Long read: Beyond words: The 200-year-old hidden languages of dating
In this fascinating piece, Molly Gorman & William Park describe how Europeans have been flirting and propositioning each other over the past couple of centuries. The remarkable thing is that not much has changed over those five centuries. 18th century England is where the idea of a “marriage market” i.e. a market where men & women […]
Ninth Commandment: Build trust with relationships & experiences outside your comfort zone
Summary: Build relationships with a broad range of people especially people who are outside your community and/your comfort zone. [To find out what the Ten Commandments of Indian Entrepreneurship are, please click here: https://marcellus.in/blogs/the-ten-commandments-of-entrepreneurship-in-india/] “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying […]
Portfolio performance and update on fundamentals – June 2025
Global Compounders Portfolio (GCP): June was a constructive month for the portfolio and the broader index. However, the portfolio underperformed the index by approximately 190 bps, as markets were led higher by a sharp rebound in a handful of large-cap semiconductor names—despite elevated valuations. In contrast, our more defensive holdings, including Waste Connections, Berkshire Hathaway, […]
Short read: Russia is paying schoolgirls to have babies. Why is pronatalism on the rise around the world?
The title might sound like an extreme case of pronatalisim – a policy that supports higher birth rates. But it is on the rise across the world – from Chief Ministers of South Indian states to Donald Trump himself – governments are exhorting people to have more babies. “In some parts of Russia, schoolgirls who […]
Short read: Ode to America – A Personal History of American Finance
Warren Buffett attributes his success to his ovarian lottery – the fact that he was born in America, well captured in his now famous quote “Never bet against America”. This essay by Marc Rubenstein details this brilliantly – “Today, the US accounts for 4% of the world’s population, 27% of its GDP and 60% of its market […]
Short read: Chinese J-20 isn’t just a fighter jet—it’s a signal to US, Japan and India
As Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd valiantly tries to commission a fighter jet it has been working on since 1971, China’s fighter jet program threatens to pull ahead of America’s. That should be of interest to us not least because China sells these same fighter jets to Pakistan. Sana Hashmi writes for The Print: “A recent China […]
Long read: Blind to Disruption – The CEOs Who Missed the Future
No other technology in history came close to being the most broad-based disruptive threat for so many industries as much as AI. Hence, this essay from Steve Blank is a timely reminder for company managements and investors alike. Blank uses Clayton Christensen’s disruption model, beautifully illustrated in his brilliant book “Innovator’s Dilemma” to take us through the […]
Long read: That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was on Purpose
We have all been there – on calls to customer service agents of banks or airlines or widget manufacturers or government departments; calls on which we are kept “on hold” for hours and then when we finally get to speak to an agent, we are presented with a complication or some sort of pre-qualification process […]
Long read: ‘You can’t be the player’s friend’: inside the secret world of tennis umpires
If you think your job is stressful you should try being a professional tennis umpire. This riveting long read in The Guardian from William Ralston first gives you a brief history of how paid full time professional umpires were created in the mid-80s to referee tennis matches (after things had crazy over the previous decade […]
Global Compounders: Greatness and Value Capture
Marcellus’ Global Compounders Portfolio (GCP) strategically invests in 25-35 deeply moated global companies aligned with megatrends which aid the delivery of mid-to-high teens compounding of free cash flow/earnings. To identify such compounders, one of the markers that we look for is the amount of value companies are able to capture from broader opportunities. This is […]
Short read: Unsung History: The Merchants Who Controlled the Chola Empire
The nexus between business and government isn’t a modern phenomenon. This fascinating piece about Indian history gives us a glimpse of one of India’s dominant kingdoms, almost a millennium and a half ago, when trade flourished and contributed to the success of the rulers. It refers to the Chola empire and its famous merchants, collectively […]
Short read: I’ve Spent My Life Measuring Risk. AI Rings Every One of My Alarm Bells
Paul Tudor Jones is amongst the most accomplished hedge fund managers in the world. And by definition, a ‘hedge’ fund manager is meant to know a thing or two about managing or hedging risk. And here he is ringing alarm bells about AI and the risks it poses to humanity. He starts by talking about […]
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