TerenceSaysSo

I read "Accounting for Growth" by Terry Smith and came away impressed by his clarity on accounting issues. Even though this book was written 30 years ago, the contents are still relevant today. Here are my notes from the book so you can decide whether it is for you.

@SteadyCompound What a great analysis. I have also started accumulating on my end. If you cant handle a good stock at its worst, you don't deserve it at its best.

Why I'm buying MercadoLibre: x.com/SteadyCompound…

26 Tiny Lessons from my conversation with @morganhousel 1. “Wealth is what you have minus what you want.” 2. "Money buys fewer bad days, not more great days." 3. “It's really good to have people in your life who you don't want to disappoint." 4. Luxury quickly becomes a necessity. 5. Saving money is buying freedom. 6. Excellence is the capacity to take pain. 7. Optimize for sleeping at night, not maximising a spreadsheet. 8. Contrast drives happiness, not absolute levels. 9. Nobody is paying attention to you. Stop trying to impress strangers. 10. “If I can be average for 50 years, I’ll end up in the top 3% of investors.” 11. “99% of Warren Buffett’s net worth was accumulated after his 65th birthday. That’s just how compounding works.” 12. “Every dollar you save is a step toward that independence.” 13. Remember there was a time when you wanted what you have now. 14. “Nothing is more damaging to your investing psychology than getting rich quick when you're young.” 15. Passive income is largely an illusion. 16. Your social network sets your expectations. 17. All the time you spend thinking about things you don’t control comes at the expense of things you do control. 18. Give your kids money when they need it—in their 30s—not when they're 75 after you die. 19. “Loyalty to people who deserve it is one of the most rewarding things in life." 20. “Independence is a spectrum. Even $100 in the bank beats zero.” 21. “Rich-people food looks better than it tastes. Poor-people food tastes better than it looks.” 22. “No generation handles their 20s with grace. That's why every older generation criticizes the young.” 23. Simple scales, fancy fails: “The simpler my finances, the higher the odds I can leave them alone for 50 years.” 24. “We underestimate the odds of bad things happening. If we didn't, we couldn't get out of bed.” 25. Very few people can beat the market. 26. The biggest financial mistake you'll make has nothing to do with money. Listen and Learn!

@DMcIntyreWWE Well deserved

No longer bored at work

@Augustine0091 Submitted my request

fill up this Google form forms.gle/43AMzTKzPaFUdH… Take note if than are more than 4 who ask about wealth, i can only pick 4 for the consults. Looking forward to your submission of your interest in the FREE consults!. The consult will start early Jan 2026 onwards.

Remember in November I mentioned that I need to do free consults to get my graduate diploma in Bazi? Anyway I need to do 11 free consults 4 consults must be regarding wealth, 3 consults in Career, 2 consults in Relationship and 2 consults in health. Criteria 1) It must be via

@SteadyCompound Congrats on the journey, bro. Looking forward to what comes next for you. Obviously cant wait to read your upcoming book.

On 9 April 2020, I published my first post on Steady Compounding. No audience. No plan. Just a tagline: "All Big Things Come From Small Beginnings." Almost 6 years and a little less hair later, that line turned out to be the whole point. steadycompounding.com/life/almost-6-…

@MicroCapClub Did I see 3 from singapore? Wow.. I din know we have such gems here

We had 21 microcaps profiled in November! 🇺🇸8 🇸🇬3 🇨🇦3 🇦🇺2 🇬🇷2 🇬🇧1 🇸🇪1 🇪🇸1

@SteadyCompound Same here

Get ready for the onslaught of Spotify top listens... But gotta say, they did a real good job with the presentation style this year.

50% of investing is taking a Buffett or Munger quote out of context to justify something you are doing that they would never do. 😆

"It'll come back to break even." The most expensive words in investing. The market doesn't care what you paid. The only question that matters: Is this the best use of my capital today? The upcoming bootcamp covers exactly this: steadycompounding.com/investing-boot…

The Steady Compounding Investing Bootcamp is now open. 6 live sessions. January 2026. Learn to analyze any company and invest with conviction that's truly yours. Black Friday pricing until Dec 1. steadycompounding.com/investing-boot…

@shaneparrish @innerexcellence This one is out of the world.

