Crazy people of like nature enforce yet conceal each others' craziness. Find your craziness and tone it to saner proportions.
Mean reversion is an enduring truth of market.
Average common man will buy more in peaks and less in trough.
Excesses in under and over valuation is an enduring theme.
Find High Growth Companies in Low Growth Industries.
Stop Finding companies in High Growth Industries.
Find out the type of investor you are, someone who buys on borrowed tips of one who researches on their own.
Find market leaders in small niches, not #3 or #4 players selling cheap.
Thinking in 3-5 year time frames and not 3-4 months / quarters.
Understand the business, competitive forces and ability to predict future of the business.
Stop thinking solely in PE terms.
Stop playing greater fool game.
Bet on four stocks at a minimum, don't over concentrate, don't over diversify.
Think independently. You will outperform the majority.
When there is no company worth investing in the country, go all cash, to go out of the country.
Get rich slow-but-sure, don't buy lotto, don't play in casino, don't gamble, don't leverage.
Maximise money per hour of research, no point buying into a position requiring active monitoring. The person who makes 100 million from stock market by investing 1 hour per day wins over the person who makes 100 million by investing 6 hours a day. Time is finite and limited. Learning and knowledge is infinite.
Make money and stock market both your slave, make money and forget about them.
Never retire, work incessantly.
Money is means and not an end. Money is a slave to free you from your daily routine.
Show you have the creative potential and do something that nobody has ever done.
Have more creative ambitions in life than earning billions, you are more than your body (thankfully) that needs to be fed on money supplied goods and services alone and very soon you will enter a dimension where money will not work. How soon ? Likely before 2500 weekends.
Gradually drift into a field which you are passionate about, otherwise you are a big disservice to yourself and the society in a profession that is not your passion.
Buy damaged stocks, not beaten down companies.
Admit mistakes.
Learn from own and others' mistakes.
Explain your picks to yourself with four convincing reasons.
Indian self-proclaimed gurus have been upping their game now with all the tricks in the book, marketing, finance, psychology, and blind fan following, hero worshipping, branding, economies of scale, outsourcing, distribution network. They are now a genuine industry, career choice and threat to conventional FMCG companies. Many brands like Patanjali, Sri Sri Ayurveda, Isha Foundation, MSG and many more have gained critical mass to directly challenge well established players in corporate India. Enjoy the game and hopefully my poem on Indian FMCG Babas.
Indian Religious Gurus vs Santa Claus
Indian FMCG Babas came with bundles of goodies
Kids thought they were Indian Santa Claus’s homies
Unbeknown to gullible Indian villagers
FMCG Babas are wolf-in-sheepskin entrepreneurs
Santa Claus bestows free gifts to kids in all neighbourhoods,
Indian Babas are mercenaries and brand their goods
As a minority investor your interests should be aligned with the interests of the promoters of the company. Buffett looks for integrity first, followed by intelligence and energy.
As you may be holding 20 positions, you can only infer from AGM or market gossip or genuine feedback about company.
Some of the hints and clues that minority interest take cue from are dividend policy, communication during bad times, dealing with group companies, acquisition of shares from open market etc.
One of the big turn offs for investors is when the promoter groups run a large number of companies be they public or private (this is a very common disease with Indian promoters) think ADAG Group, VH Group (Venky's India). The key problem is that # of hours in a day are limited and the promoters looking at 5 businesses will do worse than one looking at 1, especially if they invest a lot of personal time in absence of professionals.
As I am on a constant prowl for opportunities and lately in India now, organic cosmetics, foods *everything* is growing very rapidly, I stumbled upon a company which is associate of a BSE / NSE listed company Poly Medicure Ltd. The company has made its sister company (Vitromed Healthcare) RICH by giving it the jobwork, paying it rent for using premises, buying and selling products to it at so-called arms length. Anyone interested in further probing the management can ask few simple questions: Qs 1) Has Poly Medicure got any shareholding in Vitromed Healthcare ? Likely answer - NO Qs 2) What were revenues of Vitromed Healthcare prior to alliance / dealing with Poly Medicure ? Likely answer - Zero Qs 3) Knowing that certified organic food business is trending, your sister company has founded a step down subsidiary and has ventured into Organic Juices and Organic Cosmetics. This business must be juicy. You invest personal time as does your son in this business. Meaning Poly Medicure Ltd is now being neglected. Anyhow who are the investors and beneficiaries of this organic business (http://www.vitronaturals.com/natural-juices-cosmetics) ?
Likely answer - 100% owned by my family
Qs 4) Okay great, you have all the legal right to have as many businesses in the free land of India. But why are you advertising Poly Medicure's facilities and manufacturing prowess on the website of Vitro Naturals where the listed company that I own a part of gets no benefit and is not compensated ? Shouldn't we be getting some compensation "at arms length" ?
The reason is, management of Poly Medicure Ltd. is greedier and slipperier than usual, 100% goes into pockets of the family that runs the company listed on BSE / NSE India.
So my friend, avoid companies like these where management shares its second best business with you and keeps the best to itself. These companies will not be long term wealth creators.
I am not following the buttering approach of Dale Carnegie, "Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise". So, I might not make many friends. I have a very low opinion of human intelligence, or intelligence itself. If Google founders were intelligent they would not have tried selling their company for 1 Million USD (400,000 times less than its worth today), Bill Gates would not have rejected to buy Google for 1 million USD (he already had 20 years experience in software industry by then). Humans are luckier than they think they are. Humans control less than a fraction of a percentage of their life, because the percentage of control is so little BUT the perception does not feel so (we believe we control a whole lot more), that is why we are trapped in ignorance and blindness (aka Maya) and often, quite smug about it. There is no sense of urgency to surmount the matrix of delusion and ignorance. I think that attitude spills over in just about every discipline, business and companies included because eventually human is the director of the business show. That is why analoguesque companies get boiled like frogs and get voted out by digital divas with slow but sure death. GSK Bangladesh is a perfect example of an asinine management sleeping on the wheels while local pharma companies leapfrogged from nowhere nobodies to now ten fold the size of GSK Bangladesh for example Square Pharma. These companies are on the way to be 100 fold size of GSK Bangladesh and challenge GSK in the UK and the US eventually. A lot of companies with "MNC baggage" are not likely to make a mark in developing countries as they do not fully appreciate the Jugaad / Frugal innovation required in these markets.
I know a number of investors look at what has succeeded in the West and then use cookie cutter approach to buying same business models in an emerging country. In my opinion maximum money will not be made in such opportunities. That is why investing will remain interesting ! Companies that ignore social dimension and culture are doomed to stay mediocre.
Some examples of localised business models:
Aloo Tikki burger by McDonalds (more of ingenisation).
1Rs shampoo sachet by Hindustan Unilever.
Sending armoured vehicle to villages for Banking in african countries.
Micro finance loans (Satin Creditcare, SKS Microfinance).
Example from HBR
A group of people from developing country needed to do was to stretch one meal into two by preserving
leftovers and to keep drinks cooler than room temperature—a job markedly
different from the one higher-end refrigerators do, which is to keep a
large supply of perishables on hand, cold or frozen. Clearly, there was
no reason to spend a month’s salary on a conventional refrigerator and
pay steep electricity prices to get the simpler job done. And just as
clearly, the solution wasn’t a cheaper conventional fridge. Here was an
opportunity to create a fundamentally new product for the underserved
middle market.
Godrej’s team designed and built a prototype cooling unit from the ground up and tested it in the field with consumers. The result was the ChotuKool (“little cool”), a top-opening unit that,
at 1.5 x 2 feet and with a capacity of 43 liters, has enough room for
the few items users want to keep fresh for a day or two. With only 20
(rather than the usual 200) parts, it has no compressor, cooling tubes,
or refrigerant. Instead it uses a chip that cools when a current is
applied and a fan like those that prevent desktop computers from
overheating. Its top-opening design keeps most of the cold air inside
when the lid is opened. It uses less than half the energy of a
conventional refrigerator and can run on a battery during the power
outages that are common in rural villages. At just 7.8 kilograms, it’s
highly portable, and at $69, it costs half what the most basic
refrigerator does. Because it’s the right size for the job, easier to
move, and more reliable in a power outage than a conventional fridge, it
surpasses the higher-end offering on the performance measures that
matter most to these consumers.
In Kenya, for example, banking services are scarce and transferring
money is complicated and expensive. Without access to traditional
services, many people must use unsafe alternatives such as hawala—an
unregulated network of brokers operating on the honor system—or
transport cash by bus. The UK-based Vodafone solved this problem by
developing a secure, low-cost mobile money-transfer service. Called
M-PESA (M for “mobile” and PESA from the Swahili word for “money”), the system is operated by Safaricom, Kenya’s leading mobile network.
Key insight: Upgrade the already converted
It’s easier to reach people who are already spending money to get their jobs done. It stays devilishly hard to predict success of disruptive products, Tata's wanted to convert scooter / motorcyle owners to a 4000$ Tata Nano car, but it backfired on psychological grounds of looking cheap. They should have introduced the car in rich markets of Europe first. Think out of the box, focus on local business models, and be rich.
Bisleri intends to enter soft drink market in 2016. Ramesh Chauhan had unwillingly sold some of the legendary Indian soft drink brands like Thumbs Up, Limca, Maaza, Citra etc. to Coca Cola in 1993.
"Orient Beverages Ltd has informed BSE that the Board of Directors of the
Company at its meeting held on February 11, 2016, has discussed that
M/s. Bisleri International Pvt. Ltd. has launched some new soft drink
products namely (i) SPICY, (ii) FONZO, (iii) LIMONATA and (iv)
PINACOLADA. The Company as Franchisee of M/s. Bisleri International Pvt.
Ltd. is going to commence commercial production of all said soft drinks
shortly in its new plant at Sankrail, Howrah (West Bengal)."
Although one cannot bet too much on nano caps from portfolio weight perspective. In my opinion company could grow top line by 20-30% over next few years. Looks reasonable on MCAP / Sales basis for an FMCG play.
Nice background story:
"
By September 1993, Ramesh Chauhan
realized that there was no point fighting with the giant which was on a
poaching spree and decided to “surrender”. It was a very tough decision
to make because these brands (Thums Up, Limca, Gold Spot) were carefully
nurtured by Chauhan like his own children and now he had to sell them
off!! With a heavy heart, he bid goodbye to
his brands and sold them to Coca Cola. During the signing of the
contract, Ramesh Chauhan turned emotional & cried incessantly.
As an investor intending to create wealth, my personal opinion is that its easiest to create wealth by buying cheap stocks (low PE) of companies that are growing (even if not at breakneck speed). Not that growth at reasonable price, surfing new technologies does not create wealth.
Change is the friend of society but enemy of the investor. Nice book on change and innovation I read recently (Innovator's Dilemma http://www.amazon.com/dp/1633691780). Author covers multiple facets of change and difference between sustaining vs disruptive technologies, although a bit dated in terms of examples (written in 1990s) but valid in terms of framework of disruptive technologies. Leading and established companies were actually the first to recognize and frequently prototype disruptive technologies but could not get a board level agreement between marketing, accounting, finance, strategy to commit to disruptive technology due to 1/100th the size of the market at the time.
Very few companies last 50 years these days. And you know that any company or business group that has been around for several hundred years (there are several of them) has NOT compounded at even 10% CAGR. Because 10% Cagr of 1 Million $ over 200 years is 190 Trillion $, where as global assets are ~85 trillion $.
You need to sit up and take note when the company has been around for a hundred years. That implies that characteristics of the industry despite innovation allow for preservation of incumbents. Interesting statement from Nitta Gelatin Japan AR 2015 http://nitta-gelatin.co.jp/english/ir_info/library/annualreport.html
The company has also opened new subsidiaries in previous ten years in emerging growth markets China, Vietnam and consolidated operations in India. The other company that I invested in last year was United Nilgiri Tea Estates India, also a 95 year old company.
In my opinion next few years may be boring but interesting for these companies as the new money discovers that old is indeed gold.
Love the oldies.
Models
I also love some of these models where MNC competition is not present: Hair oil usage in India !
Use of storage water tanks in African countries and India (story over for Sintex, diworsefied), as developed world water availability is 24/7. No competition from MNCs. Artificial hair in Africa. Gold / Diamond Jewellery (story over for India)
Focus on business models that are country need specific.
Some handicraft wood products in China.
Upcoming models in India (Ayurveda), Natural / Organic Foods.
I have a low opinion of propagating stock investing as a profession, easy money, treasure hunt, road to billions, connotes all of that, hence infrequency of posts.
Ironically, I myself like nothing more than going through ten annual reports on a weekend, and to think of compounding most of the time.
My personal opinion for you equity crazy people on the company link
Disclosure: I and my Fund have position in this stock. Please consult your SEC, SEBI, FMA registered investment adviser before investing.
I wrote a few weeks back a brief note on a couple of organic food companies here http://multibaggersindia.blogspot.com/2015/09/organic-food-long-term-trend.html It is usually quite hard to spot a new trend and then work on finding stocks (listed) that fit the criteria. There are a number of reasons for it, the greediest, smartest, shrewdest poker players in town (private equity) would not let such a listed company be public. A few examples of up coming trends are use of Graphene as the silicon of 21st century, Battery storage technology for solar grids, Robotics (humanoids or systems with AI). We do get lucky once in a while by spotting companies that are not on the map, or those that have changed their business model. If you recall from some of my previous posts, products that help women look pretty, or allow humans a longer life, or deceptively even a perception of being healthy (eg: perception of healthy Patanjali Food stuff, even though it may contain three times the pesticide content of Maggi) are perpetual models (nice book on business models http://tinyurl.com/pe7lu2m) to be exploited by capitalists. I hate exploitation or taking advantage of others based on psychological tricks or diplomacy (Nice book on how not to get duped by other marketers from Cialdini http://tinyurl.com/ol4xpql). Nevertheless, I am not blind to the fact what is going on in the Advertisement industry and social media or the world around me. Organic *everything* is on an upward trend or at-least I am a sucker for it by paying 2.5x the non-organic food. I just happened to stumble on an announcement recently from a company based in New Zealand that it will beat organic growth target of 57% growth (excluding acquisitions). Source: https://www.nzx.com/companies/TIL/announcements/270582
I had been searching all over for organic food companies like a musk deer, the company that I should have bought was right near my back(yard) literally.
The story gets better as the company went in for a bolt-on acquisition funded entirely by debt of another strong company that imports Gucci, LVMH, Aramani and other perfume brands in New Zealand. But excluding the growth of acquired company the organic growth is 57% in revenues.
I checked and found that I am indeed late to the party with stock up 300% or so recently.
The company had been struggling to create a cosmetic brand called ECOYA http://www.ecoya.com/
Organic products such as Trilogy beauty products are also "pregnancy safe", and boy you gotta see the salivating margins on these products for infants and pregnant women. It gets better, did I say, even better ! The company has signed up with most respected Organic chain in the US. It has introduced product in the US in every store of Whole Foods Mart the Organic Supermart. Currently the revenues in Australia account for 50% of sales, NZ 25% and US only 5%, ROW 20%. US revenues are now growing 100%+ I know the question comes to mind about valuations, extremely inexpensive at 14 times earnings 1 year forward. 1 time sales. In rest of the globe, in developed countries FMCG companies are trading at 3-10 times revenues and 30-80 times earnings, and they are not growing this fast. The company has broken out of 20% growth trajectory and now in 30-40% orbit, this year 60% actually. I avoid developed markets for investment, too many eyeballs, too much capital chasing at too laggardly growing companies. This is only the one out of two companies I like in New Zealand for investment. Last time in 2013 I liked a company in Australia, CAPILANO Honey and read in their annual report "We are quite satisfied with 10-12% growth", hence gave a pass. I wrote about this company as "The only company I like in Australia" two years back http://multibaggersindia.blogspot.com/2013/09/roe.html Capilano went up nearly 10 times, 1000%, even now at in-expensive 18 times earnings.
How much up a stock has gone up on the past has nothing to do with how much it will go in future. I bought Symphony in 2010 at 25 Rs when it had already gone up 10 times from 2.5 Rs. It went up another 100 times from that point. Not letting go of this opportunity which I think will grow well above 15%, and approved by the Royalty!
I had written a blog post five years back (in 2010) on how your family can own 70% of Indian listed and unlisted companies here http://multibaggersindia.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-your-family-can-own-70-of-india.html In the previous article in 2010 I touched on how you could set up a foundation, where nobody could touch the capital, convince your next five generations to continue to compound money on value investing principles and accumulate over 70% of the financial wealth of India. I though it was time to raise the bar :-) , being a big fan of DIY, methinks, why depend on your family office / foundation, rather why not do it yourself, and why limit to India, why not the entire planet. Independence When I started getting greedy for money, it was with the objective of, in Munger speak "not being an empty sack, so that I could stand upright..." and can spend the time of the day the way I like. Now that I think about it, the financial independence objective was a very narrow definition, I would still be a slave of my mental habits, still be confined in the same body, time-space, same century, same planet, prisoner to the food demands of the body every single day, the list goes on... So, true independence must be more than financial independence. You can read how people with 100 million, and 1 billion and 10 Billion spend their time and get the kick https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8 Frankly, none of the antics of billionaires as described in the article appeal to me. Nevertheless, by accumulating a suffocating amount of wealth, the energy represented by financial wealth can be channeled into project to change the complete landscape of the planet, re-instating mission statements of schools, colleges, and corporate world. You can very well do that if you control 70% of wealth on the planet.
Reality Reality is stranger than the strangest fiction novel you can ever imagine, it is beyond imagination, reality allows imagination faculty to imagine. The examples that I may quote from may be from India or China, but they apply to all lands, Egypt, Greece, Lemuria, Atlantis etc Before you dismiss what I am about to write on human age as utter non-sense, fortunately I can provide some tangible proofs to the completely hyper rational logical mind. English unfortunately is a very un-mathematical language, where names and words do not really have a mathematical origin. Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages and besides having strong rules, the words have a root meaning, those meanings have not changed for 5000 years+. Tamil is as old or more older than Sanskrit but I know little about Tamil. Examples from Reality I remember wondering as a kid constantly mesmerized with thoughts of how big the universe is and whether it has an edge or boundary, how old is it.I am sure you felt the same. Later we lost some of that wonder to scrape through Monday tests, half yearly and annual exams in the school, pathetic. If you ask the brightest Nobel Laureate on this planet or students from IIT or MIT, or luminaries from NASA, "Who / When was it discovered that the Universe is expanding?" The answer is likely to be "Edwin Hubble in 1929". https://cosmology.carnegiescience.edu/timeline/1929 The correct answer should be "I don't know, too hard to tell". But for the sake of being announced of sound mind and judgment and not being abandoned by your family and friends, you would not answer that. Just see how that assertion of discovery of universe is expanding in 1929 is wrong: More than 99% people living in India would have heard of the word Brahmanda as described in their Vedic texts over 5000 years back. Brahmanda means universe in sanskrit, no kidding. It comprises of two words: Brah = Stretch or Expand Anda = Shape of an Egg Similar statement was quoted 1400 years ago: [Quran 51.4] And the heaven, We built it with craftsmanship and We are still expanding. What I have actually found is that earth is going through cycles, the intellectual, emotional and spiritual watermark of this 21st century civilization is way below the levels reached in the previous civilizations right here on this planet in numerous countries. It may well surpass in future, but as yet it hasn't. Greeks called them Bronze, Iron, Silver, Golden age and Indians called them Kali, Dwapar, Treta and Satya Yuga. There are two other words worth pointing which prove that Ancient Indians (remember high water mark as has not yet been breached, not even close) knew very well than earth is round and has speed. "Earth" in Hindi language even today in 2015 is described as: Jagat Bhugol (these are 5000 years+ old words). I am myself familiar. Bhu = Earth Gol = Round Gat = Speed ( a courier cmpany on BSE is listed GATI, meaning speed http://money.rediff.com/companies/Gati-Ltd/16590029?srchword=Gati+Ltd.&snssrc=sugg) Vedas are full of checksums (that IT people must be familiar with). They were orally transmitted until man during descending cycle became intellectually weak to unable to memorize all the tomes, hence a part of them were written down (a whole lot was withdrawn from being written, that is lost knowledge).
Another example is from Hanuman Chalisa, which a lot of women from India are familiar with as a prayer chant, in one of the mantras is embedded the distance of Earth to the Sun : "Yug sahastra yojan per Bhanu. Leelyo taahi madhur phal janu. "
1 Yug = 12000 years
1 Sahastra = 1000
1 Yojan = 8 Miles
Yug x Sahastra x Yojan = par Bhanu 12000 x 1000 x 8 miles = 96000000 miles
1 mile = 1.6kms
96000000 miles = 96000000 x 1.6kms = 1536000000 kms to Sun.
Bhanu = Sun Leelyo = Play Tahi = You Madhur = Sweet Phal = Fruit A true scripture is multi-dimensional. It is valid for an idiot, a businessman, and a spiritual aspirant with many knot points, not easily understood. Moving on, I may have convinced you, or perhaps not, the that fact Universe is Expanding was merely re-discovered. Star Antares is the 15th brightest object in sky. In ancient India it was known by the name ‘Jesta’ meaning the biggest, largest and the eldest. Jesta is the star that is 40,000 times larger than our Sun. 'Viman Shastra' a several thousand year old treatise on air travel, mentions construction of flying vehicles for inter-stellar travel but the formulas are un-decipherable and many smart minds across the globe are trying to reverse engineer. Time dilation is touched on in the Indian puranas, there is mention of a meeting that King has to go to with beings on another planet, after he comes back in 30 minutes of other planet from that meeting, 700 years have elapsed on earth and his Kingdom is dust. The Value of PI is mentioned in the Vedas up to 28 decimal places
A Sloka in the 10th book of Rig Veda appears to be written for praising Lord Indra The technical translation of that Sloka gives the value of pi up to 28 digits accurately. It is not until the invention of the computers that the western mathematicians could get this value up to 16 digits accurately. Here is a test for those who think that a computer can do any calculation. Use the fastest computer available to you and write a program to calculate the value of pi up to 28 digits accurately. You will know how difficult it is. Vedic Numerical Code In Sanskrit, the following Vedic Numerical code was used in many slokas "Kaadi nava Taadi nava Paadi panchaka Yadyashtaka Kshah sunyam" कादि नव टादि नव पादि पञ्चक यद्यश्टक क्ष शुन्यम् Means... >Kaadi Nava Starting from ka, the sequence of 9 letters represent 1,2,..9. >Similarly Taadi Nava , starting from ta >Paadi panchaka (1-5), starting from pa >Yadyashtaka (1-8) starting from ya >And ksha represents 0 In detail ka(क)-1, kha(ख)-2, ga(ग)-3, gha(घ)-4,gna(ङ)-5, cha(च)-6, cha(छ)-7, ja(ज)-8,jha(झ)-9 ta(ट)-1, tha(ठ)-2, da(ड)-3, dha(ढ)-4,~na(ण)-5, Ta(त)-6, Tha(थ)-7, Da(द)-8,Dha(ध)-9 pa(प)-1, pha(फ)-2, ba(ब)-3, bha(भ)-4,ma(म)-5 ya(य)-1, ra(र)-2, la(ल)-3, va(व)-4, Sa(श)-5, sha(ष)-6, sa (स)-7, ha(ह)-8 kshah (क्ष)-0. Based on this code there are many slokas in mathematics e.g., For PI value, a sloka is as folows.. गोपीभाग्य मधुव्रातः श्रुंगशोदधि संधिगः | खलजीवितखाताव गलहाला रसंधरः || gopeebhaagya maDhuvraathaH shruMgashodhaDhi saMDhigaH khalajeevithakhaathaava galahaalaa rasaMDharaH ga-3, pa-1, bha-4, ya -1, ma-5, Dhu-9, ra-2, tha-6, shru-5, ga-3, sho-5, dha-8, Dhi -9, sa-7, Dha- 9, ga-3, kha-2, la-3, jee-8, vi-4, tha-6, kha-2, tha-6, va-4, ga-3, la-3, ha-8, la-3, ra-2, sa-7, Dha-9, ra-2 3.1415926535897932384626433832792... The above sloka has actually 3 meanings 1. In favor of Lord Shiva 2. In favor of Lord Krishna 3. The value of PI upto 28 decimals. https://www.facebook.com/EasySamskrutha/posts/703916786405256:0
Age Compounding and time is very fascinating combination. The longer you can compound, the less capital you need. For example if you were to compound 1 Million USD for 100 years @ 20% CAGR (DIY or Foundation or Family) you would accumulate 82 Trillion USD ( more than GDP of the world in 2015) If you have only 10,000$ to start with you can accumulate all Global Assets in 126 Years. If you are born in the most un-favourable circumstances but know about compounding. You can save 1$ a day for 30 years to accumulate your first 10,000$ and reach the goal of accumulating all Global Assets in 156 years. How old can a man live ? I used to think 70 to 100 years. But like I said, reality is stranger than fiction. I have not met any person myself as yet, but have done sufficient research to know that man can live for several 100s of years. A particular saint from India around 15,000 BC, that was in highest age (Golden in Greek, Satya in India) devised internal medicine and external cleansing processes to conquer age and termed it Kaya-Kalpa (Body Immortality) Yoga. Sage Agasta's goal was obviously not to compound money :) but make spiritual progress within this life and prolong life. Some of the people who mastered those techniques lived for over 12,000 years. I know you might be tempted to lock me up in a lunatic asylum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agastya
Meanwhile I know of two documented examples, one from India and another from China of people who have lived for over 250 years, both using some breathing exercises or meditation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Ching-Yuen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devraha_Baba So, my friend, I have proven to you how you could take over the planet financially. Think long term! Buffett might need to launch a research on Agastya's work if he wants to be the oldest person in the world. Known Universe The known universe as widely accepted is also pretty big. Don't get carried away with the thought that 83 Trillion USD is a lot of money. It is, but still on an insignificant speck of invisible dust particle in the big picture. Have a look:
