NJK Stock Market Guide

Balanced Scorecard: A Balanced Approach to Business Analysis

2013-05-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

Balanced Scorecard is a modern business analysis model that provides a quite balanced or 'holistic' analysis of the business. This means that Balanced Scorecard does not mrerly focus on one aspect of business such as financial preformance, but rather focuses on the improvement of the business aspects all around.

Balanced Scorecard focuses on four main aspects as depicted by the diagram below.

Dimensions of Balanced Scorecard

01) Financial Perspective

Financial perspective focuses on the achievement of the financial objectives of the organization. Pretty much most of the objectives of a general business organization tend to financial in nature, such as, achieving a certain level of profits, reaching a specific revenue target, reducing costs etc. These are all important and relevant objectives for a business, but the Balance Scorecard shows that merely financial objectives are not enough for a successful enterprise.

02) Customer Perspective

This is where a business has to be concerned, in almost all the ways, about the customer. 'Customer is the King , so needs to be treated as such. Customer feedback on satisfaction level, required additional products or services, customers' expectations etc are variables of this dimension. Always the focus will be on providing a 'better' service to the customer so that the customer will retain and hopefully bring in more customers in the long term.

03) Internal Business Process Perspective

This aspect mainly focuses on the improvement of the process of the business. Aspects such as improving the efficiency, productivity, success of the internal controls, systems and processes etc are the variables of thsi dimension.

04) Learning and Growth Perspective

This says that an organization always has to be positive about 'learning and growing'. Or simply put, the organization has to continuously be improving and keeping up with the changing environment. Employee and management training and development, improving technologies used in organization, focus on expansions and growth are a few variables of this dimension.

Balances Scorecard is a relatively modern business analysis tool and is being recognized as a valuable tool for measuring business performance. An overall idea of the concept is critical for the successful management of the modern business organizations.

Rational Planning Model – Part III – Strategic Option Generation (Part 05)

2012-12-09T19:38:00.000-08:00

So far four other strategies for businesses have been discussed in the previous articles. This will be the fifth and the last of the third area of the Rational Planning Model. Another matrix will be discussed under this final part.

Need-Provision Matrix

This matrix is specifically designed for the public sector organizations, which are rather into social welfare than profit maximization. However in the allocation of resources towards the best interests of the society, public sector organizations too do have to develop strategies, to ensure the effectiveness and the efficiency of the process.

The matrix consists of the need for a product (high and low) and provision of resources by the private sector (high and low).

Need

Low High

No Provision	Selected Provision
Encourage Others	Extensive Provision

High

Provision By Others

Low

No Provision

This is where the need for the product is low yet the private sector is providing for the product highly. Entertainment industry can be taken as a close example. The ‘need’ for entertainment is low (the ‘want’ for entertainment is high), but the private sector is generating wants out of entertainment industry.

Selected Provision

This is where the need for the product is high and the private sector provision is high too. In such cases the public sector will only intervene if necessary. Health industry shows these characteristics. Public sector will only intervene when there is some massive capital expenditure.

Encourage Others

This is a situation where the need for the product and the provision by the private sector are both low. Public Sector will motivate the private sector to provide for any low demand for the product.

Extensive Provision

This is where the need for the product is high and for some reason the private sector provision is low. Mostly very expensive provisions fall into this category or completely social welfare motive businesses are found in this category. Examples include maintaining law and order, national security and infrastructure facilities.

Rational Planning Model – Part III: Strategic Option Generation (Part 04)

2012-11-26T23:41:00.000-08:00

After a series of Michael Porter’s theories on strategy generations, this article focuses on Igor Ansoff’s ‘Ansoff Matrix’.

Ansoff Matrix – Igor Ansoff

This is also known as ‘Product-Market Matrix’ due to the fact that this theory focuses on the development of strategies based on products and the markets. The matrix focuses on existing products and markets and new products and markets and how strategies should be developed to face each situation appropriately.

Market Penetration

This is the strategy that should be adopted by a business when an existing product is introduced to an existing market. The market is already occupied with the same product and hence the business will have to adopt some pricing strategy to penetrate the market, preferably a cost leader approach.

Diversification

This strategy should be adopted when a business enters into a new market with a new product. A new product naturally signifies ‘differentiation’ from the existing products. However diversification is a broader concept.

Two major aspects of diversification are horizontal diversification and vertical diversification. Horizontal Diversification signifies entering into different businesses that are related or close to the products of the current business (Eg: A soap company entering into shampoo industry). Vertical Diversification signifies a business entering into the different levels of the supply chain of the same business. (Eg: A cereal producing company purchasing a corn field – Upward Integration or the same cereal company purchasing a cereal distribution company – Downward Integration).

Product Development

This strategy deals with a business introducing a new product to the existing market. Hence strategies to develop the ‘product’ have to be initiated. Marketing, advertising, product promotions, discounts are a few strategies to be adopted.

Market Development

This is where a business introduces an existing product to a new market. So strategies to develop the market have to be adopted. Having a proper distribution channel, having convenient outlets to facilitate easy access for customers are some strategies that could be adopted.

Rational Planning Model – Part III: Strategic Option Generation (Part 03)

2012-11-26T04:37:00.000-08:00

The previous article discussed about the Diamond Theory introduced by the famous strategist Michael Porter. In this article too yet another theory put forward by him will be discussed. This strategy is known as the Five Forces Theory.

Five Forces Theory – Michael Porter

Unlike Generic Strategy and Diamond Theory, this model focuses on industry competition and developing business strategy on an industry level. This theory talks about five aspects of the industry which the business should be aware of and take into account when developing business strategy.

