We’ve constantly been sharing a list of our recent reads in our weekly emails for The Good Investors.
Do subscribe for our weekly updates through the orange box in the blog (it’s on the side if you’re using a computer, and all the way at the bottom if you’re using mobile) – it’s free!
But since our readership-audience for The Good Investors is wider than our subscriber base, we think sharing the reading list regularly on the blog itself can benefit even more people. The articles we share touch on a wide range of topics, including investing, business, and the world in general.
Here are the articles for the week ending 04 May 2025:
1. Everyone Says They’ll Pay More for “Made in the USA.” So We Ran an A/B Test – Ramon van Meer
We make filtered showerheads. Clean, sleek design. But more importantly, with the best shower filters on the market.
Our bestselling model—manufactured in Asia (China and Vietnam)—sells for $129. But this year, as tariffs jumped from 25% to 170%, we wondered: Could we reshore manufacturing to the U.S. while maintaining margins to keep our lights on?…
…We found a U.S.-based supplier. The new unit cost us nearly 3x more to produce. To maintain our margins, we’d have to sell it for $239.
So we ran an experiment.
We created a secret landing page. The product and design were identical. The only difference? One was labeled “Made in Asia” and priced at $129. The other, “Made in the USA,” at $239…
…Add-to-carts for the U.S. version were only 24! Conversion? 0.0% (zero).
Not a single customer purchased the Made-in-USA version…
…We wanted to believe customers would back American labor with their dollars. But when faced with a real decision—not a survey or a comment section—they didn’t…
…Small brands like ours want to manufacture here. We’re willing to invest. But without serious shifts—in consumer incentives, automation, and trade policy—the math doesn’t work. Not for us. Not for our customers.
We’re still committed to exploring local manufacturing. But for now, it’s not viable.
We’re sharing this because the numbers surprised even us. And we think they’re worth talking about.
2. Perspectives from 30 business leaders on the trade war frontlines: preparing for the best, bracing for the worst – Amber Zhang
For companies with strong brand equity and pricing power, the strategy is clear: raise prices.
Anker Innovations was among the first movers, increasing prices on Amazon by roughly 20%. A person familiar with the company said its U.S. market share remains stable despite the hikes. Pop Mart hasn’t adjusted pricing yet, but told Waves that it’s “not ruling out the possibility.”
One cross-border commerce insider noted that for companies like DJI, whose supply chain advantages are hard to replicate, rising costs may squeeze margins, but competitors will struggle to gain market share in the near term.“Tariffs are a toll, not a blockade. Only great products hold long-term passports,” Anker commented…
…According to Waves, most ODM firms that rely heavily on the U.S. market are currently in a holding pattern, halting shipments and refraining from taking new orders for the coming months…
…Wei believes a resolution – or at least a temporary workaround – is likely within the next two to three months. Why? ODM manufacturers need to finalize production plans for Christmas orders by July or August. If the standoff drags on any longer, “America may be headed for a very empty Christmas.”…
…On April 2, Donald Trump signed an executive order eliminating the de minimis exemption for packages from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. The White House followed up on April 8, raising tariffs on these goods from 30% to 90%, effective May 2.
This presents a major setback for small Chinese sellers who rely on platforms like TikTok, Temu, and Shein to ship low-value parcels without stocking local warehouses…
…That said, some insiders point out that more than 90% of shipments to the U.S. currently rely on “Gray Customs Clearance” — unofficial customs channels where third-party brokers help exporters bypass formal declarations at minimal cost. From their perspective, the new tariffs are more likely to disrupt clearance efficiency rather than kill off the model entirely…
…Amid persistent U.S.-China trade friction, a viable strategy is to first export raw materials or semi-finished goods from China for overseas assembly and packaging. Over time, upstream production can gradually shift to local markets, supported by regional suppliers…
…In the wake of the de minimis exemption repeal, TikTok Shop recently issued a notice to U.S. sellers: starting May 2, all incoming shipments will face a 30% ad valorem tax, with an additional flat tariff of $25 per item before June 1, rising to $50 afterward. Carriers will also be required to post international bonds as part of the compliance framework. So far, Temu and Shein have yet to publicly announce specific countermeasures.
