Showing posts with label Quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quotes. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Links

"It's one thing to have an opinion, and something very different to act as if it's right." --Howard Marks

The CFA Institute's Virtual Conference [Howard Marks, Peter Zeihan, and others] (LINK)

Platforms in an Aggregator World - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

All six parts of Matthew Ball's & Jacob Navok's primer on Epic Games (LINK)

The Rise of TikTok and Understanding Its Parent Company, ByteDance (LINK)

What Is Clubhouse, and Why Does Silicon Valley Care? (LINK)

The 'Don't Worry, Make Money' Strategy Trouncing The Stock Market By 30 Percentage Points (LINK)

Mortgage Credit Tightens, Creating Drag on Any Economic Recovery ($) (LINK)

Could the Pandemic of 2020 Redefine “Enough”? - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

Can Remote Work Be Fixed? - by Cal Newport (LINK)

Chapter 1 of Matt Ridley's new book, How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom (LINK)

Ian Cassel Talks MicroCaps and 100-Baggers on the Chain Reaction Podcast (LINK)

Rob Arnott on WealthTrack (video) (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Shishir Mehrotra – The Art and Science of the Bundle (LINK)

The Talk Show With John Gruber (podcast): 285: ‘Fahrenheit Truthers’, With Ben Thompson (LINK)

Recode Decode Podcast: Brian Chesky: These 9 weeks were the most stressful in Airbnb’s history (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: SpaceX (LINK)

Masters in Business Podcast: Michael Lewis on the Power of Intelligent Leadership (LINK)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): The Coach Effect (LINK)

Tail risk of contagious diseases: a conversation between Nassim Taleb and Pasquale Cirillo (video) (LINK)

Freakonomics Radio (podcast): 419. 68 Ways to Be Better at Life [with Kevin Kelly] (LINK)

Friday, May 22, 2020

Links

"We had to decide what are the fundamental directions we're going in, and what makes sense and what doesn't. And there were a bunch of things that didn't. Micro-cosmically they might have made sense. Macro-cosmically they made no sense. When you think about focusing, you think 'Focusing is saying yes.' No. Focusing is about saying no." --Steve Jobs (1997 WWDC)

Netflix: Cooked? - by Stephen Clapham (LINK)

The Brooklyn Investor blog: Wow! (LINK)

Nassim Taleb in conversation with The Economic Times (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Hong Kong National security law; Mocking Trump; Two Sessions begin - by Bill Bishop (LINK)

Village Global's Venture Stories Podcast: The Bull and the Bear Case for the American Economy with Dan McMurtrie (LINK)

Odd Lots Podcast: What The Weak Recovery In Japan Can Teach Us About Re-Igniting The U.S. Economy (LINK)
Related link (subscription required): Professor Richard Werner joins Hugh Hendry for a chat on Real Vision
The James Altucher Show (podcast): 590 - How to THINK like an Innovator with Matt Ridley (LINK)
Related book: How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom
Elephants Really Can’t Hold Their Liquor (LINK)
Humans and other species have a gene mutation that lets them digest alcohol. In other species, it’s missing.

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Links

"...most investors think quality, as opposed to price, is the determinant of whether something’s risky. But high quality assets can be risky, and low quality assets can be safe. It’s just a matter of the price paid for them. . . . Elevated popular opinion, then, isn’t just the source of low return potential, but also of high risk." --Howard Marks

Peter Zeihan chats with Grant Williams (video) (LINK)
Related book: Disunited Nations
Epic Games Primer - by Matthew Ball & Jacob Navok (Part 1, Parts 2 & 3)

Millions of Americans Skip Credit-Card and Car Payments ($) (LINK)
About 15 million credit-card accounts and 3 million auto loans didn’t get paid in April as the coronavirus ravaged the economy, data show
America’s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further - by Ed Yong (LINK)
The coronavirus is coursing through different parts of the U.S. in different ways, making the crisis harder to predict, control, or understand.