Bargaining Power of Customers
Bargaining Power of Suppliers
Threat of New Entrants
Threat of Substitutes
Rivalry

Bargaining Power of Customers

This focuses on the bargaining power of customers within the industry as a whole. Bargaining power means the ability to influence the price of a product. Higher the bargaining power, the higher the influence of the customers will be and hence the lower the prices will get. A single customer cannot affect the market price in a general industry. However when customers get organized, unionized or when customers are backed up by government institutions, their bargaining power becomes much more intense. Hence businesses will have to be aware of the nature of the influence of the customers when setting strategy.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

This means the bargaining power of suppliers. Bargaining power is the same concept as mentioned above and the only difference is that in this aspect, the influence of suppliers is considered. Naturally one supplier cannot influence the market price but when they are organized their power is more. They can organize and create artificial shortages of products and drive the prices up. Hence the business has to strategize to face such situations.

Threat of New Entrants

This is where the business has to focus on the new competition that generated through new businesses entering the industry. The more businesses are in one industry, the more competition will occur. A considerable level of competition is good for both the businesses and the customers. Customers will be able to enjoy competitive prices whereas businesses will be forced to be innovative and implement cost reduction practices. However very strong competition is not beneficial. Businesses will lower their prices further and further in order to attract customers and will come to a level where the business cannot cover its daily expenses. That will force the business to liquidate.

Threat of Substitutes

This is where the business has to focus on the substitute products available beyond the industry. All products can be considered to be substitutes within and industry, and that’s what makes it an industry. However this aspect focuses on the likely substitutable products outside of the industry. For an example rice could be identified as a substitute for bread, although paddy cultivation and bakery industry are entirely two different industries.

Rivalry

This merely focuses on the competition within the industry. Higher the competition the more strategic businesses will have to be, the more innovative and more differentiated.

Rational Planning Model – Part III: Strategic Option Generation (Part 02)

2012-11-25T00:09:00.000-08:00

The previous article discussed about the Porter’s Generic Strategy model and this article will discuss about another strategy that’s important for any business. This strategy too was implemented by Michael Porter and is named as ‘Diamond Theory’.

02) Diamond Theory – Michael Porter

This theory specifically discusses about the factors/conditions that affect a business to develop a competitive advantage over another business and come to be ‘global businesses’. Michael Porter put forward this theory in his publication ‘The Competitive Advantage of Nations’.

The theory focuses on four aspects that make the businesses globally competitive.

Demand Conditions
Factor Conditions
Firm Structure, Strategy and Rivalry
Related and Supportive Industries

Demand Conditions

This represents the home demand for a company. In simple, the demand for the product by the country in which the business originated affects the development of the business largely. A good and strong demand from the home country will tempt and challenge the business to innovate and evolve.

Eg: The local demand for chocolates and wrist watches made Switzerland the global leader in chocolate products and wrist watch industry.

The demand for fashion within Italy made it to be the hub of world fashion.

Factor Conditions

This represents the availability and the usage of factors/resources by a business to develop a competitive advantage. According to Porter natural availability of factors is not good for the business, since then the businesses are not motivated to innovate and crate factors. These factors can include human resources, capital resources, natural resources and intellectual resources.

Eg: Availability of natural oil has given the countries in the Middle East a natural competitive advantage; however this has lead such countries to innovate less.

Firm Structure, Strategy and Rivalry

This represents how the structure (flow of decision making), strategy (the business’s course of action to achieve objectives) and rivalry (competition) help the business in gaining a competitive advantage.

Firm structure that aids fast and flexible decision making, strategy that allows achievement of objectives and rivalry which pushes the businesses beyond the limits are vital for the growth and development of a business.

Related and Supportive Industries

Diamond theory shows that a business cannot function on its own. It needs aid from a variety o other businesses, which are also known as auxiliary services. These supportive industries could be transportation, communication, warehousing, financial etc.

A strong integration between these industries will help a business to develop long term relationships, gain cost benefits and gain a competitive advantage in the long run.

Rational Planning Model – Part III: Strategic Option Generation (Part 01)

2012-11-23T23:20:00.000-08:00

There are several options when it comes to business strategy. Different strategists have come up with their own versions and methods of developing strategies that best suit businesses in different business conditions. One of the most prominent and highly regarded such strategy is the ‘Generic Strategy’ model put forward by famous strategist Michael Porter.

01) Generic Strategy – Michael Porter

In this model, Porter has put forward very basic two strategies that businesses could adopt. Although the strategy seems simple and harmless, almost every business needs to decide on one of the strategies put forward in this model. The two strategies are;

Cost Leadership
Differentiation

Cost Leadership

This is the strategy where businesses try to be the lowest cost/price option in the market thus attracting more customers who are more focused on cost rather than uniqueness of a product.

A cost leader is the business that provides products at the lowest in the market or at very competitive low prices; hence this gives them a competitive advantage over other businesses that have higher prices. Customers are rational, meaning they will always try to maximize personal satisfaction and in this case personal satisfaction means best product at the lowest price possible. So as rationale customers, the market will prefer the low cost option most of the time (because this option will not work with products where the price is associated with prestige and a certain higher standard of living).

Businesses that are into selling essential commodities can adopt this strategy better than any other industry.

A cost leader will always have the generic product (basic product), no improvements, nothing additional, so as to keep the cost and thus the price to a minimum level. A cost leader will have only a smaller margin (profit) over a product, however it is compensated with the higher volume of products sold.

Differentiation

This is a strategy where the business focuses on providing a unique product rather than the same product provided by the competitors.

This will set aside the company from the competition and provide a competitive advantage.