Top Performance Coach Jim Murphy (@innerexcellence) reveals how to quiet the mind and execute when it matters most. Jim spent 5 years writing Inner Excellence, the mental toughness manual that shot from obscurity to #1 New York Times bestseller overnight when star athlete A.J. Brown was caught reading it on the sidelines of an NFL playoff game. 00:00 Introduction 01:01 The 3 Pillars of Inner Excellence 04:14 A Manual on Mental Toughness 07:55 Goals are Secondary 11:53 Clean Fuel vs. Dirty Fuel 14:23 What You Want Most 16:26 Ad Break 18:41 The Achievement Treadmill 21:47 The Busy Trap 22:34 The Best Vacation 25:39 What's Your Purpose? 27:41 The Spiral of Isolation 31:09 The Key to Performance 34:00 The Courage to Be Disliked 35:55 What the Most Successful People Do 39:49 Redefine Success and Failure 41:43 Comparison & Envy 42:53 Individual Cost and Collective Gain 46:31 Talking to Your Kids About Mental Toughness 47:34 Discovering Your Inner Excellence (Where to Start) 51:25 Tension Between Achievement and Happiness 55:09 Dealing With Guilt 58:10 Knowledge vs. Wisdom 01:01:21 Changing Focus to Accomplish Goals 01:05:40 Using Automatic Rules 01:10:40 Daily Mantras for Success 01:12:15 Ambition or Love? 01:14:52 Train Your Mind 01:15:38 What Is Success? Out now wherever you listen to the knowledge project. Includes paid partnerships.

@SteadyCompound Following up: No 3 is a repeat gatesnotes.com/books/books-ho…

@enigmack09 Thanks bro! Knew I could count on you. 💪

What's a book you finished in one sitting or completely shifted your perspective? Looking for recs to add to my Black Friday cart.

@SteadyCompound Here are my recommendations but I'm not buying till I clear my backlog 1) What You Do Is Who You Are: How Top Leaders Create a Winning Culture by Ben Horowitz 2) Who Knew by Barry Diller (a memoir) - he went on a few podcasts and his story is fascinating.

@enigmack09 If u have any to rec let me know bro!

Benedict Evans' new presentation just dropped: "AI eats the world" 90 slides on macro and strategic trends in tech. His biannual overview is always worth the time: ben-evans.com/presentations

@Chicky_Think Will be interested to hear ur thoughts ok it. My guess is the theme is similar to Peter thiel's view on the singularity

Hi $pltr. 😬

@SteadyCompound Sometimes it is not a prediction.. but a spoiler

Most investors are drawn to predictions like moths to a flame. They track every indicator, follow every fearmonger, and analyze every trend. But the best investors focus on two questions: - What actually matters? - What can I actually know? Don't cave in to expensive noise.

@SteadyCompound The one at taka was similarly crowded. But thr sale items were not their best sellers and mainly geared towards the females

Lululemon Orchard Ion, Singapore.

@eugeneng thanks for the timely and insightful overview always.

