Abdul Rehman Najam

Selling a company you love is the hardest decision in investing.

Buying is easy. You find a great business, you understand it, you're excited. Conviction feels like clarity.

Selling a company you believe in? That requires something different entirely.

For me there are only a few reasons that would make me sell, even a company I genuinely love:

The thesis breaks.
Not the price. The reason I bought it. If the business fundamentals have changed, pricing power gone, management compromised, or the industry dynamics shifted: I'm out. Regardless of what the stock is doing.

The valuation prices in a very rosy outlook.
A great company at the wrong price is a bad investment. If the market has priced in every good thing that could possibly happen, there is no margin of safety left.

Something significantly better appears.
Capital has an opportunity cost. Sitting in a "good" company when a "great" one is available at the right price is not loyalty. It is inertia.

Want advice on your financial freedom journey: www.arnfinancials.com/financialfreedom/

23 hours ago | [YT] | 34

Abdul Rehman Najam

3 things I wish someone had told me about money in my 20s.
1. Your savings rate matters more than your salary.
Rs20,000 saved from Rs80,000 is better than Rs15,000 saved from Rs200,000. Every time.
2. The first Rs50 lakh feels painfully slow.
After that, your money starts doing more of the heavy lifting. Compounding
3. The market will always look scary when opportunity is greatest.
Develop the muscle of buying good businesses at panic times.
Want advice on your financial freedom journey: www.arnfinancials.com/financialfreedom/

1 day ago | [YT] | 73

Abdul Rehman Najam

How do you actually make investment decisions?

2 days ago | [YT] | 43

Abdul Rehman Najam

3rd consecutive year of 🇵🇰🇵🇰 achieving primary surplus in FY26, and the magnitude is improving ✅✅

Expenses by Govt of Pakistan excluding interest payments have been less than revenues in last three years, before that last time this milestone was achieved, was in 2004.

In FY24, it was 1% of GDP. FY25, almost 2.5%, FY26 2.6% of GDP. Result: Inflation & PKR parity is controlled despite oil shock.

3 days ago | [YT] | 64

Abdul Rehman Najam

The most expensive financial advice in Pakistan is free:
"Plot le lo beta. Zameen kabhi nahi jaati."

Every dinner table. Every family gathering. Every father to every son.

That one sentence has cost Pakistani families more wealth than any market crash ever.

Here is the math nobody showed them.

According to best investment classes, your 1 lac in 2010 would have 4 choices:

Dollars → Rs 3.3 lakh today. 3.3x in 16 years.
Your money barely survived.

Silver → Rs 6.5 lakh. 6.5x. Better
but silver does not earn, does not pay dividends, does not compound.

Gold → Rs 13 lakh. 13x.
Strong hedge. But gold just sits. It preserves. It does not build.

FFC shares/KSE100 Index → Rs 17.5 lakh. 17.5x.
A business that earned profits, paid dividends, issued bonus shares, every single year for 16 years.

And the part that breaks the "plot le lo" argument:

You could not even buy a plot with Rs 1 lakh in 2010. But you could become a shareholder in one of Pakistan's best businesses.

No minimum capital. No agents. No months of waiting.

Zameen requires lakhs to enter.

The stock market made Rs 1 lakh into Rs 17.5 lakh.

The advice was not wrong for their generation. But passing it down unchanged, unquestioned, is the most expensive inheritance in Pakistan.

What is one piece of inherited financial advice you followed without questioning and what did it actually cost you?

Want advice on your financial freedom journey: www.arnfinancials.com/financialfreedom/

3 days ago | [YT] | 66

Abdul Rehman Najam

Pakistan has achieved Freedom but Financial Freedom for Pakistani's is still far away.

That is why Pakistan's First Financial Freedom Movement is coming to Karachi, on Monday 17th August, Arts Council at 5 30PM.

Totally free to attend, reserve your spot here: arnfinancials.com/financial-freedom-karachi-event-…

Happy Independence Day 🇵🇰🇵🇰

4 days ago | [YT] | 71

Abdul Rehman Najam

I almost didn't publish the video that got 303k views.

“How to build a stock portfolio in 5 minutes.”

About a year ago, I posted a video that I genuinely did not expect to perform.

It was not a company breakdown. Not a deep dive into financial statements.

It was the simplest thing I had taught in years: How to build a stock portfolio in 5 minutes.

No research required. No expertise needed. Just mirror the KSE-100 index, rebalance once a year, and let 25 years of compounding do what it does.

I almost didn't post it.

I thought: this is too basic. My audience expects depth. They'll find it underwhelming.

303,000 views later, I learned something important.

The thing people needed most was not the most complex idea. It was the clearest one.

Rs 1 lakh invested in the KSE-100 in 1999 became Rs 1 crore 50 lakh.

Not through genius stock picking. Through 5 minutes a year and the patience to stay.

Most people are not waiting for a better strategy.

They are waiting for permission to start with the one they already have.

That video gave them that.
Start. Stay disciplined. Let time work.

Want advice on your financial freedom journey: www.arnfinancials.com/financialfreedom/

4 days ago | [YT] | 85

Abdul Rehman Najam

When I walked off that stage at TEDxAzadiStreet, after delivering Pakistan’s first financial freedom talk, someone came up to me.
Not to congratulate me. To argue.

"Your approach sounds good in theory. But Pakistan is different. Our market is manipulated. Large Investors control everything. The system is against the small investor."

I had heard this before. I hear it every week.

And every time, my answer is the same:

The KSE-100 index was at 1,000 in 1999.
Military rule. Three different political parties. Kargil. Mumbai attacks. Abhinandan. COVID. IMF bailouts.

Every possible reason to believe the system was against you.
The index is now at 180k+.

The top businessmen of Pakistan kept creating wealth through every single one of those events.

Not because politics was clean. Not because the system was fair.

Because businesses that make products people need, keep making them.

Regardless of who is in office.

Financial freedom in Pakistan is not about trusting the government.

It is about becoming a partner in businesses that don't need the government to perform.

5 days ago | [YT] | 66

Abdul Rehman Najam

The hardest part of investing & compounding isn't knowing when to buy.
It's knowing when you're wrong.

"Hold for the long term" is a good advice.

But it can become dangerous when investors use it to defend a bad investment.

A falling stock doesn't automatically mean you should sell. But neither does owning a stock for five years automatically make you a long-term investor.

To solve this problem, I ask myself one question:

Has the business thesis changed?

If earnings, competitive position and economics remain intact, volatility may be noise.

If the fundamentals have changed, refusing to sell isn't patience.
It's stupidity.

Conviction means staying in when the facts support you.

Stupidity means staying in because you don't want to admit you were wrong.

Have you ever held a stock for too long simply because you didn't want to admit the thesis was wrong?

6 days ago | [YT] | 63

Abdul Rehman Najam

A great company can be a terrible investment.
Sounds contradictory?

It isn't.

A company can have excellent management, growing profits, strong competitive advantages and a great future.

But if you pay too much for it, your returns can still be disappointing.

That's why I never ask only:
"Is this a good business?"

I also ask:
"What am I paying for it? Is it Fair?”

The best business in Pakistan isn't automatically the best stock to buy today.
Price matters.
Value matters.

And the gap between the two is where investment returns are made.

1 week ago | [YT] | 59