Long read: China will have no choice but to become more repressive, more closed, colder
China is today clearly front and center of geopolitics, global supply chain and financial markets and the interplay between the three. To that extent, we continue to look for insights from those who know better. Here’s an interview with Anne Stevenson-Yang, who has published her new book “Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and […]
Long read: Google’s Moonshot Factory Falls Back Down to Earth
One of the standout features of the technology era has been the dominant ‘monopolies’ – from Microsoft in operating systems to Amazon’s ecommerce to Apple’s iPhones. Yet the most dominant of them all has to be Google in ‘search’ driven advertising. And this monopoly now seems to be under threat with ChatGPT and Generative AI […]
Long read: How Bad Are Ultraprocessed Foods, Really?
Our colleague in America sent us this eye-opening article from the NYT which says that rather than obsessing about whether we are having too much by the way of fats, carbs or sugar what we should really worry about is whether we having too much “Ultra Processed Food” (UPF). So what is UPF? And why […]
Marcellus Portfolio Performance and Update on Fundamentals – April 2024
*For relative performance of particular Investment Approach to other Portfolio Managers within the selected strategy, please refer https://www.apmiindia.org/apmi/WSIAConsolidateReport.htm?action=showReportMenu Under PMS Provider Name please select Marcellus Investment Managers Private Limited and select your Investment Approach Name for viewing the stated disclosure Consistent Compounders Portfolio (CCP) The investment philosophy at Marcellus’ CCP portfolio remains unchanged around portfolio […]
Short read: Jim Simons, Math Genius Who Conquered Wall Street, Dies at 86
Jim Simons is arguably the only investor talked about in the same breath as Warren Buffett in terms of greatness. Indeed, his returns have been way ahead of Buffett’s – a spectacular 66% p.a over three decades. Few people knew about him until Gregory Zuckerman’s 2019 book – The Man Who Solved the Market . Even then […]
Short read: How David Attenborough Went From Delighting at the Natural World to Pleading for Its Future
If you have ever watched wildlife videos, chances are that the voice over in one of them was from the legendary David Attenborough. This is Smithsonian’s preview of an upcoming BBC series titled ‘Mammals’ (check out the teaser video with Coldplay playing in the background), which features Attenborough who seems to be going strong at 98. […]
Short read: The extraordinary legacy of a grounded economist
For several years now, Pramit Bhattacharya has been writing outstanding pieces for Hindustan Times and Mint. His latest column is about one of India’s greatest economist’s, KN Raj. Raj’s son, Gopal Raj allowed Pramit to go through some of Raj’s correspondence (much of it has been destroyed) during a trip to Thiruvananthapuram last year, and […]
Long read: An indelible ink maker looks to make a mark beyond the poll booth
All of us here at Marcellus’ Mumbai offices are quite excited about tomorrow – where we get to exercise our franchise, the power to elect the people who govern our country. Indeed, elections are much like festivals – a celebration of democracy. There’s plenty of discourse and banter among the contestants, their supporters and the […]
Long read: Blue Tokai, Black Baza, Third Wave—Indian entrepreneurs making coffee premium like wine, whiskey
Over the past year we have commented on and invested into the rise of roughly a million super rich Indians (super rich not just by Indian standard but also by Western standards). We call such Indians octopi – see https://marcellus.in/blogs/the-octopus-ascends-the-rise-of-crazy-rich-indians/ One by-product of the rise of the octopi is that niche high value products are increasingly […]
Long read: The Emergence of Mafia-like Business Systems in China
A political scientist who specialises in the Chinese political system mailed us this riveting paper authored a couple of years ago by two academics – Meg Rithmire of HBS and Hao Chen of the University of Southern California. The core thesis of the paper is so close to home that it can serve as the […]
India Stack 2.0: Using AI to Democratize Access to Tech
India’s methodical build of digital public goods, starting with Aadhaar, followed by Jan Dhan (bank accounts for all), and accompanied by affordable mobile connections (courtesy Jio) has led to successes such as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The next step in this journey seems likely to be to ensure that India Stack becomes truly transformative […]
Short read: Reimagining how the Indian state works
Whilst the Indian state has done a remarkable job in delivering physical infrastructure such as roads, power, airports, etc and digital infrastructure over the past decade, there is still much to do on the social infrastructure aspects of healthcare and education. “The annual survey on the state of Indian education that civil society group Pratham […]
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