Weekend Reading #60

Photo by Jamie Taylor on Unsplash

This is the sixtieth weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 21st March 2020. To receive a copy each week directly into your inbox, sign up here.

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What we're thinking.

We know how challenging this week has been and, above all, wherever you may be, we hope that you and your families are safe and well. 

The events of the past month have been unprecedented. They will be forever etched into our memories and I’m sure that you all, like us, have grappled with emotions and conundrums that you never expected to confront in your lifetime. 

However, what has been noticeable, especially towards the end of this week, is the sense that if we all work together, there really is a way to turn back the Coronavirus. Through committed collective action, this can be accomplished, and it seems that, at last, those actions are being taken at both a personal and governmental level. 

We hope and pray that we’re going to be able to turn back the tide together. At times like these, you turn to your favourite quotes, and one of ours is from the feel good film, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”. Right now it seems more apt than ever:

“It’ll all be ok in the end and if it’s not ok then it’s not the end.”

From a financial markets perspective it’s been extremely choppy, but it’s worth remembering how much we all hope for a selloff so we can buy our favourite names. It’s a time to be rational and methodical and as we launch our fund we aim to be both – putting our behavioural process through this rigorous test.

What we're doing.

Amidst the chaos, we’ve done our very best to carry on with business as usual. And, considering what’s been happening, we’ve actually managed to get a hell of a lot done this week and achieved two exciting and significant updates. 

Firstly, David undertook a whistle-stop Eurostar to Paris and back on Monday morning to sign the paperwork that officially launched the Three Body Emerging Opportunities Fund. Fully masked up and loaded with hand sanitiser, the 2 hours at Gare du Nord were worth the trip, as it means that our fund is now accepting capital from investors. What a time to launch a fund! 

Second, our private deals platform, 3BC, received the final piece of its regulatory approval from the FCA. We can now start onboarding issuers and their deals and begin engaging with investors. It’s been a long and winding road, pockmarked with the trials and tribulations of product development and regulation, but we’re now all set for 3BC’s official launch. Please get in touch if you’d like to be included in the launch group of investors who will be given early access to our ‘Invite Only’ platform. 

Like many of you, we’ve been working from home this week, each seeking out a quiet space in our homes where we can crack on with growing our business. The challenges of homeschooling will soon become apparent to all of us (if they’re not already, and we’re only on day 2!), as will an appreciation for the incredible job that our superhuman teachers and childminders usually do on our behalf. 

Joni Mitchell sang, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” Turns out, she was spot on. Understanding partners, time at the bottom of the garden and noise-cancelling headphones will all play their part as we seek to navigate the coming months and keep the components part of Three Body Capital on their steep upward path of progress. 

What we're reading.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the way that businesses have been communicating through the crisis has been both interesting and heartening. In uncertain times, it’s easy to assume that corporations, especially multinationals, might get their comms wrong. Often they miss the mark with their tone or they say nothing, choosing silence over the risk of looking like they’re ‘cashing in’ on a crisis. But we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the wave of newsletters and personal blogs, many penned by CEOs themselves, that have hit the spot and piqued our attention. 

From Sainsburys to our local barbers, American Express to a favourite Camden coffee shop, the heart and feeling that business owners and managers are putting into their communications is plain to see. Of course, all businesses, large and small, need our help right now, but we’re pleased that they seem to be asking for it in a genuine way. 

One newsletter that we really enjoyed was from insurer Vitality, who offered up a great piece on social distancing, offering some positive tips for the ways in which we’re all going to have to adjust our lifestyle. Another came from a favourite Italian restaurant in Queen’s Park, Ida, who wrote an emotional battlecry informing loyal patrons that whilst closing the doors to their restaurant they were rolling with the punches and rolling out a delivery service for their excellent pastas, jarred sauces and hot meals. 

In the chaos, there is good content. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary communication. From what we’ve read, we feel a lot of businesses are getting it right. 

In other reading, Taleb’s paper “Ethics of Precaution: Individual and Systemic Risk” is one of the most poised and succinct that we’ve seen on the crisis, focusing on how we should all be responding to it. Driving past a packed central London coffee shop this week, where pre-coronavirus life seemed to be continuing merrily on as normal, brought to mind one line from the paper: 

"One must "panic" individually (i.e., produce what seems to an exaggerated response) in order to avoid systemic problems, even where the immediate individual payoff does not appear to warrant it."

In situations such as these, panic is good. Panic is productive. As Taleb succinctly followed up in a tweet:

Panic was/is one way of confronting the Coronavirus. Another has been through the deployment of technology, as this fascinating piece on HBR shows, setting out how Chinese cities used delivery technology to get them through the worst of the crisis.

China’s response to the crisis has been remarkable on a number of levels, especially in how it delivered medicines and goods to virus sufferers in the worst hit regions, such as Wuhan, the virus’ ground zero. Its use of technology can teach the rest of the world much about how to handle, in the short term, the coming weeks and, in the long term, the pandemics that will inevitably afflict us all in the years ahead. 