Ray Bu predicts that platform-based giants will be forced to accelerate full-scale internationalization, separating their domestic and overseas supply chains and localizing operations in major markets…
…Both Temu and Shein are ramping up local presence in multiple countries, aggressively recruiting local merchants. Shein, for example, has been building production capacity in Turkey and Brazil — jurisdictions seen as tariff-safe zones amid the current climate.
Temu, for its part, plans to launch six “native fulfillment hubs” and nine “semi-managed hubs” between April and June. The former are geared toward local legal entities, while the latter target Chinese sellers with the ability to fulfill orders domestically in target markets…
…According to Xue Yi, professor at the University of International Business and Economics, if access to the U.S. market becomes more restricted, the European Union may be China’s best substitute…
…According to Xue Feng, a partner at Fangda Partners, recent tariff hikes have dealt significant blows to sectors including furniture, toys, textiles, auto parts, chemicals, steel, and aluminum. These industries, heavily reliant on low-end supply chains, are structurally tied to the U.S. and face steep challenges when seeking alternative markets…
…At its core, America simply isn’t ready to rebuild industrial capacity at scale.
To start with, U.S. manufacturing wages are 6–8 times higher than those in emerging markets, and the country faces a chronic shortage of skilled labor. But more critical than labor costs is the disintegration of domestic supply chains. After decades of offshoring, the U.S. industrial base is severely fragmented — core components like semiconductor materials and electronic parts still depend heavily on Asian suppliers.
Even if reshoring happens — as envisioned by the Trump administration — these factories would function as isolated islands, unable to form self-sustaining industrial clusters.
3. Did ancient Rome have a stock market? – Swen Lorenz
“The New Deal in Old Rome” was published by H. J. Haskell in 1940. The original book is rare and expensive today, but reprints can easily be found. As it reports on page 11:
“Indications are there was a curiously high degree of commercial organisation in the ancient world. In the time of Cicero, in the last century before Christ, wealthy Romans were busily exploiting the eastern provinces. Companies of contractors were organised to construct public works and to collect government revenue, from which the contractors were took a large cut. They sold shares in offices on the Via Sacra, the Wall Street of Rome. Everybody, says the Greek historian Polybius, meaning all the country club crowd, bought them. … We may imagine how the bottom dropped out of Asiatic stocks on the Roman market when the news came of the concerted massacre of eighty thousand Italians at the instigation of the native ruler of an adjoining kingdom.”…
…How much of Haskell’s claims were true?
A quick Google search of “did the Romans have a stock market” produces contradicting results.
The first search result is an abstract from Prof. Pellegrino Manfra, a professor at City University New York: “Ancient Rome Economy and Investment: The Origins of the Stock Market
The origins of the stock market can be observed as far back as ancient Rome. The earliest example of organized market for equities can be found in the Roman Republic in second century B.C…. Back in Roman times, organizations called ‘Societates Publicanorum’ were formed that offered investments referred to as ‘partes’ or what we now know them as – shares. … The shares were tradable and had fluctuating prices based on the underlying project’s success. …. The place where trading occurred was the forum, near the temple of Castor.”
Prof. Manfra’s conclusion couldn’t be clearer.
However, three search results further down, you find a complete repudiation of his claims.
In 2016, Bocconi University in Milan put out a press release summarising a scientific article that its Prof. Manuela Geranio had published: “Ancient Rome Stock Exchange Is a Myth
Manuela Geranio, in a paper with Geoffrey Poitras, shows that modern claims of the existence of a market for shares of the societates publicanorum in the late Roman Republic are not supported by primary sources … Recent claims of trading in shares (partes) of tax-farming corporations (societates publicanorum) in the late Roman Republic can thus raise some skepticism. ‘Upon closer inspection there is only brief discussion of possible share trading in a few sources that, in turn, depend fundamentally on a debatable interpretation of the commercial and legal context’. The location of the proto-stock-exchange near the temple of Castor results, for example, the fruit of ‘romanticized descriptions’. … The paper … highlights the need for more careful historical and legal analyses before concluding about the existence of its peculiar institutions in ancient times.”…
…The most common source cited as evidence that modern-day share trading took place in ancient Rome is “Publicans and Sinners”, a 1972 book by Ernst Badian, an Austrian-born classical scholar who served as a professor at Harvard University from 1971-1998.
