1) My investment philosophy + Disclaimer -

I'm a full-time investor and my concentrated portfolio is comprised of (primarily founder-led) high growth companies with large addressable markets. I usually look for dominant businesses with a special sauce (moat) which allows..

2)...them to compound their revenues, cash flows and earnings for an extended period of time (multiple years).

Usually (but not always), such disruptive businesses operate in the technology sector and they are led by visionary founders with skin in the game.

When I invest,...

3)...it is always with the intention of holding indefinitely but the business world is unforgiving and capitalism is brutal; so in reality, my average holding period is a few years.

So, when do I sell?

(i) When a company's rev. growth < 15% pa
(ii) When the mgt. deteriorates

4)...(iii) When the 'moat' has been invaded
(iv) When I spot a new opportunity + need cash

Apart from the above scenarios, I remain invested in the companies and allow them to compound over time.

On macro, market timing, forecasts -

I started investing in the late 90s...

5)...and have yet to come across an individual who has accurately and consistently timed the economy and/or the stock market. Not one!

Over the years, many have tried to predict the future and plenty of well meaning people still try, but I've realised that...

Go to 1-4 hour chart.

Use the following EMAs.
13,21,50,180.

Look for a period of consolidation and
13>21>50>180.

Wait for a pull back to 13EMA.
If bounce occurs with volume, Enter.

Exit on bearish cross with 21>13.

1/ I used to think that the biggest gains had to come from stocks that no one knew about

One of the harder lessons for me to internalize has been that oftentimes, unknown stocks stay unknown for a reason and you can still earn attractive returns from stocks everyone's bullish on

2/ While I’m not contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian, I do think it’s important to question everything.

When I started out, I would buy "quality" stocks like FB or TSLA without doing much research.

But an opinion being consensus doesn’t make it the truth.

3/ So owning the most popular stocks made me nervous. If a winner is so obvious then either it's priced in or maybe I'm missing something?

I preferred owning stocks that others weren’t aware of or were bearish on for the wrong reasons (more room for upside surprises).

4/ But there are degrees

Despite being widely popular, stocks like SHOP have been some of the best performers because they exceeded even the most bullish projections

And some stocks like TSLA are partly popular because they are great consumer products which is an important sign

5/ On the other hand, while the biggest winners can be found in micro-caps, many of which started out very undervalued with no analyst coverage, on average, they tend to underperform larger caps

Picking out the big winners earlier on is very difficult and there is no set formula

In my 20 years of trading I have noticed this cycle play out again and again with traders that "make it":

1. Overconfidently reach for returns
2. Get humbled by the market
3. Simplify + concentrate on clear, high probability edges.

1/n

Nearly everyone starts with a lack of respect for how hard it is to consistently make money trading.

That leads them to pass over high-probability sources of returns in favor of more marginal ideas.

Or they overcomplicate the trading of a good edge.

2/n

Here's an example...

It is 2015. You look at a simple strategy.

You hold an equal dollar exposure to:
- Cap Weighted US Stocks (VTI)
- 20+ Yr US Treasury Bonds (TLT)
- Gold (GLD)

And rebalance each month.

(I've extended back a bit with mutual fund prices.)

3/n

It made money consistently with a few blips.

You'd have 4x your money from 1997 to 2015.

It makes sense. It's harnessing two big sources of risk premia (equity + duration).

It diversifies across 3 macro assets that tend to outperform in different econ environments

4/n

But, naturally, you turn your mind to how you could do better...

And here is where it gets dangerous!

There are good ways to try to "do better", and there are bad ways to try to "do better".

5/n

Ten MF mistakes I recommend you avoid...

1. Too much love

A fund does well. You fall in love with the fund house. You have a large mid and small cap scheme from them. They all tank together! Diversify. And remember being good at one thing doesn’t make you good at the other.

2. One for all

Applying the same metrics to judge different asset classes. What matters to equity funds doesn’t matter to debt funds. Arb funds are fully hedged - the individual stocks don’t matter, they do in equities. Understand what matters for each asset class.

3. Perils of passive

Assuming all passive funds are good because they are cheap. There are terrible passive funds out there too. They track bad indices. Or they track good ones but have a lot of tracking error. Passive requires its own set of research.

4. Apples and kiwis 🍎 🥝

We have categories in MF but sadly all funds in a category are not comparable. Just because a website compares them doesn’t mean you should look beneath. BAF categories have funds that are static, dynamic bond funds have rolldowns. Just an example.

