investor-lenses

# Investor Lenses

## What a lens is

A lens is a **reasoning procedure**: a fixed, ordered set of questions plus explicit
veto rules, distilled from one investor's publicly published methodology. It is
applied *after* the evidence exists — it does not gather data and does not care
where the data came from.

The value of a lens is that it is **opinionated and therefore falsifiable**. A lens
tells you, before you look at the answer, which signals it ranks first and which
facts make it walk away. Two lenses disagreeing on the same evidence is the
product, not a bug: the disagreement localizes exactly which assumption the
decision rests on.

## What a lens is NOT

- **Not investment advice.** Every lens output is an analytical exercise.
- **Not the named person's opinion.** Each lens is a reconstruction, in our own
  words, of a methodology that investor has described publicly. It is not written
  by them, not endorsed by them, and may diverge from what they would say today.
- **Not a universal truth test.** A lens verdict is conditional on the lens.
  "Fails the Graham lens" and "bad investment" are different statements.
- **Not a ranking of masters.** No lens is more correct than another; each has a
  domain where it is sharp and a domain where it is reliably wrong.

## The five-step run

1. **Freeze the evidence.** Write down what is known *before* choosing the lens —
   financials, prices, disclosures, timelines. A lens applied to evidence collected
   after the lens was chosen is circular.
2. **Choose by the situation, never by the answer you want.** Use the selection
   table below. If you are picking the lens because you already know its verdict,
   stop.
3. **Walk the priority signals in order.** Each lens orders its signals for a
   reason. Do not jump to the signal you have the best data on.
4. **Hit a hard disqualifier → stop and report the veto.** Disqualifiers are not
   weighted against positives. They end the run under that lens.
5. **Run the misuse check, then emit under the output contract.** Every lens file
   lists the regimes where it fails. State explicitly whether the current case sits
   in one of them.

## Lens index

| Lens | Style | Sharpest on | Blindest on | File |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Statistical deep value (Graham) | Value / balance sheet | Cheap, boring, asset-heavy, wide-basket | Asset-light compounders; single names | [graham-deep-value](investor-lenses/references/graham-deep-value.md) |
| Quality franchise (Buffett) | Quality / durability | Durable consumer & toll-road economics | Fast-changing tech; deep cyclicals | [buffett-quality-franchise](investor-lenses/references/buffett-quality-franchise.md) |
| Inversion (Munger) | Risk / pre-mortem | Finding the way this dies | Sizing an opportunity; timing | [munger-inversion](investor-lenses/references/munger-inversion.md) |
| Scuttlebutt growth (Fisher) | Growth / qualitative | Product & channel truth vs. reported numbers | Anything you cannot reach people about | [fisher-scuttlebutt](investor-lenses/references/fisher-scuttlebutt.md) |
| GARP by category (Lynch) | Growth at a price | Mid-cap earnings compounding; retail-visible businesses | Financials; commodity cyclicals | [lynch-garp](investor-lenses/references/lynch-garp.md) |
| Cycle positioning (Marks) | Contrarian / risk-first | Where we are in the greed–fear cycle | Single-company fundamentals | [marks-cycle-position](investor-lenses/references/marks-cycle-position.md) |
| Debt cycle & uncorrelated bets (Dalio) | Macro / allocation | Rates, currency, liquidity regime; portfolio shape | Stock picking | [dalio-debt-cycle](investor-lenses/references/dalio-debt-cycle.md) |
| Forensic short (Chanos) | Short / accounting | Accounting distortion, value traps, structural decline | Longs; anything you must be right about *soon* | [chanos-forensic-short](investor-lenses/references/chanos-forensic-short.md) |
| Cost drag & mean reversion (Bogle) | Allocation / cost | Whether the *activity itself* is worth its cost | Individual security selection | [bogle-cost-drag](investor-lenses/references/bogle-cost-drag.md) |
| Right business, right people (Duan Yongping / 段永平) | Quality / concentration | Founder-led A-share, HK and US-listed China names | Diversified baskets; turnarounds | [duan-right-business](investor-lenses/references/duan-right-business.md) |
| Weak-system contrarian (Feng Liu / 冯柳) | Contrarian / positioning | A-share names beaten down by known bad news | Momentum regimes; names with unresolved fraud risk | [fengliu-weak-system](investor-lenses/references/fengliu-weak-system.md) |
| Three questions (Qiu Guolu / 邱国鹭) | Value / industry structure | A-share and HK industry structure and pricing power | Early-stage, structure-not-yet-formed industries | [qiuguolu-three-questions](investor-lenses/references/qiuguolu-three-questions.md) |

## Choosing a lens

| Situation | Start with | Then stack |
| --- | --- | --- |
| "Is this cheap enough?" on an asset-heavy or out-of-favour name | Graham | Munger, Qiu Guolu |
| "Is this a great business?" on a stable franchise | Buffett | Duan Yongping, Munger |
| "The story is wonderful, is it real?" | Fisher | Chanos, Munger |
| "It's grown 5 years, is the multiple sane?" | Lynch | Buffett, Qiu Guolu |
| "Is the market euphoric or despairing right now?" | Marks | Dalio |
| "What does the rates / currency / liquidity regime do to this?" | Dalio | Marks |
| "The accounting smells" | Chanos | Munger, Fisher |
| "Should we be picking at all, or just allocating?" | Bogle | Marks |
| A-share name down 50% on known bad news | Feng Liu | Chanos, Qiu Guolu |
| A-share / HK industry with consolidating competitive structure | Qiu Guolu | Buffett, Duan Yongping |
| Founder-controlled company, governance is the swing factor | Duan Yongping | Munger, Chanos |

## Stacking protocol

Stacking is where lenses earn most of their value, but only under discipline.

- **Two or three lenses. Never more.** Beyond three the output