The Indian Capitalist

Investor | Watching paint dry since 2019

#TheIndianCapitalist #TIC

[The Indian Capitalist @IndCapitalist]

Arbitrages, Competitive Advantages and Longevity:

My understanding of competitive advantages has evolved. To me, they are no longer nebulous tendencies, inexplicable birth rights or consequences of size and scale. They are merely arbitrages with varying shelf lives.

A couple decades ago, early adoption of technology, building relationships with distributors and access to capital (patient and good quality) could pass for a moat but as information asymmetry abated (thanks to cheap internet and favourable policy), the same vantage point doesn't seem so high above the rest anymore. This is not to say that technology, distribution and capital are of no consequence today but just that they are necessary but not sufficient conditions to qualify as moats anymore.

Today, first mover advantage, regulatory protection, talent acquisition/retention etc are all touted to be competitive advantages but they are nothing if not short lived arbitrages - entry begets more entry, changes in the regulatory environment are a feature not a bug for a growing country and talent mobility within the system is a hallmark of a free market economy. As time passes moats are getting disrupted more rapidly than ever before as adoption curves accelerate and information dissipation in the system becomes more fluid - think about how AI was a novelty in 2021 and a commodity in 2024. Yesterday's moat is today's commodity.

So then, what makes some companies better than the rest? what's anyone's right to win anymore? The kinds of businesses, that do not rely on their transient competitive advantages (organised-to-exploit arbitrages) and hold themselves accountable when facts change are the ones that have the ability to stay at the frontier of growth and prosperity. That, however, is easier said than done, as attributing an unfavourable outcome to the failure of an arbitrage becomes an easy escape from accountability - what Dan Davies calls an 'Accountability sink'.

It’s a rare and demanding pursuit—building a business with longevity.

#Moats #CompetitiveAdvantages #Businesses #Stocks #Capital #Arbitrage #AI #Investing

[The Indian Capitalist @IndCapitalist]

@unseenvalue Not sure which stock is being referred to here but this is true for Tarsons as well.

[Aravind Srinivas @AravSrinivas]

Imagine a fable 5 quality model that’s 3-4x less expensive in less than 6 months. And an Opus 4.8 grade model that can run on a local device in less than 12 months. Greater than 50% chance that these events will happen. Worth keeping in mind when you make predictions about the future.

[The Indian Capitalist @IndCapitalist]

That's a stupid investment at 40x EBITDA. Almost certainly value destroying.

[RedboxGlobal India @REDBOXINDIA]

APOLLO MICRO SYSTEMS: CO TO ACQUIRE 41.33% STAKE IN PREMIER EXPLOSIVES FOR ₹1,550 CR

[The Indian Capitalist @IndCapitalist]

If Pharma is doing well as an industry, it is about time that folks that supply lab equipment and manufacturing equipment to Pharma companies also got to do well.

[Deedy @deedydas]

WhatsApp may be the statistically best app we've ever made.

It's a product manager's dream with its unparalleled addictiveness (DAU / MAU) of 87% and stickiness (M1 retention) of 86%, both #1 in the world while having the #1 most monthly active users for any non preinstalled app of 2.7B users.

Here are the top 25 most used apps in the world by MAU on both these metrics. Some surprising observations:
— There are now 15 1B+ user apps in the world, 8 by Google, 4 by Meta.
— The 3 that aren't are TikTok, Telegram (!) and ChatGPT
— Telegram has more users than Spotify, Pinterest, Netflix, Amazon, Snap!
— ChatGPT's one month retention is #5 after WA, Instagram, Chrome and Youtube. 2yrs ago, it was been #20 by M1 retention
— Shopee, a shopping app in southeast Asia, is huge and retains users better than Amazon!

Useful way to break down consumer businesses especially within certain categories (X vs Reddit vs Threads is a good one). It's shocking how few new apps have been able to break through in the past 10yrs.

[RedboxGlobal India @REDBOXINDIA]

SUVEN LIFE SCIENCES TO HIGHLIGHT CNS DRUG CANDIDATES, SEEK GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS AT BIO 2026

SUVEN LIFE SCIENCES TAKES CNS PIPELINE TO GLOBAL STAGE AT BIO INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION 2026

[Vishal Sikka @vsikka]

I learnt a long time ago that there is a big difference between making a living and making a life. In the times to come, AI will get increasingly better at the skills that we've used to make a living. Our imperative will be to instead make lives. Not artificial lives. Or artificial lives. But our own lives and of those we love. As machines get better at answering, and solving what they are asked, our work is to get better at asking, at making, creating, and deciding which questions are worth a life, and refusing to outsource that.

[The Indian Capitalist @IndCapitalist]

To discourage retail investors from continuing their SIPs is ludicrous advice and assumes that salaried folks are actively managing their money. From a MF lens, the manager might be actively managing the portfolio but from a SIP doer's lens, most investors neither know nor care about what's inside the fund. Most look at this activity of SIP as a corpus creation activity which by design has to continue with incremental efforts periodically i.e. SIP. The argument that SIP is facilitating FII exit and thereby leading the currency pressure might or might not be true and macro decisions need to be made despite this fact that SIPs are here to stay as India actively explores allocation to equity.

[The Indian Capitalist @IndCapitalist]

So Iran announces peace deal on the very day SpaceX goes for IPO with obscene valuations?

#SpaceX #Iran #Stocks #StockMarket

[peony @peonyKingOF]

Interviewer asks Dario if you have 1,000 to invest in any stock what do you pick. He gets this response.

[Bloomberg @business]

At 940 pages, Warren Buffett’s collected shareholder letters sound like homework. Instead, they’re a surprisingly rich read: funny, instructive and full of lessons that go beyond investing. https://t.co/he1x1vm1iC

[FDA Drug Information @FDA_Drug_Info]

FDA has approved Zaynich for adults with complicated urinary tract infections (cUTIs) caused by designated susceptible microorganisms. https://t.co/VnIsXvAZhd

[The Indian Capitalist @IndCapitalist]

It takes ~$1-2Bn to discover a drug and take it to market. Wockhardt has a pipeline of such 6 novel antibiotics drugs and the entire market capitalisation of the business is ~$2.2bn.

#StockMarket #Wockhardt #DrugDiscovery

[Uday Kotak @udaykotak]

A crucial macro factor today is US 10 year bond yields. They have moved up from 4.16% on January 1, to 4.60%. It reflects increasing strain for US borrowing program as US debt nears $ 40 trn. When the US sneezes, world gets a cold. Watch out for bond yields around the world.

[Intrinsic Compounding @soicfinance]

Indian Origin CEO vs S&P 500

[Lawrence Yeo @moretothat]

This is so good. I love Derek's essays.

[Thariq @trq212]

HTML is the new markdown.

I've stopped writing markdown files for almost everything and switched to using Claude Code to generate HTML for me. This is why.

[The Indian Capitalist @IndCapitalist]

Several players reporting robust growth in the housing finance sector.

#StockMarket #Q4FY26

[Acquired Podcast @AcquiredFM]

Ferrari is not a car company.

[The Indian Capitalist @IndCapitalist]

At the end of the AI tunnel is non-employment..not unemployment. There's a difference!

[Indian Tech & Infra @IndianTechGuide]

🚨 Anthropic partners with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs to launch a new AI services firm.