Weekly Readings - Dec 16, 2018

Must Read

Understanding RBI
https://finception.in/markets/in-defence-of-the-rbi/

The 100 Great Innovations of 2018
https://www.popsci.com/best-of-whats-new-2018

Investing 

Surviving The Investing Game

https://www.safalniveshak.com/presentation-surviving-investing-game/

Choice of Financial Writings of 2018

https://ofdollarsanddata.com/my-favorite-investment-writing-of-2018/

Ethics: Buybacks & The New Kind of Frauds

https://www.albertbridgecapital.com/drew-views/2018/12/10/share-buybacks-bad-companies-and-bear-markets

3 Things To Learn From Market Speculator Victor Niederhoffer
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettsteenbarger/2018/12/09/three-things-i-have-learned-from-victor-niederhoffer/

SIP

https://themfguy.wordpress.com/2018/12/04/seasons-market-cycles-and-your-sip-tenure/

Relearning from Buffett
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/781363/relearning-lessons-from-buffetts-best-essay-

Learning From Other Peoples Experience
www.stockandladder.com/my-key-notes-from-2nd-value-investing-pioneers-summit/

Dollar Liquidity and Equity Markets
http://worldoutofwhack.com/2018/12/13/equity-market-needs-liquidity/

Business

The Beauty Business of Korea

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/business/the-cult-of-k

Patu Keswani, Founder, Lemon Tree Hotels
https://www.outlookbusiness.com/specials/dont-feel-ashamed-or-embarrassed-in-admitting-that-you-know-nothing-4783

Economics

The leg of economic cycle
https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2018/12/06/russell-napier-equity-markets-and-structural-change/

Sweden Economics: High-tax, high-spend, and successful start-ups 

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/09/sweden-startups/541413/

Four Quadrants Framework for Market Cycle
http://worldoutofwhack.com/2018/12/10/charts-that-matter-13/

Offbeat

Life Of A Former Mossad Agent

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2177775/life-and-times-former-mossad-agent-and-what-he

Opinion: Pakistan and Its Headache

https://www.dawn.com/news/1446103/dont-surrender-to-mob-rule

Andaman: Where India Watches China

http://www.atimes.com/article/where-india-quietly-watches-china-at-sea/

Dr Elon & Mr Musk

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/

Google's Game Learning AI

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/google-ai-deepminds-alphazero-games-chess-and-go-180970981/

Propaganda & Media Manipulation

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/07/china-plan-for-global-media-dominance-propaganda-xi-jinping

Sociology

Lack of Humanity: Bangladeshi Hindus

https://swarajyamag.com/magazine/bangladeshi-hindus-living-on-the-run

Lack of Humanity: Uighur Muslims

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/china-holds-million-uighur-muslims-concentration-camps-180912105738481.html

Technology

Chips Don't Reduce Credit Card Frauds
http://fortune.com/2018/11/05/credit-card-chips-fail-to-halt-fraud-survey-says/

The DEA and ICE are hiding surveillance cameras in streetlights. Just because you are on street and cant see a camera don't think no one is watching you.
https://qz.com/1458475/the-dea-and-ice-are-hiding-surveillance-cameras-in-streetlights/

Security

Understanding Why Cyber Terrorism is Uncommon
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/11/what_happened_t.html

Fake News & Propaganda: Undermining Democracies
https://www.lawfareblog.com/information-attacks-democracies

Surveillance Kills Freedom By Killing Experimentation
https://www.wired.com/story/mcsweeneys-excerpt-the-right-to-experiment/

Undermining Democracies and Trusts
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mbyg3x/the-most-damaging-election-disinformation-campaign-came-from-donald-trump-not-Russia

Why We Should Pay For Softwares
https://boingboing.net/2018/11/26/candy-from-strangers.html

Chatbots Are a Danger to Democracy
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/opinion/chatbots-ai-democracy-free-speech.html

Safety of Data online is a Myth
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/12/what-the-marriott-breach-says-about-security/

New Australian Backdoor Law: Privacy is Theory
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/12/new_australian_.html

Essential reason for a Security Key
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/12/iranian-phishers-bypass-2fa-protections-offered-by-yahoo-mail-and-gmail/

For Deep Technical Interest

Google & Collaboration against Cybercrime
https://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/3ve_google_whiteops_whitepaper_final_nov_2018.pdf

NSA Archives
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cyber-vault/2018-12-04/cyber-brief-nsas-cryptolog

AI Annual Report
https://ainowinstitute.org/AI_Now_2018_Report.pdf

Weekly Readings - Dec 9, 2018

Economics & Psychology

Prediction Fallacy? RBI Monetary Policy
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/10-key-takeaways-from-rbi-monetary-policy-3257021.html?

