Rising Giants and Exponential Free Cash Flow Compounding
The road to free cash flow (FCF) compounding is filled with several challenges related to the strength of the business model as well as the capability of the management to grow the business profitably. Hence, only a handful of Indian small-midcap companies manage to generate healthy FCF compounding. Helped by an economic environment conducive for […]
Avesh Khan and the maza of bowling fast
Once upon a time, most of Indian cricket’s big stars used to come from the big cities. The remaking of India has changed that for good – think MS Dhoni, think Jasprit Bumrah, think Mohammad Shami. The rise of fast bowler Avesh Khan, a fast bowler from Indore newly selected to the Indian cricket team, […]
He’s not done yet — Why Kapil Sharma, the mass celebrity, deserved Netflix limelight
Stand-up comedy has benefited from the pandemic as several of us had more time on our hands to laugh at a good joke. In fact, courtesy the internet & smartphones and now OTT, Indian comedians have enjoyed a bull run over the past decade. However, most of these entertainers tend to be “people like us” […]
After Omicron, some scientists foresee ‘a period of quiet’
Given the physical and psychological toll of wave after wave of Covid-19, everybody is seeking deliverance from the pounding. However, given that even the WHO routinely gets its Covid-19 forecasts wrong, one doesn’t know who to believe on this subject. In this piece – taken from the authoritative journal ‘Science’- we look likely to get […]
How Philosophers Think
This essay is an exploration of not just how philosophers think but how laypeople like us think, talk and behave (which is without rigorously thinking through ideas). The essay begins by celebrating philosophers: “Philosophers are the most rigorous thinkers I know.Like intellectual boxers; they come to understand ideas by making them fight with each other. Their […]
The Worldly Turn
By the time you read this, you would have been through the bizarre ritual which constitutes the Union Budget – bizarre not just because in a free market economy like India, the Government’s presentation of its accounts and the modest policy announcements which accompany the accounts should not be an occasion for such hype but […]
Review of “The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future” by Sebastian Mallaby
If a better book on investing is published in 2022, we will open several bottles of something nice to drink. ‘The Power Law’ is rich with insight and helps the reader go to the heart of why venture capital (VC) investing transforms economies and disrupts conventional investing as much as it disrupts industries. Whilst Sebastian […]
How Volatile Funds Cost Investors Dear
High volatility in an equity portfolio creates zones of ‘excitement’ and ‘fear’ based on recent performance. This adversely affects the quality of decision making by equity investors. As a result, historically, investor returns in Indian equity funds have been lower than fund returns across different periods. Similarly, a recent example from the US – NYSE […]
Early concepts of intimacy: Young humans use saliva sharing to infer close relationships
How babies and young children learn about the world around them has been a fertile and fascinating area of research into the human mind. In this remarkable piece of research, six American psychologists teamed up to discover a unique insight: “Young humans are remarkably helpless, relying entirely on the adult humans around them for survival. However, […]
Horses to helicopters, moustache to libraries — Dalit pride in Rajasthan has new wings
At Marcellus, we remain keen observers of social change because far more the GDP growth or the prognostications of economists, social change is often the most telling indicator of lasting economic change. This piece in The Print is in that regard representative of how India is changing. Says Jyoti Yadav: “As media drones circled overhead, thousands […]
The High Cost of an Easy Job
Nick Maggiulli’s from Ritholtz explains in this piece why cushy jobs i.e. jobs where you have to do very little and get paid a lot of money (which are exactly the sort of jobs most people want) can turn you prematurely into a vegetable: “I can see the appeal. Compared to putting in 70+ hour weeks […]
The Trillion-Dollar Gambling Game
Ever since it was created in the early 1990s, the English Premier League (EPL) has had a seedy underbelly wherein black money from Russia and Asia intermingles with betting and cryptocurrency. In this investigative piece, legendary football journalist Philippe Auclair (formerly of The Guardian) digs into the links between the EPL, money laundering, crypto and […]
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