Marcellus: The Nifty is No Longer a Play on the Indian Economy
Published on: 15 Feb, 2019 Over the past decade, the Nifty’s earnings have not only grown at a much slower pace than the Indian economy, they have also trailed the S&P500’s earnings growth by a country mile (although the Indian economy is growing much faster than the American economy). This disturbing phenomenon has far […]
Marcellus: The Virus Spreads Beyond the Banks
Published on: 8 Feb, 2019 As the same problems which ravaged India’s banking system now spread into its money & bond markets, we highlight the need for investors to strengthen their forensic accounting firepower. With over 60 years of experience of analysing the accounts of India’s leading companies, Marcellus’ research team (now stuffed with CAs […]
Marcellus: The Big Shift in Small Town India
Published on: 2 Feb, 2019 With potentially $500 billion per annum of financial savings arising from annual income and with potentially another $100 billion per annum arising from the balance sheet shift (from physical to financial), our visits to India’s smaller cities suggest that the annual flow into financial savings could triple over the next […]
Marcellus: A Cynic’s Guide to Reading Indian Newspapers
Published on: 25 Jan, 2019 80% of the content in Indian newspapers is irrelevant for investors; the other 20% is very useful. The latter 20% focuses on: (a) the actions (not words) of Indian promoters and politicians; and (b) narratives about the majority of Indians whose lives are less comfortable than ours. Furthermore, these narratives […]
Marcellus: Reading VS Naipaul Will Make You Richer
Published on: 18 Jan, 2019 Intensely researched, well thought through non-consensus opinions are priceless. VS Naipaul’s final book on India is an example of such work. Meticulously researched, Naipaul’s 1990 book flagged that India was a country on the move and on the make. At a time when the norm was to berate India for […]
Marcellus: Does Spirituality Help Improve Clarity of Thought?
Published on: 11 Jan, 2019 Any activity which entails making a call on the future is as much about managing emotions as it is about rational analysis. Investing therefore is always and everywhere a dance between these two elements – reason & emotion. We find that spirituality (i.e. reducing clutter in our lives, increasing focus […]
How Competitive Advantage Drives Churn in the Stockmarket
Published on: 4 Jan, 2019 The extent of competitive advantage possessed by a firm can fluctuate as the sector in which the firm operates grows (from niche to nationwide). The aggregation of this phenomenon across the entire stockmarket results in the BSE500 demonstrating twice as much churn as the Sensex. In fact, no other […]
Grand Fortunes and the Illusion of Competition
Published on: 28 Dec, 2018 Through the ages, the greatest and most lasting fortunes have been built on the back of commercial opportunism allied with the willingness to bend the rule of the law repeatedly & ruthlessly. The Medicis in Italy, the Mitsui in Japan and JP Morgan in America are exemplars of this template […]
Your memory will determine how much money you make
Published on: 20 Dec, 2018 Memory in all its avatars (perception, projection, intelligence) plays a big role in how we invest. The fragility of our memories (both in the sense of how quickly they fade and in the sense of how susceptible to manipulation they are) suggests that we need to be careful with how […]
Who is Marcellus and why does he matter
Published on: 9 Dec, 2018 We live in era defined by majoritarianism and social-media driven consensus. In such an age we seek inspiration from the one of the greatest warriors of the 20 th Century, Cassius Marcellus Clay, better known as Muhammad Ali. “I know where I am going and I know the truth and […]
System level thinkers
Published on: 2 Dec, 2018 The intellectual legacies of four titans show that the smartest thinkers of every epoch are able to understand how the economic system works in its entirety whilst most of the rest of us only understand the world at an episodic and literal level. “Truly radical “Machiavellianism”, in the popular sense […]
Weak EPS growth and strong GDP growth can coexist
Published on: 28 Nov, 2018 There is needless angst in India about EPS growth staying weak even as the economy grows at 7%. Such a phenomenon is actually a good thing for the Indian economy – it highlights a shift to a more competitive, pro-consumer paradigm which sets the stage for efficiency improvements in the […]
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