It describes how the Romans used “partes (shares) in public companies” and traded “over the counter” based on a “register” of shareholders that the companies kept. It all sounds like the ancient Romans did have an early version of a stock market!…
…Badian was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974, and in 1999 his native Austria awarded him the Cross of Honor for Science and Art. His work may be dated, but it’s impossible to dismiss his writing as that of a crank.
Badian was an early member of a group that critics of this field of study today decry as the “maximalists” who allegedly were too aggressive in interpreting incomplete historical evidence in a favourable way…
…Still, another group of equally serious scientists delivered a broadside to the whole idea of the Romans operating something worthy of comparing it to modern-day stock markets.
In 2015, Bocconi University’s Manuela Geranio teamed up with Geoffrey Poitras to publish “Trading of shares in the Societates Publicanorum?
The often repeated modern claim of significant trading in ‘shares of the societates publicanorum’ (partes) during the late Roman Republic cannot be supported using the available ‘primary sources’.”
As the authors go on to argue, previous analysis of this field failed to take into consideration differences in language, nuances in interpreting complex terms, the historical context, and the lack of sufficient amounts of clear evidence.
“Even where elements related to possible share trading can be identified in the primary sources, evidence is often vague or questionable. … To avoid semantic confusions, understanding the commercial and legal context for claims of share trading and other activities involving the societates publicanorum requires definition of important terms – shares, share trading, company, joint-stock company, corporation. Appropriate definition is essential to clarify various claims made in modern sources.”
Geranio and Poitras argue that previous interpretations in this field relied too much on an “artful interpretation” of key terms.
Their conclusion is supported by the widely-known notion that the day and age a scientist lives in (as well as their language and culture of origin) can play heavily into the conclusions of research.
4. China is trying to create a national network of cloud computing centers – Andrew Stokols
I’ve written before about the Eastern Data Western Compute 东数西算 project, China’s effort to boost its’ “computing power” by constructing new data centers in the country’s West…
…The vision of the EDWC is not only about building new “nodes” of data centers, it is also about creating a “national network of computing”, 全国算力一张网 quanguo suanli yizhang wang so that computing power can be shifted between data centers depending on fluctuations in computing demand and supply in different regions, not unlike the way interconnected or smart power grids can move electricity around the grid depending on where demand is greatest. One of the premises of the EDWC is that data centers, which consume large amounts of energy, should be located in areas with ample renewable energy supply and cheaper land and energy than in the populated east coast. Networking computing resources across the country can make better use of energy in the West without having to transmit electricity from West to East…
…In a televised interview in 2022, Yu Xiaohui 余晓晖 the President of the influential think tank CAICT1, which has played a leading role in developing the EDWC plan, notes that “other countries are doing similar things [to the EDWC] but only within one cloud company, but this is an advantage of China, we are doing a systematic layout.”2 In other words, what he alludes to is the fact that the EDWC project is a state-led effort to coordinate the data center infrastructure of the entire country, which requires going beyond simply encouraging cloud/telecom providers to invest in their own new cloud computing centers. It also means creating a unified national computing network that would allow for a more dynamic allocation of computing demand across the country.