These businesses can either, innovate a new product, improve the existing product or provide additional benefits/features with an existing product, thus differentiating them from the rest. This will require further spending and hence the price will be naturally higher, but customers who like something new, innovative and fresh will always go for these products rather than the same old product.

Due to the unique nature of the product, differentiators will be able to charge a higher price and earn higher margins, but the sales volumes will be relatively low, since not all customers are lavish spenders.

Eg: Apple products deliver a unique experience than any products of its nature. Hence the price is very high, yet there is a huge demand for the products.

Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH)

2012-11-08T22:50:00.000-08:00

This is the age of information, where information is more powerful than any weapon. The markets are changing rapidly and information is the key to identifying such changes and reacting to them in the best possible way. Information gives us the business a path to follow, targets to achieve and a competitive advantage, if used correctly.

Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) defines three levels of information availability in a market (mainly financial markets).

Strong Market
Semi-Strong Market
Weak Market

Strong Market

EMH says that in a strong market perfect information exists and is highly efficient in information distribution. This means that, in a market, all past information, present information, all disclosed information and all undisclosed information are publicly available. In practice, this is highly unlikely and could be concluded that such markets do not exist. If such markets exist, everybody would be making unlimited and continuous profits within markets, and that is not practical.

The prices of financial instruments trading in these markets will instantly reflect the availability of undisclosed information (insider information).

Semi-Strong Market

EMH defines a semi-strong market as one with all past information, present information and all disclosed information. Typically this is the type of market that exists most of the time. Businesses will do anything to prevent important information leaking out to the market since that gives their competitors an enormous advantage. So undisclosed information stays undisclosed and publicly hidden.

The prices of financial instruments trading in these markets will instantly reflect the availability of public information.

Weak Market

EMH says that Weak Markets only give out the past disclosed information to the public. Decision making can be tough and rigid in these types of markets.

In these markets prices of financial instruments will only reflect based on the past information.

Sources : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis

Benchmarking

2012-10-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

The modern business world is highly dynamic and competitive. It is highly essential to stay on top of the game even to survive in the industry. This is where benchmarking becomes helpful to all organizations.

Benchmarking is the process of comparing our performance with the industry best performance and developing strategies to reach that level. In this process we can identify our weaknesses and limitations and the strengths of the best performer and try to develop our own strengths.

Benchmarking is threefold,

Internal Benchmarking
External benchmarking
Strategic Benchmarking

Internal Benchmarking

This is where certain departments or sections of an organization benchmark each other. The significance is that performance comparison is done within the organization itself. For an example the production department may have an optimum output of 5 million units, and the marketing department can benchmark this and try to sell all of the units.

External Benchmarking

This is also known as competitor benchmarking. Yes, this is where an organization compares its performance with the best in the ‘industry’, usually the market leader. This will allow the company to really realize the weaknesses of the organization as a whole.

Eg: Lexus benchmarking BMW and Benz.

Strategic Benchmarking

This is a more ‘ambitious’ approach where a company benchmarks itself with one of the best in the whole market, despite the industries. This could be quite overachieving since there maybe companies that have unlimited potential than the industry our company operates in. However this form of benchmarking will really give a boost to our company performance.

Despite these benefits benchmarking does have some disadvantages. The main one being, losing focus on the customer needs. The company maybe striving to achieve the best performance and amidst all this commotion we may forget what our customers really want. Also a ‘best practice’ may not remain for a long time. The best performer will always try to achieve more, so there will be an endless tailing behind the market leader. Also there is no way to be sure that industry best performers’ strategies will suit our organizational culture and structure and this may lead to resistance to change.

Game Theory (Economics)

2012-10-21T07:12:00.000-07:00

What is Game Theory? It is the study of the interactions between a few or more elements occurring in a specific environment. That is my version of the definition of course, the way I understand it. However Game Theory appears in many fields of studies, for an example more commonly in mathematics and economics. John Forbes Nash was the Nobel Prize winning mathematician who is honoured with the formulation of the Game Theory.

In economics Game Theory refers to;

“the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers” – Wikipedia

Simply it is a form of strategic decision making relevant to the competition within a market.

Game Theory consists of four core areas.

Deterrence
Cooperation
Changing the rules of the game
Repeat games

Deterrence

This means that the players within the industry/market compete so heavily that it actually results in negative outcomes for all the players and the sustainability of the industry. Basically it leads to ‘unhealthy competition’.

Features of Deterrence

Reduction of prices
Heavy expenditure on advertising simply to fight competition
Unethical competition
Liquidation of businesses unable to face heavy competition

In such instances the government or any other regulating body will have to intervene the market and implement some rules, regulations and restrictions to save the industry.

Cooperation

This is quite the opposite of Deterrence discussed above. Here the players in the market will understand the market and the existence of other players and work in cooperation. The players will understand and respect the values and long term vision of the industry and will not act to destroy it for personal gain.

Changing the rules of the game

This is where some player in the market decides to do something different or swim against the current. The player will try to change the structure and the form of the game in order to achieve a competitive advantage over the other players. It could work both ways, for his advantage or for the downfall if not implemented properly.

Repeat Games

This is simply the cycles of games being played over and over again throughout a period of time. This is quite similar to Cooperation. The players will acknowledge the presence of other players in the market and adjust themselves based on the strengths and weaknesses of each player.

Rational Planning Model: Part I - Mission and Objectives

2012-09-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

Mission and Objectives

The first step or part of the Rational Planning Model is the evaluation of business’s Mission and Objectives. Mission in simple terms is the ‘reason for the existence of the business’ or ‘what the business is doing’ in the market. This, however, is not as simple as that when it comes to the practical sense. A Mission defines the scope of the business, the ideology of the founders of the business and mission statement almost never changes. A change in the mission signifies a change in the whole structure and composition and culture of the business.

