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Showing posts with label equity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label equity. Show all posts

Thursday 21 April 2022

Weekend Reading: 22-Apr-22

Reading across disciplines is one of the best ways to improve our investment acumen. Here is a summary of some of the best articles I read this week. If you like this collection, consider forwarding it to someone who you think will appreciate it.

 

You can sign up to https://www.getrevue.co/profile/intelsense to receive all blogs from me directly into your inbox.



1. The story of the rice cooker and economic development of women in post-war Japan

The automatic rice cooker was invented at the dawn of the modern Japanese kitchen and commercialised for home-use by Toshiba in 1955. Collaborating engineer Minami Yoshitada of Koushin-sha and his wife Fumiko experimented with temperatures and cooking times before concluding that automatically switching the power off when the water reaches a boil would adequately steam the rice to its optimal tenderness in about twenty minutes. The result: the Toshiba Automatic Rice Cooker model ER-4, designed by Iwata Yoshiharu, was Japan’s first successfully mass-produced rice cooker.

 

In the last century, no domestic space in Japan has been transformed by design and technology more than the kitchen.

 

By combining the dining and kitchen into a single space, Hamaguchi legitimised womens’ labour by making it visible to the head of the household, while also improving efficiency. In doing so, Hamaguchi presented household labour as an important contribution to the economy during a time in which the Japanese government was focused on the economic development of the country.

https://artreview.com/work-of-the-week-toshiba-rice-cooker/

 

2. Reversible & irreversible decisions

Jeff Bezos breaks up decisions into two types: Type 1 and Type 2. He compares them to two types of doors. Type 1 decisions are irreversible. This door only opens one way – once you enter the room you cannot get out. It is very difficult if not impossible to reverse the decision. A Type 2 decision is like a door that opens both ways – you can get in and out easily. Bezos argues that corporations don’t distinguish between Type 1 and 2 decisions. Type 1 decisions should be thoughtfully weighed. Type 2 decisions can be made fast.

 

In your early 20s, some Type 1 decisions require careful deliberation, some don’t. Choosing a career and your soulmate do. Drinking and driving or getting in a car with a drunk roommate at the wheel, don’t. There is an Uber app for that.

https://contrarianedge.com/turning-a-pbs-interviewer-into-interviewee/

 

3. Eat 2-3 times a day while in an intermittent fast

Keeping blood glucose levels down requires eating more regularly than once a day, Manoogan says, as this prevents the body thinking it's starving and releasing more glucose when you do eventually eat in response. 

 

Instead, she says, two to three meals a day is best – with most of your calories consumed earlier in the day. This is because eating late at night is associated with cardio-metabolic disease, including diabetes and heart disease.

 

"If you eat most of your food earlier on, your body can use the energy you feed it throughout the day, rather than it being stored in your system as fat," Manoogan says.

 

But eating too early in the morning should be avoided, too, she says, as this wouldn't give you sufficient time to fast. Also, eating too soon after waking up works against our circadian rhythm – known as our body clock – which researchers say dictates how the body processes food differently throughout the day.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220412-should-we-be-eating-three-meals-a-day

 

4. You have to be a learning machine for the rest of your life

As AI and robotics continue to advance, there are concerns that machines could soon replace humans in a wide range of occupations. Now there’s a new way to tell how likely your job is to be taken over by robots or AI, and what job to shift to if you are at risk.

 

Workers losing out to automation is not a new phenomenon. As the researchers note in a paper published in Science Robotics, the mechanization of agriculture and automation of manufacturing led to significant changes in the structure of the workforce. But they point out that this time around, these changes may be far more disruptive.

 

While previous waves of automation primarily affected low-skill jobs, the rapidly improving capabilities of machines mean that medium and high-skill occupations are increasingly at risk. The pace of progress also means that jobs may change far faster than before, opening up the prospect that workers will have to retrain and acquire new skills multiple times throughout their lifetimes.

https://singularityhub.com/2022/04/18/theres-now-an-algorithm-to-help-workers-avoid-losing-their-jobs-to-an-algorithm/

 

5. Haptic Touch tech now to be used in robotic surgery

Haptics is the science and technology of sending and getting data through touch. At its generally essential, “haptic” amounts to something connecting with the feeling of touch. (It’s gotten from the Greek word for contact.)

 

Haptic Touch is a particular type of haptic input that utilizes vibrations to imitate sensations like squeezing a button or looking at a rundown when you do it on your screen. For instance, assuming you hold your finger on an application symbol, you’ll feel a vibration as a menu opens.

 

A new robot control technology called haptic technology is being created to give tactile input to the human surgeon while directing the automated movement. Haptic technology gives tactile criticism to the controls and permits clients to actually contact, feel, and control three-layered objects. They can exactly control the placement of the robot’s end-effector (the finish of the robot arm that holds the device).

