The Makings of a Permabear

I came across Jeremy Grantham for the first time recently on an episode of the Excess Returns podcast. Having enjoyed the interview and realising that his book The Making of a Permabear had already come across my radar on Audible recommendations several times I decided to give it a go.

Whilst Grantham is labelled a permabear that’s probably both slightly unfair but also a label that he’s happy to run with. What’s clear from Grantham taking you on a journey through his investing career is whether you’re a bull or a bear you’ll never likely be right all the time and even if you are you likely won’t time your moves perfectly to maximise gains or minimise losses. Whilst the market will go through it’s peaks and troughs what’s clear from reading the book and from financial history is that market dynamics and the specific instigators of change may differ through the decades but the irrationality of the market players remains the same. That being the case, I don’t think we should expect to see an end to the repeats of market cycles and somewhat ‘irrational exuberance’ of the crowd any time soon.

Whilst the title and the book may not give the impression of a roaring page turner I actually really enjoyed this. As an investor who leans heavily into the long term investing camp with a relative degree of comfort taking somewhat contrarian bets from time to time and waiting out market turns, I found the episodes of the past few decades enjoyable to hear from someone who lived and breathed it.

Grantham’s other passion alongside investing is in supporting the battle against climate change and finding ways to elevate the attention and urgency directed towards it. The large part of the latter half of the book is spent on this topic and whilst the content is fine, I found myself feeling like it deviated off the topic of investing for a bit too long. That said, given the passion that Grantham has on the topic I understand why it did.

I don’t think it takes anything away from the book and worst case you can always skip a couple of chapters if it moves too far away from the investing focus.

All in all, an enjoyable listen and one I’m happy I added to my audio book library.

Who’s It For?

Honestly, if you’re not into investing then this book will do little to keep you entertained and I’d be surprised if you found your way to it anyway. If you’re an investor and especially long term investor or fan of reviewing the history of the market over the past few decades, you’ll enjoy this.