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Super Bowl and Markets: Experience vs Youth!

The  America's National Sports Day (aka Super Bowl) is here. Last year ignorance about virus already spreading in US was a bliss. The festivities of SuperBowl including family and friends gathering went on in normal ways. This year all of us would be watching Super Bowl in our homes with only families staying together. It's better this way to be safe....to bring life back to normal.

This year's Super Bowl is a match between Experience (Brady - 43 years old and already 6 time Super Bowl winner) vs Youth (Mahomes - 25 years old and one time Super Bowl winner). Both quarterbacks have completely different styles. Brady is classic quarterback and one of the greatest of the game. Mahomes is anything but traditional quarterback and one the greatest in making. Tom Brady had proven that even at age 43 he could be in Super Bowl with a different team. That's what greatness is about. Mahomes had proven that last year's Super Bowl win was no fluke....in recent history other than Patriots (with Brady), not many teams have made to back to back Super Bowl. That's greatness in making. I am personally split between whom to support - I like Brady for his experience and maturity. I like Mahomes for his youth, energy and risk taking. So I am going to be neutral and just enjoy the game. It would be a great game either way.

In markets also, interesting dynamics between experience (old world companies) and youth (new age companies) are at play. If we just look at 2021, GM and Ford are investing in EV and making commitments to completely change their fleet to EV in next two decades. Disney had already proven that it can reinvent in new streaming world...Comcast, AT&T and Viacom are doing same. Big retailers like Walmart, Target and Costco had proven that they can stand against Amazon and serve customers efficiently during pandemic...and some of the new age companies of dot.com era (Amazon, Google...) are in fact demonstrating that experience of over 2 decades is important to stand against new age companies like Shopify, Zoom and Snowflake...

Finally the "games" around GME, AMC, MAC and other heavily shorted stocks are subsiding..as expected. Every bubble has expiry - some takes few months and some get over in few weeks. Hopefully these companies can take advantage of elevated stock prices to raise funds and survive to see another day..

That's all for now...Enjoy the game!

/Shyam

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