Click here to read some mission statements of some top companies.

Objectives, on the other hand, are rather short term and subject to change. Objectives are specific, quantifiable and realistic targets for the business. We identify objectives as SMART (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely). It is not necessary for objectives to have all these characteristics.

Eg: Increase annual revenue by 5%

Achieve a 20% growth in customer base

In developing a strategy for the business and almost in all other aspects concerning business activities, mission and objectives play a vital role. They are the driving factors that guide the business and its employees towards one goal. This is known as achieving goal congruence. No matter what strategy is imposed by the management everything should ultimately lead to reaching the objectives.

This is the first step of the many steps to come in developing a strategy.

To read the introduction to strategy visit: http://lifeasweknowit-njkblackhat.blogspot.com/2012/09/business-strategy.html

Business Strategy

2012-09-20T21:22:00.001-07:00

We all have different ideas as to what strategy is. Some may think it is a tactic or other may think it is a plan. Well both of them are not far off, since an accepted definition for Strategy says ‘a course of action/plan that is developed or designed to achieve a set of objectives’. In simple words it is a set of rules and guidelines that will help us achieve some target we have set.

A Business strategy is pretty much the same, whatever the actions taken by a business to achieve its set objectives. A strong strategy is important for any business to distinguish themselves from the competition and face it. Also it is important to be aware of the competition’s strategy when preparing our strategy.

Business Strategy is mainly evaluated through the Rational Planning Model which is demonstrated as below.

Every bit of planning and organizing and strategizing in an organization should start with its mission and objective statements, because every action taken by the organization should eventually lead to achieving business’s mission and objectives. A corporate appraisal is carried out to understand the current position of the business both internally and externally. A preferred analysis method would be SWOT analysis. Then it is essential to generate strategic options which are in line with our business position and mission and objectives. In the next step those strategic options should be evaluated and the best option should be selected. Such strategy should then be implemented and reviewed and controlled as and when required.

A more detailed look into the each of the steps of the Rational Planning Model will be conducted in the articles to come. Keep in touch and comment for any questions and ideas.

Money (Part III) - Money in the international market

2012-02-20T01:19:00.000-08:00

Local and Foreign Currency

It’s a pretty obvious understanding but nevertheless I’ll go ahead with the definitions of them. Local Currency is the notes and coins that are used by a country within its geographical boundaries. Every country has its own local currency. It might be internationally used but still it’s their local currency as well. So Foreign Currency is naturally any other currency (note or coin) that is being used by other countries.

So when it comes to the International trade how does this work out? Two different currencies may have two different values altogether. For an example, $1 will most likely not equal the value of GBP1 or 1 Euro. Although the face value is 1, the real value, i.e. the good and services that can be bought with this 1 dollar, Great Britain pound or the euro will not be the same. To overcome this, economists have come up with the term ‘Exchange Rate’.

Exchange Rate

Exchange Rate is the rate at which one currency unit of one country is exchanged with another currency unit of another country.

For an example as of today (19-02-2012) 1 US Dollar = o.759 Euros

1 US Dollar = 0.631 Pounds

1 Euro = 0.83 Pounds

Almost all the country’s currencies can be converted as above.

The practical application of the exchange rate is as thus. In the above figures, 1 US Dollar equals 0.759 Euros. This means that any good that costs 1 dollar in the United States will only cost 0.759 Euros in the European region. So we can roughly come to a conclusion that goods in the European region are cheaper than that of the US, hence they cost less.

There are two types of Exchange Rates mainly.

1) Fixed Exchange rate – the exchange rate of the domestic currency is fixed with another country. It’s not allowed to fluctuate. This is done by the Central Bank of a country on behalf of the Government. Fixed exchange rates could have many advantages, the most prominent being predictability. Importers and exporters are aware of the exchange rate and can be pretty sure about the future rate as well. This will help avoid unexpected losses due to exchange rate fluctuations.

2) Floating Exchange rate – here the exchange rate is allowed to float at will. Not at will exactly, but it will float mainly based on demand and supply factors and a million other small factors. An increased demand for the local currency will improve its value and thus decrease the exchange rate and vice versa. However from time to time the Central Bank will influence this rate to get things back in favour. This is known as ‘Managed Floating rate’.

Foreign Direct Investments (FDI)

These are capital investments made by one country in projects of other countries. Here the exchange rate is widely used since fluctuations in the exchange rate could affect the value of the investments.

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

IMF is an international organization striving to achieve global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty around the world. (Source : http://www.imf.org/external/about.htm) It grants funds to poor countries to complete various projects. For more info visit : http://www.imf.org/external/index.htm

IMF headquarters is located in Washington DC, USA.

World Bank

World Bank is another international regulator, who provides funds, grants, loans and various subsidies for developing countries.

For more info visit : http://www.worldbank.org/

The headquarters are located in Washington DC, USA.

From the next article we hope to bring you all about the black money and how an economy responds to black money.

Thanks for reading.

Good Luck - NJK Stock Market Guide

Money (Part II) - Where does it come from?

2012-02-16T06:14:00.000-08:00

Where does money come from?

Money, so important to us, does not just appear. It is made like any other product. The government and the Central Bank of a certain country are the authorities held responsible for printing and issuing money to the general public. There are specialized companies to print and mint money. (Eg: Thomas De La Rue) We may think that these companies are so rich since they print money, but the truth is they cannot print money at will. They can only print money when a government places an order to print money, just like producing a normal good upon customer order. Unlike normal businesses, money printing companies cannot keep stocks, obviously, they will mostly operate once and order is placed.

