You are the product
This three year old long essay on Facebook is interesting at three levels: a) it helps you understand how much thought goes into building great monopolies; b) it helps you understand how conventional media – newspapers, books, TV channels – is being eviscerated by social media; and c) it helps you understand how wealth & […]
The Criticality of Succession Planning in Consistent Compounding
All businesses face the event of succession of key management personnel, whether it be promoters or professionals. However, succession planning is a process that is not adequately engrained in the DNA of most organizations due to the variety of challenges involved in this process. As a result, many great businesses with strong competitive advantages fail […]
The Case For a Post-Covid Spending Boom
Whilst we are still reeling from the havoc that the pandemic has wrecked on the global economy, Ben Carlson joins the growing list of economic commentators anticipating a consumption boom when the dust settles. As Ben shows in this article examples of new areas of spending even during the pandemic when uncertainty over the economy […]
Blank Check IPOs, the Status Symbol of 2020, Have Raised $32 Billion This Year
Trust investment bankers to come up with new fads to ride a boom. Whilst the concept of Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), also called Blank Check IPOs are not particularly new, they are making news this year. This piece in the Bloomberg explains what is a SPAC: “…it’s an investment vehicle that goes public despite having […]
Lindsell Train – fund manager interview with Nick Train
At Marcellus, we have been inspired and influenced by several investors. One such firm which has had an outsized influence is Lindsell Train, a UK based investment firm managing north of GBP20bn across its Global, UK and Japanese equity funds. This interview of one of its founders and portfolio managers, Nick Train, brings out some […]
Blockchain, the amazing solution for almost nothing
Last week, we featured a piece on how cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin seem to be increasing in popularity, especially as an investible asset class. This piece talks about the underlying technology – Blockchain. Blockchain has been very widely regarded as the most disruptive technology around with potentially myriad applications across several fields ranging from financial […]
Henry Blodget Was Banned From the Financial Industry. So He Built a Financial Media Empire
Super story on how you can’t keep a talented individual down for long, a story on how creativity remains the most important driver of outsized success in the open economy. Henry Blodget was one of the most celebrated tech analysts during the late 90s dotcom boom. And then he famously got into trouble with the […]
What We’ve Stolen From Our Kids
Plenty has been written on the long term impact that the Covid-19 induced lockdown is having on children’s education. In this piece, a doctor who in New York who is also a mother of four children, talks about the psychological impact of the lockdown on children. In the initial months of the lockdown: “my kids managed. […]
How Investors Are Trapped By The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Whilst there are dozens of books on how to invest like Warren Buffett, most investors spend their lives far away from the compounding heaven in which legends like Mr Buffett reside. So why do most investors never manage to invest in great companies and stay invested for the long run? The answer lies in the […]
The gloomy reality of Gulf returnees
There is a emerging school of thought that the pandemic has accelerated deglobalisation which was already underway thanks to rising nationalism and protectionism. Whilst much of the attention seems to be on trade policies, there is also a rising trend of reverse migration of human resources. Whilst the recent US policy to curb H1B visas predominantly […]
Exponential growth bias: The numerical error behind Covid-19
“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it”, is a quote famously attributed to Albert Einstein. Indeed, many in the investing world including the legendary Warren Buffett swear by the concept of compounding. The mere mortals that we are at Marcellus don’t hide […]
BTC 3.0
Last week, we featured a piece on why everyone is buying gold? One of the reasons was the natural hedge that gold provides against impending inflation given the extraordinary amount of stimulus pumped in by central banks and governments globally. The same logic is extended to cast a shadow on the future of fiat currencies as […]
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