Drip, Drip, Drip
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/drip-drip-drip/

Seth Klarman at HBS
https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-bulletin.aspx?

Drums of Battle:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/05/canada-reportedly-arrests-huawei-cfo-facing-us-extradition-for-violating-iran-sanctions.html?

Aswath Damodaran on Yields
http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2018/12/is-there-signal-in-noise-yield-curves.html?

Investments:

Basant Maheshwari Letter to the Investors for 2019
http://rakesh-jhunjhunwala.in/basant-maheshwari-reveals-stock-picks-multibagger-strategy-for-2019/

Dogma Galore. Warren Buffett has said, value and growth “are joined at the hip.” And some have forgotten how Graham had evolved.
Read 1: http://fortune.com/longform/value-investing-warren-buffett-tech-stocks/
Read 2: https://acquirersmultiple.com/2018/12/charles-munger-why-did-ben-grahams-net-nets-disappear/

Is long term investing overrated.
https://themfguy.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/is-long-term-investing-overrated/

Learning From People: ScuttleButt
https://janav.wordpress.com/2018/12/03/on-scuttlebutt/

The Human Problem of Investments
https://eightytwentyinvestor.com/2018/12/05/a-guilty-father-who-shot-his-own-kid-ancient-greek-philosophers-us-navy-seals-and-the-art-of-handling-a-market-fall/

Why Investors Should Watch Fund Flows
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/903248/flowmageddon-why-investors-should-watch-fund-flows.html

For Quants:

Trend Following on Steroids
https://alphaarchitect.com/2018/12/07/trend-following-on-steroids/?

How to Use Trend Following within a Portfolio
https://alphaarchitect.com/2018/12/04/how-to-use-trend-following-within-a-portfolio/?

Measuring Factor Exposures: Uses and Abuses
https://alphaarchitect.com/2018/12/03/measuring-factor-exposures-uses-and-abuses/?

Everybody’s Doing It: Short Volatility Strategies and Shadow Financial Insurers
https://alphaarchitect.com/2018/11/19/short-volatility-strategies-are-extensive-and-widespread/

Ethics:

The One Time Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was Caught.
https://www.sebi.gov.in/enforcement/orders/nov-2018/settlement-order-in-respect-of-mr-rakesh-jhunjhunwala-in-the-matter-of-geometric-limited_41191.html

Quitting Yes Bank
https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/deep-concern-dismay-and-distress-why-r-chandrashekhar-quit-yes-banks-board

SFIO interim report blows the lid off extent of fraud in IL&FS
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/companies/exclusive-sfio-interim-report-blows-the-lid-on-extent-of-fraud-in-ilfs-3253211.html

About Businesses:

Why India’s Airlines Struggle to Take Off?
https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/why-india-s-airlines-can-t-turn-growth-into-profits

Shipping Cycle and GE
https://deveshkayal.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/ge-shipping-cycle-turning-favourable/?

PSU Petrol pump dealership – What is the eligibility and how to apply?
https://myinvestmentideas.com/2018/12/psu-petrol-pump-dealership-what-is-the-eligibility-and-how-to-apply/

ABB Group
https://www.fortuneindia.com/enterprise/from-automation-to-autonomous/102708?

Pain in Real Estate
https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/real-estate-developers-pin-hopes-on-holidaying-nris-for-a-christmas-miracle-118120501332_1.html?

HCL Technologies
https://www.livemint.com/Companies/ON6ssZvJbSE3ubLhxClS7L/HCL-Technologies-to-buy-certain-IBM-software-assets-for-18.html

Offbeat:

Career Advice - Seth Klarman
https://community.intelligentfanatics.com/t/seth-klarmans-career-advice/1468

Writing for yourself
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/selfish-writing/

An Interpretation of Stated Odds
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/an-interpretation-of-stated-odds/

Long Overdue: Noel Tata
www.mydigitalfc.com/companies-and-markets/noel-tata-may-be-new-chief-tata-trusts

The Only Duo To Achieve Level 11 at Google
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship-that-made-google-huge

