A true mashup — MMM #11

Hi there,

I’ve had a busy week so, unfortunately, I haven’t been able to produce any of my own content this week. This also marks the first week without (something close to) a central theme but I think that’ll make it even more interesting.

📃 In today’s mashup:

• ⭐ Highlight: the arguments you needed to roast crypto
• 💽 Data: a visual guide to Europe’s member states
• 🔍 Valuation: valuation biases (recent academic paper) + Damodaran about why the war in Ukraine will impact global markets
• 💰 Investing: don’t hold cash says the Sage of Omaha
• 🎁 Extra: the dawn of music documentaries on Youtube?

Have a great week!

⭐ Highlight: Burnt Bitcoin

I’ve long been skeptical about cryptocurrency and anything closely related to it. Don’t get me wrong, the tech is definitely cool and has its uses, but the idea that a decentralized system could store value, without any government interference is wishful thinking to me. As Benjamin Franklin once said: “the only two certainties in life are death and taxes”.

For serious “stores of value” the fluctuation in the price of crypto is just too large. Besides: is there any “real” value to crypto (other than as a speculative asset)? But hey, why sit here and read my arguments if you can watch this excellent documentary by Folding Ideas, clearly laying out why what we’re seeing is a good old bubble.

Line Goes Up — The Problem With NFTs — www.youtube.com
If someone pitches you on a “great” Web3 project, ask them if it requires buying or selling crypto to do what they say it does.Sources and Further Readinghtt…

💽 Data: ABC of Europe

A great piece of data visualization that I came across this week is this: an overview of Europe and its different treaty groups, truly stunning.

A Visual Guide to Europe’s Member States — www.visualcapitalist.com
Europe’s member states are part of one or more of the four major treaty groups. Here we map the countries that are part of these groups.

🔍 Valuation: no you’re biased

We all like to think that we are the objective ones, but this new paper by Marc Broekema shows two interesting experiments in Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) context. Both relate to the “objective” valuation of a firm’s value. He shows the impact on firm value of behavioral biases such as the “anchoring bias” (an initial number is taken as a goal) and “engagement bias” (your client’s interests). It is always interesting to see the difference between buy- and sell-side valuations and the article illustrates this nicely. Have a read if you’re interested :)

Full article: Are Business Valuators Biased? A Psychological Perspective on the Causes of Valuation Disputes — www.tandfonline.com
Business valuations of the same company made by different valuators frequently diverge, resulting in lengthy and costly disputes. This paper takes a novel approach in explaining inconsistencies in …

I have seen many questions pop up about the impact of the war in Ukraine on global markets. Here is a comprehensive 20-minute overview by Prof. Damodaran (my favorite source).

Russia in Ukraine: Let Loose the Dogs of War! — www.youtube.com
Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine is the news of the day, dominating political, economic and market news. While it may seem callous to be looking at market an…

💰 Investing: Cash is Costly

Continuing the topic, a piece of advice from Warren Buffett. Don’t hold cash. With fears of stagflation (stagnation/recession + inflation) on the rise, we may soon find ourselves in rainy weather economically. Although holding stocks also comes with (massive) risks, you’re at least not holding paper of zero intrinsic value.

Warren Buffett says never to hold money during a war. Here’s a stagflation playbook for stocks. — MarketWatch — www.marketwatch.com
Famed Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett once offered up wartime investing advice, and said it’s better to put money to work. If stagflation is on your…

🎁 Extra: Youtube Documentary

I always enjoy deep dives into niche topics. One of those is the origin of a certain song. I recently came across this relatively small channel that started producing very high-quality documentaries only recently. Given the state of Youtube copyright enforcement, it might surprise you that the subject of those documentaries is: music!

You’ve probably heard this hit in the early 2000s so if you’re into tracking samples across songs, unknown producers, who stole what from whom, etc., watch this great piece of content.

How Eric Prydz stole “Call on Me” (but someone else stole it first) — www.youtube.com
In 2004 Eric Prydz smashed into the charts with his hit song Call on Me.In this video I want to look into the full wild history of this song — the hole goes …

⏭️Next

Next week I hope to have some content for you. It has been a difficult balancing-act and will take some time to get right but I am confident that I can get a schedule down eventually :)

Have a great week!