 

Haptics in Virtual Reality (VR) offers an additional aspect by allowing clients to feel the virtual environment not just through faculties, for example, voice-based or vision-based connection in addition to the feeling of touch. It is basic to consider the drenching and connection parts of VR to get a sensible discernment of the fake world.

https://www.analyticsinsight.net/haptic-technology-is-the-next-big-thing-in-robotics-and-vr/


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FOOTNOTE:
Every month, I take questions sent in from the advisory members and try to answer them. Here is the link for the March monthly Q&A - https://youtu.be/SA33v2tlKCM

Earlier in the week, Scientific Investing's Kumar Saurabh did an interview with me on discretionary versus non-discretionary investing. You can watch that here: https://youtu.be/NchSa871V4E

Sunday 5 July 2020

Using a Regime Filter

regime filter or a market regime filter is a tool to help us conceptually understand the kind of market we are in. As a systematic investor, we can increase our odds of success by adding a regime filter to our arsenal. It tells us, based on how we have defined it if we are in a bull market or a bear market. We would think differently about market risk in different market scenarios.

A simple example of a regime filter is using the 200 day moving average. If the index of your choice is above the 200 day moving average, then you define it as a bull market and below it as a bear market. You can design your portfolio strategy to hold full allocations in stocks if you are in a bull market and 50% allocated in a bear market.
So, with that basic logic you can start constructing a slightly more realistic and slightly more nuanced regime filter.

First, define the market conditions you want to address – superbull, bull, bear, superbear. The reason for doing that is you want to be cautious in the market extremes of superbear and superbull conditions and aggressive in the bear and bull conditions (for long-short strategies). Then use a combination of indicators like RSI and 50 & 200 day moving average to define the selected conditions. For example, above 200 dma and 70 RSI you define as superbull and above 200 dma and above 50 RSI as bull phase.

Another trick that can be used is to use multiple indices. For example, you can use the average of Nifty, Nifty Next 50 and Nifty 500 in equal proportions to define your market. For a long-only investor, it may increase the odds of success to be buyer only when the regime filter is indicating a bull market.

Note: For exploring quantitative systems, check out www.quantamental.in, a quant-based newsletter. 

Friday 19 June 2020

Weekend Reading


Reading across disciplines is one of the best ways to improve our investment acumen. Here is a summary of some of the best articles I read this week.


I especially try to not post Corona related articles as that is all one gets to read in all traditional media.

 

If you like the collection this consider forwarding it to someone who you think will appreciate.


The innings that changed Indian cricket forever

One of the greatest innings of modern times began 18 minutes past 11 o’clock with no television camera to record its brilliance. A bareheaded Kapil Dev, in a full-sleeve sweater and droopy moustache, “squinted up at the sun”, wrote R Mohan in Sportstar, as he walked in to bat.

In his hands a Slazenger V12. On his mind thoughts of survival. A few minutes on, Yashpal Sharma’s dismissal left India at 17 for 5.

Walking in at No.7, Roger Binny remembers Kapil saying: “We’ve got 53 overs to go.”

https://wisdenblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/04/kapils-crazy-day-out-in-kent/

 

A sneak peak at the developments of manufacturing artificial organs, at scale

Betting on success for growing organs, Kamen compares scaling their manufacturing to the way Silicon Valley turned an understanding of semiconductors into creating transistors so small and cheap that the tech industry now churns out phones by billions. “So I thought, why don’t we do the same thing for living tissues,” he says. “There ought to be a way to make a high quantity of them, a high quality of them, and at a realistic cost for the American public that’s in desperate need when they have an organ failure.”

https://onezero.medium.com/the-segways-inventor-has-a-new-project-manufacturing-human-organs-7a6a2da7c8f4

 

The phenomenon called Robinhood

Robinhood took the trend to its logical conclusion — trades that cost $0 — and converted it into an opportunity to connect around money with members of a 90-million-strong generation. It was shrewd: Not only is it easier to reel in newcomers than to peel users away from other services, there’s an opportunity to make them lifetime customers, gradually adding new (fee-based) services. That’s why lots of businesses, including brokerage and financial firms, are interested in young HENRY — “high earners, not rich yet” — clients.

https://marker.medium.com/how-robinhood-convinced-millennials-to-trade-their-way-through-a-pandemic-1a1db97c7e08

 

The Big Cycles - Ray Dalio's mega serial soap opera continues

I am not a fan of Ray Dalio. I think he tends to oversimplify complex situations and overcomplicates simple ones!!! Nevertheless, this storytelling on the long cycles is good learning. Also, would urge everyone to read Niall Fergusson's The Ascent of Money or watch the documentary on youtube (link: https://youtu.be/fsrtB5lp60s). The documentary does have some stunning visuals and shooting locations. Worth the 4-odd hours.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/big-cycles-over-last-500-years-ray-dalio/

 

Cyber-mercenaries on the rise

Israel is a world leader in private cybertechnology, with at least 300 firms covering everything from banking security to critical infrastructure defense. But while most of these firms aim to protect companies from cyberattacks, a few of them have taken advantage of the thin line between defensive and offensive cybercapabilities to provide clients with more sinister services.