Seth Klarman quote

From the October 2008 Graham & Dodd Breakfast (via Outstanding Investor Digest):
In terms of our firm, I tried so hard to learn the lessons of 1998 in particular, which were: Don’t be unprepared for something out of the blue that’s really bad. 
To some extent, we were prepared this time.  However, you can never be prepared enough.  We had a lot of macro protection in terms of credit default protection on bonds where we were just betting that credit spreads would widen. That’s been incredibly helpful.  But we’ve gotten really tired of buying market puts, or anything like that, because they inevitably are expensive and expire worthless. 
So as an investor, you have terrible trade-offs.  Do you overpay for insurance — or do you go uninsured? That’s just one of those dilemmas for which there are really no perfect answers.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Links

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves." --Lao Tzu 

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold a substantial amount of U.S. Bancorp stock this week (LINK)

A good post via the Berkshire Hathaway message board at The Motley Fool [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Full video of Stanley Druckenmiller at The Economic Club of New York (LINK)

Full video of David Tepper's CNBC call-in yesterday (LINK)

A Viral Market Update VIII: A Crisis Test - Value vs Growth, Active vs Passive, Small Cap vs Large! - by Aswath Damodaran (LINK)

Acceptable Flaws - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast): #432: Books I’ve Loved — Kevin Kelly (LINK)

Freakonomics Radio (podcast): 418. What Will College Look Like in the Fall (and Beyond)? (LINK)

Matt Ridley: 23 of Your AMA Questions, Answered (LINK)

Monday, May 11, 2020

Links

"Security analysis does not seek to determine exactly what is the intrinsic value of a given security. It needs only to establish either that the value is adequate—e.g., to protect a bond or to justify a stock purchase—or else that the value is considerably higher or considerably lower than the market price. For such purposes an indefinite and approximate measure of the intrinsic value may be sufficient. To use a homely simile, it is quite possible to decide by inspection that a woman is old enough to vote without knowing her age or that a man is heavier than he should be without knowing his exact weight." --Benjamin Graham and David Dodd (Security Analysis)

The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast): #431: Howard Marks on the US Dollar, Three Ways to Add Defense, and Good Questions (LINK)

Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan Health-Care Venture Looking for New CEO [H/T Linc] ($) (LINK)
Atul Gawande is in advanced discussions to step down as chief executive and take on a less operational role as chairman of Haven, the health-care venture backed by Amazon.com Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to people with knowledge of the matter. 
Dr. Gawande, a prominent surgeon and professor at Harvard University, wants to move away from day-to-day management of Haven and focus more on policy and advocacy work, particularly related to the current coronavirus pandemic, the people said.
Oil Crash Busted Broker’s Computers and Inflicted Big Losses (LINK)

Value Hive Podcast: 24: More Than Shipping Stocks w/ Harris Kupperman, Praetorian Capital (LINK)

What's Next for Oil? MacroVoices #218 Postgame (video/podcast) (LINK)

Peter Zeihan Explains The Geopolitical Landscape (video/podcast) (LINK)

Odd Lots Podcast: Richard Koo Explains Why The Recovery Will Be So Difficult (LINK)

We know everything – and nothing – about Covid - by Matt Ridley (LINK)

Friday, May 8, 2020

Links

"In terms of generally advancing within organizations, I think you’d be surprised at how little competition you really  have if you start thinking like you would if you were an owner of the place, and working like you would if you were an owner of the place, and pretty soon you may be running something." --Warren Buffett (2010)

Armed With Swabs, Covid Hunters Stalk Their Prey - by Michael Lewis (LINK)

Michael Lewis in Conversation with Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg (podcast) (LINK)

Bronte Capital's Q1 Letter [H/T Linc] (LINK)

[There's another great collection of Q1 letters HERE.]

