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Here’s what you need to know today

• Good news for Australia’s economy: inflation cooled to 2.4% in the 12 months to February. Trimmed mean inflation, the RBA’s preferred measure of underlying inflation, fell to 2.7% down from 2.8% in January. That puts underlying inflation at its equal-lowest level in 3 years. (AFR)
  
  

• The headline announcement from Tuesday’s Budget was a $17 billion tax cut, which would give all working Australians a $536 a year tax cut when fully implemented. Yesterday, the government pushed the law through the lower house of Parliament as it rushes to get it passed before the election campaign begins. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• Waymo’s expansion continues. Google’s self-driving car company is hitting the streets of Washington D.C. in 2026, marking the 5th city it will launch in after Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin. The company’s self-driving car ride-hailing service, Waymo One, is already providing more than 200,000 paid trips each week. (Quartz)
  
  

• The latest consumer confidence numbers are out in America, and they don’t tell a good story. Expectations have hit a 12-year low with the trade war and tariffs shouldering most of the blame for consumer unease. (Quartz)
  
  

• Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a truce in the Black Sea and will work towards an agreement to stop strikes on energy infrastructure. The Black Sea is a key export route for both Ukraine and Russia and as part of this agreement the US has agreed to help restore Russia’s exports of fertiliser and agricultural products. (The Guardian)
  
  

• India is reportedly considering cutting tariffs on 55% of the goods it imports from the US, worth $23 billion, as it works on a trade deal with the Trump Administration. Without a deal, Trump’s worldwide tariffs due to come into effect on 2 April will impact $66 billion worth of Indian exports to the US. (Reuters)

What the…?

The Streisand Effect is named after Barbara Streisand’s 2003 attempt to suppress a photo of her clifftop mansion, that inadvertently brought a lot more attention to the photo. Before Streisand sued, the photo had been downloaded 6 times. A month after filing her lawsuit, it had been downloaded more than 400,000 times.

Meta have just given us a textbook example of the Streisand Effect. Sarah Wynn-Williams, former director of global policy at Meta, has published her memoir Careless People. It launched softly, but then Meta sued and won an injunction to stop Wynn-Williams promoting the book. Meta’s actions trained the media’s attention on the book and it has rocketed up the bestseller list. (Quartz)

We were even caught up in it. Before the media attention we hadn’t heard of the book. But Ren is now reading it and shares what he has learned so far on today’s episode of Equity Mates Investing podcast. (Apple | Spotify)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

How Bill Browder started investing

This is an excerpt from our conversation with Bill Browder, commonly known as Vladimir Putin’s #1 enemy.

Question: We like to begin our interviews by hearing about people's first investments, as they often have valuable lessons or interesting stories. Could you share yours with us?

Bill: A bit of background first: I’m the grandson of the head of the American Communist Party. During my teenage rebellion, I decided to dress up in a suit and tie and become a capitalist. I attended Stanford Business School and graduated in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell. As I contemplated my future, I thought, "If my grandfather was the biggest communist in America and the Berlin Wall has come down, I’ll aim to become the biggest capitalist in Eastern Europe."

My first job after business school was at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in London. I told them I wanted to be their Eastern European guy. Initially, there wasn’t much happening in Eastern Europe, but then one day, a partner called me in and said my chance had come. They sent me to a small town in Poland, six hours from Warsaw, where a collapsing bus factory had been hired by the World Bank for assistance.

I was at this failing bus factory, with no experience in buses or manufacturing, and I had a translator with me. One day, I noticed he had a newspaper under his arm that featured the first privatisations in Poland. Curious, I suggested we discuss it in a conference room. He laid out the newspaper, and I began to ask about the numbers presented.

He explained the shares outstanding and the price per share, which allowed me to calculate a market cap of eighty million dollars. I inquired about the net profit, which was reported at one hundred sixty million dollars. Immediately, I recognized an opportunity: buying a company at half a year's earnings. I realised that if the company just stayed in business for half a year, I would recoup my investment.

At that time, I had two thousand dollars in American Express traveller’s checks, which I converted to Polish zloty. With my translator, I subscribed to the first privatisations. About a year later, my two thousand dollars grew to twenty thousand dollars. I can tell you that having your first investment be a ten-bagger is the financial equivalent of crack cocaine—you just want to keep experiencing it. At that moment, I knew I wanted to scour Eastern Europe for cheap privatisations, which is exactly what I went on to do.

Listen to the full conversation with Bill on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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