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How the Ambanis became the richest family in Asia. This is the third case on the rise of a tycoon, and the last one before we start talking about the core pattern in all of these Asian Tycoon’s lives. Part 6 in the Asian Conglomerate Series.
How to get better, faster at the skill of uncovering demand, which underpins the skill domains of sales, marketing, and product.
How do Asian conglomerates play in capital markets, given pliable governments and weak regulators? We examine the career of one activist investor, to see what that tells us about the Asian tycoons we’ve been studying.
How to think about corruption when talking about Asian businesses. Part 4 of the Asian Conglomerate series.
A simple, effective — though not easy! — technique for solving information overload. Written from practice.
More in finance
Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 4.1% year-over-year in January S&P/Case-Shiller released the monthly Home Price Indices for January ("January" is a 3-month average of November, December and January closing prices). January closing prices include some contracts signed in September, so there is a significant lag to this data. Here is a graph of the month-over-month (MoM) change in the Case-Shiller National Index Seasonally Adjusted (SA). The MoM increase in the seasonally adjusted (SA) Case-Shiller National Index was at 0.57% (a 7.0% annual rate), This was the 24th consecutive MoM increase in the seasonally adjusted index. There is much more in the article.
Plus! Privacy and Usability; Muscle Memory; Talking One's Economic Short Book; More Preemptive Free Trade; Private and Public
The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in February were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 676 thousand. Sales of new single-family houses in February 2025 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 676,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 1.8 percent above the revised January rate of 664,000 and is 5.1 percent above the February 2024 estimate of 643,000. emphasis added Click on graph for larger image. New home sales were slightly below pre-pandemic levels. The months of supply decreased in February to 8.9 months from 9.0 months in January. "The seasonally-adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of February was 500,000. This represents a supply of 8.9 months at the current sales rate." Sales were close to expectations of 680 thousand SAAR, however sales for the three previous months were revised down, combined. I'll have more later today.
Plus! Reciprocal Tariffs; AI Purgatory; Payments and Credit; LinkedInFluencers; Efficient Markets
Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 1.9% week-over-week. Inventory is now up 7.0% from the seasonal bottom in January and is increasing seasonally. The first graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015. Click on graph for larger image. The red line is for 2025. The black line is for 2019. Inventory was up 30.3% compared to the same week in 2024 (last week it was up 29.3%), and down 19.5% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 20.5%). The gap to more normal inventory levels has closed significantly! This second inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research. As of March 21st, inventory was at 668 thousand (7-day average), compared to 656 thousand the prior week. Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube
