You Can Only Maintain So Many Close Friendships
The lockdowns have curtailed our social lives and limited the number of people we engage with socially, nudging us to think about the quantity and quality of our relationships. Whilst it might sound unromantic to take away the spontaneity and the natural course in which we develop relationships, apparently there is science behind the number […]
For Inflation Protection, Commodities Belong in the ‘Too Hard’ Pile
Ben Carlson wrote a piece recently on 200 years of returns by asset class, which showed that commodities had indeed delivered a negative real return over the long run, failing to beat inflation. But surely, over short runs, commodities can be a hedge against inflation? Turns out that isn’t the case either. In this piece, Christine Benz […]
Baillie Gifford: can a new generation keep riding the tech boom?
Plenty has been written about Baillie Gifford, the Scottish investment firm’s success with technology stocks, much of it has been featured in the 3L&3S as well. But this piece is more about the softer aspects of the organisation that Baillie Gifford is, an understanding of which can give us at Marcellus a sense of what […]
To choose a career, I needed to do more than ‘follow my dream’
India has the youngest demographic not just in the contemporary world but also in the history of this planet: no country has ever had more people under the age of 30 than India has today. It is but inevitable that in such an environment, many parents and their progeny spend a lot of time plotting […]
The Feynman Learning Technique
All of us are being told that we will have to work until 70 years of age and hence will have to reinvent ourselves 2-3x during a five decade long career. What nobody is willing to tell us is how on earth we are supposed to rebuild our skillsets 2-3x during our career. How will […]
Three Distinct Layers of Polarization in the Indian Stock Market…
Three Distinct Layers of Polarization in the Indian Stock Market… …is resulting in wealth creation being concentrated into the hands of 15-20 companies and this dynamic has nothing to do with the global monetary easing. A handful of companies – no more than 10 – are taking home more than 90% of the profits generated […]
I Was Taught From a Young Age to Protect My Dynastic Wealth
The recent ProPublica report showed how the wealthy contributed so little in taxes compared to the increase in their wealth – including the likes of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffet. In this piece, Abigail Disney, the grand niece of Walt Disney and someone who inherited a stupendous amount of wealth at a young age tries […]
Milkha Singh: An unmatchable romance with a near miss
Before the systematic path to the Indian team’s success in recent years, few athletes have managed to savour international glory, sans any support from the system. The most memorable of them is Milkha Singh, the Indian running champion who passed away earlier this week. Here’s an obituary of the great man beginning with his struggles […]
Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman: Never Trust Your Gut Unless You Can Say Yes to These 3 Questions
We are huge fans of Daniel Kahneman, as our work (and life) requires us to separate our instincts from the thoughtful processes we commit to our clients and he helps separate the two for us. We featured an interview on his latest book “Noise” a couple of weeks ago, which takes this subject deeper. But here’s a […]
The full collection of the Nomad Investment Partnership Letters to Partners
As our clients, readers and well-wishers would know, we at Marcellus tend to be prolific in expressing our thoughts in our newsletters and blogs. And the writing is partly to be transparent with our clients who have reposed their faith in us, but also to drive our own clarity of thought and subject ourselves to […]
Tiger Cubs: How Julian Robertson built a hedge fund dynasty
From talent management in cricket, let’s now move to talent management in the world of asset management. This piece in the FT highlights how the remarkable methods used by the legendary Julian Robertson of Tiger Management to hire over the past forty years a succession of highly success fund managers. By way of background, Mr […]
How did India build their world-beating bench strength? They have a system
Thirty years on the opening up of the Indian economy in 1991, we are seeing generational change taking place in India’s Boardrooms so much so that “succession planning” is increasingly a deciding factor in our investment process. In this superbly researched piece, Sidharth Monga lays out how “succession planning” – rather than raw talent or […]
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