Category: BookReview

The Book ‘Life Over Two Beers and other stories’ is written by one of my favourite Indian authors Sanjeev Sanyal.

The author generally writes non-fiction and this is the first time he has forayed into the world of fiction.

The Book consists of short stories and poems and is a light  breezy read.

The stories seem to be grounded from the author’s own life and he does a good job at poking fun at the various boors, bores and hypocrites around us

Its the kind of book you want to take on your vacation and read it at leisure.

Would recommend this book for light reading.

The Book ‘Charlie Munger-The Complete Investor’ is written by Tren Griffin who blogs at 25IQ.Com

I am a huge fan of Charlie Munger and he is one of my biggest intellectual heroes.

As such,I was delighted to read this book which captures the investing essence of Charlie Munger

The Book is not a biography…instead it captures the various quotes. anecdotes and lessons from Charlie Munger’s investing career.

The Book covers the  basics and principles of value investing as practised by Charlie Munger,his famous worldly wisdom and psyschology of human misjudgement as well as the values required to be a great investor.

There is a chapter on Berkshire Hathaway which explains why it succeeded …a source of permanent capital and float being the key ingredients.

The Bibliography section contains a treasure trove of information-one can enhance one’s investing skills just by reading the notes.

Do buy this book if you are a Charlie Munger fan.

The Book ‘Microcap Magic‘ is written by Stephen Kann who used to run a newsletter called the Bull Market Microcap Review

As the title suggests, the Book makes a case for investing in microcap stocks i.e. stocks less than a market cap of $300 Million.

As per the author, one can allocate upto 20% of one’s portfolio to microcap stocks which should be spread across 5-10 microcap stocks.

The reason to invest in microcap stocks are two fold:

1.As the market cap is v small, institutions don’t follow it and as such these stocks are generally under-researched

2.Owing to the small market size, one can own a larger % of the company for a particular amount

The Book goes on to explain how to screen for these stocks…the screener the author uses is very basic and straight forward:

$25-250 Million Market Cap,Price,>20% revenue growth, > 0 EBITDA, < 1.0 Price/Sales, < 1.0 PE/G, < 30% institutional ownership

The Book then warns about some micro-cap investing pitfalls such as equity dilution, insider selling etc

Most of the book consisted of case studies of US based microcaps which are of little interest to the Indian reader.

One startling fact in the book is that the author’s largest personal holding is Calpian,Inc which “owns the largest,fastest growing mobile payments platform in India.” Huh ? Never heard of this company

This Book is a miss…Save your money and buy me a beer instead.

The Book ‘How to Get Lucky’ is written by Max Gunther whose earlier Book ‘The Zurich Axioms’ is considered an investing classic.

We Indians very well know the importance of luck in life.In our chaotic country of 1.3 Billion people, we know that many things happen due to luck-good or bad.

The author starts with the premise that it isn’t enough to be good.You’ve got to be lucky too…the world is full of good, smart and hard working people…but without luck they can’t succeed

Luck being luck…is there any way to improve one’s chances of being lucky?Is there a way to be more lucky than unlucky?Are there any methods that lucky people use that unlucky ones don’t?

The author believes he has 13 techniques that can increase one’s chances of being lucky.They are:

1. When you win something, acknowledge the role of luck in it.Don’t attribute the success only to your smarts and hard work.Especially true for bull market investors !
2. Build connections, relationships and networks.The more people you know, the more opportunities come your way and the “luckier” you get
3. Take risks.No risk, no gain.People who plod along, content with security and the comfort of a daily routine, rarely get lucky.Risk is a necessary ingredient of every successful life
4. Don’t push your luck.Take money off the table…no tree goes to the sky
5. Cut your losses if things are not going your way.Be comfortable with saying ‘I was wrong’ and move along
6. Follow a zig-zag path.Be flexible.Have an open mind to new opportunities
7. Luck really does not depend on God etc.It happens randomly.Yet if you believe prayers or harmless superstitions (like wearing a fav shirt) etc can help and comfort you, you can be true to your beliefs.Sometimes these beliefs can help in improving confidence and taking decisions
8. Consider the worst-case analysis of any opportunity/risk
9. Avoid excessive communication.Speak only when necessary.This will free you to explain and justify actions to other people
10. Don’t mistake random events for “lessons to be learnt”.If you can’t identify the cause and effect, then the event is pure random.For e.g identifying repeatable patterns in stock prices etc
11. Accept an unfair Universe.Fairness is a human concept.The rest of the universe knows nothing about it.So don’t go around thinking you “deserve” good luck or “didn’t deserve the tragedy that happened”
12. Luckier people are busier people.They have so many side hustles going on that bad luck in one activity is often compensated by good luck in another
13. Find your “destiny partner”….someone who can change your life and the quality of your luck

All in all, I found the Book to be an enjoyable quick read.

Do buy the Book to get more lucky !

The Book ‘The secret war with Iran’ is written by Ronen Bergman who is considered to be one of the foremost writers on Mossad and Israeli Military Intelligence.

Trump has many times threatened to scrap the US-Iran deal in May. 2018. This can have major implications for the world oil markets since Iran is one of the largest oil and gas producers in the world.

The Book covers the period from 1979-2009 after the Shah of Iran was deposed and the Islamic regime of Ayatollah Khomeini took over.

The Book covers how the Shah was overthrown, how CIA and Mossad tried to sabotage the Iranian Islamic regime, how Iran exported its Iranian revolution abroad,about Iran’s chemical and nuclear programs etc

Some of the facts mentioned in the Book make for startling reading.

For instance, it was very surprising to know that the country which set Iran on the nuclear path was America !They supplied them with nuclear reactors when Shah was still around.

During the Iraq-Iran war, Iran was losing very badly to Saddam Hussein.The country that helped Iran with arms and ammunitions was Israel ! They did so mainly for the money and also to ensure that their Islamic foes are weakened by fighting a prolonged war.

Another astonishing fact is that Iran has very large facilities of Chemicals Weapons of Mass Destruction.They were able to get the raw material,factory blueprints etc from an Israeli who did it for the money.

One aspect in the Book that I found fascinating was that Iran and North Korea use their state currency presses to make master counterfeits of the US Dollar.They have apparently distributed Billions of fake US hundred dollar bills.

The Book covers the Lebanon-Israeli conflict in detail and explains the rise and rise of Hezbollah.The incidents mentioned in the book relating to spies,assassinations,hit jobs,tortures, hostage swapping,air strikes etc make for riveting reading.

There is one India reference in the Book…a Pakistani nuclear scientist applying for political asylum in the US stated that Pakistan intended to launch a peremptory nuclear strike against India.

Do buy this Book to know more about Iran,Israel and the bloody conflicts of the Middle East.