Book: Margin of Safety Author: Seth Klarman Key takeaways: Klarman is called a classic value investor, a term that can be somewhat meaningless, as all investors are by definition seeking value. Nonetheless, he himself counts himself among this clan. In this book, he talks about his investment philosophy. This book is much like The Intelligent … Continue reading
A few weeks back, I had the joy of meeting Warren Buffett in Omaha, Nebraka, as part of a group of students at Cornell that Warren Buffett hosted for a morning of Q&A and lunch. We were among 8 schools that were visiting on the day, and there were some very interesting takeaways from the … Continue reading
Book: Fault Lines Author: Raghuram Rajan This is an easy book to love. Most of us have read several books on the 2008 financial crisis and why it came about (reasons abound from use of credit derivatives to lack of leadership). But, this book takes a slightly bigger sweep of history and talks about the underlying problems in the … Continue reading
A version of this article was published in the Cornell Business Journal, an independent student-run publication. In October last year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a non-partisan arm of the Congress, came out with a study saying that in the decade beginning 1997, income grew by 18% for the bottom 20 percent of households, … Continue reading
Book: Moneyball Author: Michael Lewis Key takeaways: This is a story about Oakland A’s–an American baseball team, who performed immensely well in the late 90s and early 00s, despite having an incredibly small total paycheck. The story’s protagonist in Billy Beane, who brought a statistical approach to hiring and firing its players. I personally don’t … Continue reading
First up, some background. You know that the problem is beyond repair when the best solution being discussed lacks logic. The latest discussion about CDO-izing the EFSF funding to save Eurozone is apparently being taken seriously. The logic of supporters is that this will allow Eurozone to lever up, and satisfy funding requirements without expanding the balance sheet … Continue reading
Book: In The Long Run We’re All Dead Author: Timothy Lewis The title uses a famous quote from (John Maynard) Keynes, who said- “The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us … Continue reading
We all share concepts that are considered axiomatic, despite rather imprecise shared understanding. These are told to everyone as obvious, and a simple restatement of the concept is understood to contain its own proof. The concept of free markets is one of them. The freedom concept is often invoked when state’s actions are feared to … Continue reading
The market rallied today (9/13) because China and Italy are discussing a bond purchase program. Promptly traders and their algo cousins pushed up the S&P, which was dwindling at near-flat or negative. Great news. China will buy Italian bonds, and this will help avoid the big bad Eurozone crisis. Where have I heard this news … Continue reading
Technically, we can’t have a double dip since the last recession ended almost an year back. But, humor me, will you? The meat is all the same; it’s just the label that’s in dispute. Equities rallied by ~3.6% over the first 3 days of this week on basis of 3 pieces of backward looking data, … Continue reading
