China’s Growth Sacrifice
Whilst some of us might view the western media’s take on the Chinese economic implosion as an exaggeration, our meetings with people close to the coal face on our recent trip to the Far East suggested otherwise. Things seem to be unravelling thick and fast driven by factors – economic, financial and political which we […]
A post-dollar world is coming
The recent dollar rally amidst the US experiencing high inflation has been perplexing market participants with the only explanation being the dollar’s safe haven status. As Ruchir Sharma argues in this article, some of this is a result of investors taking risk off the table given the current market volatility and parking themselves in cash […]
War and Industrial Policy
Zoltan Pozsar, a strategist at Credit Suisse is soon becoming one of the most followed albeit controversial voices on the emerging global geopolitical scene. Pozsar’s recent pieces on the future of the dollar-based global financial order is known for its big bold calls with fairly in-depth analysis and brilliantly written narratives. His most recent piece […]
How Mondragon Became the World’s Largest Co-Op
By any conventional yardstick, Mondragon is a colossal conglomerate: Mondragon’s “…collection of co-ops employs around eighty thousand people, and seventy-six per cent of those who work in manufacturing co-ops are owners. One makes bicycles at an industrial scale; others make elevators or produce huge industrial machines used in the production of jet engines, rockets, and wind […]
Capital Group: the slow-moving giant in dangerous waters
Four years ago when we created Marcellus’ business plan, Charles Ellis’ superb book on the Capital Group, ‘Capital: The Story of Long-Term Investment Excellence’, was an invaluable resource for us. As the only global fund management house which has truly managed to hold its own in an era characterised by the rise of index funds, Capital’s […]
Sporting Success Captures India’s Rise Better Than GDP Growth
Whilst investors tend to focus on economic metrics such as GDP growth to measure a country’s progress, an equally effective way to assess the rise of a nation is its success in sports – not just highly commercialized sports like cricket but also more physically strenous disciplines like athletics, wrestling, weightlifting, etc. which require intense […]
Three Glorious Years of Compounding
In Little Champs’ third anniversary newsletter, we dissect the portfolio’s performance and the key drivers thereof. On the whole, our stock selection – including the calls on exits and fresh additions – appear to have been on the mark. However, there are important learnings over the last three years around: (1) more robust evaluation of […]
The End of the Manual Transmission Is Near. Here’s Why.
Some readers, especially those who learnt to drive over the last decade or so in India, perhaps two or more in the west, might wonder if the title of this article is a bit redundant. Isn’t manual transmission already dead? Well, for all practical purposes, yes, as its share of new vehicles is already miniscule. […]
Ben Bernanke and Edward Chancellor square off on monetary policy
Central banks in the west, in particular the Federal Reserve have been under attack from critics for keeping interest rates too low for far too long and using unconventional monetary policy tools. In this piece, The Economist reviews too books that represent the views of the critics and the central banks in contrast. First, ‘The […]
Tinder struggles to attract younger users as Gen Z singles look to new apps
In January 2022, we highlighted in 3 Longs & 3 Shorts Jonathan Knee’s book, ‘The Platform Delusion’ – see https://marcellus.in/story/review-of-dr-jonathan-knees-book-the-platform-delusion-who-wins-and-who-loses-in-the-age-of-tech-titans/ .To quote from our Jan ’22 piece: “In specific, here are our key takeaways from this thought-provoking book: Barring Facebook, the FAANGS and other so called “platforms” like Uber and AirBnB don’t seem to benefit significantly from network […]
Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930)
We were discussing the bizarre situation of an impending recession amidst labour shortages in the west with a bunch of clients recently. Soon the discussion moved to how the world, especially the west will likely move from a minimum wage set-up to a minimum work environment to coax people who have excused themselves out of […]
How Serena Williams dominated tennis and transformed it
For several years now, Menaka Guruswamy, an advocate at the Supreme Court of India, has been writing a superb column in that most readable of India’s newspapers, the Indian Express. In this inspirational piece she celebrates one of the most remarkable sporting icons of the 21st century: Serena Williams. After narrating Serena’s mind-boggling career stats (eg. […]
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