I read mostly fiction last year – revisiting Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, P. G. Wodehouse, etc. This year, it is non-fiction and revolves around three themes: strategy, wars, and stock investing. Let me start with strategy.
Strategy: So far, strategy has played a supporting role in my work on the management of technology and innovation. And I have been thinking about how I can strengthen that part. Apart from revisiting the strategy books I read more than a decade ago like “Understanding Michael Porter” by Joan Magretta, “Co-opetition” by Nalebuff and Brandenburger and “Good strategy, bad strategy” by Richard Rumelt, I plan to read “Playing to win: How strategy really works” by A. G. Lafley and Roger Martin and “The Crux: How leaders become strategists” by Richard Rumelt. I have already listened to podcast interviews of Roger Martin and Rumelt.
Who rules the world? Wars are the new normal, and I
realized my understanding of the real forces behind these prolonged wars is at
best superficial. This is likely to be a vast ocean, and there is a chance that
I get even more confused after reading a few books. Nevertheless, I plan to
read the following two books as a starting point: “The
new rulers of the world” by John Pilger and “Who
rules the world?” by Noam Chomsky. If the essence of Pilger’s writing is
that, “Imperial power wielded by rich states and multinational corporations,
led by the US, is far more destructive than any terrorist organization,” and if
Noam Chomsky is saying, “US
is world’s biggest terrorist”, I am curious.
Stock investing: I opened an online trading account more
than twenty years ago. It was a joint account with my mother, who was keen to learn
the game. Soon I realized our approaches to investing are diametrically
opposite – she likes to buy and sell the same day (or a few days later) while I
was more interested in an investment horizon of 2-3 years. So, we split our
accounts. She is now 88 and still going strong with her trading. In contrast, I
lost interest in a few years and eventually turned to mutual funds, thanks to advice
from friends like Ravi Aranke. My mom kept nudging me to get back to it. It has
been six months since my interest was renewed. Now, I know that it is extremely
difficult to beat the index. However, I am interested in finding out if I can
manage to follow Buffett’s rule number one – Not to lose money and enjoy the process.
I have started small and averaged one trade a week since December
11, 2024 (all buys so far).
This year, I re-read Peter Lynch classic “One up on wall street” and Joel Greenblatt’s “The little book that beats the market”. Also, read Parag Parikh’s “Value investing and behavioral finance”, Mohnish Pabrai’s “The dhando investor”, and Phil Town’s “Rule #1: The simple strategy for successful investing”. I am hoping to finish Pat Dorsey’s “Fives rules of successful stock investing” (half-way through), Aswath Damodaran’s “Narrative and numbers” and Tim Koller’s classic “Valuation”. Listening to podcast interviews of Dalal Street legends like Manish Chokhani, Rajeev Thakkar, Sankaran Naren, Sunil Singhania, Ramesh Damani, Sanjay Bakshi, Madhu Kela, and leading asset managers like Ravi Dharamshi, Amit Jeswani, Arvind Kothari, and Samit Vartak has been a big help. While I admired the legends, I was also impressed by the young investors (in their 30s) like Amit Jeswani for mastering the one-year horizon game and Arvind Kothari for demonstrating what scuttlebutt investing means in the Indian context. Outside India, I enjoyed listening to US tech-investor Dan Niles for his AI perspective and the Swiss investor Felix Zulauf for his macro perspective.
I like what Mohnish Pabrai says
(58:55), “Life has no meaning. We are here for a short time. And a lot of
randomness in life. I don’t think there is a grand plan.” And when Sonia asks
him, “If life has no meaning, why do people chase fame, money, success?” Mohnish
answers, “They haven’t thought about it. And that’s why I became a game player.
To pass the time, just do interesting things that you are excited about. And I
am excited about playing games.” I have been in the life-has-no-meaning camp
for a long time, playing different games that I enjoy. Now, I am exploring
if the stock-investing game is something I can enjoy by keeping a margin of safety.
