Warren Buffet calls it the ovarian lottery. For most of us, the conditions of our birth – financial, geographical and social, determine much of how the rest of our lives pan out. Few people defy this lottery and rise up against all odds. The Mint carries a heart-warming story of a boy who came up […]
Nokia, the Finnish pioneer in mobile phones controlled almost 40% of the world’s mobile phone market a little over a decade ago. In no time, it disappeared into oblivion as far as its position as a mobile phone maker is concerned (although its network equipment business continues to thrive). At Marcellus, we look for competitive […]
In the BSE100 universe we find no significant correlation between starting period valuations (i.e. at the beginning of the concerned period) and subsequent long-term returns, no matter which phase of the stock market one looks at – phases of rapid P/E multiple expansion, significant P/E multiple compression, strong earnings growth, or weak earnings growth. Instead, […]
Earlier this week IndusInd Bank shares rose supposedly as the bank announced that it has finalised a potential candidate to replace its current CEO Ramesh Sobti who will have to retire at the age of 70yrs as per the current norms of the RBI. Similarly, Aditya Puri, the CEO of HDFC Bank, India’s largest private […]
We are fond of stories which describe the ascent made by Indians from modest origins. If such stories narrate quirky success stories then so much the better. Mangesh Ghogre’s success belongs to this category. Over the past 15 years, this engineering graduate from Panvel, a suburb of Mumbai, has become one of the leading crossword […]
It is often said that in the world of investing, the most important personality trait for success is humility, especially the intellectual kind – defined as an awareness of one’s limitations of knowledge and understanding of the world. However, it is also often the hardest to sustain given the job requires one to demonstrate enough […]
Just as a surprise burst of showers sent Mumbaikars scrambling around on Friday, you could hear Axl Rose, Slash and co belting out November Rain in your mind only to be interrupted by the cab driver ranting about how we have brought all this upon ourselves by felling trees and building a concrete mess. This coincided with […]
This epic takedown of WeWork will go down in the history of journalism as one of the defining pieces which captured the craziness of the post-QE world. Matt Levine has written a rip-roaring piece designed to enliven even the most down-at-heel start-up owner. The article begins on a business-like note: “A lot of kids starting at […]
Great lenders (banks as well as NBFCs), which are Consistent Compounders, benefit significantly in the aftermath of a financial crisis. This is because: (a) when the competition struggles to raise funds during & after a crisis, great lenders have access to adequate liquidity; and (b) as competition’s ability to lend reduces, great lenders can […]
If over a billion people on the planet are going to be revelling in in festivities over the next three days, it is worth finding out the history behind this. And who better to help us understand the historical significance of Diwali, the festival of lights, than Manu Pillai, arguably the best Indian historian of […]
It is almost a century since Niels Bohr won the Nobel Prize for his work in quantum physics. Whilst applications from his work have emerged across diverse fields and solved real world problems, quantum computing has been a mega promise yet to see real world applications. From that perspective, Google’s announcement this week that their […]
Spotify has been Godsend for music lovers across the world, especially given its ability to machine learn your music taste and push stuff that you didn’t know existed but you would absolutely love. But little is known about how Daniel Ek, its founder, was inspired by an equally loved online music service called Napster. If […]
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