Weekend readings - 7 May, 2021 : Edition 40

A compilation of few interesting, multi-disciplinary reading links from the internet

I am ditching the regular “5-section” newsletter for this week. It has been incredibly busy last month with some sort of normalcy returning for my reading in the past few days. I will revert to the regular format from next week.

Let’s start the newsletter with one of my favourite quotes given the current background of Dogecoin gaining across the board:

“Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.” —John Maynard Keynes.

The big event of the last weekend was the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting (podcast form here for the full session). Three key takeaways (and full notes here those who want to read) were : (a) Berkshire was a wuss during last year’s crash (b) Berkshire is buying stock aggressively since then (c) Buffet assures Investing is not easy.

The critiques of B&M style of investing is growing in the last few years due to their underperformance in beating S&P and as ability to not go with the trend changes has hit their portfolio returns. Joshua Brown elaborates more on this how both of these legendary investors take on the markets is becoming less significant. However, the more nasty rebuttal came from Robinhood PR folks who in no less words let B&M know how their company has actually allowed Americans to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Moving on to more relevant things to Investing, Deloitte was out with their annual report on digital trends. In a tech boom we are facing in the last few years, this comes as no surprise. The next wave of disruption may lie with Generation Z—who prefers to play video games, stream music, and engage on social media, rather than just watch TV or movies.

Staying on the tech boom, Google provided an update on their hybrid approach to work after pandemic-hit again in many parts of the world specially India and Brazil. year with 3-2 day split of office-home. This is a nice incentive for people who are working from home under the stress of contracting the virus!

Talking about incentives in Investing, this post takes examples of Vietnamese rats and Georgia Pigs to illustrate the power of incentives. At the same time, it brings us another perspective on incentives - Do you have transactional or reciprocity relationships around you? Are you a giver or a taker or just a matcher? Analyzing this can given low-performers an opportunity to work on their relationships.

My writing this week was limited but I wrote a twitter thread on current economic and market conditions as many participants continue to express surprise over equity market's resilience.

To round it up, two inspiring stories I came across this week - India’s first full time truck driver, Yogita Raghuvanshi who is breaking gender stereotypes and Medicine Baba, who has made the lives of people in need a lot better by donating medicines for the last 15 years, and he continues to do so. Humanity lives on!

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That's it for me. Have a great weekend ahead. Stay safe and mask up!

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