0/ We've highlighted FinTech infrastructure co's like BR, FIS, JKHY, MA, V, ICE, NDAQ, etc. as companies w/ a variety of moats that have led to dominant mkt share & outperformance despite being 50+ years old on avg.

$FISV had their investor day yesterday and laid out the why.

1/ $FISV highlights the fact that they have #1 market share in core accounting processing for $1-$50B FI’s; they are doing $1.0B in global e-Commerce revenue, and have more than $30B available for capital allocation over the next 5 years (read more M&A for FinTech co's)

2/ They have global reach with clients in more than 100 countries, more than 1,000 products & services, 10,000+ FI clients, & 6M merchant locations.

All while being #1 as a core account processor, merchant acquirer, bill pay, P2P payments, etc...

3/ This business model + market positioning has led to incredibly strong outperformance since inception ~35 years ago with cumulative $FISV shareholder returns of +42,171% vs. the $SPY at 3,327% & Nasdaq at 4,355%.

4/ $FISV has grown via a series of acquisitions over the past 30 years most recently the $22B tie up w/ First Data.

They highlight the progress on the deal & new goals post integration.

M&A is a skill & FISV has it financially; tech integration leaves something to be desired

"At the start of 2020, the dollar’s run had endured 100 years. That would have been reason to question how much longer it could continue." This crude instance of the gambler's fallacy is one of many reasons why I find Ruchir Sharma's FT piece unconvincing:

Another is his suggestion that, although "When the pandemic hit, the US dollar was as mighty as ever," the pandemic has changed that. To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of the end of the dollar's "exorbitant privilege" are much exaggerated.

In fact the demand for dollars rose to exceptional levels early in the crisis; if it has declined somewhat since, it is only from that unusual peak:

Then there is this glaring non-sequitur: "US officials were thus confident that...they could print the dollar in limitless quantities without undermining its reserve currency status. ...But a new class of contenders is emerging: cryptocurrencies."

But? The rise of cryptos has practical no bearing on how many dollars the Fed can create without undermining the dollar's int'l appeal or otherwise resulting in its "debasement." Sure, many Bitcoin fans _think_ the dollar is going to crash. But that hardly means it will!

Survivorship Bias 101

History is written by the victors. But if we exclusively focus on these successes, we allow survivorship bias to distort our understanding of the world.

But what is "survivorship bias" and how does it work?

Here's Survivorship Bias 101!

👇👇👇

1/ First, a few definitions.

Survivorship bias is the logical error of concentrating on survivors (successes) and ignoring casualties (failures).

When we do so, we miss the true "base rates" of survival (the actual probability of success) and arrive at flawed conclusions.

2/ When we completely ignore failures, we lose our ability to correctly identify the differences between successes and failures.

Put simply, exclusively focusing on successes may actually inhibit our ability to identify (and replicate) the actions that led to such success.

3/ Cicero wrote on the topic over 2,000 years ago.

An atheist named Diagoras is shown portraits of people who prayed and were saved from death at sea as proof of God's existence.

Diagoras replies, "I see those who were saved, but where are those painted who were shipwrecked?"

4/ Cicero cuts right to the point - we cannot conclude that prayer led to being saved from the sea if we ignore those who prayed and then drowned.

Survivorship bias can lead to a deeply-flawed understanding of cause-and-effect relationships.

Let's look at some examples.

The French Govt has adopted its draft law on “strengthening Republican values” which has already provoked so much anger – & distortion, frankly – in parts of Muslim world & US media. At least now we can have a debate on what’s actually in the bill. Some thoughts post presser 1/

The text mentions no religion by name & will apply to all faiths but the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, presenting the law at a presser this afternoon, made it clear that “radical Islamism” – not Islam - was the intended target 2/

“This text is not aimed at any religion or at the Muslim religion specifically,” Castex said . “It’s a law of emancipation from religious fanaticism.” 3/

One person’s “fanaticism” is, of course, another person’s “devout faith”.  Parts of the draft law may be open to question or quibbling. But there is nothing, imo, that can be fairly described as an attack on Islam itself. 4/

Crucially, the Fr Govt has (after weeks of silence) remembered another key part of Macron’s speech in October which promised this new law. There will be new action - including more social housing, more widely spread - to relieve pressure on the struggling, multi-racial suburbs 5/

John says 'perfect love casts out fear.'

Perfect love displaces fear. I think fear can displace our awareness and experience of perfect love. It cannot displace God's love, but it sure can displace our awareness of it.

1/

Knowing you're in anxiety's grip is actually not as easy as we think. We tend to bear down and try harder instead of pausing.

One way to notice it: you are no longer aware of God's presence and God's love.

It could be that your anxiety has displaced your awareness.

2/

Warning Signs:

- you start to think it is all on you/all on your shoulders.
- 'if it is to be, it is up to me.' An anxious statement if ever I heard one.
- An impending feeling of doom or hopelessness.
- Rigid thinking, either-or locked in thinking.
- double binding.

3/

Chronic Anxiety has a 'gospel.'

'it is on you, there is not much you can do, you are not ______ enough, YOU are not enough, there are only bad options, try harder, do more of the same.'

Recognizing Chronic Anxiety's message helps you displace it with the actual Gospel.

