Apr 8
Ethical Weapons are Ethical — MMM #13
Hi there,
The academic term is over and that means I’ll be focusing on creating summaries soon. But first I’ve taken the time to create a quick guide to seasonal forecasting, a topic that I’ve come across more times than I can count and has finally popped up in one of my courses at LSE too. It’s super useful for anyone who faces seasonality in demand, revenue, costs, etc.
📃 cool stuff of the week:
- ⭐ Highlight: Ethical Weapons are Ethical
- 💰 Investing: SPACs face regulation
- 💽 Data: a data-driven look at humanity
- ✍🏻 Blog: Seasonal Forecasting — A basic model in 4 steps
Have a great week!
⭐Highlight: Ethical Weapons are Ethical
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), is the catch-all term for efforts by finance and business to have a “positive” impact on society. The war in Ukraine makes the flaws in ESG reasoning, particularly in investing, very clear.
Some analysts are now arguing that weapons are ethical as long as they are sold to the “right” side. After all, they are necessary to defend freedom. A year ago you would have been ridiculed for suggesting it.
Dr. Aswath Damodaran has a great blog post and video on the topic, identifying three groups of ESG supporters/skeptics.
ESG’s Russia Test: Trial by Fire or Crash and Burn? — www.youtube.com
For a decade now, ESG advocates have told us that adopting its precepts would protect us from risks emanating from bad corporate behavior. As the Russian inv…
Musings on Markets: ESG’s Russia Test: Trial by Fire or Crash and Burn? — aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com
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💰Investing: SPACs face regulation
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are essentially publicly traded shell companies that aim to acquire a private company. They raise money in public markets and then create a less regulated listing for the acquired company, circumventing the cumbersome IPO process.
Although the market is booming, raising over $160B in 2021, SPACs are also associated with fraud. Nikola (NKLA) is a famous case, ultimately settling for $125M with the US financial regulator (S.E.C.) because it misinformed investors about the true state of the business.
Now the S.E.C. comes back swinging, with tighter regulation surrounding SPACs and sometimes even classifying them as “investment companies” (with even more regulation). The question is whether this will be enough to motivate these companies to actually go for an IPO.
S.E.C. Proposes Tighter Rules for SPACs — The New York Times — www.nytimes.com
A new proposal casts an even bigger shadow over the once-booming market for blank-check firms.
DOJ and SEC send warning to SPACs with criminal charges against Nikola founder Trevor Milton — www.cnbc.com
Nikola is one of at least three EV start-up companies being investigated by federal prosecutors about potentially misleading investors.
💽 Data: Humanity in Data
Our World in Data published a great article looking at the past and future of humanity using their signature high-quality data visualization. Definitely check it out (the charts alone are worth it).
The Future is Vast: Longtermism’s perspective on humanity’s past, present, and future — Our World in Data — ourworldindata.org
If we manage to avoid a large catastrophe, we are living at the early beginnings of human history
✍🏻 Blog: Seasonal Forecasting
I decided to create a concise guide to one of the seasonal forecasting models covered in my Supply Chain Management course at LSE. The guide only takes 5 minutes and walks you through the key concepts and steps necessary to build a robust forecasting model for a data-series that has seasonality.
Seasonal Forecasting — A basic model in 4 steps — tkon99.medium.com
Many industries face seasonal demand in some form or another. On a monthly, quarterly, or even weekly basis, seasonality is everywhere. Because my Supply Chain Management course at the London School…
⏭️ Next
Next week I’ll be releasing another Excel in 60 seconds video and (hopefully) a blog post on Finance or Supply Chains (or a bit of both).
Have a great week!