What Have We Learned Here? - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

The Psychology of Masks (LINK)

The Glut Drowning the Oil Market ($) (LINK)

Here’s What to Know If You Must Sign Up for Cobra Health Insurance ($) (LINK)

Cloud Gaming: Why It Matters And The Games It Will Create - by Matthew Ball & Jacob Navok (LINK)

Tom Colicchio’s Plan to Save Restaurants (LINK)

The Joe Rogan Experience (podcast): #1470 - Elon Musk (LINK)

Recode Media Podcast: Michael Jordan’s Last Dance, with director Jason Hehir (LINK)

A Much-Hyped COVID-19 Treatment Has a Weird Connection to Black-Market Cat Drugs - by Sarah Zhang (LINK)

The Problem With Stories About Dangerous Coronavirus Mutations - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Links

"Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. The measure of success attained by Wall Street, regarded as an institution of which the proper social purpose is to direct new investment into the most profitable channels in terms of future yield, cannot be claimed as one of the outstanding triumphs of laissez-faire capitalism which is not surprising, if I am right in thinking that the best brains of Wall Street have been in fact directed towards a different object." --John Maynard Keynes

Warren Buffett’s Optimistic? Pessimistic? No, Realistic - by Andrew Ross Sorkin (LINK)

Sam Zell on Market Valuations, Real Estate, Post-Virus Economy (video) [H/T Linc] (LINK)

Spring 2020 issue of Graham & Doddsville (LINK)

Content, Cars, and Comparisons in the "Streaming Wars" - by Matthew Ball (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Ali Hamed – An Update on Private Credit (LINK)

Against the Rules with Michael Lewis (podcast): The Invisible Coach (LINK)

The Case for Deeply Negative Interest Rates - by Kenneth Rogoff (LINK)

MacroVoices Podcast #217 Dr. Lacy Hunt: The Road Through Deflation Toward Eventual Hyperinflation (LINK)

Hope, Through History Podcast: Episode 3 | The Polio Epidemic (LINK)

The Daily Stoic Podcast: Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and Robert Greene Talk Plagues, Politics, and Polarization (LINK)

All You Need Are a Few Small Wins Every Day - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

Our message to the class of 2020 - by Bill and Melinda Gates (LINK)

It is time to take seriously the link between Vitamin D deficiency and more serious Covid-19 symptoms - by Matt Ridley (LINK)

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Links

"We pay some very big money. We have managers that have made and will make in the tens of millions annually, and we have managers that, when we suffer, they suffer. But you’ve got to treat people fairly. Even though they don’t need the money, everybody wants to be treated fairly. And so the rationale for how you’re doing it should be understood, but there is no cross-Berkshire rationale at all.... The main thing to do is, in terms of market position and all that sort of thing, the real thing I really want to pay managers for is widening the moat that separates our business from our competitors’ businesses over time. Now, that gets very subjective, so I don’t have any perfect way of doing that. But that is always going through my mind in trying to design compensation systems." --Warren Buffett (2010)

Warren Buffett will soon tell us what he really thinks about stocks investing and the coronavirus pandemic - by Lawrence Cunningham (LINK)

The Anti-Amazon Alliance - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

When You Have No Idea What Happens Next - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Wizards of Dalal Street: Mohnish Pabrai on COVID-19 and world economy (video) (LINK)

Martin Stopford on "Coronavirus, Climate Change & Smart Shipping: 3 Maritime Scenarios 2020-2050” (video) (LINK) [Related paper HERE.]

