What I learnt from Shah Rukh Khan

Mint came up with interesting extra add on called "The Rich List"  to existing newspaper. Time and again I have found there are timeless principle that helps one succeed in whatever one is doing. I think Mint tried to understand from the Rich what they do, its very good edition, would advice you all to read it.



There was one particular piece on SRK which I liked (Full article) and would like to highlight few interesting pointers that are very similar to that of long term investor.

1. Do something you believe in - products/service being offered should fundamental fulfill a need that customer has.

2. stay humble , admit your mistake , learn from it and move on.

3. Get to know your finance very well - its not really rocket science to know that Sales minus Cost = Profit.



4. Fund capex internally.



5. Never borrow - this advise has been given to most of us time & again - if you borrow from bank it means bank pretty much owns you.



6. He goes of the extend saying avoid OPM - Other People's Money in any form - be it a loan or even equity. Once you have shareholder, you need to manage them ;)



7. Everything said and done - Work Hard, Slog yourself and Just believe in what you doing



8. Finally - Play the game you know - Know your competitive advantage and know what you are not good at. He highlights this very beautifully, If you have knowledge on Restaurant business, invest in restaurant not in restaurant chain. Skill set to run a Restaurant and Restaurant chain are different and SRK knows difference.

Read, Learn, Improve – 26-Sep-15

Read, Learn, Improve – 26-Sep-15

World is shocked post Volkswagen scandal, German engineering seems to have cheated. Keeping that aside for a moment, if you don’t know history of Volkswagen & Porsche you should read this - very good insight – Link here

The Unraveling of Tom Hayes - Libor's mastermind (five part series) – Link here

The Price for Losing Bill Gross or Jeff Gundlach – Link here

Big Tech Has Become Way Too Powerful – Link here

For $10,000, you can now print your own pound of human flesh – Link here

How Singapore INCENTIVISED itself into a First World Country – Link here

Lock Up Your Bees: Insects Are the Assets to Steal as Almond Prices Soar – Link here

The Night They Drove the Price of Electricity Down - Wind power was so plentiful in Texas that producers sold it at a negative price. What? – Link here

Why Is Art Expensive? – Link here

It’s not supposed to be easy. Anyone who finds it easy is stupid – Link here

Since market is rift with rumour that SunTV is on block, this piece makes interesting read - Will the Sun Set on Maran’s Empire? – Link here

Human-Like - Facebook Is Using Our Data To Build The 'World's Best' Artificial Intelligence Lab – Link here

5 Common Mental Errors That Sway You From Making Good Decisions – Link here

Read, Learn, Improve - 19-Sept-15

Read, Learn, Improve - 19-Sept-15

Is Silicon Valley in Another Bubble . . . and What Could Burst It? – Link here

Some Thoughts on Coal Companies and Railroads – Link here

How a cheap Indian whiskey beat Smirnoff to become the world’s largest spirits brand – Link here

What's in a name? Of Umlauts, The Alphabet and World Peace! – Link here

The Long Road of Proving Yourself as an Investor – Link here

The concise encyclopedia of economics – Crime – Link here

The siege of Herbalife – Link here

We Need the Right to Repair Our Gadgets – Link here

The Two Types of Knowledge – Link here

The slumps that shaped modern finance - Finance is not merely prone to crises, it is shaped by them. Five historical crises show how aspects of today’s financial system originated—and offer lessons for today’s regulators – Link here

If print media is dying, why are moneybags investing in it? – Link here

The Not-So-Surprising Truth About Gold Bugs – Link here

The safe, user-friendly way to be a little drug lord: economic secrets of the dark web – Link here

Why An Interview With A Top Pharmaceutical Executive Left Me Alarmed About The Industry – Link here

Humans need not apply (Video) – Link here

How The Average U.S. Consumer Spends Their Paycheck (infographics) – Link here

Paying attention to isolated incident

This conversation took place sometime around Mar/Apr-15 not sure about exact time

Analyst Friend (AF) – So which company you looking at?
Me – Info Edge
AF – what’s so good about it apart from Naukri.com, that’s only cashcow.
Me – true, rest all are loss making
AF – exactly my point, why to look at it?
Me – zomato seems interesting play, info edge has 50% stake (now it’s down post raising new capital)
AF – ya true, but have you seen FoodPanda? They are giving huge competition to them.
Me – not exactly, given zomato is only restaurant listing and FoodPanda is into delivering of food.



