch his prize – the fish. Similarly, at the investor’s disposal, are his physical and mental powers but here, the similarity abruptly ends. Arrayed at the disposal of the investor are a myriad of aids, mostly unknown to the fisherman, for catching his equally elusive prize – dividends; big, fat dividends! His primary aids consist of his laptop and the internet with which he sifts through data about market and stock performances. He ‘clicks’ to view the world market situation and always has pen and notepad ready to jot down pertinent data. He next ‘clicks’ on his own portfolios in his investment companies and learns of their status. He moves on to companies in the research stage and studies them closely for possible future investment. All kinds of information are at his beck and call and he studies them to ‘corner’ the dividends he is stalking.
Yes, fishing and investing are truly two very fascinating occupations that have a lot in common. Both are exciting, their environments are a lot similar, they employ both mental and physical attributes to achieve their goals and despite the different ways in how they go about doing the ‘catching’, they both reap their rewards, provided they do things correctly. In the islands, fishing is the mainstay of every man, woman and child, even animals. Without fishing there is no life now and in the long term and so it is with investing on the continents. Without investment, there is no propensity to grow and without growth, there is no meaningful future as we know it today. Both of them are critical to survival and hence the reason why people should set aside some moment of their time, each day or each week, to learn more about the basic nature of fishing and investing so that they know about what is involved in each.
I know that for some of you, investing in stocks is an uninteresting and sometimes, a downright confusing occupation. But then, that is exactly the feeling I was overwhelmed with in the beginning. Ultimately however, I discovered that the feeling was caused by the fact that I had very little knowledge about companies and businesses, let alone stock tracking. So I decided to do a little exploring of my own and the first thing I did was to ‘click’ on the 5000 Top US companies presented on different websites and to be honest, I haven’t stopped exploring since then. It is really simple and exciting and I invite you to be my guest and do the same. I guarantee that you will change your opinion of stock marketing and enjoy the thrills and rewards that go with it. Yes I love fishing, but to augment it with the art of investing only serves to double the excitement and the catch!