Away from the maelstrom of the news cycle, this week we finished War Doctor by the surgeon David Nott, his diaries written whilst working in some of the world’s worst disaster and war zones. Nott’s Desert Island Discs is also a great listen. 

Over 30 years, Nott has worked as a surgeon in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Darfur, Gaza, Iraq, Libya and opposition-held areas of Syria. His stories from the front line are devastating in their detail and they make you wonder why someone chooses to do the work that he does. They put into context our struggles, reminding us how lucky we are to lead the lives that we do. Hard to remember right now, but it’s vital that we try. 

What we're watching.

One thing we’re not watching is sport… because there isn’t any! And that has been a huge problem for our sports-keen office, with reruns of old cricket test matches and FA Cup Finals not satiating our thirst for live action. 

In times of crisis, we all need to make do and it turns out that one sport that hasn’t been affected by Coronavirus is competitive marble racing. Yes, that’s right, in a week when the major sports all went offline for the foreseeable future, sports like marble racing have been given a long overdue share of the limelight. Check out how TIME has charted this week’s explosion in a sport that, until a week ago, none of us had ever heard of. 

If, like us, you’ve been spending your days self-isolating and locked indoors then it’s likely you’ve been doing a fair amount of right-clicking through Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple+. Perhaps you’ve found this activity as fruitless as we have? 

That’s why we’re not going to recommend you anything new but, rather, we’re going to give you a stone-cold classic that will, without a shadow of a doubt, deliver you an unparalleled 2 hours 52 minutes of pleasure and entertainment. That’s right. We’re talking about Heat. 

Despite being one of the finest films of all time (in our opinion, of course) it’s remarkable how few people have actually heard of this film, or watched it since the time of its release in 1996. You’ve likely seen THE scene, where Pacino, the cop, and de Niro, the crook, face off in a diner to talk about the rights and wrong of their respective careers (“What are you, a monk?”), but the entire film, from the story to the dialogue to the cinematography to the soundtrack, are as near perfect as it gets.

So quit clicking right, sit back and watch Heat, be it for the first time or, like us, for the hundredth. You won’t regret it. 

What we're listening to.

With the volume of podcasts being produced on the subject of the Coronavirus, it’s hard to curate those that truly matter. In times like these, it’s a good idea to revisit a trusted source and there are few better than the Hidden Forces podcast and Demetri Kofinas. 

Kofinas’ conversation with the always-excellent Mike Green, a portfolio manager and strategist, gives us an insightful overview of the role that passive investing played in the recent market melt-down, the fundamental economic and political impacts of coronavirus, and prospects for a stimulus-driven melt-up that may bring about the greatest bout of inflation in more than a generation. Worth a listen. 

Returning to the theme of noise cancelling headphones, if you are working remotely and, like us, stuck in your home office (or kitchen!) potentially with children in earshot, you’re going to need some heavy duty aural protection to help you through. 

This brings us to movie soundtracks, which are one of the best genres of music to work to. Even if you’re one of those people who can’t work to music, soundtracks offer a lyric-less level of background noise that makes working possible whilst damping down the background din. They’re also inspiring. And just plain cool!  

Some suggestions to get you started include the great Hans Zimmer’s near-faultless celestial soundscape for Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster, Interstellar. The Nolan/Zimmer partnership also worked great on Inception, but there is something quixotic and peculiarly memorable about Interstellar’s sound. Powerful, melodic, meditative… it’s the perfect way to shut out the world by listening to what sounds a lot like space. 

Back on earth, more specifically, in Silicon Valley, Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) put together the music for Facebook-biopic, The Social Network, combining fast and slow electronica to create a distinct, uplifting sound to work to. David Fincher’s film is worth a watch, too, with Aaron Sorkin providing the Oscar-winning script.

Something different, something Western was put together by the great Nick Cave (he of “...and the Bad Seeds” fame) for the very good, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. This is truly haunting, ponderous, and brings to mind an America of years gone by. If you’re looking for an escape from the 4-square-feet of your desk, this will have you riding on horseback over mountains and plains in an instant. 

And if you’re looking for action there’s no better pick-me-up than the Bourne soundtracks, especially The Bourne Identity, by John Powell. The magic here is that Powell’s sound can make you feel as if your daily grind pushing numbers around a spreadsheet is as important and exciting as being an amnesiac assassin. 

So we’ve squeezed you some juice from the soundtrack fruits, but if none of these are to your taste, working from home might be best done accompanied by a great little app called Noisli. 

Using the app, plugin or website, you can select from a range of background noises. White noise, the sound of the sea, a train on the tracks… You can even choose to listen to the noise of a coffee shop, if it takes your fancy. 

We personally prefer a little wind and rain with a smattering of thunder and lightning chucked in for good measure. If the booming sound of a thunderstorm turned up to full on noise cancelling headphones doesn’t block out the sound of your children banging on the office door, then nothing will! 

Good luck and take care.