3 Small Habits That Can Significantly Improve Your Investment Analysis Skills

1. Always Cross-check materials created by others.

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• It doesn't matter what kind of material it is, as long as it's created by someone else. Whether it's an analyst's report, data from a government agency or research institute, or even analysis content from other investors you've seen on the internet, you should never take anyone else's material at face value. Instead, you should carefully review it, chewing on each piece of information. Through this process, 1) you can catch potential mistakes that they, as humans, might make, and 2) you can retrace the logic they used to generate their investment ideas. This second step can be seen as a form of benchmarking.The best way to become a fast follower is to benchmark the industry leader, and through repetition of this process, you can develop your skills and eventually become a first mover who doesn't just follow others' opinions but instead offers their own opinions to others.

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2. When searching for data, try to view the original, unprocessed data (Raw data) as much as possible.

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• Many people, especially, find this step (step 2) troublesome. In the process of unraveling the logic, many pieces of data appear in news articles, analyst reports, and reports from other investors. Most investors simply accept the presented information and move on. Instead, you should develop a habit of finding and examining the original source of the mentioned data, the Raw data. While some cases may involve paid content making it impossible, in other cases, it is beneficial to review the original data as much as possible for your own learning. Although looking up and organizing the Raw data may seem like a time-consuming and inefficient task, it is by no means wasted time; instead, it's time that yields tangible benefits.Through this process, 1) you can re-organize your thoughts, 2) you might rediscover data that others haven't noticed, and 3) most importantly, humans remember and understand information much better when they've put in the effort to organize it themselves rather than having it spoon-fed to them.

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3. Quantify and measure as much as possible when remembering information.

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• If you want to survive in investment for a long time and make a profit, you need to become familiar with numbers and not be averse to dealing with them.Some people argue that true alpha doesn't come from obvious numbers that everyone can see but from something that others can't judge. This may be true for truly exceptional experts, but it's an approach that most ordinary investors can't replicate.And if you truly understand something perfectly, you can quantify even your dreams and imagination into numbers to some extent. Human memory tends to be lost or distorted over time. In such situations, the only thing that can protect you is numbers that remain unchanged over the years.Those with poor memory or those who are not good with numbers should quantify key points even more and always keep them in mind.