AF – ya but you need menu for ordering & delivering which ideal should have been done by zomato and they seem to have missed the bus.
Me – Naah…I don’t think so…they are moving slowly and steady…they can launch it tomm as they already have relationship with restaurants.
AF – then why have they not launched it yet?
Me – there are challenges with that business, have a look at this – Food Panda or Fool Panda , I think their systems are not in place and zomato is still working on it or has willfully chosen to ignore it. They are bunch of smart guys just check out back ground of founders – Link here.
AF – what challenges are you talking about?
Me – how to confirm delivery of order? Making sure none of the party is lying or faking?
AF – hmm….true…I will wait and watch how this space develops
Me – same here, it looks interesting, let see.



So this is pretty amazing, MINT newspaper (The BEST Newspaper in the town) has put out a story on Foodpanda.com and scam carried on by company insider. Here is link , article is long but very insightful, hence make sure you read it and give full attention.

If you are planning to be Analyst/Investor/Fund manager make sure you develop a good reading habit, from variety of sources. Most of the analyst & related fraternity would have glued their eye on pink newspaper & magazine and would have missed one isolate incident (Food Panda or Fool Panda ) that gave me signal there is probably something wrong with FoodPanda or help me wonder why is Zomato not doing it?

Read, Learn, Improve - 12-Sept-15

Hey, Advertisers. It's Serena Time! – Link here

Man with almost-perfect poop donates it to help patients with C-diff infection – Link here

The Absolute Return Letter - Doodles from an eventful summer – Link here

Transplant Surgeons Revive Hearts After Death – Link here

Google Play solves for PPP (Purchasing power parity) in Apps! – Link here

The banker who helped give the world credit-default swaps wants to upend finance again—this time with the code that powers bitcoin – Link here

Brad Katsuyama’s Next Chapter (Guy from The Flashboys) – Link here

MCX: Out of the Jignesh Shah shadow – Link here

The Fed, Interest Rates and Stock Prices: Fighting the Fear Factor – Link here

We can Decongest our Jails , if our Governments are willing – Link here

Why are babies smart / intelligent?

Why are babies smart / intelligent?



If you are new parent or are observing kids, many times you are caught in awe of their intelligence. New parents offer / share stories how their kid did particular thing or how they responded to a particular question or situation, which they can’t fathom a kid would behave in certain way. It has happened with me too and have seen few such incidence and I would be like “yeah, they are definitely smart” and be that’s about it.

So one fine day I was reading newspaper and came across article on DNA profiling bill that Indian govt is thinking of making as law. Here is the full article link, makes for interesting read. However it was one diagram/ pic that described DNA that caught my attention.



To be precise it was “genetic code” para at bottom that sent me a striking thought. If you read it carefully it says, “DNA is a double helix structure in which the backbone is made of sugar and phosphate and Information is stored as a code made up of four chemical bases…” Key word is “Information”. So what it essentially means when couple makes a baby, they pass on their knowledge & experience through their genes. So let say male & female both of 25 years make a baby, their genes will carry all that experience and pass it on to baby. Of course it won’t be 100% pass-on, but many of those, hence intelligence. This is what I thought and spoke to another analyst friend who happens to be B.Pharm and loves pure science, he concurred with my thought process. Of course this is not a new invention, rather a new discovery for me. I dug around deeper into internet and found some amazing insight. Like as per one Harvard bioengineer and geneticist – single gram of DNA has capacity of 5.5 petabits or 700 terabytes (1 –terabytes = 1000GB), you can read it here . So now I know part of the reason why babies are smart or intelligent