yes I’ve read it and I rank it as one of the best books on contrarian investing out there. It’s a bit of a hard work though, I know what you’re saying.
I think it’s best to read it after The Black Swan to tie in the ideas better.
The book has three main threads intervowen together:
- Daoism and the roundabout thinking process
- Austrian economics and market distortions
- Tail risk hedging
In fact I think this is ordered from the most important to the least, but unfortunately most people read the book as if the Tail risk hedging part is the most important and the Dao philosophy the least. I think that’s the wrong way of approaching this book.
My main takeaway was that one needs to be convinced that markets distortions happen and once you’ve spotted some market distortions then it’s only a matter of time before the distortions correct. Note that market distortions are both on the upside and the downside. The longer it takes to correct, the more spectacular will be the correction. However since it can’t be timed, the ideal thing is to patiently keep making very small contrarian bets and keep losing small amounts to eventually make up for the big win. The more you lose, the more you’ll eventually win (yin/yang). Author has taken the Tobins Q as a valuation metric but I don’t think that you are required to use it, any indicator which shows that reality is different than the valuation will do.
By far my biggest learning was Taoism, being able to see the opposites as a whole and maintain the calm and equanimity (in investing and otherwise). This can’t be explained in words, but my deepest gratitude towards this book is for this. I urge you to pick up a good translation of Tao Te Ching (I have one by Stephen Mitchell, just Rs 133/- on amazon.in http://www.amazon.in/Tao-Te-Ching-Stephen-Mitchell/dp/8183282504/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486106158&sr=1-1&keywords=tao+te+ching ) and read a chapter every day and apply it to investing. I guarantee you it’ll have a big effect, as it has had on me. (And not just investing!)