Most of our business or success goals are self oriented. They are related to what we want. What if we could invert them? What if they are based on what others want? This is not as idealistic as it sounds. Neither is it altruistic. Nor is it irrational. It is more rational and practical than … Read more
No one trusts anyone easily anymore. There are real reasons for it. We don’t trust the celebrities telling us to buy things. They are being paid by the company. We don’t trust tweets and instagram posts. They are new ways of getting paid. We never trusted salesmen and marketers. Now we suspect them. By default, … Read more
Swami decided to join a protest last weekend. He told me and Jigneshbhai that we are going to have coffee at a protest. But a doubt cropped up. “Is coffee allowed at a protest? Who’s going to get it for us?” Jigneshbhai and I had no idea. We had never been to any protest. “Let … Read more
“Everything material is changing all the time and is temporary, so for lasting happiness, we should change our focus from what is temporary to what is eternal” said our broker friend Jigneshbhai as we met for our weekend coffee yesterday. Swami and I were stumped seeing him in such a philosophical, almost spiritual mood, specially … Read more
“Artificial Intelligence is going to completely change investing” said Swami excitedly as we met for our coffee. Jigneshbhai did not react, and continued sipping his black coffee, as usual. Swami was not the one to be discouraged by that, at least immediately. So he continued with even more enthusiasm. “Machines will be reading through stock … Read more
“Where have you been?” asked my friend Swami to Jigneshbhai, as we met for our weekend coffee after a really, really long time. Indeed when I checked, it was over a year since we had last met, and some of our coffee house friends had also started asking me why we had stopped meeting. “I … Read more
Common Sense Investing: Sharing an excellent set of simple videos (less than 60 minutes) by Rick Van Ness. All that an average individual investor needs to know and follow. This is what the site http://www.financinglife.org/ says about these videos: “These short videos teach basic financial concepts to make it more likely that you’ll achieve common life … Read more
Came across an interesting conversation that the famous value investor Mohnish Pabrai had with Steve Pomeranz. He talks about what value investing is, why individual companies matter to him more than broader markets (though not advised for normal passive or ‘defensive’ investors), the importance of temperament which should be a strange mix of patience and … Read more
..and again!! That’s the title of a memo sent by the famous investor Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital to his clients recently. And it refers to how he is happiest writing when bull markets start going far, risk aversion disappears and there’s money all around inflating potential bubbles. It is quite a long memo listing … Read more