Reading Time: 2 Minutes
Hey boys and girls!
It’s been some time since I’ve done an episode of “What I’m Viewing”, which is a short selection of articles, videos and links I’ve found useful in the last couple weeks to assist us on our financial and investment journey…
The last one was back in July, which you can find by clicking here.
Without further ado, let’s get into it!
A Taxonomy of Moats
I stumbled onto this gem of an article about “moats”.
Not the dungeons and dragons kind, but the kind which enables a company to continue to churn out high profits and margins without imitation.
More specifically, the article breaks down the four basic imitation sources; The State, Special Know-How, Scale and System Rigidity.
What do they all mean? Read it to find out!
Lessons from an investing legend
Here is a transcript of an interview with living legend Peter Lynch. Who is Peter Lynch? Read on to fi… actually, he’s the guy who brought Fidelity (one of the largest asset managers) to the mainstream in the late 70’s and 80’s. Growing the fund he managed from $18 million to $14 BILLION in a couple of decades.
He’s also responsible for coining the cliche “invest in what you know”, as you’ll be more readily able to beat the experts with your personal local knowledge when it comes to making an investment.
Jeff Bezos: The electricity metaphor
Someone you may or may not recognize.
I found a 2007 Youtube clip of Jeff presenting a TedTalk (it was around back then!) discussing how the Dot Com Boom was not as similar to the Gold Rush as many commentators alluded, but more comparable to the electric industry.
It’s a fascinating insight of Jeff, before Amazon became Amazon – he seems like just another nerdy tech genius at this time!
How Amazon’s Business Practices Harm American Consumers: Why Amazon Needs a Competitor and Why Walmart Ain’t It
Oh and speaking of Amazon, here is story about Amazon in today’s market.
I have a few friends in the online e-selling game, and it’s incredibly insightful to understand just how big of a reach and market share Amazon has every step of the way.
I’d imagine it be pretty similar in the East with Alibaba – can anyone compete with these juggernauts?
Global Investor Study 2019
I do like Schroders, they always come out with unique surveys and market feedback.
This one is about behaviours around investing – and how behavioural biases may be impacting how you manage your investments. They interviewed 25,000 people from 32 locations around the world, to bring a microcosm of the investment landscape to us.
Some findings are:
- 77% of people check their investments daily
- 51% of people have not achieved what they wanted from their investment in the last 5 years
- 10.7% is the minimum level of returns people want to achieve from their investments in the next 5 years.
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So there ya go boys and girls, a short summary of what I’ve found interesting recently.
There’s always something to read, something to learn, just gotta know where to look!
Hint: www.thefrugalsamurai.com
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