Category: Food for thought

A wonderful analysis on long term investing across 15-year period starting 1995. Below is my favourite paragraph. Why? It emphasises how uncertain long term equity returns are.

Imagine being the investor who started in 1995. Seeing your portfolio exceed 1 Cr (₹ 10 Million) in January 2008, 14 years into your investing journey, only to see it plummet 60% to 40L (₹ 4 Million) late in 2008 before finally coming back to 89L (₹ 8.9 Million) by the end of 2009.

The 12% Myth: Estimating Long-Term Equity Returns

I always had trouble with planning my finances for the future which always changed or simply wasn’t clear to me. This article presents that conundrum in a beautiful way.

Most of us are monks about some things and hedonists about others. Unless we’re tangled up in thinking we need to impress others with our possessions.

The Monk or Hedonist question is hard because what impressed you then might not impress you now. And what you appreciate now, you did not back then. This holds for the future too. So, how do you conclude what you will want in a decade or more?

Plan less, Live More

Hilarious!

In the first few months of my new role, I had a lot of information to get up to speed on, including figuring how to roll over and acquiring a firm grasp on object permanence. Now, I have almost a year of experience completing my primary responsibilities — like sleeping, pooping, and communicating with individuals who are not fluent in my native tongue, and as I’m sure you’ve heard, all my performance reviews are glowingly positive.

I am constantly revered and told that I am “such a big girl” and “so big” and “a sweet, big girl” and yet every time I attempt to partake in certain activities alongside my older, male colleague I hear “that is not for you, Reesey,” or “that’s not for babies.” There you have my dilemma.

MY 11-MONTH-OLD BABY’S HR DISCRIMINATION COMPLAINT

Color surrounds us in nature, and we re-create it with pigments. You can think of pigments as pulverized minerals, heavy metals, or chemicals that we swish into oil and spread over a canvas or car: Cobalt becomes blue; ochre red; cadmium yellow. “But nature has a very different way of creating color than we do,” Chanda says. Some of nature’s most vivid looks—the kind worn by peacocks, beetles, and butterflies—do their thing without pigment.

Those colors come from topography. Submicroscopic landscapes on the outer surfaces of peacock feathers, beetle shells, and butterfly wings diffract light to produce what’s known as structural color. It’s longer-lasting and pigment-free. And to scientists, it’s the key to creating paint that is not only better for the planet but might also help us live in a hotter world. 

This Is the Lightest Paint in the World

SVB: Hey, I just lost a ton of money selling government guaranteed bonds, so please invest in us

Others: Wait, why?

SVB: Haha, these startups, they seem to actually not be able to raise money, so we’re bleeding deposits, but it’s all fine, just give us some more capital and we’re fine

The VCs: Excuse me. You don’t have money to pay depositors?

SVB: No, what we’re saying is, we do. It was locked in with MBS earlier, and we sold it now and have $20 billion, which is like gazomba huge types. So yeah, relax, don’t panic.

Everyone: Don’t panic?

SVB: Yeah.

Instantly, everyone panics.

What we should not learn from the SVB crisis

For programming languages to survive indefinitely, they have to either:

1. Be simple enough to be implemented with little cost.
2. Become irreplaceable critical infrastructure of many large organizations.

Simplicity and Survival

Powerful words. Unfortunately can’t find this book on Amazon India.

One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless. … I have accepted the fact, hard as it may be, that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that would make animals blush. The ironic, the tragic thing is that we often behave in ignoble fashion from what we consider the highest motives. The animal makes no excuse for killing his prey; the human animal, on the other hand, can invoke God’s blessing when massacring his fellow men. He forgets that God is not on his side but at his side.

On Turning Eighty by Henry Miller (via Henry Miller on Turning 80, Fighting Evil, And Why Life is the Best Teacher)

Not having an investment view on every imponderable in financial markets can seem like ignorance, but it actually shows an acute awareness of the environment in which we operate. It is far more ignorant to believe that we can accurately predict all manner of complex and unfathomable things.

Rather than have an ever-evolving set of views and positions, we would be far better off allowing others to pontificate and trade, and instead wait until there are opportunities where the probability of good outcomes are firmly on our side.

Investors would be far happier (and better off) not having a view on most things most of the time.

The Power of Not Having a View