6 AM Pacific

Big Pharma vs Nature

I read an article about something interesting that I now can’t seem to find on the internet. The article was about a study conducted by some Indian doctors that indicated that wheat grass juice can reduce transfusion requirements in Thalassemia patients. A paper on the subject in Indian Pediatrics from 2004 is what I was able to google.

One of the (many) problems with modern day drug discovery system is that it is driven completely by a template that provides no incentives to discover naturally found active ingredients with therapeutic properties. Discovering new drugs is an expensive process requiring tens of millions as investment before the drug can be commercially exploited. Most drug candidates don’t make it. If you amortize the cost of these failed drugs over the few successful ones, the costs multiply rapidly. The entire edifice of the pharma industry rests upon the ability of companies to successfully exploit a successful drug through patent protected pharmaceuticals. The problem with naturally found active ingredients is that a patient can get the cure without buying the pill. More »

Thomas Weisel Shutters Discovery Research

Last week Thomas Weisel Partners announced that it is shutting down its small cap research offering, Discovery Research. The 8-K filing says

Thomas Weisel Partners Group, Inc. (“Registrant”) announced today that it would discontinue its Discovery Research coverage of U.S. equities. That coverage is being discontinued as a result of the recruitment of key Discovery Research personnel to BNP Paribas Securities (Asia) Limited, a BNP Paribas affiliate. Thomas Weisel Partners is pursuing its legal remedies in connection with these departures. Discovery Research, a subscription-based research product, was produced out of Thomas Weisel Partners’ office in Mumbai, India. Thomas Weisel Partners intends to continue to conduct other business and operations through its Mumbai, India office.

There are two different reasons why I find this news interesting. More »

How Will IT Services Fare in the Coming US Recession

Most commentators put a high probability on the US going into a recession. What began with a problem of imprudent housing loans in the US has snow balled into a crisis for the Financial Services industry and an almost certain slowdown in consumer spending. How this impacts the Indian IT Services industry requires some analysis. More »

Gridstone Excel Add-in

We just released a very important product - an Excel Add-in that allows Analysts to pull in our rich data directly into their spreadsheets. Excel is very central to the work flow of our users. We think that this is probably the easiest-to-use Excel Add-in in the Financial Information business.

I whipped up a Slidecast about it. Even if you are not connected to the Financial world, take a look at it. I think it is effective and I spent about a day on it and that too because I tried many different approaches until I hit my stride. Feedback is welcome. If you’re interested in the tools I used, leave a comment.

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Company of One

The English word company means “A group of persons”. I would surmise then that the business entity “company” got its name because it comprised of a group of persons engaged in a common business purpose.

An individual can start and run a company all by herself. There is nothing new about that. What is however changing is just how much that company can achieve with a small team. A few individuals can create a company with millions of dollars in revenues and tens of millions of dollars of value. More »

I am Never Wrong – Just Ahead of My Time

After last week’s post, here’s another one based upon a gem from Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness. It’s called the bias against self-contradiction and it goes like this - if you make a bet that the market will go a certain way and it doesn’t, you tend to stick with your bet and your viewpoint a good bit longer than you would have, had you been a perfectly rational person. Over time, this will likely lower your performance as an investor. According to Taleb, some investors that he has great respect for – people like George Soros – change their minds often. More »

Survivorship Bias and Godmen

I am in the middle of Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He talks about how we tend to draw the wrong conclusions about mutual fund performance by looking at the historical performance of today’s mutual funds. We don’t include the performance of all the funds that were closed or merged, generally on account of poor performance, because they aren’t around. This is called Survivorship Bias.

I find that Survivorship Bias is very useful in explaining the Godman phenomenon as well. More »

BCCI and Indian Cricket - Monopolies are Never Good

Last week the returning winners of the Twenty20 World Cup, jammed up traffic in Mumbai. Sharad Pawar, the BCCI President and also Union Minister for Agriculture, cancelled all his appointments to receive the Indian cricket team. There was a big press conference, at which he made a speech that was, it seems, more a political speech than anything else.

And why not? He is a politician in a cricket crazy country. Why shouldn’t he take advantage of the rare occurrence that is an Indian team winning a major championship? Many other politicians in various states had the same idea and showered gifts and cash upon their home state players. Everyone loves a winner. More »

I Hope You are Enjoying This!

I normally don’t post links if I don’t have anything to add to the matter. But this one is just so funny that I will.

Business Standard’s Kishore Singh wrote a review (here) of a book called “Entry From Backside Only” by Binoo John. An excerpt from the review

Now I am growing up in too many small places as Father is on transfer, and so I am not khit-pit in English in weigh these hi-fi people in Bombay and Delhi our, but I am knowing that this Mr John, he is kraking these jokes about small town people who are not so well knowing the language. At first, I am enjoying and laufing and saying, Oh, this Mr John, he is telling good-good jokes. But then he is saying that this is not write way to right English, and that this is Indian-English, which is not true English, and I am thinking perhaps he is CIA foreign hand, he is wishing to disallocate this great country.

Need I say more? If you grew up in India, go read the review, it’ll cheer you up.

I salute Kishore Singh. I wish I could write like that!

Indian IT Services - Right Turn Ahead

Is the Indian IT Services party over? Is a decade of growth and wealth creation coming to an end? And if that is so, what can we read in the tea leaves.

There are three fundamental reasons why the IT Services industry finds itself in a challenging environment. One, the dollar-rupee rate. Two, wage growth. And three, slower revenue growth. More »