Money Supply

Money Supply (AKA monetary base, base money, money base, reserve money) is the total money in circulation in an economy at a given point of time. Simply, how much money is within the economy at a certain point of time? Money Supply is a key variable within an economy. It affects the economy and all its activities to a great extent. Money supply affects the price levels, interest rates, investments, production, consumption etc. So how is this money supply measured? It can be measured in 4 ways.

1 1) M1 – Narrow Money Supply

Narrow Money includes all the cash in hand of the general public and all the demand deposits of the public held in commercial banks.

2 2) M2 – Broad Money Supply

M2 consists of M1 plus all the Savings deposits of the public held in commercial banks

3 3) M2b – Consolidated Broad Money Supply

M2b consists of M2 plus all foreign currency deposits of the public in the commercial banks.

4 4) M4 – Very Broad Money Supply

This consists of m2b plus all the savings and fixed deposits of the public held in financial institutions other than commercial banks.

So that’s a lot of money within an economy and has to be managed effectively. The sole authorities responsible for managing and controlling the money supply in an economy are the government and the Central Bank of the specific country. However the Central bank only engages in the process on behalf of the government.

The main method of influencing the money supply in an economy is through the Repo and Reverse Repo market. These are the two markets that the central bank uses to issue and purchase treasury bills and treasury bonds of the government. (Treasury Bills are short term debt instruments issued by the government to settle their short term cash deficits)

In the Repo market the central bank will issue T. Bill to the general public and people/commercial banks will buy these bills spending the cash balances they have, thus decreasing the money in circulation within the economy. Remember, the above categorization of money supply did not include anything about money held by the government or the central bank. So when the central bank absorbs the cash in the economy it’s like gone or lost.

On the other hand in the Reverse Repo market, the central bank will buy back the T. Bills they issued earlier, of-course at a higher price than what they were sold for. So the person who bought the T. Bill has a capital gain plus an interest component associated with the bill. So when the central bank buys back the bills, it will release the money held with them to the economy thus increasing the money supply.

Intrinsic Value and Extrinsic Value of money

Money basically has two values. Yes! The value mentioned on the face of the note or the coin is known as the extrinsic value of money. It’s the value assigned to the specific note or coin. For example the extrinsic value of a $100 note is simply hundred dollars. And the note can be used to do transactions up to a $100. However, this note is printed on a paper, yeah some special paper, but still a paper. This piece of paper definitely does not worth $100. The real value of the note (paper) is known as the intrinsic value. It might be eve less than $0.50 for the $100 bill.

Features of ‘Good Money’

= General acceptability – money should be accepted by everyone as a medium of exchange

= Scarcity – should be difficult to find and obtain

= Durability – should be durable due to heavy usage

= Divisibility – can be divided in to smaller units (Eg: dollar can be exchanged to two 50 cent coins)

= Portability – should be easy to carry around…

In the next part we will discuss about how money functions in the international market.

Thank You for reading.

Good Luck – NJK Stock Market Guide

Money (Part I) - History and Evolution

2012-02-14T23:40:00.000-08:00

Money

We use it every day, we cannot spend a day without it, we touch it, we feel it, we spend it, and we earn it. Yes, it’s money. It has become almost impossible to live without money. Don’t agree? Well, continue reading.

We wake up in the morning, from our bed, let’s assume $150. Turn off the alarm in the clock, which is, say $20. We go to the bathroom, wash ourselves up, we may not notice at the instance but the water bill is getting accumulated everytime you turn on the tap, shower etc. Then you get dressed up, $20 shirt and $20 trousers, pair of shoes $30 and all other what-not’s. Then you leave the house, get into a bus, pay $2 or something and get to your work. Before going in you decide buy a burgher from a stand, $2. I could go on and on like this. The point to be taken is that, money is so close to us, it’s so engraved into our lifestyle, it’s so significant and delicate.

So let us now take a little tour into the world of Money. Starting from the history and expanding to the future of money and most importantly, how to have enough of money forever. Take a deep breath and read on.

What is Money?

First up, before heading into the history it’s better have a general idea what money is. If I ask you what money is, you’d probably say $1 note, $100 note, penny coins etc. Well, that’s only a part of the story. Because by definition money is “anything that can be used as a medium of exchange”. Wait, what? In simple it says, money can be anything, it does not necessarily be notes and coins that we use today. It can be anything as long as it is accepted as a medium of exchange. “Medium of exchange” means something that can be exchanged with another. Hence the medium should be accepted by all the parties involved in the transaction.

Let’s say for an example that I need to buy a new TV which costs $1000 and let’s assume that I have only $600 in cash with me. If the TV vendor agrees I can pay the balance $400 with something else, say some piece of jewelry I have. So in this case, the jewelry too is accepted as money since it aided in completing a transaction.

Likewise money isn’t only the notes and coins we use today. This will be further illustrated in discussing the history and evolution of money in the coming paragraphs.

History and Evolution of Money

The history of money dates so far into the history to the times when ancestors used little pebbles to buy things from others. Yes! That happened. But exchange of goods and services started even prior to that in an era named ‘The Barter System’.