11 Critical Lessons from Jeff Bezos

// Thread //

1. It's OK to Fail

Bezos helped develop the Fire Phone, one of Amazon's worst failures.

And yet, the Fire Phone led to one of Amazon's biggest successes: Alexa.

“If you want to be inventive, you have to be willing to fail.” @JeffBezos

2. Be Uncomfortable

Before founding Amazon, Bezos worked on Wall Street.

Yet, he left his comfort zone to start an online business.

In 1994, building an online business was incredibly risky.

"One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out" @jeffbezos

3. Your Actions Define You

You are born with strengths and weaknesses.

What you do is what ultimately defines who you are.

It is not your ability that defines you, but your actions and choices.

"It's not an experiment if you know it's going to work" @jeffbezos

4. Embrace Criticism

If someone you trust gives you feedback, decide if their criticism is right.

If yes, then change and stop resisting.

Candid feedback is your ticket to true growth.

"If you can't tolerate critics, don't do anything new or interesting" @JeffBezos

How to Trade without Fear, Stress or Anxiety. 💯

Trading should bring wealth, happiness and peace.
Not stress and sleepless nights.

Here is how to trade without dying faster.

Please share to de-stress the world.

A Thread.

The reasons for feeling anxious and Stressed.

1. Too high Position Size.
2. No Exit Plan.
3. Almost no Entry strategy.

We will learn about them below and try to find a solution.

1. POSITION SIZE.
Position size should be equal to what you're willing to lose and not cry over.

Eg. If your position size is 10K, you should be able to lose 10K without it making you depressed.

It doesn't mean you throw away 10K as a random experiment.

If you're stressed? Reduce your Position size, Now!

But If I trade with such a small position size, it won't be much Profitable?

-Profits and wealth are built slowly, trade with small amounts, built your system, profits will accumulate.

Small Position size. Low Stress. Better life.

Remember, you don't need a lot to become big.

1% gain per day compounds to 3700% Return per year.

- If Stressed or anxious, reduce your position size.

Switch to smaller position which doesn't make you feel sleepless.

If you've been following DeFi or Ethereum over the past few months, you've likely heard the term "flash loan" mentioned again and again.

This new DeFi primitive has been at the core of a number of economic exploits and arbitrages.

A thread on the basics of flash loans - 👇

Most DeFi loans take place across days, weeks, or even months.

You can deposit Ethereum into Aave, then withdraw stablecoins for yield farming in Yearn, for instance.

On-chain loans have garnered much traction, with total debt outstanding moving toward $2.5 billion.

While popular, DeFi loans are not capital efficient: to account for custodial risk and volatility risk, you need to put up 130-150% of the value of your loan in collateral.

If your collateral slips below the threshold, you're liquidated, resulting in a fee anywhere from 5-13%.

Flash loans are much different than longer-term DeFi loans.

Flash loans are non-custodial, take place over the course of one block, and require no collateralization.

That's to say, the coins you borrow never appear in your wallet.

When taking a flash loan, you can direct the coins to any protocol and function, as long as you pay back the loan + interest fee within the same transaction.

So what the hell? What are flash loans used for?

More often than not, arbitrage.

We're in the phase of the market where there's a lot of retail inbounds but not enough education about the Ethereum ecosystem and DeFi.

So, let's break down the basics of some of the top protocols.

First on deck: Aave (@AaveAave), an Ethereum-based money market protocol.

A 🧵

TL;DR: Aave is a protocol through which any user anywhere in the world can take decentralized loans by collateralizing their assets.

Aave also allows those will idle assets to earn a relatively safe return on capital from lenders, whose rates are determined by a curve.

1/ For years, most crypto assets had no indirect or direct utility.

Users would hold BTC, ETH, and other assets (including many ERC-20 tokens) with no expectation of a native yield or dividends.

ETH, for instance, was long just an asset for transaction fees, as was Bitcoin.

2/ If users wanted to borrow against their assets, they were relegated to centralized platforms—which were few and far between years ago.

3/ Aave, formerly ETHLend, is a protocol allowing users the ability to lend and borrow on-chain, without KYC and untransparent fees.

Users can deposit a variety of assets as collateral, then use that collateral as ammo to borrow other assets to be used in DeFi or beyond.

9 biggest business lessons

I built a 7 figure business with 0 experience

I went from being dirt broke to running a company that feeds 250 families.

