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The Intelligent Investor
A weekly snapshot of what happened, what may happen, or other interesting marketplace musings for intelligent investors globally. Weekly, since 2012.
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The investor’s mind; here be monsters.
The investor’s mind; here be monsters.
People who are correct a lot of the time, are people who often change their mind.
William Maximilian Digby
Oct 26, 2020
Study Failure, not Greatness. — The Intelligent Investor.
Study Failure, not Greatness. — The Intelligent Investor.
Success is idiosyncratic. Investing especially so.
William Maximilian Digby
Oct 19, 2020
The Founder’s Paradox — where startups go to die.
The Founder’s Paradox — where startups go to die.
Los Alamos c.1950 Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi sat down to lunch with his colleagues at the National Laboratory — he was…
William Maximilian Digby
Oct 12, 2020
Like a shark, credit must keep moving.
Like a shark, credit must keep moving.
Loans fall due and must be repaid, rolled over, or in the extreme, defaulted on. And it took a viral incursion to unmask the weaknesses…
William Maximilian Digby
Oct 6, 2020
The liberation of the fixed asset.
The liberation of the fixed asset.
All marketplaces are unique. But all successful marketplaces are unique in the same way: they liberate an inefficiently used fixed asset.
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 28, 2020
The most dangerous idea in finance. — The Intelligent Investor.
The most dangerous idea in finance. — The Intelligent Investor.
T here is an idea in finance so simple, so intuitive, that its destructive power is not immediately obvious and often goes unnoticed — it…
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 21, 2020
How to become a billionaire.
How to become a billionaire.
Foreword: if amassing money is to a billionaire what swimming is to crossing the English channel, then I am gloriously stood in the…
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 14, 2020
Latest
‘liar loans’.
‘liar loans’.
If you are among the ninety-nine point nine per cent who missed out on the last big Paulson and Icahn trades of ‘07/08 then maybe you will…
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 8, 2020
Paulson and Icahn.
Paulson and Icahn.
If you are among the ninety-nine point nine per cent who missed out on the last big Paulson and Icahn trades of ‘07/08 then maybe you will…
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 8, 2020
Trust. Credibility. Innovation.
Trust. Credibility. Innovation.
That terse minimalist prose is the strapline of OTC traded The Crypto Company, a California based company that — in the last 10 days — has…
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 8, 2020
Cryptokitties.
Cryptokitties.
It reads a little bit like the beginning of a riddle: what has no utilitarian value, produces nothing, has a value entirely dependent on…
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 8, 2020
Afrika Borwa.
Afrika Borwa.
South African private equity performance when compared to the listed market counterpart remains ahead by a nose, according to the latest Q2…
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 8, 2020
Trading companies like baseball cards.
Trading companies like baseball cards.
Jumia — the Nigerian founded online retailer that has aspirations to be the continental Amazon of the Nile — has settled on a three-forone…
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 8, 2020
The Desert Fox.
The Desert Fox.
The general Erwin Rommel, popularly known as the Desert Fox and known only (probably) to his mum by his birth name Little Eugen, was about…
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 7, 2020
Tip of the iceberg.
Tip of the iceberg.
Just a few years ago, Bitcoin was only a whisper in Africa.
William Maximilian Digby
Sep 4, 2020
Kernel Bezos.
Kernel Bezos.
Money is made at chokepoints, and the most valuable chokepoints are operating systems; Amazon has built exactly that with Alexa.
William Maximilian Digby
Aug 31, 2020
Abundance makes me poor.
Abundance makes me poor.
Reality could be described as a series of limitations on every living thing, the final boundary being death. In other words, we have only…
William Maximilian Digby
Aug 24, 2020
Chinese Africa.
Chinese Africa.
Will China’s US$60 billion for Africa impact global prosperity?
William Maximilian Digby
Aug 21, 2020
A tale of two investors.
A tale of two investors.
Hana Masako’s life was unremarkable. She was an orphan, never married and had no children. After her final year of high school, she began…
William Maximilian Digby
Aug 17, 2020
Stradiwhovius?
Stradiwhovius?
A man stood in Glenmont metro station. For a few moments he exhaled into his hands, each a closed fist, and then proceed to take up a…
William Maximilian Digby
Aug 10, 2020
The tail that wags the dog.
The tail that wags the dog.
By the end of the 1930’s, Walt Disney’s humble studio had sketched over 400 cartoons — most of them adored by their viewers, and most of…
William Maximilian Digby
Aug 4, 2020
Nigeria.
Nigeria.
Nigeria now has its first smartphone assembly plant.
William Maximilian Digby
May 2, 2020
Math money.
Math money.
Whether devotee or skeptic, crypto-currency is seldom if ever boring — although both interest and value alike have ebbed substantially…
William Maximilian Digby
Mar 31, 2020
Having an out of money experience.
Having an out of money experience.
The free market’s nemesis is surely the supply of free money. And incessant has that supply been of late. In less than three decades…
William Maximilian Digby
Mar 28, 2020
Replacing the gold standard with the PhD standard.
Replacing the gold standard with the PhD standard.
Jim Grant quipped during a monetary policy hearing that the United States Federal Reserve Bank had replaced the Gold Standard with the PhD…
William Maximilian Digby
Mar 27, 2020
Où le boeuf?
Où le boeuf?
There is a lot of wealth being created and not enough safe ways of transferring that wealth into the future.
William Maximilian Digby
Mar 18, 2020
Shame is forgotten, debts are not. ~ Chinese Proverb
Shame is forgotten, debts are not. ~ Chinese Proverb
“President for life”. It’s a grandiose title, no doubt. But its allure is directly related to which particular institution one is going to…
William Maximilian Digby
Mar 7, 2020
Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning.
Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning.
It’s not quite checking the car seats for loose coins and old McDonald’s fries, but it’s pretty close. HNA Group — the Chinese conglomerate…
William Maximilian Digby
Mar 1, 2020
Aw, Snap!
Aw, Snap!
Evan Spiegel, one of the co-founders of Snapchap and its current CEO (read Snap Inc. NYSE: SNAP), already has an interesting life CV. He’s…
William Maximilian Digby
Feb 21, 2020
Get Rich or Die Tryin’.
Get Rich or Die Tryin’.
Interspersed with the near real-time machinations of Boss Tweet over the course of last year, heavy consumers of US financial press may…
William Maximilian Digby
Feb 14, 2020
Pyramids aren’t built in a day.
Pyramids aren’t built in a day.
Anyone long enough in the tooth to remember the Beatles break-up or the death of Elvis may also have been around to witness the infamous…
William Maximilian Digby
Jan 30, 2020
If you look around the table and don’t see a sucker…
If you look around the table and don’t see a sucker…
For those that have become tired of trading the Satoshi special (aka ‘bitties’, ‘digies’, ‘Nakas’ or just BitCoin) and need something to do…
William Maximilian Digby
Jan 24, 2020
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