(Not) Boring Finds for September 2017

by Mawer Investment Management, via The Art of Boring Blog

This month we learned investors may want to think more like virologists; to start preparing our goodbyes to the internal combustion engine; that interpreting correlations between the economy and a stock may be moot; how Microsoft can learn from the history of IBM; and that attitude sometimes matters more than smarts.

Collaborative Fund — The Unsolvable Puzzle
Investors must stop thinking of their field as logical and permanent. Rather, they should be like virologists: evolving and adapting to new information that presents itself amongst the chaos.

The Economist — The death of the internal combustion engine
Dramatic, we know. But probably going to happen. Read on to find out just how much the electric car and “electrification” are gaining ground.

Stratechery — Microsoft’s Monopoly Hangover
A great piece on Microsoft’s evolution and prospects as a tech giant. Plus, some takeaways on management, culture, and business models.

Charlie Rose — Jeremy Grantham
In which Charlie Rose interviews Jeremy Grantham, chief investment strategist at GMO. Some of the topics covered include corporatism, climate change, and China.

Preview:
Rose: “So there’s a disconnect between the market and economic growth?”

Grantham: “Yes there is. And there always has been. There is no easy correlation between the economy doing well and the stock…you might think there is when you read the newspaper or listen to the news, but there isn’t.”

Rose: “But then—I know people make a lot of money by looking hard at macroeconomics.”

Grantham: “Well, good luck to them, it’s very difficult.”

World Economic Forum — Here’s why your attitude is more important than your intelligence
“If you aren’t getting a little bit better each day, then you’re most likely getting a little worse—and what kind of life is that?” The importance of a growth over fixed mindset.

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This post was originally published at Mawer Investment Management