Maria Corina Machado: Peace Warrior

THE WHITE HOUSE blasted the Nobel Committee for not awarding the Peace Prize to President Donald Trump, accusing it of playing politics with peace. Venezuela has closed its embassy in Oslo citing a “restructuring” of its foreign service, after Maria Corina Machado was awarded the prize “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy”.

The 58-year-old industrial engineer and financial analyst quickly cooled MAGA tempers by saying Trump deserved the award and requested him for more help in stopping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s “war” on her country. Her comments came against the backdrop of ongoing US military action on alleged “narco-trafficking” boats from Venezuela. Trump and Machado agree that Maduro runs a criminal narco-terrorist structure in Caracas. Whether that is open to debate or not, Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez have been worse pirates of the Caribbean than they would like to claim. Venezuela’s fall from a Latin American success story to its most diseased political economy has been the doing of 26 years of socialism, first as class war and then as bankrupt thuggery.

Machado has been hiding since the 2023 presidential election she was barred from contesting but was evidently won by her party colleague Edmundo González. The daughter of a businessman and psychologist and descended from the 3rd Marquess of Toro, Machado ticked all the wrong boxes for Chavistas. Except, the angels are on her side now. And perhaps history too.

Noisemaker

Shehbaz Sharif: Flattery Unlimited

US President Donald Trump swallowed the cringeworthy praise offered by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif without a hitch. But Sharif’s obsequious behaviour made him a roast online for describing Trump as the “most genuine and wonderful” candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. Unsparing social media posts declared that Sharif should be given the Nobel for “bootlicking” given his unabashed flattery of Trump. Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni’s disbelieving expression seemed to sum it up and perhaps only Trump did not see through Sharif’s transparent attempts to curry favour.

Ideas

Endings

The news that MTV will be shutting down several of its channels by the end of this year in the UK, followed by closures elsewhere in Europe and the world, has led to a torrent of anguish and nostalgia. It is understandable why. Ever since an astronaut first planted the MTV banner in its trailer back in 1981, the network transformed pop culture and the music industry. It gave a boost to the careers of everyone from Madonna to Michael Jackson, changed the way we discover and listen to music, and spawned a new kind of youth culture. In India, where the economy was opening up and the young were discovering the world, it became the conduit of a new youthful expression. It however does seem that while MTV is shutting down many of its channels, it won’t be pulling the plug on its operations here. We all know what happened to MTV.

Just as video killed the radio star, so too did the arrival of the internet to the channel that invented the music video. People now turn to YouTube or apps like Spotify to listen to music, and celebrities reach out to their audiences through social media. MTV tried to stem its decline by introducing reality TV shows in its programming in the 2000s. But the death knell was already beginning to ring. In fact, while MTV is shutting down all its music channels— from the flagship MTV Music, to MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV and MTV Live—the main MTV channel, which focuses primarily on reality TV shows, will continue to remain on air. It might seem cruel and even unfathomable to the ’90s teen. But what was once new and cool eventually gets dated. Even MTV.

Money Mantra

Don’T Trade On Noise

Trump’s words won’t move your portfolio

HERE’S THE SIMPLE TRUTH: Markets care far more about earnings, interest rates, and productivity than about any one politician’s outbursts—even when the politician is Donald Trump. His statements can shake the indices for a few hours or days, but the arc of returns is still drawn by cash flows and discount rates. That’s why investors should largely ignore the noise and stick to the process. Now, why are we talking about this at this point of time? Because after months of negative impact on the market, there have of late been times when President Trump’s statements have led to a positive reaction. Our point is simple, whether negative or positive, Trump’s statements have a limited impact.

So what should you do when the next Trump headline hits your portfolio and futures wobble? Re-anchor to valuation drivers. Ask yourself this question: Did the expected long-run cash flows or the discount rate genuinely change?

If not, a gap down is likely sentiment, not substance. Use volatility, don’t fear it. If price dislocations widen spreads in quality names you already like on fundamentals, scale in with pre-set rules rather than gut feel. Automate discipline. Precommit to rebalancing bands. Diversify exposure.

None of this is to say policy never matters. Tariffs, tax codes, antitrust, immigration, and energy rules can reshape sector economics over multi-year horizons. But those are investable via fundamentals, unit economics, competitive moats, capital intensity, not via trying to handicap the next late-night post.

Trump can move the day’s narrative, sometimes the week’s prices. He rarely moves the 10-year earnings power of a well-run business. Over a full cycle, markets reward earnings growth, prudent capital allocation, and resilience, not the ability to respond fastest to a breaking news banner. The loudest headlines often carry the shortest half-lives; the quiet compounding of cash flows carries the longest. So, when global markets lurch on the latest outburst or tariff news, resist the urge to trade the echo. Keep your eyes on the drivers that matter, let volatility work for you, and allow time, markets’ greatest ally, to do its job. (By Ramesh Singh)

Viral

Poor Taste

For much of the last few days, clips from a new episode of the TV show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), featuring a fifth grader, have been going viral online. KBC has been around for over 25 years now, and the format featuring children has been around some time too. But what has made this video go viral instead of the many other episodes over the years is the contestant’s attitude. Far from being daunted by the presence of superstar host Amitabh Bachchan, the child comes across as haughty and overconfident, and very often rude towards the host. This has unsurprisingly led to online conversations about poor parenting. While it’s important to have these discussions, trolling a child based on how he came across a TV show wouldn’t exactly be fair. Shows are known to egg contestants on to behave in certain ways, and are often edited to maximise eyeballs too. A TV show doesn’t need well-behaved contestants. It wants those that can go viral online.