Nu Holdings $NU 4Q24 Earnings - Rev $3.0b +24% ↗️🟢 FXN +50% ↗️🟢 - Int Income $2.5b +28% ↗️🟢 - Fee & Comm Income $495m +9% ↗️🟢 - GP $1.4b +19% ↗️🟢 margin 46% -193 bps ↘️🔴 - Adj Net Inc $610m +87% ⤴️🟢 margin 20% +681 bps ✅ - Net Inc $553m +53% ↗️🟢 margin 18% +348 bps ✅ - Adj Ann ROE 31% Ann ROE 28% ✅ Nu Holdings $NU FY24 Earnings - Rev $11.5b +43% ↗️🟢 - Int Income $9.6b +50% ↗️🟢 - Fee & Comm Income $1.9b +19% ↗️🟢 - GP $5.3b +50% ↗️🟢 margin 46% +213 bps ✅ - Adj Net Inc $2.2b +84% ⤴️🟢 margin 19% +427 bps ✅ - Net Inc $2b +91% ⤴️🟢 margin 17% +429 bps ✅ Biz Metrics - Cust 114.2m +22% ↗️🟢 - Active Cust 94.9m +22% ↗️🟢 - Activity rate 83.1% - Purchase Vol $32.2m -1% ➡️🟡 FXN +20% ↗️🟢 - NII $1.7b +30% ↗️🟢 NIM 17.7% -600bps ↘️🔴 - MRPAC $10.7 +1% ➡️🟡 FXN +23% ↗️🟢 - MCPAC $0.8 -11% ↘️🟢 - Deposits $28.9b +22% ↗️🟢 FXN +55% ↗️🟢 - Portfolio (CC+Loan) $20.7b +14% ↗️🟡 +45% ↗️🟢 - Portfolio (Credit Card) $14.6b +1% ➡️🟡 - Portfolio (Loans) $6.1b +65% ↗️🟢 - IEP $11.2b +37% ↗️🟢 FXN+75% ↗️🟢 - LDR (IEP/Deposits) 39% ✅ - 15-90 NPLS 4.1% -30bps QoQ ↘️🟢 - 90+ NPLs 7.0% -20bps QoQ ↘️🟢 1 | 2024 strong year 2024 was an exceptional year marked by strong and consistent revenue growth, deeper customer engagement combined with solid operating margins and profitability, all of which further validates the power and efficiency of our business mod 2| Continue to have strong growth in Brazil secured lending in payroll loans, capturing 30% market share of originations, and 60% of NU’s total secured lending originations Now moving to secured lending in Brazil. This portfolio grew an impressive 615% YoY to $1.4 billion, representing 23% of our total lending portfolio. We signed 9 new agreements with collateral counterparties in the public sector, expanding our total addressable market for payroll loans to 70% of the segment. As a result, 12 million of our customers are now eligible for payroll loans, along with additional $80 million for FGTS loans. We also enhanced our portability solution and features. And as of December 2024, 16% of INSS originations came from customers who brought their loans to Nubank and refinanced them under better conditions. At the same time, we captured over 30% market share in FGTS originations, underscoring our strategy's success and product market fit, as well as the power of our low-cost distribution model. Equally exciting is the strong performance of FGTS-backed loans, which expanded to over 60% of our total secured lending originations. 3 | Growing lower ROE secured lending / payroll loans is dilutive to ROE because it is shifting lower yield capital holding Brazil treasury bonds to a higher risk-adjusted NIM business, and is a good product to upsell and cross-sell the relationship So the profitability, if you measure this on ROE, the ROE of the secured lending asset class is, in fact, lower than the ROE of the unsecured lending and lower than the ROE of credit cards. However, I would not agree with the assertion that the growth in secured lending is expected to dilute our overall ROE. Why do I say so? Because we will not be growing secured lending at the expense of credit cards or at the expense of unsecured lending. We will basically be putting to work the excess of liquidity and the excess of capital that we have in the balance sheet. So if I were to illustrate this more simplistically, we are basically shifting part of our treasury bond portfolio in Brazil to fund our secured lending business, which in itself has much bigger NIMs and risk-adjusted NIMs for us. So it does have lower ROIC or lower ROEs, but it should not be dilutive to the overall level of profitability of the company. On the contrary, it should help us kind of optimize balance sheet deployment and overall profitability levels for the company. Not to mention, Tito, the fact that it is an important product to foster additional primary banking relationship, additional engagement, which in itself will bring kind of lots of long-term bene ts to the relationship of Nubank with our now over 110 million customers in Brazil. 4 | Strong growth in Brazil high income customers with Ultravioleta to drive credit card purchase volumes Building on our success in Brazil, we made significant strides with our high-income strategy, expanding our reach with close to 700,000 Ultravioleta customers, 132% year-over-year increase. Credit card performance was also remarkable, with quarterly purchase volume from Ultravioleta credit cards increasing 106% year-over-year to $1.8 billion in Q4 and accounting for 10% of our Brazilian credit card purchase volume. 5 | Which in turn drive lower credit card yields due to lower credit card loans by the higher income versus higher credit card spend So generally, what you will see is that what we call credit card yield over the past 2 or 3 quarters has decreased in Brazil. That has been largely a function of 2 things. So as we continue to grow our shares in our more a uent customers, namely what we call UV, or ultraviolet, we operate with lower price points when we enter more affluent customers. And as the growth of more affluent customers through UV has outpaced the growth of less affluent customers and therefore, has gained relevance in our overall portfolio, it has contributed to a slight contraction in the credit card yield. 6 | NPS of 84 is world class Our NPS of 84 continues to set us apart as the most loved brand among high-income customers, alongside a 16% increase in brand consideration. 