State of the Cloud 2020 · Bessemer Venture Partners (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Josh Kopelman - The Past, Present, And Future Of Seed Investing (LINK)

Stoicism in a time of pandemic: how Marcus Aurelius can help (LINK)

The Ezra Klein Show (podcast): Bill Gates’s vision for life beyond coronavirus (LINK)

Antibody Tests Won’t Get Us Back to Normal - by Sarah Zhang (LINK)

Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing - by Ed Yong (LINK)
A guide to making sense of a problem that is now too big for any one person to fully comprehend

Friday, April 24, 2020

Links

"Unfortunately in this kind of work, where you are trying to determine relationships based upon past behavior, the almost invariable experience is that by the time you have had a long enough period to give you sufficient confidence in your form of measurement, just then new conditions supersede and the measurement is no longer dependable for the future." --Benjamin Graham ("Securities In An Insecure World")

Bill Gates on coronavirus: ‘It’s going to be a while before things go back to normal’ (video) (LINK)
Related article: The first modern pandemic - by Bill Gates
Horizon Kinetics Q1 Letter (LINK) [Audio review available HERE.]

Thoughts on Berkshire’s Deployable Cash (LINK)

A Historic Opportunity in Small Cap Stocks (LINK)

‘The American Tailwind’ - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

Paul Singer's April letter to Elliott investors (LINK)

Raoul Pal's April Global Macro Investor newsletter is now available for all to read (LINK)

Understanding Money, Credit, and Debt - by Ray Dalio (LINK)

BIS paper: Insurance regulatory measures in response to Covid-19 (LINK)

My Restaurant Was My Life for 20 Years. Does the World Need It Anymore? (LINK)

With 100,000 stores set to close by 2025, mall owners face this legal hurdle next (co-tenancy clauses) (LINK)

A Shift in Investment Strategies Post-Coronavirus — COVID-19 Virtual Roundtable (video) (LINK)

Recode Media Podcast: Matthew Ball on how the pandemic will remake TV, movies and video games (LINK)

MacroVoices Podcast: #216 David Rosenberg: Stagflation is coming but not yet (LINK)

How I Built This with Guy Raz (podcast): How I Built Resilience: Live With Guy and Simon Sinek (LINK)

Conversations with Tyler (podcast): Philip E. Tetlock on Forecasting and Foraging as a Fox (LINK)

Infinite Loops Podcast: Morgan Housel – The Psychology of Money (LINK)
Related book: The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Links

"If I think I can make very good money, as we did on Harley-Davidson, with a very simple decision, just a question of, 'Are they going to go broke or not?' as opposed to a tougher decision, 'Is the motorcycle market going to get diminished significantly? And, you know, are the margins going to get squeezed somewhat?' And all of that. I’ll go with a simple decision." --Warren Buffett (2010)

The Art of Survival - by Ian Cassel (video) (LINK)

Giverny Capital 2019 Annual Letter to Partners (LINK)

How Tech Can Build - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

In the Coronavirus Era, the Force Is Still With Jack Dorsey (LINK)

2015 article... That Time I Tried to Buy an Actual Barrel of Crude Oil (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Manny Stotz - Frontier Markets Investing (LINK)

The Amish Health Care System [H/T @jtepper2] (LINK)

PBS FRONTLINE: Coronavirus Pandemic (video) (LINK)

Monday, April 20, 2020

Links

"That's how history unfolds. People weave a web of meaning, believe in it with all their heart, but sooner or later the web unravels, and when we look back we cannot understand how anybody could have taken it seriously." --Yuval Noah Harari (Homo Deus)

Howard Marks says the stock market rebound is not reflecting reality (LINK)

Oil Plunges Below Zero for First Time in Unprecedented Wipeout (LINK)

Less Than Zero: What Oil's Crazy Day Means ($) (LINK)

Kyle Bass on CNBC (video) (LINK)

Hin Leong Failed to Declare $800 Million Losses (LINK)

Esports and the Dangers of Serving at the Pleasure of a King - by Matthew Ball (LINK)

Book Notes: Whole Earth Discipline (LINK)

Yes, Even Introverts Can Be Lonely Right Now - by Adam Grant (LINK)

COVID-19: What’s wrong with the models? - by Peter Attia (LINK)

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Links

"He who moves not forward, goes backward." --Goethe

IT'S TIME TO BUILD - by Marc Andreessen (LINK)

