Sherlock Holmes and investing

I love the thinking of Sherlock Holmes. He would make a great investor with his poet of observation and deduction.  Here are a set of quotes form Sherlock to his good friend Dr. Watson.

The power of observation is critical.

"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair, "You see, but you do  not observe. The distinction is clear." 

"Not invisible, but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to look, and so you missed all that was important."

Sweat the details.

"You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles." 

"Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details." 

"Indeed, I have found that it is usually in unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation, and for the quick analysis of cause and effect." 

Deductive logic is hard.

"On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in drawing your inferences."

It is perhaps less suggestive than it might have been, and yet there are few inferences which are very distinct and a few others which represent at least a strong balance of probability." 

"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing., but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different." 

"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."

"It would cease to be a danger if we could define it."

"As a rule, when I have heard some slight indication of the course of events, I am able to guide myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my memory."

Look at the data.

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit fact." 

"I had come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data."

"Data! data! data! I cannot make bricks without clay."

Watch for the unexpected.

My dear fellow, life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplace of existence." 

"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."


The conclusion

"I have come for advice."
Holmes: "That is easily gotten."
"And help."
Holmes:"that is not always so easy."