7 | Refinancing Pix financing offer across different risk bands, cautious ahead of challenging macro, and don’t anticipate near-term expansion Although demand for Pix financing products and their profitability remain very strong, we have deliberately tempered the pace of eligibility expansions during the second half of 2024 to carefully monitor the performance in the coming quarters and to assess what we call the second order effects of this product on customer engagement and the long-term value of customer relationships. Now at the beginning of 2025, after a more extensive testing and adjustments, we began refining our Pix financing offer for different risk bands, taking into account customers' potential exposure to this product, to mitigate any undesirable e ects on asset quality or engagement across our platform. Given this approach, and especially in a more challenging macroeconomic environment, we do not anticipate a significant expansion of Pix financing penetration at least in the short term. 8 | Still see significant room for growth in credit card in Brazil with Ultravioleta credit cards, SMBs, and many segments I think the short answer is we still see significant room for growth in credit card in Brazil. I'll go through it sort of step by step. First of all, in the typical mass market customer that we've historically served, you will note that we've made efforts to re-engage customers who were previously inactive and made some progress on that. That is an ongoing effort, and we have a portfolio of initiatives against that through last year and into this year, and we expect incremental progress and continuing to have improvements in customers' activity and purchase volume, et cetera. There are also significant opportunities, we believe, over the medium term to grow into other segments where we've historically not played as much. I'll point out two of them. First is the high-income customer segment where, over the course of 2024, we have well over doubled the number of Ultravioleta customers and also doubled our purchase volume from Ultravioleta credit cards as we've worked to signifiantly improve that product. We've also started to get some very good early traction for small business customers, so-called pejotas, in the credit card product. So steadily, over the medium term and beyond, we expect that there's signi cant room to grow in our credit card product just in Brazil where, as you will note, we've only had today about 14% market share as indicated by purchase volume. And so we don't think we're anywhere near the frontier of what is possible with the business model. There's more room for growth in the mass market, even though our shares are higher there. And there are many new segments, which we've been laying the groundwork for several years, and in particular, in 2024. 9 | Mexico deposits base growing strongly, now serving 12% of adults with improving credit performances First, in Mexico, we reached an exciting milestone of 10 million customers, up 91% year-over-year, now serving 12% of the country's adult population. Deposits grew signi cantly, increasing 438% from 2023 to $4.5 billion, reflecting our position as a trusted financial institution. Our credit card customer base expanded by 70% to 5.6 million, and almost half of these customers did not have any credit card before ours, demonstrating our ability to help increase financial inclusion in the region. Over the last 3 years, our first payment default rate has improved by approximately 50%, while credit approval rates in Mexico have increased by 10%, underscoring the significant enhancements in our risk models and their impact on both credit performance and accessibility. 10 | Colombia doing well, deposits now at $1.3b, top 5 FIs for individual demand deposits Lastly, our performance in Colombia exceeded our expectations. Deposits reached $1.3 billion, just 2 quarters after launching NuColombia's checking account and placing us among the country's top 5 financial institutions based on demand deposits for individuals. 11 | NIM fell by 70bps, ~45% due to FX, remaining ~55% due to drop in Brazil credit portfolio yields due to rising secured lending (payrolls) relative to unsecured (credit cards) and growing Mexico and Colombia deposits at higher rates than interbank The denominator is typically translated, implying end-of-period FX. And the use of those di erent FX rates explains about 44%, 45% of the 70 basis points contraction. The remaining 55% of the contraction is largely equally explained by two things: number one, the drop in yields in the overall credit portfolio in Brazil as we grow secured lending more than we grow unsecured lending in terms of loan balance; and two, as a result of the growing deposits in Mexico and Colombia, which are still paying kind of interest that are higher than the interbank deposit rates. So those are the three things, Jorge, that I believe justify the contraction of the NIM. 12 | Expect longer term NIMs to normalise and expand medium term driven by optimization of balance sheet especially with Mexico and Colombia and higher LDRs And so certainly, there are a lot of moving parts with respect to product mix, with respect to Brazil versus our international geos. But we continue to believe that the most relevant outlook for NIMs and risk-adjusted NIMs is the optimization of the balance sheet. We continue to have a loan-to-deposit ratio that is below 40%. As our loan book grows and we shift part of our liquidity from treasury bonds to credit portfolio, we do expect to see NIMs expanding in the medium term. Now looking ahead to the mid- and long-term profiles. We remain confident that the balance sheet optimization will be the primary driver of future NIMs, especially as deposit normalizations in Mexico and Colombia take place. Regardless of interest rate trends, we see significant opportunity to expand originations by shifting funds from cash to credit. With our loan-to-deposit ratio is still at significant low levels, we believe there is a lot of room to improve efficiency and further strengthen our profitability levels. 