Harsh Kumar, CFA

Being bad is not good but trying to be good by spending excessive energy & huge resources for the sake of being good is no good either. Hope I learnt it right 🙄. Thank you @AswathDamodaran for this insight! @malpani_megha

Donald Trump took over as President of the United States on 20 January 2025. Since then: 1. The US Dollar has underperformed. 2. US Treasury bonds have underperformed. 3. US equities have underperformed several major global markets. 4. Crypto has underperformed. Four different asset classes. One common thread. “Truth is the first casualty of war. Confidence is the second.” And confidence, once lost, is considerably harder to rebuild. #USMidtermReflection images courtesy @Gavekal

There are two kinds of Formula 1 fans: Those who don't miss a race weekend. Those who don't miss binge-watching Drive to Survive. There are two kinds of investors too: Those who don't miss a single day of tracking the markets. Those who don't miss an opportunity to understand businesses, valuations and the forces shaping the markets. There is a difference between being entertained and being engaged. #TrickOrTreat

When someone points at the moon, it’s foolish to look at the finger. When someone points at the output of compounding, it’s foolish to look at short-term returns. Look at the time. #SharadPurnima

France spends around 32% of its GDP on social protection benefits, compared with around 4.5% on education. For those of us who expect to live well beyond retirement, there are two choices: • Postpone retirement. • Save meaningfully during our productive years. Or, ideally, a combination of both. Otherwise, we risk creating a society where the younger generation is burdened funding a retirement we failed to plan for. Caring for the old is important. But not at the cost of educating the young. #PréparationRetraite

When you buy paan, you ask for Calcutta paan, not Kolkata paan. When you buy a saree, you look for Banarasi silk, not Varanasi silk. When you order chicken curry, you might ask for Madras chicken curry, not Chennai chicken curry. And if you order Mumbai Duck or a Mumbai sandwich, the server might get confused for a moment! Some names stick, even when the places change. Be it food, fashion or investments, we are wired to seek familiarity. A familiar name feels comforting. A traditional label feels authentic. A popular stock feels reassuring. And in investing, familiarity can influence not just what we choose, but where the money flows. #JioPlatformsIPO

If a dating app finds you the right partner, you may never need the app again. If a doctor recommends the right treatment, you may fall ill less often and visit the doctor less frequently. And if a financial advisor does an exceptional job, your finances may become so well organised that you feel you no longer need one. That’s the Efficacy Paradox. The better an expert does their job, the less visible their value becomes. Perhaps the greatest measure of an expert's success isn't how often you need them to fix a problem. It's how rarely you find yourself in one. #InvisibleValue

Poor people are a lot like rich people, with less money. Small investors are a lot like big investors, with less principal. Thailand travellers are a lot like Schengen travellers, with less visa hassle. But evil isn't like good. It just has better PR to look like it. Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of doing good is not being good at selling it. This Dussehra, here's to backing money managers for the quality of their thinking, not the quality of their marketing. #HappyDussehra

France borrowed its way through Covid. But the borrowing didn’t stop when Covid did. Public debt has risen from 98% of GDP in 2019 to 119% today. And the French government now spends roughly half of its revenue on social benefits. Emmanuel Macron keeps saying : “Quoi qu’il en coûte.” Whatever it costs. Today, the bond market is asking : “Qui paie le coût?” Who pays the cost? French 10-year bond yields are close to 5%, at their highest level since 2002 and have even moved above Greece. It doesn’t matter whether it's mighty France or your spendthrift neighbour next door. THE BILL EVENTUALLY ARRIVES #ObligationsAssimilablesDuTrésor #OAT

Overmedication is a serious problem. We often blame the greed of doctors or hospitals. But sometimes, the patient is part of the problem too. Fear. Hope. Uncertainty.Multiple Doctors.And now, a very smart ChatGPT that can recommend a medicine for almost every symptom. Over-diversification is a serious problem. We often blame the greed of advisors. But investors play a role too. Fear. Hope. Uncertainty.Multiple Advisors.And now, a very smart ChatGPT that can recommend us ten more stocks to add to a portfolio. Sometimes, in our urge to eliminate every risk, we create a new one. #LetMeSuggestYouTheNextMultibagger

Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere in Formula 1. Adding risk makes your portfolio do better during a straight-line bull run. But managing risk makes your portfolio do better across all market conditions. #SourceOfAlpha

Owning a great asset is one thing. Being able to monetise it is another. #LiquidityMatters

Price tells us half the story. Earnings tell us the rest. #EighthWeekInRed

In the US, retail prescription drugs account for about 9% of total healthcare revenue. Hospitals, clinics and physicians account for roughly 52%. However, Drug development is an extraordinarily risky business. Of every 100 drugs entering Phase I trials, only around 12 ultimately gain FDA approval. And approval doesn't guarantee profitability. So pharma companies take enormous R&D and capital risk upfront, with no guarantee of recovery. Yet the broader healthcare ecosystem captures a much larger share of the revenue. It's somewhat similar in the primary markets. Investors provide the capital and take the market risk. Promoters monetise part of their holdings. PE investors realise gains through exits. Employees benefits from ESOPs. And the investor is left holding the listed stock, with the future performance risk. Of course, every transaction is different. But perhaps the more important question is not just: “What am I buying?” It is: “Who is taking the risk, and who is capturing the economics?” #PrimaryMarkets

16 of the 22 Arab states don't recognise Israel. Yet nearly 40% of Jerusalem's population is Arab. Warren Buffett has spent decades preaching long-term investing rather than trying to time the market. Yet Berkshire Hathaway holds nearly $365 billion in cash, waiting for suitable opportunities. Most fitness instructors say 70% of fitness is about the kitchen. Yet they get their living from gyms. If equities have historically offered higher long-term returns than many traditional asset classes, why do financial advisors still recommend asset allocation to someone with a 10+ year horizon? These are not contradictions. They are reminders that context matters. The same principle can lead to very different actions in different circumstances. Because in the real world, the exception often explains the rule. #ContextMatters

For the same T-shirt, most of us are willing to pay almost double if our school or college name is written on it. For the same team we played for during our college days, we may be willing to get sponsorship from our company, even when the economics don’t justify it. For the same food we loved during childhood, we are more than happy to pay courier charges that cost more than the food itself. For the same stock or parcel of land gifted to us by our parents, or received from our first employer, we need much more than financial analysis to convince ourselves to sell. Some may call it nostalgia. Some may call it love. Some may call it an eternal connection. We call it: The Endowment Effect. Once something becomes ours, we don't always value it purely on what it is worth. We value it partly because it is ours. #Biases

You watch a cooking video. You try it yourself. The output isn’t even 10% of what you saw. You feel depressed. You watch an art video. You try it with your daughter. Again, nowhere close. You watch a craft video. It looks so easy. You try it. And wonder how you got it so wrong. Then you watch an investment video with screenshots of great returns. You try it. And lose your hard-earned money. You think the problem is you. But it’s actually the video. Because the video was not created by someone actually cooking, painting, crafting or investing, but by someone using AI prompts. Don’t let a perfect video make you look imperfect. #BehindTheScreen