Can you teach investing acumen?

You can make them learn about the different methods, where to look for data, what to look for data-wise and etc.

But you can’t make them do appropriate choices. There may not even be a definite appropriate choice, many things are subjective.

For instance, let’s use TMT. You could have an investor arguing in 2021 about how using Revenue multiples is absolutely ridiculous as it incredibly aggressive to miss the picture about profitability given that, while interest rates were artificially low, they wouldn’t stay like that forever and the growth projections did not account for that (especially considering Covid QE was insane in quantity which exacerbated asset bubbles).

On the other hand, TMT HFs were making stupid bank being incredibly aggressive, and since the point of the profession is to make money, hard to argue against it. We know how that turned out but nobody is a soothsayer.

Imho, when finance guys like Greenblatt, Graham, William Bernstein etc say doctors make bad investors, I notice that they say that doctors have the following blind spots:

1) They are too brilliant. They are doctors so they think they are smarter than the rest, which is justified tbh in many cases. Therefore, they think everything else is easy and they dont put in the effort to properly study finance theory and best practices. Their ego doesn't allow them to. They dont listen and they make oversimplifications

2) They are too busy so they don't have the time to properly build their acumen

3) They are wired to think a certain way. They're too logical and methodological and they can't grasp that markets are irrational and illogical

So i think that as long as you can be aware of these potential blind spots, they are relatively easy to parse

I am a doctor with multiple yrs experience in MBB consulting. Toyed with PE investing route for a while, actively manage all my personal wealth in stocks. Not pro investor but have a good grasp.

My 2c — doctors are experts and brilliant in medicine. They know nothing about finance, and in my experience sometimes don’t know how much they don’t know outside of medicine. Further, medicine is a field where learning is relatively straightforward insofar as the resources available to you (literature, syllabus for training, other resources) are clear and directed. Investing IMO requires less fact finding/‘knowing’ things as going on a journey of learning a bit of content, thinking deeply, hearing others perspectives/takes and seeing patterns emerge over time.

To answer the question directly - I think a combination of reading top books on investing and seeing what jives with you (eg value investing), reading annual reports/public docs, reading other investors takes on certain situations (Value Investors Club is good), coming up with your own theses about a situation, and then (importantly) once you know enough actually start doing it and learn along the way.

Entirely nature. You're naturally gifted with the ability to model and form investment theses. You'll never make it as an investor if you have to learn anything that doesn't come naturally.

Of course you can. Isn't that what Cramer does to 1000s of people every day?

Obviously brilliant? You need to rethink your definition of brilliant. There are very few professions that qualify someone as brilliant based on job title. MD is not one nor are 99% of finance jobs.

I think being a great investor mostly comes down to being obsessed with investing and markets. Subject to some minimum IQ threshold of course. It’s hard to teach obsession…

Yes you can train someone to be a good investor, just as you can train someone to be a good singer or musician. The difference between good and great is luck, marketing, network, and hustle. 

Super low value comment but just couldn't resist letting you know that I disagree with the sentiment that doctors are all "obviously brilliant". I personally know some complete boneheads that are soon-to-be doctors.