Mohnish Pabrai: I Spent 30 Years in Investing. Here's Everything in 30 Minutes

Until a business like Walmart goes into permanent decline, don't worry about what the stock price is.

Don't worry about how expensive or cheap it is. Just keep it. I'm sitting down with Monish Pabrai.

For the past 30 years, he's built his career around one simple idea. Don't reinvent what already works.

Very small changes done very early in life have huge impacts.

Every person on that Forbes 400 got there because of one business.

The S&P 500, I know you mentioned that it's also got its own problems.

We are at a point now in 2026, the next 10 years, the S&P, it's probably not a good place to be.

He started with one million. Today, he manages $1.4 billion.

So what have these three decades taught him? I traveled to Texas to find out.

I used to own 1% of Ferrari.

The biggest mistake I made was selling them when they approached fair value.

Ferrari's market cap today is approaching $100 billion.

The 1% would be worth a billion. I'm sorry, you made a mistake.

Yeah, and you know, how dumb is that? I want to start with this.

After our conversation, if I take everything that you say to heart and act on it.

What will change about the way that I invest? To change how you spend, most of the battle is on the saving side.

You have to spend less than you earn. You don't need to know much about investing. You can put it into an index fund.

Over a lifetime, because of the asymmetry of compounding, even with relatively small amounts, you're going to become very wealthy.

Very small changes done very early in life have huge impacts long term without really having to give up anything.

So I want to switch gears to the S&P 500. I know you mentioned that it's also

got its own problems, but you can't deny the fact that it's had an extraordinary run.

After more than 30 years of investing, how do you view the U.S. stock market right now?

One of the things to remember about index investing

is that even though

index investing is very good, when we go back and look at the long history of the S&P, the S&P on average over 100 years, for example, has averaged more than 9% a year.

That's an excellent result. But if

you look at some periods from, let's say, 1965 to 1982, 17-year period, it was zero.

Even though the U.S. economy grew a lot, profits grew a lot.

The reason was that in 1965, the market was very overheated.

And by 1982, it was very undervalued. valued.

It was not a good time to invest in the index.

And it was an incredible time to invest in the index in the early 80s.

And then from 82 to 99 was a spectacular run.

I think the S&P went up 15x in that 17-year period.

So it was zero from 65 to 82. And then 82 to 99, it went up like 15 times, which is a lot.

And then from 99 till about 2010 is again zero.

We repeatedly see this pattern, and you

can go back all the way to the 1920s, 1910s, you will find 10, 20, even 30-year periods where it's flat.

And then you find 10, 15, 20-year periods which are spectacular.

We are at a point now in 2026 that

it would not surprise me, say, over the next 10 years, the S&P is between minus 2% a year and plus 2% a year on average.

The next 10 years, the best

guess I have, looking at just the levels and where it's been in the past, is that it's probably not a good place to be.

And that is why I suggested that look at Berkshire Hathaway like the index.

So by 2035 or thereabouts, the S&P will be ready for its next run.

But we have this 10-year period, the abyss that we have to cross.

So 10 years stay in Berkshire Hathaway. And then the S&B will be ready to roll again.

You've said that you have an investment checklist with over, I believe it was 213 items.

Can you give me an example of a company that you were seriously considering and then something on the checklist made you stop and reassess that decision?