Dispersion and Alpha Conversion: How Dispersion Creates the Opportunity to Express Skill - by Michael J. Mauboussin & Dan Callahan (LINK)

Masters in Business Podcast: James Montier on Fear and Investment (LINK)

Renaissance's $10 Billion Medallion Fund Gains 24% Year to Date in Tumultuous Market ($) (LINK)

Airbnb Defied the Odds of Startup Success. How Will It Survive a Pandemic? ($) (LINK)

Calpers Unwound Hedges Just Before March’s Epic Stock Selloff ($) (LINK)

Case Study of Tidewater and The Capital Cycle by John Chew (LINK)

The Forgotten Man - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

The Day of Reckoning for Private Equity - by Ted Seides (LINK)

Bloomberg Invest Talks: A Conversation with Ray Dalio (video) (LINK)

Kyle Bass: US & China Fallout & Recovery from COVID 19; Hong Kong Looming Banking Crisis (video) (LINK)

Why Walking Matters—Now More Than Ever (LINK)

Radiolab Podcast: The Cataclysm Sentence (LINK)
One day in 1961, the famous physicist Richard Feynman stepped in front of a Caltech lecture hall and posed this question to a group of undergraduate students: “If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence was passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?” Now, Feynman had an answer to his own question - a good one. But his question got the entire team at Radiolab wondering, what did his sentence leave out? So we posed Feynman’s cataclysm question to some of our favorite writers, artists, historians, futurists - all kinds of great thinkers. We asked them, “What’s the one sentence you would want to pass on to the next generation that would contain the most information in the fewest words?” What came back was an explosive collage of what it means to be alive right here and now, and what we want to say before we go.

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Links

"Stocks got much cheaper in 1974 than they are now [in May 2009]. But you were also facing a different interest rate scenario. So you could say they really weren’t that much cheaper. You could buy very good companies at four times earnings or thereabouts with good prospects. But interest rates were far higher then. That was the best period I’ve ever seen for buying common equities. The country may not have been in as much trouble then as we were back in September. I don’t think it was. But stocks were somewhat cheaper then.... We don’t try to pick bottoms. We don’t have an opinion about where the stock market’s going to go tomorrow or next week or next month. So to sit around and not do something that’s sensible because you think there will be something even more attractive, that’s just not our approach to it. Anytime we get a chance to do something that makes sense, we do it. And if it makes even more sense the next day, and if we’ve got money, we may do more. And if we don’t — what can we do about it? So picking bottoms is basically not our game. Pricing is our game." --Warren Buffett (2009)

The Long View Podcast: Chris Davis: Banking on Boring, Reliable Franchises (LINK)

Easter on the Sidewalk - Jason Zweig (LINK)

Coronavirus Clarity - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Railroader - Learning from Hunter Harrison (LINK)

Walter Isaacson: This is going to be a new century of biotechnology (video) (LINK)

Venture Stories Podcast: How COVID-19 Impacts Startups and Venture Capital with Ali Hamed and Brent Beshore (LINK)

Our Pandemic Summer - by Ed Yong (LINK)

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Links

"If the business changes in a material way, you’d better change your business model. Or somebody else will. And then you’ll even have more changes facing you.... Capitalism is creative destruction. And sometimes, you’re on the short end of that." --Warren Buffett (2009)

"Some of our businesses have a shared-hardship model, where they don’t layoff, at least not yet. And the businesses with that model tend to be very strongly placed economically. So I guess it shows that Benjamin Franklin was right, when he said, 'It's hard for an empty sack to stand upright.' So we’re all over the map on that, and so is all of industry. But I do think an ideal model would be a business so strong that it could operate in the shared-hardship mode instead of the layoffs." --Charlie Munger (2009)

"Yeah, some are doing that, where you give up hours. But a lot of operations don’t lend themselves to that very well, either. So...in other cases, you basically have to close down whole plants. That’s just the nature of it. You really can’t operate every plant at 50 percent and have it work as effectively as shutting down the least-productive plants." --Warren Buffett (2009)

"In a world where you sometimes have to amputate a limb to stay alive, you can’t expect that every business can stay exactly as it is." --Charlie Munger (2009)

***

Klarman Made $1 Billion Hedging Markets. He Still Lost Money (LINK) [If anyone happens to have a copy of a Baupost quarterly update letter during this time, and is willing to share, it would be greatly appreciated (valueinvestingworld@gmail.com).]

