Review: The Joys of Compounding by Gautam Baid

Joys of Compounding

Gautam Baid has an interesting personal story to tell. I saw some of his interviews online and read his interviews to make sense of his investing philosophy. He has, no doubt, a good understanding of finance and fundamental analysis for investing. He is also associated with Chapter.

However, I won’t spend much time glossing over his background. I read this book at the beginning of this year, and it probably takes the top position in the most boring books ever read by me. It is the same gibberish of ‘stay invested, let stocks compound’ rigmarole that is repeated ad nauseum in this book. After reading few chapters, I was wondering what was the even point of writing this book. Whatever Gautam wants to say could have been said in few tweets or a Twitter thread but nothing more than that. This book is so mind numbing that I actually felt like smashing my digital reading device. I kept waiting for that piece of investment wisdom that will come through in the next line, in the next paragraph, maybe on the next page, or definitely in the next chapter. It never came.

If you haven’t bought this book, and are considering reading it, then don’t even think about it. I would happily ship my digital reading device to your address and save you the agony of buying this book. For those who haven’t heard of this book, count your stars!

If I had a physical copy of this book, I would have burnt it. Happily.

Review: Market Mafia by Palak Shah

Market mafia

Stock Markets have always attracted cunning yet smart ‘characters’ and this was well-portrayed in the web-series ‘Scam 1992’. However this book by Palak Shah is an eye opener in how there are several “operators” in the stock markets, right from the exchanges, to brokers, to algo writers, software firms, and even the occasional “server-men” who switch on or off the servers of the exchanges based on the operating hours, and of course the politicans! The mind-boggling scams, or shady dealings in the least, that are covered in this book will surely make one lose any trust whatsoever one has over the regulators, regulations, or the lack of seriousness in both of them.

The uncanny, widespread web of deceit which the author has uncovered, often via internet sleuthing, archived webpages, screenshots is commendable. However, after reading this book, one is left with more unanswered questions, especially this one: how come all of this has continued unabated for so long? There is no clear answer to this question in the book, but it doesn’t take too much thinking for one to reach a conclusion that if illegal or illicit gains are being made to the tune of thousands and lakhs of crores each year, and with awareness of regulator and even the top honchos of Finance Ministry including various Finance Ministers, especially Chidambaram, then definitely a good portion of these gains are making their way to the pockets of political pundits, king-makers, & coffers of political parties.

There are quite a few typos in the book and some of the points are repeated ad-nauseum. However this book definitely does make for a well-researched book which everyone who is interested in equities should read.

Review: The Antisocial Network by Ben Mezrich

Antisocial Network

There is fiction and then there is Reddit. Reddit has one of the most helpful user base and also has dozens of trolls on every post out there to have fun. But between fiction and Reddit there is a space which this book occupies. I very well knew what was happening with the stock of Gamestop in early 2021 and was following the news around it and Melvin Capital quite closely. I picked up this book hoping it to be a day by day behind-the-scenes account of what happened. However this is not the case. There is so much fiction woven in this book to give colour to the personalities that I found myself skipping paragraphs regularly. Nobody is interested in knowing how a nurse in a hospital reacted and what her facial expressions were when she saw that her gamble on the GME stock had given her 2x / 3x returns in a few days’ time. Nobody is interested in knowing how a young college kid in his basement was arguing with his brother & father to not sell his GME stock because he was expecting it to touch $1000. In an attempt to make this book interesting, the author (and the publishers) have added so much flaff that one has to search for those few interesting lines worth reading on every page, and many pages are completely skip-worthy.

My opinion: skip it! Read some longform articles on the GME saga on some business magazines or watch few Youtube videos which cover it and you shall have all the pieces of information without going through the pain of flipping hundreds of pages.

Review: The Billionaire’s Apprentice by Anita Raghavan

The Billionaire’s Apprentice

This book had been on my radar since so many years that I have lost count. Everytime I wanted to pick it up (as in pick up the iPad on which I read), some distraction would head my way. Anita Raghavan traces the rise of Rajat Gupta and Raj Rajaratnam and how their lives intersected in one of the most high-profile corporate scandals of the last decade. Rajat Gupta was the ‘big boy’, hobnobbing with Presidents, Prime Ministers, CEOs, Board Members, Venture Capitalists, and, of course, the head at The Firm (McKinsey) multiple times. Raj, a self-made, bravado-dripping, an MBA from Wharton, had founded Galleon Hedge fund and was later held guilty of insider trading based on his various contacts within different firms and industries.

However, the beauty of the book is not about the boring proceedings of the court (which are covered in extensive detail towards the last few chapters as boringly as one could), but in the way Anita has covered all the characters as human beings who were not just about money, stocks, and finance but who had personalities, like Raj always being the boisterous boy, Rajat the unperturbed thinker, Kumar the aloof one with supremacist attitude and so on.

The book is a must read on how often insider information was (and probably still is) being shared around big time investors and other players. It also highlights the fact that Preet Bharara had taken it upon himself to bring down the South Asian folks, probably to buttress his own prospects with the government. When Preet denies, for example, not knowing that Rajat Gupta’s indictment was on Diwali, it is impossible to believe! A person with Indian parents and who regularly interacts with the South Asian community not knowing it is Diwali is like a doctor not knowing hba1c.

My only grouse is that the book was quite dense in the details. While they were needed when it came to how information was shared, but really when it came to profiling the complete background of Gupta’s father and grandfather during British rule in India.

Nonetheless, a good, gripping book. I finally read it, 9 years late nonetheless. However, there is more the story. I would also be reading Gupta’s version and Raj’s version on the same. Anita has been as impartial as anyone can be, but it doesn’t hurt to hear from the horse’s mouth!