The Barter System

The Barter System means a system where commodities were exchanged for commodities. In simple goods were exchanged for goods. There was no ‘money’ involved here. People exchanged their excess production with someone else’s excess. The system had many failures such as;

No double coincidence of wants - this means that not always did everyone’s wants match. Someone would have excess rice and want some eggs. But the one who has eggs may not want rice. So the coincidence of wants between parties was not always there and this hindered transactions largely.
No specific unit of value - it was hard to define a value to each product.
No specific measure of value – there was no way of determining what the exchange rate should be. i.e. how much rice should be exchanged for a bag of rice.
Difficulties in transporting goods – goods had to be carried around the villages and even to other villages to be exchanged.
Perishable good like food items could not be stored for long.

Due to such drawbacks people soon realized that exchanging goods for goods wasn’t a very effective system.

Then came the use of medium of exchanges for transactions. As I’ve mentioned above, this could be anything.

Commodity Money

This is the second era of the evolution of money, when people shifted from the Barter system to the use of a medium of exchange instead of goods.

In this stage people started using small stones, pebbles from the seashore, rare feathers, tobacco etc for transactions. These are the earliest stages of money. These items had assigned values, but often were not very decisive on their values. At first these items were rare to be found but later on people found more and more pebbles at the seashores, more feathers from birds, they started growing tobacco, and so the value of these commodities as money ceased. They needed something more consistent and limited in supply.

Paper Money

This is the third stage of evolution of money and the earliest stage of the money known to us today.

In early societies goldsmiths were the wealthiest people in the village. When people wanted to buy something, they would take something of value to the goldsmith (not necessarily, someone of wealth would also be sufficient) and keep the goods with the goldsmith and take a note from him signed to the value that he has kept with the goldsmith. Then this paper was valid to do any transaction up to its value mentioned. With time this system too came to pass.

Notes and Coins

The first notes and coins that we use today were printed In England by Stockholms Banco in 1661. Since then these notes and coins have evolved in different material, shapes, sizes and values.

Modern coins are minted in silver, copper, nickel etc. And money notes are made out of special paper that withstands heavy use, wear and tear.

E-Money / E-Cash

This is the modern plus future of money. Money in the electronic form. Even today with or without our knowledge we use E-money for online purchases, online payments, credit settlements etc.

Paypal, Alertpay, Moneybookers are a few examples of the institutions that facilitate online payments. Besides these specialized institutions, almost all commercial banks provide online payment facilities nowadays.

These are the four eras of development of money to the present stage. This is a very brief introduction to the four stages. But I hope you gained some knowledge. This is merely the beginning og the journey with the money. Await the next part to know about, where does money come from? Who supplies and controls money? and many more.

Thank You for reading.

Good Luck - NJKStockMarket Guide

Dot-com Bubble (1995-2000)

2012-01-20T07:08:00.000-08:00

What is The Dot Com Bubble?

Let's break the wordings and look at them separately. Dot Com (.com) refers to the domain name of a website. Eg: (www.google.com; www.youtube.com; www.facebook.com) "com" however literally means 'commercial'. That means it's a commercial website. Although there are a large variety of such domain names (Eg: .edu; .info; .gov; .net) the websites/the internet is generally referred to as the 'dot com' world.

Then what is a 'Bubble'?

A bubble is a false or unexpected or unnatural surge of equity prices mainly due to high levels of speculation. It causes huge uprising in price levels of stocks without proper fundamental backing. So naturally the bubble will burst at some point and the whole market will collapse.

So The Dot Com Bubble was a similar situation that occurred during 1990s (1995-2000 to be specific) surrounding the highly speculated growth of the Internet.

Investors have invested massively in Internet based companies with high levels of speculations about their growth in the years to come.

During the mid-to-late 1990s, Cisco Systems, Dell, Intel, and Microsoft were known as "the Four Horsemen of the NASDAQ" because of their dominant market capitalizations. As the bursting of the Internet bubble approached, Cisco Systems, EMC, Sun Microsystems, and Oracle were known as "the Four Horsemen of the Internet."

During this period many companies were setup with the "e-" (i.e. Internet based) in their business names. Such companies witnessed sky rocketing stock prices. Low interest rates during the period has helped acquisition of more and more capital thus more and more investments.

According to dot-com theory, an Internet company's survival hung on expanding its customer base as quickly as possible, even if it incurred heavy annual losses. For instance, Google and Amazon did not see any profit in their first years. Amazon was spending on expanding customer base and alerting people to its existence and Google was busy spending on creating more powerful machine capacity to serve its expanding search engine. The phrase "Get large or get lost" was the wisdom of the day.

The Bubble Bursts...

During later 1999 and early 2000, the US Federal Reserves had taken steps to increase the interest rates by nearly 6 times. This affected the pace of the economy and started to loose pace. On 10th March 2000, the NASDAQ composite index peaked at peaked at 5,048.62 (intra-day peak 5,132.52), more than double the value it had just a year back. It shows how fast the bubble had grown. The NASDAQ dropped slightly after that, but this was attributed to correction by most market analysts; the actual reversal and subsequent bear market may have been triggered by the adverse findings of fact in the United States v. Microsoft case which was being heard in federal court. The findings, which declared Microsoft a monopoly, were widely expected in the weeks before their release on April 3. The following day, April 4, the NASDAQ fell from 4,283 points to 3,649 and rebounded back to 4,223, forming an intraday chart that looked like a stretched V.

By 20th March 2000, the NASDAQ had lost almost 10% from it's peak in 10th March 2000.

After the burst of the bubble many Dot Com companies went bankrupt due to financial burdens. Such companies are 'WorldCom', 'NorthPoint Communications', 'Global Crossing', 'JDS Uniphase', 'XO Communications', and 'Covad Communications'.

But a few finacially sound companies emerged as giants in the Dot Com industry after the bubble. They are 'Amazon.com', 'eBay' and 'Google'.

