Fooled by probabilities and by Indian NBFCs
Published on:20 October, 2018 There are plenty of cleverly crafted games in which you win most of the time and are rewarded with small payoffs. However, in such games there is always one scenario (which is not the base case scenario) where you get wiped out completely. Investing in NBFCs resembles these games of chance. […]
What do we expect from a CEO
Published on: 19 Oct, 2018 Rather than being a corporate Superwoman, the Effective CEO is an honest, industrious, well informed executive who is aware of her limitations and understands that her conduct and her incentive structure sets the tone for the rest of the firm. “Buffett manages his CEOs just like he manages his stock […]
Psychotherapy is not harmless: on the side effects of CBT
Most psychologists and psychotherapists that you and I know will be trained in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). CBT has become increasingly popular over the past 20 years as the stresses and strains of modern life amidst a raft of bestselling books on psychology have made visiting a shrink as commonplace as visiting the local clinic […]
What made the US unique has become history
Janan Ganesh is one the FT’s finest columnists and here he uses a Michael Porter-type competitive advantage framework to explain the decline of the USA. Ganesh says that until the 1990s, America could boast that its openness to immigrants, free & fair elections and its free market economy were unique strengths. Now, almost all significant […]
How Online Shopping Makes Suckers of Us All
As millions of Indians go beserk shopping online at this week’s annual binges at the likes of Amazon and Flipkart, this slightly dated yet fascinating piece by The Atlantic shows how online retailers may have regained their pricing edge over consumers who were supposed to have been empowered by the transparency of the internet. Employing […]
‘This guy doesn’t know anything’: the inside story of Trump’s shambolic transition team
The legendary Michael Lewis describes in this piece how Donald Trump could not (or did not) prepare properly to become the President of the United States. It is an extraordinary story of rich people on the verge of extreme power using colourful language but not realising the enormity of the task ahead of them. After […]
The creation of a mobile juggernaut
If you are a budding Indian entrepreneur and are wondering how to create a giant enterprise in a highly regulated sector, you have to read this lucid piece from the FT on how Reliance Industries conquered the Indian mobile telephony sector and in the process humbled Bharti, Vodafone and Idea. The story is not exactly […]
Spotting the Liar in the Boardroom
Published on: 12 Oct, 2018 Alongside our forensic accounting model, we also use questioning techniques popularised by the CIA to figure out whether the CEOs we are meeting are making things up. “He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips […]
The Hero Delusion in Sport, Business & Elsewhere
Published on: 5 Oct, 2018 Evolution has trained us to use ‘thumb rules’ to simplify complex decisions. However, when these thumb rules don’t work, we are prone to delusional thinking. Our belief in heroes is one such delusion. Evolution has taught us to take mental shortcuts In our second piece for The Ken, my friend, […]
Accounting fraud and liquidity crunches are bedfellows
Published on: 29 Sep, 2018 Major accounting frauds typically come to light when liquidity tightens. Given the over 2% point jump in money market rates in India in the last 12 months, the probability of major accounting fraud coming to light in the Indian stockmarket is growing. “In many ways, capital markets are designed to […]
Elections are irrelevant for equity investors
Published on: 20 Sep, 2018 Exhaustive research by American political scientists, Chris Achen & Larry Bartels, shows that elections neither produce responsive governments nor do voters elect leaders who can tangibly impact economic outcomes and stockmarkets. “An understanding of the importance of the desire for recognition as the motor of history allows us to reinterpret […]
Reverse Positioned Brands
Published on: 10 Sep, 2018 “The writer-physician Atul Gawande has written about the phenomenon of ‘positive deviants’ in the medical profession, that small set of players who are mired in the same environmental conditions as everyone else but stubbornly refuse to allow themselves to be constrained by conventional wisdoms, and as a consequence are able […]
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