SaratogaRIM Blog Posts

In our 2026 Q2 Report, we published the first two of a short series of essays: The Song Remains the Same and The Neuroscience of the Sirens’ Song. Inspired by the late Charlie Munger's concept of a latticework of mental models, each essay within our Latticework Series examines the financial world around us today through a different analytical lens. Most market commentary – including much of our own – naturally emphasizes a macroeconomic perspective. Inflation, interest rates, fiscal policy, geopolitics, and economic growth are always important. Yet no single discipline can fully explain financial markets.

The objective isn’t to replace the macro perspective, but to complement it by exploring how behavioral finance, neuroscience, microeconomics, financial statement analysis and accounting, credit analysis, financial theory, and security analysis can each help us better understand the current financial landscape. As always, I also try to place today's events within their broader historical context, because understanding where we are often begins with understanding where we've been. My hope is that, taken together, these essays will provide you with a more complete understanding of the financial world around us.

The most recent essay in our series, Discipline Through Uncertainty, examines today’s financial world through the lens of Security Analysis. It explores how investors can assemble quantitative evidence and qualitative insight into reasoned judgments about businesses whose futures cannot be known with precision. The objective is not merely to forecast the future we consider most likely, but to understand an investment well enough to identify what could cause our expectations to fail – and how dependent the outcome is upon our assumptions proving correct.

Discipline Through Uncertainty examines four layers of resilience: sustainable competitive advantages, financial strength, a meaningful margin of safety, and sufficient diversification. Each provides a different form of protection against analytical mistakes and developments that could not reasonably have been anticipated. Security Analysis cannot make an uncertain future knowable, but it can help us become more selective about the uncertainties we are willing to bear, more disciplined about the prices we pay, and less dependent upon any single judgment proving precisely right.

We will continue to publish a new essay every Wednesday, with the finale of the Latticework Series published along with the Q3 Quarterly Letter on Wednesday, October 14th. Some essays are a little longer, while some are shorter, but an average reader should expect each essay to take roughly 20 to 30 minutes to read. I hope you find them both educational and enjoyable.

– Kevin Tanner | Chairman | CEO | Chief Investment Officer

Click the image above to access the ongoing Latticework Series beginning with the most recent essay, or view each post individually below:

Latticework Series Introduction (2026 Q2 Letter)