References: Wikipedia

: Investopedia

Short Selling - Dealing with Downturn markets..

2012-01-07T22:34:00.000-08:00

The world economy is trekking down a rough road. Production is plummeting, agriculture is highly uncertain and services are rising rapidly. So this has affected the Stock markets around the world, obviously. Many markets are experiencing Bearish trends. Keep aside the Bearish markets; are your stocks going down? have you made the wrong decision? Then Short Selling is probably the answer you're looking for. Now that I have your attention, let's dig in deep.

What is Short Selling?

As investors we know how to scrape profits out of the Stock markets. Buy a share at a low/er price hold it till the price rises and sell at a predetermined profit. This is the foundation of stock trading. But what can we do in a down turned market? Well, Short Selling says we can still make profits in a down turned market.

Short Selling is exactly the opposite of what we discussed above. In simple it's a trading strategy to make profits when a specific stock is decreasing in it's value or going down.

Long or Short?

When an investor invests in a share expecting the prices to increase in the future, it's known as investing for Long. On the other hand when an investor invests in a share expecting the prices to decrease in the future, it's known as investing for Short. Hence the word play Short Selling is derived.

The Process... How to Short Sell?

When an investor needs to Short Sell, his broker will lend the specific stocks to him. The stocks may be owned by the broker or another investor of the broker. It doesn;t matter since it's only lending. Then the investor can sell the stocks at the prevailing price. The amount will be credited to his account as usual. However the investor must buy the Shorted stocks again, that's only when the Shorting will be complete. So after some time, when the stock prices have gone further down, the investor can bu back the stocks he sold previously.

Even though the prices of the stock is going down, the investor sold the lent stocks at a higher price than the price he bought again. Thus the difference being the profit from the overall transaction. Look at the following image for a better understanding.

Risks associated with Short Selling..

Share price movements

Short Selling can only be done if the prices of the share is dropping. If by chance, the share prices increase from the point where you lent them, you'll only end up making losses. Because you have to buy them back at a higher price than what you sold them for.

Margin Trading

Stock Shorting is done on borrowed money. That means money lent from your broker. This has significant risks as we have discussed in previous articles.

Timing is everything..

This is not particularly a risk related to Short Selling only. However the investor will have to be extra vigilant about the movement of the prices to buy them back at the lowest price possible to maximize the profits.

Conclusion:

Short Selling is a process that could help an investor in uncertain or Bearish markets. Use the knowledge with care and you'll be able to squeeze profits out of almost all the market conditions.

Happy Trading!!!

Online Stock Trading

2012-01-04T21:54:00.000-08:00

What is Online Trading?

This is the latest trend in Stock trading, where share transactions are done via your computer connected to the Internet and your stock broker.

Online trading will give the investor immense freedom, to do whatever he wants with the money he has invested. Most brokers provide this sort of facility and with some knowledge on the Stock market, one can do his own trading and be a self-made millionaire.

How is it done?

Today almost all the brokering firms are willing to provide online trading facilities to their investors. For them it could reduce their work load and also take off the risk of managing the portfolio. However for a keen investor Online Trading can be of alot useful.

When requested for the Online trading facility from your stock broker, they will provide you with a software to access the stock market via the broker. The most used software and the best software for this would be DirectFN Pro. It provides real-time access to the market and hence ideal for Day Trading purposes as well. DirectFN provides real time charts, graphs and many technical analysis tools. So it can be identified as an all-in-one tool for stock trading. For more information visit DirectFN.com

Another massively useful software fro Technical Analysis. It specializes on providing the best Technical analysis tools to make a better decision in trading stocks. For more information and screenshots visit here.

The above mentioned sorftware can be freely downloaded from the links given below.

Happy Trading.

To download DirectFN Pro click HERE.

To download AmiBroker 5.3 click HERE.

To download AmiBroker 5.3 Crack click HERE.

Share Certificate and Scripless Securities Settlement System

2011-11-26T01:49:00.001-08:00

Share Certificate

Share Certificate or also known as Stock Certificate is a legal document issued by the stock market regulator or the Central Depository System (CDS) to prove the ownership of shares/stocks of a company with an individual.

A Share Certificate usually indicated the company name of the shares purchased, the number of shares purchased, at what rate, the total value of the investment and relevant signatures.

However in the modern business world, the place of Share Certificates is diminishing and in some countries, have already ceased to existence. Today large volumes of shares are being traded and in very frequent terms. In such situations issuing Share Certificates is both nonviable and unnecessary. The trades may occur as frequent as many times in a single day, so issuing a Share Certificate is an impossibility.

Scripless Securities Settlement System (SSSS)

SSSS is a system introduced by many countries to ease the settlement of stock trades without the use of Share Certificates. So despite issuing a paper Share Certificate the SSSS keeps electronic records of the ownership of shares and automatically updated in real time as and when a stock trade occurs. This system has greatly enabled the stock market regulators to cut down on costs relating to issue of Share Certificates and also to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of transactions occurring withing the stock market.

Securities and Exchange Commission

2011-11-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

What is Securities and Exchange Commission?

Often referred to as 'SEC', Securities and Exchange Commission of a country is the primary authoritative body for regulating the 'Securities' market. It's an affiliation of the respective country's government, to design and enforce rules and regulations, monitor the Securities market and implement necessary changes.

The SEC is incorporated under the Section 4 of the Securities Act of 1934.

SEC is responsible for monitoring over the Stock market/Share market, Treasury Bonds, Treasury Bills, Bank-Notes, Forward Contracts, Futures, Debentures, Foreign Exchange Market (FOREX) etc.