The privatization of this offensive capability is still in its infancy. But it raises broad concerns about the proliferation of some very powerful tools and the way governments are losing the monopoly over their use. When state actors employ cyberweapons, there is at least the prospect of regulation and accountability. But when private companies are involved, things get more complicated.

“If you want to take down a plane, if you want to ground air power, you don’t go through the front door, the cockpit,” said Ben Efraim, a former fighter pilot. “You go after the airport. … You go after the logistics systems. You go after the iPads the pilots take home.” There are no “stand-alone entities anymore—everything is part of a network,” Ben Efraim added.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/31/the-rise-of-the-cyber-mercenaries-israel-nso/


Disclaimer: Abhishek Basumallick is the Head of the equity advisory www.intelsense.in for long term wealth creation and a pure quant focused newsletter at www.quantamental.in. The blog posts should not be construed as investment advice. Please do your own due diligence before investing.


Friday 22 November 2019

Weekend Reading


Reading across disciplines is one of the best ways to improve our investment acumen. Here is a summary of some of the best articles I read this week.


1) Forget 5G, China is starting to look at 6G!!
The world has barely started using 5G, the latest generation of wireless connectivity, but China is already looking ahead to 6G. 5G and 6G refer to the fifth and sixth generation of mobile wireless networks. While 5G is known to have data transmission speeds at least 10 times greater than 4G, rolled out in 2009, it’s too early to say what 6G could be, or what sorts of technologies it would advance. By officially announcing the development of 6G technology, China could cause more consternation in the US national security community over China’s tech capabilities—and lead to more scrutiny of Huawei. While the ministry did not name any of the companies involved with the development of 6G, it’s a fair guess that a national tech champion like Huawei would be on that list.


2) The side-effects of a SoftBank funded economy
Last year, a hospitality start-up called Oyo told that it would turn the Four Sight into a flagship hotel for corporate customers. It guaranteed monthly payments whether the rooms were booked or not, as long as he rebranded the property with Oyo’s name and sold the rooms exclusively through its site.
But corporate guests did not materialize, and Oyo stopped making the payments. Now he is on the verge of eviction.
Many of the young companies used SoftBank’s cash to dangle incentives and other payments to quickly attract as many workers as they could. But when they failed to make a profit and SoftBank changed its tune on growth, the companies often slashed or reneged on those same incentives.
SoftBank’s Vision Fund is an emblem of a broader phenomenon known as “overcapitalization” — essentially, too much cash. Venture funds inundated start-ups with more than $207 billion last year, or almost twice the amount invested globally during the dot-com peak in 2000, according to CB Insights, a firm that tracks private companies.
Flush with the cash, entrepreneurs operated with scant oversight and little regard for profit. All the while, SoftBank and other investors have valued these start-ups at inflated levels, leading to an overheated system filled with unsound businesses. 


3) Google to launch Cache - a effort to expand their payments business to banking
Google is teaming up with two banks, Citigroup and the Stanford Federal Credit Union, to begin offering a “smart checking” account next year. 
For a new product or service to succeed, it has to offer something new and shiny enough to motivate consumers to leave their existing provider.
As people grow more wary of entrusting their personal data to tech companies, persuading them to hand their checking account over to a partnership involving Google may be a hard sell. And customers typically switch bank accounts only when they’re offered something financially valuable, like lower fees, more attractive rewards for spending or higher interest rates. Google and its partners haven’t commented on what kind of terms they might offer.


4) TikTok is taking over India's social media scene
In just two years, TikTok has become India’s most downloaded app. It’s shaping a new youth culture in which millions of young people—in big cities and small villages alike—are trying to be TikTok’s next big star. The results are both magical and nightmarish.
More than half of India’s 1.3 billion people are under the age of 25, and more than 500 million Indians use the internet today, thanks to the growing penetration of cheap smartphones and mobile data. But not all of them can express themselves through neatly worded tweets or self-deprecating captions on Instagram posts. In fact, a large section of India’s first-time internet users—some of them illiterate, others speaking in local dialects—find navigating video-based platforms easier. From 2012 to 2018, the time spent by an Indian watching online videos grew from an average of 2 minutes a day to 52 minutes a day, according to a report by the media agency Zenith.


5) Hiring from tier-2 / tier-3 colleges
When building up his team Jack preferred hiring people a notch or two below the top performers in their schools. The college elite, Jack explained, would easily get frustrated when they encountered the difficulties of the real world.
Graduates from tier 2 or tier 3 schools have a hunger to over-compensate for what they perceive they lack. They have seen their counterparts from larger cities with ‘privileges’ and they want to achieve all that and more. Therefore, they are far more driven.
New entrepreneurs told me about a lesser-known problem with good students, especially those who have been top performers since kindergarten: They don’t know what it is to fail. To build something truly big, a start-up founder needs a team that can handle failure.