The first 4 video replays of Grant Williams' 2020 Hmmminar Series are available online (LINK) [Marc Cohodes is the latest one from last night, and the next one is scheduled for tonight, with John Hussman.]

FUNDSMITH Annual Shareholders' Meeting - 25th February 2020 (video) (LINK)

Apple, Amazon, and Common Enemies -  by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Sarah Tavel - Consumer & Marketplace Investing (LINK)

The Daily Podcast: A Kids’ Guide to Coronavirus (LINK)

The Peter Attia Drive (podcast): #104 - COVID-19 for kids with Olivia Attia (LINK)

Recode Decode Podcast: Niall Ferguson: How viruses (and fake news stories) spread, and how America screwed up its coronavirus response (LINK)

TED Connects: Why sleep matters now more than ever | Matt Walker (video) (LINK)

The Gene | Part 1: Dawn of the Modern Age of Genetics | PBS (video) (LINK) [A Ken Burns documentary, inspired by Siddhartha Mukherjee's book The Gene.]

WHO must answer serious questions before it is trusted with leading a Covid-19 inquiry - by Matt Ridley (LINK)

The Shelves Are Empty, the Test Swabs Are Gone - by Michael Lewis (LINK)

Some of Warren Buffett’s comments on inflation over the years (LINK)

Book of the day (PDF): Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations - by Jens O. Parsson

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Links

"I think it’s hugely a mistake to think only about your probable misfortunes. You should also think about what’s good about your situation." --Charlie Munger (2009)

We Can’t Prevent Market Panics. We Can Control How We React. - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

The Corona Crisis is Not a Black Swan: Nassim Nicholas Taleb (video) (LINK)

Viral Prohibition, Eminent Domain, and the Path Ahead - by Brent Beshore (LINK)

COVID Impacts [on media & entertainment businesses] - by Matthew Ball (LINK)

Unmasking Twitter - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Socializing Corporate Risk-taking: Moral hazard 2.0 - by Frank K. Martin (LINK)

Absolute Return Letter, March 2020: The Economic Cost of Social Distancing (LINK)

The Oil Glut Is Getting Critical ($) (LINK)

Pressure Mounts on Insurance Companies to Pay Out for Coronavirus ($) (LINK)
Lawmakers and regulators are pressuring insurers to go beyond the legal language of policies to get cash to Americans amid the mounting cost of shutdowns from the coronavirus pandemic.
What happens to mortgage-investment firms will shed light on what may be in store for the rest of the market ($) (LINK)

The Acquirers Podcast: Long Term: Tweedy Browne (LINK)

Capital Allocators Podcast: Ben Inker – Value Investing at GMO (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: D.A. Wallach – Investing in Healthcare (LINK)

Political Economy Podcast: Ben Thompson: Big Tech monopoly, data privacy, and the rise of China (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: Adapting Episode 2: Sequoia’s Black Swan Memo (LINK)

As research progresses, the nature of our enemy is becoming ever clearer - by Matt Ridley (LINK)

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Links

I've been a bit behind on other reading as I've been trying to both take advantage of current volatility as well as make sure clients at Sorfis Investments have portfolios that I think will be well situated for the next 5-10 years. There is plenty of uncertainty and risk right now—both as it relates to one's physical and financial health—but there are also undervalued businesses out there with good balance sheets that will be more valuable 5, 10, and 20 years from now. 

