How Can the Stock market be Taken to the Masses?
The two most of common ways of accessing the stock market – mutual funds and brokerage accounts – are relatively expensive for ordinary Indians. If the Indian stock market is to be taken to the masses, the highly successful National Pension Scheme construct looks to be the most likely vehicle which can serve this purpose. […]
Learning from global financials – Part-1: Progressive Corp.
As discussed in our Mar, 2021 newsletter on ICICI Lombard (click here to read), the unique business model of raising cash upfront (at possibly no cost) and earning income on it for extended periods of time makes a well-run general insurer an attractive business to own. In this newsletter we discuss Progressive Corp., an American auto insurer established […]
Don’t Wish for Happiness. Work for It.
Arthur Brooks writes this wonderful column for The Atlantic about “How to Build a Life” – in this piece he argues why we need to work for our happiness very unlike the Stoic thought: “In his 1851 work American Notebooks, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, “Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object […]
All about setting up a living trust
Some of our clients who manage their own investments rather than with the help of a wealth manager seem to struggle with one aspect – succession planning. Many have realised the need for the same through Covid. Whilst the services of a specialist estate planner is recommended, this article in the BusinessLine by Sonali Pradhan […]
Shein exemplifies a new style of Chinese multinational
Robert Siegel’s new book “The Brains and Brawn company” talks about how neither the new age all-digital company has a right to win nor is the brick and mortar incumbent hopelessly vulnerable to disruption – a successful business needs the best of both. In our fund specific newsletters, we have talked about how our portfolio companies have continuously […]
The Triumph and Terror of Wang Huning
As we continue to peel the layers of the Chinese onion, we found this brilliant piece which attempts to answer what is behind all the recent crackdown by the Chinese state on tech monopolies or rather who is behind it. Whilst there is no doubt it is Xi Jinping’s Common Prosperity programme, this article in […]
How to write with style
At Marcellus we care deeply about thinking, talking and writing clearly. Not only does it allow us to communicate better with the outside world, it also forces us to clarify our thinking. So, when we found a piece by one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, Kurt Vonnegut, on how to write well, we […]
Electric vehicles: the revolution is finally here
The last 12 months has seen an extraordinary surge in demand for EVs – not just expensive EVs like Tesla but also regular non-descript EVs: “Electric vehicles still only make up about 1 per cent of the global fleet of passenger cars, but sales are taking off rapidly. Within four years, one quarter of new cars […]
Valuing stocks: why investors should look harder at expectations
Valuing stocks is often a tricky exercise which is why most market participants take the easy route of using multiples, the shortcomings of which we have discussed at length in our newsletters – here and here. Whilst in theory, the value of a company is the present value of its future cashflows, in practice it is less of […]
How ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Started a New Debate About Sexism in Chess
At last month’s Emmy awards, Netflix won a whopping 44 awards compared to HBO’s 19 showing how streaming TV had come around to dominate. A quarter of those came from the brilliant limited series “The Queen’s Gambit” about a female chess player and the struggles she faced on her path to glory. This article in […]
Xi’s Changing Plan
Plenty has been written and plenty more will be written about the Chinese unravelling starting with the failed Ant Financial IPO to the crackdown on edtech companies and most recently the collapse of real estate developer Evergrande. Yet, the opacity of the Chinese regime means it isn’t easy to get to the reality on the […]
How a stellar team of economists transformed India in the 1990s
Often economists are criticised for lacking a practical approach to policy making given the reality of the political economy. But this is a story to the contrary, about how a team of economists were instrumental in transforming the Indian economy from the brink in the 90’s, a decade that saw the rise of coalition politics. […]
For more content on our strategy, visit the archives GO TO ARCHIVES