According to Swapnil Devre, what exactly is Gorilla Investing and what does a Kamikaze Investor look like?
Swapnil Devre calls himself a kamikaze investor. Investing in stocks isn’t a 100% calculated decision for him. It’s more of a love affair with the company. He invests in stocks with 100% commitment and is willing to go down with the stock.
This is a quirky way to invest but we are seeing a lot of this behavior lately among millennials and generation Z. He passionately calls his method of stock investing as gorilla investing and anyone who uses this technique as a kamikaze investor.
According to Swapnil Devre, what exactly is Gorilla Investing and what does a Kamikaze Investor look like?
Both terms are made-up words but then all words are made up. The reason why I use these terms is because it is the most apt description that I can give to the way in which new millennials and generation Z are investing today. We are buying stocks as if it’s a product that we want. There is a shift in thinking from investing in stocks with the intention of making money to buying shares as a way to vote for your favorite company and product. This also explains why Tesla stocks are always higher than they should be. It’s kamikaze investors like me that look at stocks as if they are products or merchandise that we want to own and feel proud about. It’s a love affair.
I know there is no technical analysis involved in this method. But there is fundamental analysis involved. What fundamentally matters is whether a company has a fan base or not aka extreme customer satisfaction. If it has this then it has to be doing something right at least. If a company has extreme customer satisfaction to a point where it has a fan base or a cult-like following, then it’s safe to say that it has no shortage of demand and certainly if they were not supplying the demand the customers wouldn’t be happy.
And this is a better form of investing because even when the stock is performing poorly or we are in a recession, investors like me don’t panic and sell the shares off simply because the market is acting up or down. We stay put, the only way in which I sell stocks is if I don’t like the product and become disenchanted with the company and its values. I pull out at that point and this makes perfect sense. If the customer is not happy then what are the odds of that company making money and what are the odds of your investment growing?
Tying your investment strategy with your product purchase decisions is a pretty solid way to invest in stocks. Partly because, why would you want to invest in a company whose products you don’t like no matter how clever their finance and marketing department is in generating sales? The sales or profit figures don’t count as a viable metric in gorilla investing for a kamikaze investor. The only metric that I pay attention to is how deeply I feel about the product or the leadership of the company. If you are unwilling to buy the product then why are you buying their stock? Isn’t the stock price dependent solely on whether people like the product or not? Has there been any stock ever that grew despite an unhappy customer base unless it’s a bubble or a monopoly?
What is Swapnil Devre’s opinion about people who say bubbles are a by-product of people investing emotionally?
To them, I would say that the price of a product is anything that the customer wants to pay and not the amount of labor that went into it. We live in a free-market economy, if people want to invest in a stock and also buy their products then whatever they are willing to pay is the actual price of the product and the stock. It is not a bubble if people want both the product and the stock at a high price. But it is a bubble if you just want just the stock and not the product, something is fishy there. Gorilla investing safeguards kamikaze investors against bubbles because the product will be bad and the stock price unjustifiably high and that’s the cue to get out of the stock. A bubble wouldn’t feel like a love affair, it would feel like an abusive relationship where you are just in it because your self-esteem is too low. So listen to your gut, break up, cash in and celebrate your singlehood looking for your next love affair.
About Swapnil Devre
Swapnil Devre is the Founder and CEO of Upstage Media. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.