10/16/2017 0 Comments Hidden from the NewsOne of my personal goals this year was to expose myself to new parts of the economy. This week, I was able to take a step towards accomplishing that goal by conducting an interview with Josh Bammel, a Principal at Kratos Capital. Kratos is a merger and acquisitions advisory company that focuses on middle market private equity. Private equity often slips under the radar of financial news outlets, but private equity often affects the public equity market as well as the economy as a whole.
In addition to learning about the basics of private equity and the merger and acquisition process, Mr. Bammel and I also discussed my future and the steps I can take to advance in the investing industry. First was the problem of college. Since I am graduating early, I have the option to take a gap year to work and develop my career without any distractions. If an opportunity arose where I would be able to work at a firm that I admired, I would be willing to defer my admission to college in order to spend a year working. Interestingly, Mr. Bammel suggested that I only get an undergraduate degree and not my MBA. Many believe that getting more education in an industry leads to better results, but with the new era that our economy is moving into, people who were “classically trained” often have trouble separating themselves from the box of academia and into the illogical, messy truth that the economy really is. This discussion led me to reconsider what it really means to be educated in the world of investing. There have been many amazing investors (see Charlie Munger, Michael Burry) that did not get their degrees in finance or business, and instead switched industries after their college education. This is primarily because investing is a field where the best education comes from books. Much of investing can be learned from the history told in books like The Intelligent Investor and A Random Walk Down Wall Street. These books are the teachers of investing, and if I can make my way through them, I will have the skills necessary to create an effective portfolio. Overall, this week really opened my eyes to a new area of the economy and forced me to re-evaluate the amount of education I need to be a successful investor. Moving forward, this will expand my worldview and guide me in my decision-making in high school as well.
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