Here are the 9 biggest business I've learned along the way

(Hint: you won't find any of this in any MBA curriculum)

//Thread//

Quick PSA:

When it comes to business

Karma is real

The value you give will 10x the wealth you keep

With that in mind

If you get value from this thread, please share the karma by retweeting ☝ tweet above 🙏

Let's get your business started with Lesson # 1 👇👇

Lesson # 1 Never give up

When I first started I had $0 in my pocket.

I was so broke I had to use the wifi from a nearby coffee shop just to check my emails.

I knocked on 100s of doors and got 100s of "No" and sent 100s of cold emails.

9-5? Mon-Fri?

Don't make me laugh.

It's more like 9am-9pm (often more), 7 days a week

Building a business is a FULL TIME gig.

No different to raising kids.

Because money NEVER sleeps.

You can relax a little once you're established but when you're building?

Be prepared to GRIND and never give up

Next ... 👇

Lesson # 2 You can't do it all yourself

Reason #1313 why business degrees are bullsh!t.

They will teach you about things like "business plans" but they won't teach you practical tips like delegation.

Look.

Building a business is CHAOTIC

One day you're killing it and the...

THREAD: The top 0.1% of ideas I’ve stumbled upon on the internet.

The rabbit holes (without the distractions).

1. Directional Arrows of Progress

“Study the undeniable arrows of progress.” - @wolfejosh

• The future is kinda like a crossword puzzle.

• Nobody is going to spell out for you - but clues exist.

• Wolfe uses the trend line of history as clues for the future.

• E.g. Look at this directional arrow of progress

• Every time the computer gets more powerful, smaller and closer to our bodies.

• Wolfe used this trend line to bet that Brain-Machine interfaces will be huge and started funding companies in the space.

2. The Cobra Effect

”When a measure becomes a goal, it ceases to become a measure” - @G_S_Bhogal

• British colonialists tried to reduce the snake population in India.

• They offered bounties for dead cobras with cash given out to the killers

• The incentives back-fired...

• The local population started breeding cobras & killing them.

• When the government discovered this, the reward program was scrapped.

• The cobra breeders then released their $0 snakes into the street, making the problem much worse.

I've read all of Jeff Bezos's 23 years of Amazon shareholder letters twice now.

It's an MBA of its own.

Here's what I learned about startups, entrepreneurship, investing and more:

Your customers are loyal to you right up until the second that someone else offers them a better service.

Listen to customers, but don't just listen
to customers also invent on their behalf.

Here's Jeff Bezos on coming up with the Amazon Kindle:

We set ourselves the incredibly audacious goal of improving upon the physical book.

So don't be afraid to set big goals.

And remember that if you don't execute well, it will be done by someone else.

Many of the problems you'll face will have no textbook solutions, and so you should happily invent new approaches.

A distillation of what @naval, @shl, and @benthompson said about the creator economy on Clubhouse this weekend:

Naval: To be a good creator, you have to be creative, and being creative means constantly creating things.

You’re not just creating something; creativity is who you are and what you do. You're always creating things in your domain. Nonstop. Constantly.

Naval: There's a tinkering mentality that can keep you ahead of the curve.

Most successful creators are tinkerers. They just play at the edges of their field on something that’s interesting to them, but they don’t do it with a strong motive. They’re genuinely interested.

Naval: When kids are playing, most of that time is “wasted.”

But once in a while, it will result in something that might be a hobby. And for an adult, it might be a vocation.

Naval: Everyone's curious about something.

Sometimes it gets drilled out of you, but humans are creative. Nobody wants to sit there and do nothing all day (that gets boring). A big part of success is finding your natural self-directed curiosity and following it.

The art of cold emailing

A thread...

Cold emailing is the act of sending an email (or a DM) to someone who doesn’t know you (hence the word, cold!)

Every day I get 300+ emails, most from those I do not know, and a shocking number of them are poorly written.

Here are 10 things that work for emails that I reply to

1. A different (but not aggressive) subject line

Ask yourself, what is the most likely subject line that EVERYONE will tend to write.
And then DO NOT write that.

What works?
Personalization (I think Vidur and Uzma will love this)
Intrigue (This is when I first saw you)

What doesn’t work?
Common themes (Seeking investment; Job application)
Aggression (Your content sucks - true story btw. It was used only to catch attention)
Buzzwords (AI/ML startup by Stanford founder)

2. The salutation

It is crazy how this small thing is so impactful.
How do you start your email?

Hi Ankur / Hey Ankur / Good Morning Ankur / Dear Mr. Warikoo etc

Adding harmless emoticons helps (😊)