This week’s readings/links:

MS Investment Management: Myth busting, popular delusions, and the variant perception.

This is a good read. It’s an excerpt from a talk given by Michael Mauboussin to the Greenwich Roundtable earlier this year. He addresses four myths (“popular delusions”) and offers a variant perception on each:

• Concerns about the impact of short-termism, without a lot of concrete evidence for its existence.
• The idea that dividends play a large role in equity returns over time.
• The notion that investing in money-losing companies is a bad idea.
• The idea that the rise of indexing has made it easier to be an active manager.

Between a rock and a hard place: A gloomy outlook for bonds and hence bond proxies.

Also see Platinum’s latest market outlook note (link here).

Guy Keller: Navigating uranium.

For those new to the space, Tribeca’s presentation will bring you up to speed. And if you’re already familiar with the space, there are some good slides with updated data on the current demand/supply dynamics. Also helpful is this recent interview with the CEO of Kazatomprom.

Asset Value Investors: Taking Fujitec to the next level (presentation).

In case of further interest, here is a link to a podcast where AVI’s Joe Bauernfreund discusses activist investing in Japan and the Fujitec campaign.

Lee Hsien Loong: The endangered Asian century.

Singapore’s prime minister writes that the prospect of an Asian century “[depends] greatly on whether the US and China can overcome their differences, build mutual trust, and work constructively to uphold a stable and peaceful international order.” Other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including Singapore, hope not to be forced to choose between the US and China, but may not have much influence on how things turn out.

Australia’s water is vanishing: Scorched by climate change and drained by industrial farms, the country’s most important river system is nearing collapse.

I was not fully aware of the issues at the Murray-Darling basin and was therefore surprised to learn how serious things are. Of course, as the article points out, many other global river systems are not far behind. “In South Asia, rising temperatures are shrinking the glaciers that feed the Indus and Ganges, primary water sources for hundreds of millions of people. In Africa, the changing climate is making the flows of the Nile far less predictable – even as the population dependent on it surges. The Colorado, Mekong, and Yangtze all face their own climate challenges.”

Other blog links/readings:

Hong Kong – my favourite website to stay up to date on the local news and political developments is Big Lychee, although reading it over time feels depressingly like (in the author’s own words) “watching the sun set, little by little, on Asia’s greatest city.”

Other blog/newsletter recommendations – Longriver (primarily investment topics) and Declarative Statements (more eclectic), both written by friends.

Another friend, Tamás Vincze, wrote a short book called Eighteen and Cancer a few years ago, which I only recently got around to reading. The book sheds light on the emotional and psychological challenges faced by cancer patients as well as their loved ones. It also contains lots of practical insights for coping with adversity. Finally, he had recommended to me another book on a similar topic called Not Fade Away, which I really enjoyed.