4/

Even though we have the Gospel, we often don't access it. We spend most of our time living by our false selves, not by the Gospel. I have been doing this work for decades and I still spend more time living for false self, than I do resting in my identity in Christ.

5/

(Thread)

To My Old Master: this letter was written in August 1865 by former slave Jourdan Anderson to his old master, Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, who had the audacity to send him a letter asking that he return to work on the plantation.

See next tweets.

"Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdan, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me... 1/

... than anybody else can.

I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. 2/

I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable.

Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. 3/

It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. 4/

The US peoples could create an organization that issues a RENT token that is nominally worth 1 USD each of debt as a kind of bond to every homeowner so there is no excuse and you will not be making other people homeless.

The government can do this kind of thing very easily and in fact, every government is doing this, but if your government won't and you have the tech and the social climate to pull this off without being assassinated then you should do it because it would work.

Social debt can be redeemed by anyone, anytime. The origination mechanism of a token tells the story of whether it will be redeemed by society in an entirely volunteer fashion.

If a RENT token exists, you know that it was created by people to avoid other people being evicted. Then you can choose to honor it if (i) you can (iia) you think rent is legitimate or (iib) you think it's strategic to help pretend rent is legitimate (iii) you believe the issuer

Democratic, bottom-up currency creation is a technology that we must hand to people. It must be trivial to create tokens, and we must learn the power of volunteering *towards currencies*. This is an entire social language that's going to emerge.

Thread. Agriculture as shock absorber.

In all the discussions on Indian agriculture and farming, one aspect of this sector gets largely overlooked.

Its role as a social safety net.

1/11

For the poor and the vulnerable, the agricultural and allied sectors are still the main safety net in times of crisis.

And it is much bigger and more effective than all the other safety nets - like MNREGA - that we currently have.

2/11

Safety nets are most important in countries that have a lot of vulnerable people and have adopted a market-led growth strategy.

Markets are useful in driving higher growth over time, but are also much more vulnerable to many types of shocks.

Covid-19 is a good example.

3/11

Vulnerable people do not have adequate savings to fall back on in times of such shocks.

Social safety nets are the only mechanism that can prevent them from life and health risks during these shocks.

4/11

Think of the reverse migration that India experienced after the imposition of the first lockdown.

The only reason so many wage workers took such a risky decision was because they trusted the agricultural sector to save their lives. And arguably it did.

5/11

TATA Sons v Cyrus Mistry

Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice of India assembles to hear the appeals filed by Tata Sons Pvt Ltd against the NCLAT direction to reinstate Cyrus Mistry as Company Chairman.

Senior Advocate Harish Salve starts submissions for Tata Sons.

@RNTata2000 @TataCompanies

Salve : This(Chairmanship) is not a post as understood in service law. In Company Law, this is designation.

#TatasCyrusMistryDispute

Salve : Tata Sons Ltd is a company of considerable vintage. It was created in 1917.

CJI : Was it a public limited company?

Salve : Never. It has always been a private company.

#TataSons
#CyrusMistry

Salve : The curious thing which has happened in the case is that there is a provision in Tata Son's Articles which restricts the transfer of shares. It also has a remarkable feature that the Board could direct a shareholder to sell shares.

#TataSons
#CyrusMistry

Analyzed last 12 years of historical data to check if there are any patterns we can observe to find the best time to invest in stocks for long term. #Nifty50 #investing #stocks 1/10

This is how Nifty moved in last 15 years with three major corrections, in the year 2008,then around 2016 and then year 2020 due to Coronavirus. Only when we look back with hindsight bias we could say those were the best time to invest. But is there really any quantitative method?

200 day moving average is something that is widely used by many investors to check for long term trend. Where investors consider if stocks trades above 200 DMA, its in bullish phase and if it trades below 200 DMA its in bearish phase.

We shall run an analysis to find out of Nifty 50 stocks, how many number of stocks trades above 200 day moving average, higher the number, stronger the market. we need correct data, we cannot test it with current Nifty 50 stocks,

we need list of Nifty 50 stocks that are part of index historically, so when we run for Jan 2008, stocks like RPL, RNRL, UNITECH were part of Nifty 50, so it is essential to test it with correct datasets.

🚨 VA: Deep Dive 🗳️

Sorry, for the delay this is going to be likely the most comprehensive single 'breakdown' of this state anywhere on Twitter. Charts, charts, and more charts. If that's not your thing just read the tweets and you'll get it.

Target: 🎯 Virginia

For this next installment, we've got a lot of county data. These are big images and if you can't see them try to right-click them, open in a new tab. If you still can't see them you can zoom in and out of that image with +/- key and holding control.

Alternatively, you can just trust me and read these tweets. 🙃 (I make a point of going over the important stuff.) Anyway, off to the races! We'll start with the normal chart, and then we're going into the county extras. (It's big, and many people don't care.)

So, out the gate we've got Biden slightly ahead on his mean votes @ 8235 per time interval to Trump's 6698. The election as recorded was:

(data downloaded just now)
Trump: 1,962,631
Biden: 2,413,144
Third: 84,750
Total: 4,460,525

Trump is losing by 450,513.0 votes.

While that vote total seems high for a loss, we'll get to that in a minute. Don't panic.

On our first chart we've got problems! The count starts @ 7pm est, and it looks fairly decent for Trump out the gate. We have a unicorn pro-Trump 'shovel' here. (Usually used to hide vote