Note: This is my opinion and not a recommendation to buy or sell a security. Please do your own research before making an investment decision.

*****

"It was psychologically painful in 1999 to give up making money on the way up and to expose yourself to the career risk that comes with looking like an old fuddy duddy. Similarly today, it is both painful and career risky to part with your increasingly beloved cash, particularly since cash has been so hard to raise in this market of unprecedented illiquidity. As this crisis climaxes, formerly reasonable people will start to predict the end of the world, armed with plenty of terrifying and accurate data that will serve to reinforce the wisdom of your caution. Every decline will enhance the beauty of cash until, as some of us experienced in 1974, ‘terminal paralysis’ sets in. Those who were over invested will be catatonic and just sit and pray. Those few who look brilliant, oozing cash, will not want to easily give up their brilliance. So almost everyone is watching and waiting with their inertia beginning to set like concrete. Typically, those with a lot of cash will miss a very large chunk of the market recovery. There is only one cure for terminal paralysis: you absolutely must have a battle plan for reinvestment and stick to it." --Jeremy Grantham, March 2009 ("Reinvesting When Terrified")

Two Things We Know With High Confidence - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

A Viral Market Meltdown III: Pricing or Value? Trading or Investing? - by Aswath Damodaran (LINK)

Why Are Markets So Volatile? It’s Not Just the Coronavirus. ($) (LINK)

Howard Marks says the market is ‘pricing in a bad scenario’ and there is value for investors (video) (LINK)

FPA Crescent Fund: First Quarter Preliminary Update (LINK)

Lux Capital memo on the Coronavirus (LINK)

How small businesses can cut expenses (LINK)

Bernanke and Yellen: the Federal Reserve must reduce long-term damage from coronavirus ($) (LINK)

The Surreal Weekend (LINK)

America’s Restaurants Will Need a Miracle - by Derek Thompson (LINK)

Amazon Prioritizes Medical Supplies, Household Staples From Merchants Amid Coronavirus ($) (LINK)

Detroit Car Makers to Temporarily Close U.S. Plants Over Virus Concerns ($) (LINK)

Costco Buys Logistics Firm From Sears Owner for $1 Billion ($) (LINK)

The U.K.’s Coronavirus ‘Herd Immunity’ Debacle - by Ed Yong (LINK)

The Patients Who Can’t Have Surgery Because of the Coronavirus - by Sarah Zhang (LINK)

Defining Information - by Ben Thompson (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Dan Rasmussen – Investing Through a Crisis (LINK)

The Acquirers Podcast: Steady Hands: How the leaders of four SME businesses are weathering the Coronavirus storm (LINK)

a16z Podcast: Labs for Diagnostics: Then, Now, and Next (LINK)

Acquired Podcast: The Top 10 Acquisitions of All-Time (LINK)

The James Altucher Show (podcast): 560 - Critical Coronavirus Update: The BEST and The WORST Case Scenarios with Johns Hopkins Dr. Marty Makary (LINK)

Why Americans Are Dying from Despair - by Atul Gawande (LINK)

Sunday, March 15, 2020

Links

"In the main, therefore, slumps are experiences to be lived through and survived with as much equanimity and patience as possible. Advantage can be taken of them more because individual securities fall out of their reasonable parity with other securities on such occasions, than by attempts at wholesale shifts into and out of equities as a whole. One must not allow one’s attitude to securities which have a daily market quotation to be disturbed by this fact." --John Maynard Keynes

Gates to Leave Boards of Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway (LINK)
Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates is stepping down from the company’s board of directors, marking the biggest boardroom departure in the tech industry since the death of longtime rival and Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs. 
Mr. Gates, who also is vacating his board seat at Berkshire Hathaway Inc., intends to focus more on his philanthropic efforts. He will continue to serve as a technical adviser to Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella, the software company said late Friday.
Coronavirus and Insurance Policies: What Is Covered? ($) (LINK)