But to do this requires creating a system that can allocate demand from computing centers of different providers. From a business and data privacy standpoint this seems difficult to do. However, China’s three state-owned telecom operators are the ones playing a significant role in building out the EDWC project…
…In various documents and news announcements there have been reference to 调度中心 or “adjustment centers” in each of the data center nodes, which are supposed to function as traffic centers for nationwide computing resources, balancing supply (western data centers) and demand (eastern applications). Such “adjustment centers” allow computing tasks to be dynamically allocated to different data centers, such as allocating workloads between 8 national computing hubs and 10 data center clusters, optimizing latency, and improving energy efficiency by redirecting “non-urgent” data tasks to western renewable-powered hubs during off-peak hours…
…There are technical challenges to developing the national network. But there are also obvious financial/proprietary hurdles as well, namely how to interconnect cloud networks of separate companies who have their own proprietary businesses and systems. This may be easier to do with the three national operators (China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom) than it is with private cloud operators, which are still the leading cloud platform companies (Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, Baidu)…
…In the U.S., there are some examples of so-called “multi-cloud” interconnections, such as agreements between cloud operators Microsoft and Oracle that allow clients to connect certain cloud databases stored on different cloud platforms.7 But China’s ambition to create a national computing network would require a much greater interconnection and coordination to carry out…
…The degree to which China is able to build out the national network of cloud computing will have implications for its digital innovation, particularly in AI. While the U.S. leads China in the number of data centers by a wide margin, China’s system could develop in ways that diverge from the proprietary open-cloud model in the U.S. in which large enterprise cloud platforms dominate the market (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud). Whether and to what degree China’s existing cloud providers continue to dominate the market will depend on their ability to innovate and maintain their edge in the face of increasing entry by state-owned cloud providers into cloud markets.
5. AI Horseless Carriages – Pete Koomen
I noticed something interesting the other day: I enjoy using AI to build software more than I enjoy using most AI applications–software built with AI.
When I use AI to build software I feel like I can create almost anything I can imagine very quickly. AI feels like a power tool. It’s a lot of fun.
Many AI apps don’t feel like that. Their AI features feel tacked-on and useless, even counter-productive.
I am beginning to suspect that these apps are the “horseless carriages” of the AI era. They’re bad because they mimic old ways of building software that unnecessarily constrain the AI models they’re built with…
…Up until very recently, if you wanted a computer to do something you had two options for making that happen:
- Write a program
- Use a program written by someone else
Programming is hard, so most of us choose option 2 most of the time. It’s why I’d rather pay a few dollars for an off-the-shelf app than build it myself, and why big companies would rather pay millions of dollars to Salesforce than build their own CRM.
The modern software industry is built on the assumption that we need developers to act as middlemen between us and computers. They translate our desires into code and abstract it away from us behind simple, one-size-fits-all interfaces we can understand.
The division of labor is clear: developers decide how software behaves in the general case, and users provide input that determines how it behaves in the specific case.
By splitting the prompt into System and User components, we’ve created analogs that map cleanly onto these old world domains. The System Prompt governs how the LLM behaves in the general case and the User Prompt is the input that determines how the LLM behaves in the specific case.
With this framing, it’s only natural to assume that it’s the developer’s job to write the System Prompt and the user’s job to write the User Prompt. That’s how we’ve always built software.
But in Gmail’s case, this AI assistant is supposed to represent me. These are my emails and I want them written in my voice, not the one-size-fits-all voice designed by a committee of Google product managers and lawyers.
In the old world I’d have to accept the one-size-fits-all version because the only alternative was to write my own program, and writing programs is hard.
In the new world I don’t need a middleman tell a computer what to do anymore. I just need to be able to write my own System Prompt, and writing System Prompts is easy!…
…In most AI apps, System Prompts should be written and maintained by users, not software developers or even domain experts hired by developers.
Most AI apps should be agent builders, not agents…
…AI-native software should maximize a user’s leverage in a specific domain. An AI-native email client should minimize the time I have to spend on email. AI-native accounting software should minimize the time an accountant spends keeping the books.
Disclaimer: The Good Investors is the personal investing blog of two simple guys who are passionate about educating Singaporeans about stock market investing. By using this Site, you specifically agree that none of the information provided constitutes financial, investment, or other professional advice. It is only intended to provide education. Speak with a professional before making important decisions about your money, your professional life, or even your personal life. We currently have a vested interest in Alphabet (parent of Google Cloud), Amazon (parent of AWS), Microsoft (parent of Azure), Salesforce, and Tencent. Holdings are subject to change at any time.