How canceled events and self-quarantines save lives, in one chart
Elon Musk reckons the ‘Coronavirus panic is dumb’. Several others have criticised the panic reaction of bringing normal activity to a halt as a significant drag on the economy which could have bigger ramifications on people’s lives through loss of livelihood and related stress. However, this article provides a practical reason to adopt ‘social distancing’ […]
The Coronavirus Is Creating a Huge, Stressful Experiment in Working From Home
We are living in such times that WTF is no longer the most popular three letter acronym featuring the letters W and F, having been surpassed by WFH – Working From Home. Some industries such as tech and media have been used to people working from home over the years but never has this phenomenon […]
The boys learning anti-sexism in India
In India we have almost become indifferent to reading about crimes against women. For decades now the daily news has contained stories of rape & brutality against women. The authorities seem to be stirred into life only if a middle class woman is raped and then murdered. Given the scale of the issue and given […]
We’re not prepared for the end of Moore’s Law
At Marcellus, we go wild with happiness when we find well written, insightful reading material. This piece fits that description perfectly. Mr Rotman begins by explaining why over the last 50 years Moore’s Law has underpinned pretty much all the technological progress we have seen in the world around us: “Gordon Moore’s 1965 forecast that the […]
The Trinity of Higher ROCE, High Reinvestment and High Growth
In our February 2020 newsletter we had highlighted the 22% rally in the BSE Smallcap index from August 2019-end to early February 2020. Since then the BSE Smallcap Index is down 10%. As in February 2020 when investors seemed to be turning euphoric and today when they are turning bearish, we advocate buying clean & dominant franchises […]
The Tesla Experiment
When it comes to investors’ irrational exuberance in the markets, it does seem like it is no different from a child’s excitement about things that deliver instant gratification. Except unlike kids, we tend to rationalise what is entirely an act of emotion. Here’s a heartwarming story of a father taking his adolescent son on a […]
The Gap Between Large and Small Companies Is Growing. Why?
Popular belief amongst investors is that large companies tend to grow slower, especially given that the size tends to have drag on their agility when it comes to innovation. We often are asked if we aren’t worried about our Consistent Compounders portfolio companies which are already well known market leaders in their respective sectors. In […]
Scientists reveal the number of times you are conscious each minute
We agonise over how smartphones and social media have reduced our attention span and made us distractible in general. Turns out we human beings are naturally wired to be distractible in the first place. Indeed, new research shows that the human mind oscillates in and out of focus four times every second according to scientists […]
The Coronavirus Is No 1918 Pandemic
As the number of countries reporting incidences of patients with Coronavirus symptoms rises, fear and panic has gripped the world even harder, with suggestions that it could be the worst pandemic the world has seen. So, what has the been the worst the world has seen historically and how does it compare to what we […]
Kids Don’t Need to Stay ‘On Track’ to Succeed
Whilst most of us at Marcellus have self-selected ourselves to get off the beaten track, many of us are as worried as any other parent as to what our kids will do when they grow up and how will they stay happy and become “successful”. In this piece, Madeline Levine, a psychologist from California tells […]
Why so many of the world’s oldest companies are in Japan
Given that we like investing in outstanding franchises which produce stellar free cashflows for decades on end, we are particularly interested in understanding why Japan – more than any other country – houses some of the oldest companies in the world. As per this article from the BBC, “The country has 33,000 businesses at least […]
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