13 | Long-term monetization potential to drive ARPAC higher While our average monthly ARPAC stands at approximately $10.7, our more mature cohorts are already reaching $25, demonstrating the strong long-term monetization potential of our model. 14 | Continue to expect low cost to serve <$1 We continue to believe that our platform is one of the most cost competitive in our markets and represents a signi cant competitive advantage. Accordingly, we remain committed to keeping our cost at or below $1 per active customer for the foreseeable future. Once again, we achieved this goal with a cost to serve per active customer of $0.80. On an FX-neutral basis, this represents an 11% YoY increase largely due to seasonal spikes in data and processing usages 15 | Further improvements in efficiency ratio with $2bn net income and 28% annualized ROE while still maintaining excess capital our efficiency ratio improved further, dropping below the 30% mark to end the year at 29.9%, making Nu one of the most e cient global financial services platforms and with room for additional optimization. Notably, net income almost doubled from 2023 to close to $2 billion with an annualized return on equity of 28%. These results place us among the most pro table nancial institutions globally, even while maintaining a significant excess capital position at the holding level. These achievements underscore the power of our low-cost financial model, our commitment to customer engagement and our ability to deliver sustained profitability at scale. 16 | NU’s strong credit underwriting relative to the industry The 6 charts on this slide show 90-plus NPL time series segmented by risk band where the purple is Nu; and the gray line, the rest of the industry. As you can see, across every segment, portfolio consistently outperforms the industry, resulting in lower delinquency rates within a risk band. This reflects the strength of our credit underwriting capabilities, which are based on a more precise risk assessment of each customer and the sloping of credit limits to make them more appropriate to each individual customer, alongside other factors, such as achieving a higher share of principality, meaning that more customers use Nu as their primary financial institution, which further enhances usage and repayment behavior and strengthens overall portfolio performance. 17 | Remain disciplined in growing the credit book, not doing so just because there are deposits So we do not see necessarily having a low LDR as a sign of weakness of the model. On the contrary, it should be seen as a way that we are getting more and more customers' principality and engagement through our platform. Now of course, we do aim and we would love to be able to grow our credit book faster and faster over time in order to kind of optimize the balance sheet. But we also have to be fairly responsible that scaling credit books, speci cally unsecured credit books, it's something that you have to do with a very systematic credit underwriting discipline, and you cannot necessarily double or triple your credit book just because you got more deposits. You need to do so carefully and with the right level of credit resilience and thoughtfulness that we believe we have been doing over the past years. So that's, I think, the disconnect that we have been seeing over the past quarters. The growth in deposits in Mexico and Colombia over the past 2 quarters have certainly contributed to lowering our loan-to-deposit ratio. 18 | 2025 priorities with three acts. Act 1: Build the largest and most loved retail banking franchise in LATAM, Act 2: Expand beyond financial services, Act 3: Expand beyond LATAM With this in mind, I'd like to outline our 2025 priorities to what we call our 3-act story. Starting with Act 1, building the largest and most loved retail banking franchise in Latin America. This is our focus today and where the majority of our resources, time and focus remain allocated. While we have achieved significant scale, our market share still represents less than 4% in revenue terms, only a fraction of its full potential. In this growth phase, we will continue nurturing customer love, scaling our credit operations and increasing principality in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, all while delivering a seamless, fast and globally reliable app experience. Moving to Act 2, expand beyond financial services. We embarked on this journey a few years ago with our entry into the marketplace, travel and more recently, telecom verticals. With a large and highly engaged customer base, one of the most loved and trusted brands in Brazil, and signi cant data and cross-sell capabilities, we believe we have earned the right to go beyond traditional nancial services. Our goal is to create an ecosystem that broadens our addressable market and empowers customers to optimize their spending. Building upon the engagement and needs of our customers, we believe this strategy will enable the launch of new verticals in the future. And finally, Act 3, a global AI-driven digital banking model. This is our long-term vision. We endeavor to evolve our regional digital banking platform into a global model, leveraging artificial intelligence to provide hundreds of millions of customers with access to financial products and services that have historically been reserved for a select few. In 2025, we will take critical steps to turn this vision into reality by building the necessary foundations to support our products and services at a global scale. 