The Weekend Bulletin (#32)
A digest of some interesting reading material from around the world-wide-web. Your weekly dose of multi-disciplinary reading.
Hola!!
A couple of announcements before we get to business:
For a long time, this issue has been a monologue between us. Maybe we managed to have some one-one conversation, but as a community we have been rather silent. It's time to change that now. Starting the previous issue, I have opened up the comments section. This will help us all to share our views on a particular topic in an issue, or share further reading on a subject covered in the issue. If you are feeling generous, you can even let me know what you think about the issue via the comments. I hereby encourage you to share your thoughts, although I request you to not use the comments to shame/target anyone. I will try and moderate the comments to the best of my abilities.
Ancient wisdom says that when you get good advice, follow it. And that is exactly what I am going to be doing from this issue onwards. In case you haven't noticed, I have dropped the 'Vol. 1' from the title of the bulletin. I had some idea about how I wanted to use the Volume information when I started this bulletin, but over time I realised that it was an unnecessary repetition, especially in the subject line. Therefore, I have decided to drop it completely. (h/t: Baidik for the nudge)
I understand that not everyone may want to give advice or feedback directly. I have therefore created a short feedback survey that I would encourage you to kindly fill. It will not take more than 3-4 minutes of your time. But the feedback will be very valuable to me in making this bulletin better. I will add the survey for a couple of more issues for everyone to fill, and then close it. I also promise to summarise the survey findings for everyone to see (although your individual feedback will be known only to me).
[As a gesture of thank you, I will be giving out a book each to five of the most helpful feedbacks that I receive. This book can either be one that I select, or one of your choice, subject to a maximum value of INR 1,000 per book].
Let's get on with business now
Section 1: Investing Wisdom
He was interested in the sciences. He graduated in computer science and mathematics. He works as a software engineer at Google. Somewhere along the way, though, he stumbled onto investing. And he has held on to it since. This podcast outlines the journey, philosophy, and lessons of a self-taught investor. His views on the tech businesses and disruptions are especially interesting.
Some moats are easy to identify, like brand, cost advantage, Â network effects etc. But what about softer aspects that lead to better return ratios, like culture, efficiency etc? Can these even be classified as a moat? This article debates that there are invisible moats that are worth looking out for.
For instance consider this narrative on the intensive training that new joinees at Toyota used to undergo once. While Toyota was always known for small improvements in operating processes, this detail provides a completely different perspective. The success was not in small improvements, but in the way that those improvements came about. A long but highly recommended read.
Most investors pay a lot of attention to due diligence before purchasing an investment. Some of them, however, misunderstand the buy-and-hold adage as buy-and-forget. This article explains the importance of 'maintenance' due diligence with a real example. Authored by a friend.
Shameless Plug: I recently penned my thoughts about something that Benjamin Graham said in the 1950's - 'In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.' This is a part of a series that I intend to cover over time about one of my favourite investing adages, 'Investing is simple, but not easy'. In this series, I intend to write about the various factors that test the simple tenets of investing, making their implementation not so easy for investors. The first one in this series is called, Simple But Not Easy:Â Casting a Vote vs Weighing Options. [Have feedback? Leave a comment below]
Section 2:Â Mental Models & Behavioral Biases
There is so much going on in the markets these days. Heightened volatility, sharp uni-directional moves, and widespread uncertainty are high grounds for making mistakes. Understanding and remembering our own behavioural pitfalls at such a time can be helpful in avoiding future regret. This article explains some of these pitfalls that are easy to fall prey to.
Section 3: Personal Development
Last week we learnt how daydreaming, or letting our minds wander, is important for ideation. Taking this thought forward, here's a ted talk about how boredom can help us improve focus and creativity. I loved this quote from the video:
"If you look at what allows traffic to move down a highway, isn't how fast cars are moving. It's how much space exists between the cars".
Our fast paced lives have often been compared to the hedonic treadmill: the faster we run to move forward, the more we stay in the same place (also referred to as The Red Queen Effect). In the quest for a better tomorrow we often forget to live for the today. We often look forward to have so much that we forget that the things that we have are the things that we looked forward to having in the past. A pause may be worthwhile, suggests this nicely illustrated article: Life is a picture, but you live in a pixel.
Section 4: Trivia
There has been a lot of talk about reducing carbon footprint over the last decade. I was surprised to find that one country has managed to achieve quite a bit on this front:
And while I thought that they had substituted coal with some other fossil fuel, that doesn’t seem to be the case:
More interesting data points in this thread.
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That’s all we have for this issue. Once again, please do take some time out to fill the feedback form.
Have a wonderful weekend!!
- Tejas Gutka
[June 27, 2020]
week end bulletin is insightful not only about business and stockmarket but also about whole in general i have changed many of my habits about investing and looking life in general after i started reading the bulletin,mind you i have been an active particepent in stockmarket for the last 30 yrs still i feel there is so much to read and learn ,thank you for the effort of collecting and sharing the information.
Hi Tejas, great compilation. What’s most impressive is how you have been able to pull all the articles together with a two line summary of each! Is there a system you follow for storing / saving these articles for future reference? Would love to know your method.