Farming & Living
https://www.thebetterindia.com/166039/india-farmer-income-double-method-land-maharashtra-news/

An excerpt from a Lounge columnist’s new book of personal essays that addresses the tragedies and comedies of conjugal life: Immortal for a Moment
https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/CDiHWOHW6N0JlFDbXkKJEM/Learning-to-be-properly-married.html

Biased but Funny
www.mediacrooks.com/2018/12/naturally-stupid_7.html

Gorbachev on George Bush
http://time.com/5471437/mikhail-gorbachev-george-hw-bush-war-peace/

Sociology

Brevity is the soul of Twitter: The constraint affordance and political discussion
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3287552

American Journalist vs Imran Khan. An Interesting interview of a reasonable head of state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/pakistani-leader-to-the-us-were-not-your-hired-gun-anymore/2018/12/06/e138790c-f8a5-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html

Why the Maratha reservation is unlikely to survive a constitutional challenge
https://caravanmagazine.in/policy/maratha-sixteen-percent-reservation-constitutionality

The France Protests
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-yellow-vests-and-why-there-are-so-many-street-protests-in-france

Seoul vs Tokyo: Playing Victims & Remembering Phantoms
www.atimes.com/article/seoul-tokyo-brawl-could-blow-up-into-economic-war/

Fake News: The Myth of Babur Building Babri Masjid
https://madrascourier.com/insight/babur-the-baburnama-the-masjid-that-bore-his-name/

Weekly Readings - Dec 2, 2018

Economics: 

Ajit Ranade, Group Executive President and Chief Economist with the Aditya Birla Group
"Elections are important in the minds of the investors, but in terms of the long-term structural features of the economy, they actually are impervious to electoral cycles."
https://www.morningstar.in/posts/49756/indian-economy.aspx?

Indian MBA graduates are getting less and less employable. The problem of valuing paper over knowledge.
https://qz.com/india/1473437/indian-mba-graduates-get-less-employable-engineers-improving/

Others: What Indian Unicorn Founders Earn
https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/what-indian-unicorn-founders-earn?

Society should not only be judged by merely its action but also its leaders.
Leaders are equally reponsible in organisations where unethical culture at flourishes during good times.
https://knowledge.insead.edu/responsibility/the-critical-consequences-of-culture-9981?

Possible Trend: 

Bajaj's quadricycle Qute set to roll out in Feb
https://www.rediff.com/business/report/bajajs-quadricycle-qute-set-to-roll-out-in-feb/20181127.htm?

Some Indian restaurants have lost their appetite for Zomato and Swiggy
https://qz.com/india/1476477/keralas-restaurants-oppose-zomato-swiggy-foodpanda-uber-eats/

Why majority of the business from fortune 1000 may shut shop in next decade?
http://worldoutofwhack.com/2018/12/02/60-of-fortune-1000-companies-will-be-out-of-business-in-just-next-10-years-2/

Investing: 

Why bother forecasting cash flows?
https://intrinsicinvesting.com/2018/11/26/bother-forecasting-cash-flows/?

Asset Allocation Matters! Patient Capital: The Key To Long-Term Wealth Creation
https://www.financialsamurai.com/patient-capital-is-the-key-to-long-term-wealth/?

Investing chat with Safir Anand
https://www.stockandladder.com/investing-chat-with-safir-anand/?

Stocks PE don't matter
https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2018/11/26/the-nifty-fifty/?

Why Sell-Side Analyts don't Matter
https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/stock-valuations-don-t-matter-much-in-emerging-markets#gs.cjh0uv8

What Bear Markets Look Like
https://avc.com/2018/11/what-bear-markets-look-like/?

Forecats Folly?: Bull run finale for global stocks not far off now: Reuters poll
https://in.reuters.com/article/us-stocks-global-poll/bull-run-finale-for-global-stocks-not-far-off-now-reuters-poll-idINKCN1NY00L?

What can make Debt Mutual Fund's Risky? This can kick your yields but at a higher cost defeating the purpose of debt funds. Greedy investors
https://www.moneylife.in/article/mutual-funds-have-also-lent-to-dhfl-promoters-holding-company-just-like-yes-banks-rana-kapoor/55811.html

SME Investing
http://alphaideas.in/2018/11/26/investor-pespectives-on-sme-investing/

The proposition for Multi-Asset Fund
http://alphaideas.in/2018/11/26/what-if/

The consistency of Fund Manager is Important in Real Estate
http://www.forbesindia.com/article/work-in-progress/aditya-birla-real-estate-funds-fund-blues/51891/1?

Among the most important advice
https://www.lynalden.com/build-wealth/


Businesses:

Graphite India
http://www.forbesindia.com/article/india-rich-list-2018/graphite-india-historical-arc/51909/1?

Ethics

Facebook, WhatsApp and Making Money
http://www.forbesindia.com/article/cross-border/whats-up-with-brian-acton/51841/1

Google Underseige?
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/27/18114285/google-employee-china-censorship-protest-project-dragonfly-search-engine-letter

RBI & YES Bank Spat: Management Problems
https://www.livemint.com/Companies/RsYblL17i5P0jjJ5nYSoIO/Yes-Bank-share-price-Rana-Kapoor-Yes-Bank-news-RBI.html?

SEBI To Nail PMS Fund Managers For Duping Public With Bogus Buy Recommendations
http://rakesh-jhunjhunwala.in/sebi-to-nail-pms-fund-managers-for-duping-public-with-bogus-buy-recommendations/?

Kotak Bank & Uday Kotak
https://www.livemint.com/Money/D1Ap4xqvPDixGENYfGkcHN/Uday-Kotak-stake-in-Kotak-Mahindra-Bank-has-investors-on-edg.html?

Technology playing God, lacking understanding.:
Google plans to wipe mosquitoes off the face of the Earth
https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/google-plans-to-wipe-mosquitoes-off-the-face-of-the-earth/story/295671.html

Yes Bank - "Financial Innovation"
https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/FKqEqU4ds88WnaRpNOLm1N/Opinion--India-misses-wakeup-call-from-ILFS-default.html 

Other

Money Matters: IL&FS Default Spreads to common lives?
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/banking/finance/ilfs-india-employees-detained-in-ethiopia-by-unpaid-local-staff/articleshow/66869614.cms?

Hate-Crime
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/27/how-the-murders-of-two-elderly-jewish-women-shook-france-antisemitism-mireille-knoll-sarah-halimi?

Military's Close Proximity
http://www.atimes.com/article/djibouti-the-casablanca-of-a-new-cold-war/?

History: The industrialists behind India’s first national economic plan
https://qz.com/india/1464869/the-story-of-jrd-tata-gd-birlas-bombay-plan-for-india/

Views

Bangladeshis in US
https://www.browngirlmagazine.com/2018/11/raising-my-bangladeshi-american-family-in-detroit-what-a-new-mural-means-to-us/?

What to look for in an annual report?
https://janav.wordpress.com/2018/11/24/what-to-look-for-while-reading-the-annual-report/?

View on Valuations
https://www.stallionasset.com/blog/a-valuation-view/?

Is WikiLeaks a Russian Front? The idea that the putative transparency group served as a connection between Moscow and the president’s associates is starting to become clearer.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/wikileaks-trump-mueller-roger-stone-jerome-corsi/576940/ 

Weekly Reading: Nov 25, 2018

Sociology

How smartphone has changed photography & the concept of storing memory

A review of Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

The Story of Drone 

The Law & Order Problem: Mexico's Mass Graves

Yemen: Spared from politics but fell to Nature

Economics

Rags to Riches or Passion, Luck and Being Smart has no substitutes?

Macro-Economy Gloom Report

Charles Munger on Economics & Economists

Investments

How to benchmark: Learning from Hedge Fund 

Understanding Risk: Simplified

Is it possible to Time the market?

Lifecycle of a company

Stock picking & Portfolio construction

Common Misconceptions of stock market

Understanding investments through 19th century art dealers

Others

It's not always that people could share about life lessons and also talk about it in an interesting way for the reader/listener. R Gopalakrishnan, Former director, Tata Son

Self improvement: How a Former Canadian Spy Helps Wall Street Mavens Think Smarter

Why multi-disciplinary knowledge is important -- Leonardo Da Vinci

Threat to UK from Organised Crime

Politics 

Gossip of a Payback?