Stocks Are in Chaos. Control the One Thing You Can. - by Jason Zweig ($) (LINK)

Remember: You Don’t Control What Happens, You Control How You Respond - by Ryan Holiday (LINK)

Himalaya Capital Hosts Discussion on COVID-19 with Experts from China (video) [H/T @ShaiDardashti] (LINK)
Li Lu, Founder and Chairman of Himalaya Capital, hosted a video conference on March 13th, 2020 between three leading COVID-19 experts from China to share their valuable experiences fighting the virus on the frontlines over the past two months with leading scientists, health practitioners, and policy makers in the United States.
How A Country Serious About Coronavirus Does Testing And Quarantine (video) (LINK)

Inside the Rope with David Clark (podcast): 59: John Hempton - Central Banks aren’t the answer to Coronavirus (LINK)

Hidden Forces Podcast: Passive Investing’s Role in the Coronavirus Market Melt-Down & Prospects for a Melt-Up | Mike Green (LINK)

The Peter Attia Drive Podcast: #97 - Peter Hotez, M.D., Ph.D.: COVID-19: transmissibility, vaccines, risk reduction, and treatment (LINK)

The Peter Attia Drive Podcast: #98 - Peter Attia, M.D. and Paul Grewal, M.D.: Coronavirus (COVID-19) FAQ (LINK)

The Man Who Saw the Pandemic Coming (LINK)

Friday, March 13, 2020

Links

"There’s always a lot of things wrong with the world. Unfortunately, it’s the only world we’ve got. So we live with it, and we deal with it. But the beauty of it is this system works very well. I don’t have the faintest idea what’s going to happen in business or markets in the next year or two years. But the one thing I know is that, over time, people will live better and better in this country. We have a system that works. It unleashes human potential. " --Warren Buffett (2009)

Berkshire Hathaway cancels the in-person shareholder events around its Annual Meeting (LINK)
The annual meeting will be held at 3:45 p.m. on May 2nd as scheduled. However, we will not be able to allow shareholders to physically attend the meeting, and all special events are canceled. 
...Yahoo has confirmed that it will stream the meeting. They have provided great coverage in the past, and you can watch what takes place in Omaha from your armchair.
Corona Panic (Part II) - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Bryan Krug – An Update on Corporate Credit (LINK)

Invest Like the Best Podcast: Bill Gurley and Chetan Puttagunta – An Update on Consumer & Enterprise Venture Capital (LINK)

Exponent Podcast: 183 — A Search for Everything (LINK)

On Being with Krista Tippett (podcast): Carlo Rovelli — All Reality Is Interaction (LINK)
Related books: 1) The Order of Time; 2) Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Book Notes: Why We Get Sick (LINK)

The Last Giraffes on Earth - by Ed Yong (LINK)
The planet’s tallest animal is in far greater danger than people might think.

Monday, March 9, 2020

Links

"In your actions, don’t procrastinate. In your conversations, don’t confuse. In your thoughts, don’t wander. In your soul, don’t be passive or aggressive. In your life, don’t be all about business." --Marcus Aurelius

We’ll Get Through This - by Morgan Housel (LINK)

The Most Important Media Businesses of the (Past &) Future - by Matthew Ball (LINK)

OPEC, R.I.P. ($) (LINK)

Companies That Got Out of China Before Coronavirus Are Still Tangled in Its Supply Chains ($) (LINK)

The Acquirers Podcast: Jeff Gramm (LINK)
Related book: Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism
The Peter Attia Drive Podcast: #96 - David Epstein (LINK)
Related book: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
The Jolly Swagman Podcast: #81: In The Foothills Of A Pandemic - Yaneer Bar-Yam (LINK)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb & Yaneer Bar-Yam  discuss the reaction to the Coronavirus (video) (LINK)

HBR IdeaCast (podcast): Real Leaders: Ernest Shackleton Leads a Harrowing Expedition (LINK)
Related book: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage