Curiosity@Intelsense
Multidisciplinary learning is one of the best ways to improve our investment acumen. Here is a summary of some of the best learnings of the week.
EVs are coming. They are the future. They will be taking over the ICE vehicles of today. The promise of EV is a less polluting vehicle. However, the less polluting is not something which is very clear. Here this brilliant article, captures how the mining of Nickel, a crucial component of a EV Battery, is causing environmental and social devastation.
The tropical islands that make up Indonesia’s archipelago are home to the planet’s largest nickel reserves, tied with Australia. Indonesia aims to secure its position in the global chain of EV production with help from a powerful partner, China. Now, instead of exporting raw nickel ore, Chinese companies are partnering with Indonesian companies to export refined nickel products, such as nickel matte, which is a crucial component of many EV batteries.
But the EV revolution comes with its own cost. The materials that go into today’s batteries, such as nickel, lithium, and cobalt, are in extreme demand. Prices for these minerals are soaring. For the countries in which these elements are buried, the EV boom promises profits.
But it also means massive extraction efforts — and the environmental and social issues that these cause. In Chile, huge evaporation pools draw lithium out of the salt flats of the Atacama Desert, spawning arguments over water use and the rights of Indigenous people. In Congo, cobalt-mining operations blast the earth with such disruption that locals are forced to relocate. In Indonesia, the scramble for nickel has never been more urgent.
Thought of the Week:
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” ~Gen. Dwight Eisenhower
Investing is exactly like this. In fact, one reason I was so attracted to investing and sports, is the way both mimic life in general. Most of the time the plans you make do not work out in real life because something or the other comes up that you had not planned for. But the very act of planning, of thinking things through, is invaluable. It forces you to make conscious choices. You get to know the context and the subject better. You get to know yourself better. And most importantly, if you have a robust feedback loop, over time, your plans keep getting better and better.
Video of the Week: Finding an Edge; creating a moat around an investment process
Insights@Intelsense
Quiver continued to perform reasonably well in a market which has been fairly choppy in the last couple of weeks.
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Interaction on ET NOW SWADESH
I shared some views across different sectors on ET Now Swadesh on Wednesday. You will have to excuse my Hindi a bit. Most of my Hindi has been learnt from watching Bachchan sahab's movies (!!) and speaking with friends which is usually more Hinglish than Hindi :-)