A while back I read a book titled “Business for Authors” by Joanna Penn. Though I never looked at writing as a means to a livelihood (25 years of corporate life perhaps allowed me to keep it as a hobby at best, or at worst, a vocation), for those who have the gumption to start … Read more
For writers and all kinds of professional or hobby artists, I highly recommend the book “The Practice” by Seth Godin. I read it almost a year back and it has still stayed with me. I have taken notes from the book and refer to them off and on when I need inspiration. You will find … 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
..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
I had the opportunity to read two books over the past two weeks. The First One was ‘The Lazy Person’s Guide to Investing’ by Dr Paul Ferrell, a former investment banker with Morgan Stanley and a columnist later, with some really useful and simple advice for the individual investor. Here are some excerpts: “Investing really is very … Read more
A slightly old-ish book (first published in 1994), I chanced upon this book and picked it up again at the library recently, though I had read it a few years back. While after so many years, it may not seem to have anything new, given that there is so much written about Buffett since 1994 … Read more
For regular investors for whom investing is not a full-time activity, the Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing is a wonderful book that asks the right questions and provides clear answers. In a single book, the authors (who also started an online forum bogleheads.org based on the investing principles of John Bogle) have explained, in a step … Read more
Over the past 6, 12 or perhaps 18 months, the Indian capital market performance has had a polarized structure. It is broadly divided into, on the one hand, a small set of wonderful companies that are grossly overvalued, whichever way you look at it, and which keep getting expensive; and on the other hand, a … Read more
Most personal finance books are boring. Most of them have nothing new as such. Of course, there are the legendary books on investing that make great reading. They are generally written by gurus who have a past investing record, or by academics or a combination. Or they are written by journalists or writers following the lives of these ‘gurus’ … Read more