Best of Web: Escaping From Russia, Checklist for Corrections, Putin 20 Year March to Ukraine, Francis Ford Coppola Films, Battle of Kyiv

Here is another post with five Best of Web links I have found worthy to share with you: A gut wrenching personal account escaping from Russia, a very helpful checklist for stock market corrections, we go deep inside Putin’s 20 year march to the invasion of Ukraine, legend Francis Ford Coppola talks about his iconic films, the Battle of Kyiv must read Twitter thread and a majestic photo of cherry blossoms to brighten you up. See you Friday…I hope.

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The Best of Web posts are much shorter in length with material that is a notch or two above what you see in the regular TBB posts.

Click on the headline for the link!

 

‘The Dots Were All There. We Just Couldn’t Connect Them.’

One of the last American journalists in Moscow recounts how she — and her dog — escaped Russia as Putin’s new iron curtain fell.

Gut wrenching personal account having to leave everything behind without knowing when (if ever) you will be back…You know, one of these articles you start and…you just keep reading until the end…

I wrote a to-do list: get money, buy storage bins, make extra keys, get a PCR test and a Covid antibody test, call the vet for the departure documents, pull out the big suitcase, move files to Dropbox, decide what to take, pack the family photographs and letters into the storage bins for friends to rescue if something happened to my apartment (what, I had no idea), buy European medical insurance, move the car (to where, I didn’t know), empty the refrigerator, do laundry, set up automatic bill-paying, find out how cold it is in Riga in March.

I had wanted to transfer ownership of my apartment to a Russian friend, or, if there wasn’t time — and now there wasn’t time — to give someone power of attorney that would allow them to do it after I left. But when I called a real estate lawyer, he told me a law had just been passed on March 2 requiring all real estate transactions involving foreigners to be certified by a special governmental commission. It was unlikely that any transaction would be permitted.

I hoped to at least give someone power of attorney to do things in my name — what things? I had no idea — but when I called a notary to set it up, she politely asked what country I was from, then asked me to hold for a minute. She came back on the line to say that they’d received notification prohibiting them from preparing power of attorney documents that had to do with real estate for citizens of “unfriendly countries” — me — and she was very sorry but she wasn’t sure if she could do anything for me at all.

It gets better after this. I mean, the writing. Because the reality gets worse…

 

A Checklist for Corrections

Who knows if the recovery of stocks in March was a dead cat bounce or the beginning of the way to a new all time high? The question is irrelevant for the vast majority of normal people! Anyway, good start to the article here:

The markets are volatile, the news is bad, and the value of your portfolio is going down.

You’re afraid things may get worse and you want to do something about it.

This is a perfectly normal reaction. When faced with something painful, we look for ways to ease the pain.

While such a response serves us well in many areas of life, investing is not one of them.

Why?

Because pain is an inevitable part of investing, without which there would be no gain.

And the good advice comes next:

The problem, of course, is there’s no such thing as a safe time to invest. Risk is always present, even if you can’t always see it.

And by moving to cash, you not only have to get the sale part right, but also the timing in buying back in. Few have shown the ability to do so on a consistent basis.

The proof: the list of billionaires, which is filled with long-term founders/investors and their stories of hardship, and devoid of market timers who sidestepped all pain.

If selling everything and moving to cash is not advisable, what should an investor be thinking about during market corrections?

Here’s a checklist to consider…

1) First, Do No Harm

2) Find Your True Risk Tolerance

3) Make Sure You’re Really Diversified

4) Rebalance to Manage Risk and Buy Low/Sell High

5) View Declines as Opportunities to Add to Exposure

 

Francis Ford Coppola Breaks Down His Most Iconic Films

Incredible to watch this legend talk about his films. The vision, the creativity, the art…Some tidbits he reveals:

• • Coppola didn’t know anything about the Mafia before making The Godfather.

• • The studio did not want to call it Godfather Part II. And now explicit sequels like that are ubiquitous.

• • He praised the way Marlon Brando thought about ants and termites?!

 

Vladimir Putin’s 20-Year March to War in Ukraine—and How the West Mishandled It

Incredible article by the Wall Street Journal. Which also comes with an incredible paywall, so good luck accessing it. Many behind the scenes reports and I just want to say history will not be kind to Angela Merkel…

Update: Here is the archived link to the story.

 

Best Twitter Thread on the Battle of Kyiv

This makes a lot of sense…

We know NOW that yes, Putin had a 4 hours plan to win the war in Ukraine

And his ‘Plan B’ was a 3 days plan to defeat Kyiv if the 4 hours plan somehow failed

He deployed both of these plans with MASSIVE military force, against Kyiv. We now know how

Putin plan to defeat Ukraine in 4 hours involved an air assault force of 1,000 men taking Antonov Airport at Hostomel, then IL 76 transport planes would land 7,000 men and their armored vehicles, to take the Presidential Palace (& TV stations) in Kyiv

Anyway, it is fascinating…

 

Cherry Blossoms at a Tea Plantation

Enough war and destruction, let’s end with an uplifting image!