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Showing posts from August, 2010

Book Review - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson is the first part of the three-part Millenium trilogy that has become a cult series in the last few years in the mystery thriller genre. Larsson is the first author to have sold more than one million copies on the kindle store in amazon (that is, he has sold a million copies in the ebook format). So, decidely I was very excited when I got hold of my copy (I also read an ebook on my Infibeam PI). The book has two main characters - Mikael Blomkvist, a financial investigative journalist and Lisbeth Salander, a young social misfit cum computer hacker cum investigator. Blomkvist rund a small magazine and tries to expose the misdeeds of a large businessman in Sweden. He also gets commissioned by an ageing patriarch of a large Swedish conglomerate to investigate the murder of his niece over forty years back. Blomkvist takes up the challenge when Vanger, the old patriarch, promises to give him evidence of some criminal activities by the person h

Portfolio Update: Six month's of measured performance

After six months of starting to closely track my portfolio on an NAV basis, here are the results: Primal Value Fund (this is what I call my fund)=30.03% Sensex=12.48% Relative Outperformance=17.56%

Book Review: The Polyester Prince by Hamish McDonald

The Polyester Prince is a banned book. I am not sure why it is banned and after reading it I can guess. McDonald's narrative points fingers at the Congress government and some very senior ministers and leaders of colluding to help Dhirubhai in his endeavours. It is a fascinating read and goes over the life and time of Dhirubhai Ambani. It details the famous Dhirubhai versus Nusli Wadia battles, Indian Express' taking up the cudgel against him and focusses mainly on the dark side of the man. The primary feeling that I had while reading was the author started with a negative bias against the man. In my opinion, no supremely successful business in a controlled economic regime can be either just black or white in character shade. He has to be some shade of grey. So, the book should have explored the various shades instead of focussing just on the darker side. Another major issue with the book is that it tells very little of Dhirubhai Ambani the man and more of Reliance and its oper