19 | Want to be primary bank account of customers rather than being a wallet, and that requires going deep, and needing to get banking licenses, which will take time And I think over the next 10 years, we'll continue to go after that hypothesis of testing this model really in more countries beyond Latin America. There are a number of complexities to do that. This is not an easy model to internationalize, especially the way we do it, which is we want to become the primary bank account of our customers. We're not just a wallet. We don't want to be just a wallet where you leave some cash to do some payments or some remittances. We want to be the primary bank account of customers. We think that's the most valuable strategic positioning in banking because of all the advantages that, that brings. And to be a primary bank account, we have to go very deep in these markets. We have to get banking licenses. We have to get connected with a number of different local parties. So therefore, it has been a relatively slow internationalization. 20 | Primary banking relationship is key because they will see higher customer revenue, lower delinquency the primary banking relationship metric for us, which is a metric that we have been evolving over time, is one of the most important operational KPIs for the company because we do believe that primary banking relationship is one of the holy grails of digital banking globally. Why do we say so? Because the ARPAC of a primary banking relationship customer is now 3 to 4x higher than the ARPAC of a non-primary banking relationship customer. The delinquency of a primary banking relationship customer is 48% lower than the delinquency of a non-primary banking relationship customer on an apples-to-apples basis. And so this is the way that our model has been construed. As David mentioned, we are not envisioning to be kind of the secondary wallet or an FX play. We often mention that we are not in the business of collecting social security numbers. We are in the business of becoming the primary banking relationship of our customers. And in a world, especially in Brazil, in which open banking or open nance is expected to unfold positively over the coming quarters, we think it is going to even increase the relevance of becoming the primary banking relationship of our customers. So it's not only a long-term strategic ang 21 | Need to focus and build the technology platform first As our 3-act story unfolds, our unwavering focus remains on execution, customer centric innovation and sustainable growth. We have built a technology platform with the potential to truly redene nancial services across Latin America and beyond, and we're more than excited than ever about what lies ahead as we develop our platform to thrive in this new asset class. 22 | Investing heavily to build one proprietary multi-country banking platform infrastructure that can truly support expansion at scale, another 1-2 years away A big part of that speed of the internationalization has to do with our technology platform. Nobody in history, as far as we can tell globally, no other global bank, global consumer retail bank, has been able to build a multi-country platform that is extremely efficient, that has one core base -- once code base, that ultimately could give them a significant advantage in expanding. And we've actually been building this already for about 18 months and probably have another 18 to 24 months, and it's something that we'll continue maybe forever. It's having a core bank, proprietary core banking platform that allows us to be in multiple countries, that allows us to launch new countries with relatively low investment. So getting specifically to your question, what this really means is we're continuing to build this technology platform and this technology infrastructure through 2025. It's not going to be a meaningful expense change versus what we already have been investing. We've mentioned last year that 30% to 40% of our employees today are building products that are generating no revenue. So we're investing significantly for these next 10 years of evolution already. That is true for 2023. That is true for 2024. It will be true for 2025. ➡️ Final Takeaways on Nu Holdings $NU: NU is the “GEICO” of LATAM digital banking. Strong business traction supported by 📶 customers, more/faster cross-sell, leading ↗️ revenues per customer, combined with the significant competitive cost advantage of a lower cost to acquire & serve, strong risk management, and lower cost of funding (retail) that really drives its long-term highly durable profitable growth. Continue to watch its expansion into Mexico and Colombia, and its continued building on its strengths in Brazil (secured lending with payrolls, higher credit card spend with the higher income Ultravioleta credit card. Expect NIMs to normalize back higher medium term with Mexico and Colombia and more balance sheet optimization with still low LDR. Thoughtful approach to build its banking platform first and the focus on primary banking relationship before scaling beyond LATAM. Excited to watch this front.