It's a new week!
Here are are some snippets and readings from the week gone by that we found interesting.
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There is a debate brewing up whether the current Steel rally is structural or cyclical. The mgmt of Tata Steel says this is not just cyclical (source: Q4 earnings call).
Munger has a word to say about Cyclicals.
Meanwhile Iron Ore Futures are up 10% today. What do you think? 2/n
As the second wave ravages the economy, Ministry of Finance has sounded off industry about downside risks to growth. But the market is unrelenting.
PS: Cases in Tier 1 cities are showing some respite.
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We found this green Dabur slide on broad based growth across categories quite soothing to the eye.
There is some science to their tagline! - "Science-based Ayurveda"
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Result highlight of the week: Nitin Spinners
Seems to be a case of classic operating leverage at play - 35% revenue growth, 92% EBITDA growth and 558% PAT growth.
What do you think of Textiles and PLI focus?
Disc: Not an investment advice.
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Some interesting details from #Mastek's earnings call (image via @mmali09). Strong focus on North America ("real focus of growth") and key industry verticals (Healthcare, Life Sciences, Manufacturing and Retail).
One risk being seen is the fallout of IT spends due to Brexit. 6/n
India's lockdown map via Indian Express. Hope you are adhering to the guidelines and keeping safe.
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We found this chart fascinating as it captures the decline of Oracle and the risk of Amazon's AWS.
Oracle, once hailed as a pioneer in Database and cloud has lost serious grounds to competition from Amazon, MSFT and Google.
Why do you think this happened?
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Ray Dalio (@RayDalio) of Bridgewater, a prominent voice in the global asset management industry has sounded off on unseen before inflation risks is his latest letter. He points at a big services inflation as well.
One interesting development during the week was that Bajaj Finance got RBI approval to issue and operate SEMI-CLOSED Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPI) with PERPETUAL validity.
Here is an explainer thread 🧵 on what this means for Bajaj Finance and potential implications. 1/9
What are PPIs?
PPIs are instruments that facilitate purchase of goods & services or interpersonal money remittances, etc, against the value stored on such instruments.
While PPIs aren't entirely new (remember Sodexo coupons, Edenred cards), it was formalized by RBI in 2017.
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How is it different from Credit Cards?
Prepaid payment instruments come with a pre-loaded value and in some cases a pre-defined purpose of payment (more on this later).
PPIs makes it more convenient to get credit at the retail store, or to get an EMI without a physical CC.
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