Diamonds, Buffet, Fundraisings, Kings, and some perpetual squabbling
Jul 31, 2019 | Read time: 3 min | 470 words
Morning all. Here’s today’s daily something
The once-crazy profits in the diamond business have started to come down, Bloomberg reports. And why wouldn’t they be? The diamond industry faces competitive pressure from all the other luxury goods items, like your handbags, watches, luxury cars, etc. Add to that a generation that just does not give a shit about whether diamonds really are a girl’s best friend or not, and you have the perfect recipe for the decline of a once healthy (in terms of money they earned) industry. In case you have around 50 minutes to spare, here’s a long-ass article from The Atlantic about how diamond prices are inflated artificially and how the world’s diamond economy runs (from back in 1982, but its still valid today).
Imagine for a second that I’m Warren Buffett. I don’t have many needs, and I’m a pretty generous guy. So once in a while, I tell a charity, “go ahead, auction a lunch with me for the highest bidder so that you can raise money to do whatever good things you do”. Now what if a cryptocurrency nut wins the auction (and that’s not all, the crypto nut goes and invites Trump to it too)? I (Warren) would be hella pissed, considering the fact that I have made clear that crypto is a “gambling device” with “lots of frauds connected to it”. Thankfully, the crypto nut fell ill with an attack of acute appendicitis, and ended up postponing our date, and so I (Warren) breathed a sigh of relief.
Stashaway, our very own robo-advisory-fintech-voodoo startup raised $12m in its Series B round, bringing its total funding to $20.4m. The round was led by a firm called Eight Roads Ventures, which is the VC arm of Fidelity Investments. You know what this means - more ads in the MRT and on Spotify.
India and Pakistan continue to squabble on their borders - they shelled each other from 1300hrs to 1715hrs on the 30th of July using mortars and small arms. An Indian soldier died, while (unconfirmed reports suggest that some Pakistani soldiers have been injured. How is this related to the world of business, you ask? Well, the last time India and Pakistan got into a fistfight, Pakistan closed its airspace for five months, causing losses to the tune of millions of dollars for international airlines, as they had to re-route their planes.
Malaysia anointed a new King, who will be the 16th to rule the country. Sultan Abdullah Riyatudding of Pahang succeeded Sultan Muhammad V of Kelantan, six months after the latter surprised everyone by abdicating the throne early.
And that’s a wrap. I think that going forward, this is going to be the basic structure of this newsletter - limiting it to just 5 points. Suggestions for changes/improvements will be gladly welcomed.