Pages from History: Deng Xiaoping

Trump & The Prince

Point of View

Indian Stock Market: Market view: Be cautious

Personal Finance: When most money advice is bogus

US Stock Market & Alternative Investment: On Current Market 

Fixed Income: Value in credit market is yet to come

Definition of a company -- Steve Jobs

Weekly Readings - Nov 18, 2018

Reading During The Week --

Sociology

A column that discusses the misuse of social media

While broad principles are important. Being dogmatic about is a problem

Economics

Ritesh Jain points shares a summary of a speech given by Ray Dalio and highlights some of the interesting perspectives for Indians. (original speech published in Baron)

Indian consumers will never benefit from oil price moving down

Investing 

Berkshire Could Be A Rest Home For Activists

Investing Lessons from GE's 15 years of wealth destruction

The importance of doing one's homework instead of looking for a shortcut

History of Corporate "Misadventures" in India

Twelve Investment Contradictions

Things You See During Every Market Correction

Technology

Identifying Fake Videos

Phone privacy or the lack of it

US: The voting machine 

The New Strategy of Fighting the virus menace

Google Blog -- Combating the new format of Fraud

The "smart home" is the all-surveillance network.

Legislative research

Central Police Forces: Overview and Issues

Indian Railways: Freight System
(This holds an important aspect in order to value the commercial transport business)

Off-Beat

Former CIA Chief Explains How Spies Use Disguises

Why I disagree with Demonetisation!

I guess by now most people in India would have learnt and been aware of the term 'de-monetization'.

For those who are not, allow me to explain in simple terms. De-monetization means banning a currency or banning a specific denomination of currency. So when Germany gave up its currency to use Euro then it was de-monetization and when in India the higher denomination currency of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 was demonitized then it was banned from 9th of November 2016.

Most people are very upbeat about it. I will not go not their reasons but you can read here, here,

some believe it was too soon like here and some think that it was wrong like here, etc. (the rest you can search on google if you want to read about it).

The reason I think it was wrong was because it wasn't thought through. I think demonetization was stage 6 or 7 among the financial reforms, more like the last step to integrate the country and we jumped to it at number 3.

1. Jan dhan yojna and opening of account
2. Payment banks
3. Declaration of black money
4. GST implementation (1 year)
5. Change in tax law so that digital transaction is taxed lower and cash is taxed higher. (implement it for 6 months to 1 year)
6. Bankruptcy laws are made stronger and real estate laws are also implemented
7. Ban higher currency like Rs 1000 and Rs 500. (The reason shouldn't be to bring in new notes, etc. but it should be to digitize the currency.) Around the same time all airports/banks/currency-exchange shops should have a prepaid card for tourists. 

While intention (black economy) behind this may have been correct. It is my belief that this measure is merely a temporary shock, which will mostly affect the 'not so smart' government officials; small level businessmen; and the village/small town people who don't have banks and facility of electronic transaction. History shows despite such measure being taken in the past -- Quartz, The Quint and Mint -- as we still had the problem in 2016. And besides the government has already announced that it will bring in new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2000, hence it would be a matter of time when people will bring this stack to the parallel economy.

The reason I believe, that demonetization should have been done after digitalisation had reached beyond the top 20 cities is because then it would be clear that large transaction is something that should be done in electronic form. Then a crack-down would have been less costly and more effective. Mint has done a wonderful story on  the cost of demonetization. 

And I am interested to know what are other citizen's story. 

My maid has a problem she doesn't have any cash and we are also tight on the cash aspect so my flatmate has instructed the maid to let us know what all she requires at home and we will get it from bigbazaar or a bigger shop that uses debit card facility.

Heard from a friend: Someone was about to get married on Sunday, and hence was going to pay all his vendor in cash, but now is sitting on 500/1000 notes and he will have to go to the bank once it opens to change all currency and also explain why he has so much of cash. 

Book Summary and Notes - Manual of Ideas.

The book, 'The Manual of Ideas', is an interesting book for experienced investors. The books discusses specific value investing strategies for generating ideas to pick stocks. Though these ideas are not new, as they have been written in classics such as - Security Analysis, Investment Fables, Little Book That Beats the Market, etc.

The Manual of Ideas discusses these ideas in context of modern stock picking discipline.

Given below are the short notes and my views on the different topics explained in the book. 

Q & A with Nilesh Shah, Managing Director, Kotak Mutual Fund

In January 2015, what started with murmurs got confirmed when it was announced that Mr. Nilesh Shah has joined Kotak AMC as the Managing Director. In his previous assignments, he has held leadership roles with Axis Capital, ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company, Franklin Templeton and ICICI securities. 

He shares his vision for Kotak AMC and his views on the market along with the reason why he wrote an open letter to Jim Rogers. (You can read that letter here)