Related Websites:

SEC of Sri Lanka

SEC of United States of America

SEC of Canada

Forced Selling

2011-10-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

What is Forced Selling?

Forced Selling is simply; where your broker, on his own will, sell stocks that belong to you. Yes, that's the process. But there's a story behind it.

Forced Selling can only occur if you, the investor, buys stocks on broker credit. That means you decide to invest in stocks worth more than what you have actually invested in the stock market by yourself. The broker will usually provide a credit limit up to 50% of your total investment, but this can hugely vary form stock market to another. The next part is settlement of the credit. It's a very short term loan, so it must be paid back. Usually the brokers provide the investor around 3 days (T+3) to settle the credit, but some stock markets may extend this date up to T+5 (5 days).

So when the settlement date arrives, the investor should have enough money or liquid cash in his portfolio to pay back the broker. The investor could either willingly sell all or portion of his portfolio sufficient to cover the credit or settle the credit with cash directly. But settling with cash seems unlikely since you're already trading on credit. We could opt. to sell our stocks and settle the credit, if the stocks had made us our intended profits. But if the stocks have crumbled, we wouldn't want to sell them. This is where Forced Selling comes.

If the available credit isn't settled as of the time limit allowed, your broker will have all the powers to sell any portion of your portfolio up to an amount sufficient to cover the credit. This is called Forced Selling, as you are forced to sell your investments to settle the credit. This is a fully legal process and the investor cannot do anything to stop it or take any legal action against it.

We can understand that this will mostly affect the traders rather than investors. Investors concentrate on the long term and the broker credit facilitates credit up to maximum 5 days only. So traders are the ones who usually get the worst out of this.

This is just another reason why most investment advisers ask the investors not to trade on credit. Unless you are 200% sure of what you're doing, my advice is, don't go for broker credits.

Insider Trading

2011-10-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

Legal or Illegal?

It's both. There are two forms of Insider Trading. One legal and the other not. In general Insider Trading is the dealings (buying and selling) of stocks/shares of a company by people relating to the company, for an example, directors, officers, employees and large share holders. However if this is done in full disclosure it is considered legal. On the other hand it is illegal to engage in trading of a share for the above mentioned parties based on material and undisclosed/non-public information. This is considered unfair or unethical to those traders who doesn't have possession of such information.

Who is an 'Insider'?

An Insider is identified as a person/party who has access to important information about the company that could affect the share prices of the company directly or indirectly or that might affect investor decisions at large. These kind of information is known as 'Material Information'.

So in general, the CEO, the Managing Director/s, the members of the Board of Directors, employees, other officers, brokers and even family members of related people can be found guilty of Insider Trading. Any 'tipping off' of any information by and to such parties could be found guilty.

If found guilty;

If found guilty of Insider trading, the Insider will have to return all the profits he/she made from the Insider trade or this may extend up to three times the profit earned form the trade. Beyond this Laws are being strengthened to increase the penalties for Insider Trading. As of now stock defrauding can extend to a penalty up to 10 years of imprisonment.

For more information :

US Securities and Exchange Commission

Wikipedia

Management

Fundamental Analysis

2011-10-06T00:29:00.000-07:00

What is Fundamental Analysis?

In the simplest form 'Fundamental Analysis' is the process of analyzing the financial reports of an economy, industry or a company. Since this is the Stock Market, it's always about the companies. As always the aim of Fundamental analysis is to forecast the future price movements of the company and also a long term investor may look at features such as stability, growth etc.

Unlike Technical Analysis which determines price fluctuations based on the real-time information like price trends, charts etc., Fundamental analysis is concerned on more solid grounds. Those include, company profitability, company performance (quarters, annually, semi-annually), goodwill, stability, management etc.

Criteria for Fundamental Analysis

As the above picture shows, there are three main parts of Fundamental analysis.

Economy Analysis
Industry Analysis
Company Analysis

Economy Analysis - this is the analysis of the annual reports published by the Central Bank of a country and other relevant incidents, events and transactions that might affect the economy.

Industry Analysis - this is the analysis of the industry a specific company is in. For an example a hospital belongs to the healthcare industry and almost all the events that occur within the industry will have an impact on the said company.

Company Analysis - this is the analysis of the company you have or hoping to invest in. This might look as if the most relevant analysis for an investment, but the other two are as equally important.

Company Analysis

Analysis a specific company can be done in many ways. The more analyse the better chances you have in making a sound decision. Company analysis can be discussed in following topics.

Financial Analysis.

This is the most common for of Fundamental analysis. In-fact most people think this is the only form of Fundamental analysis. But this is just a small part of a bigger chain. Financial analysis includes the analysis of financial statements, reports, past financial data and so on. This is purely of financial nature. This makes more sense since at the end of the day the financial situation of a company is what really decides the price of the share tomorrow. In financial analysis we will mostly look for information like 'debtors, creditors, acid ratios, current ratios, price earning ratio, total revenue, total current and non current expenditure, total debt capital, total equity capital, gearing ratio, liquidity, price, taxes, dividends, cash flows, working capital management etc, and the list goes on. However these information will directly relate to the price of a share of the company.

Management

Another important aspect of the company analysis would be the 'management' or the board of directors of the company who actually makes the decisions on behalf of the company. A 'good' management will give a more positive outlook for the company and vice versa.

Business Plan

This is the document that provides all stakeholders the information relating to the company as to what it does, what are it's objectives, what are the growth prospects and so forth. A sound business plan with sound goals and objectives and a good management to support that will give the investor confidence to believe the company would perform well in the future.

All these put together, Fundamental Analysis will become a much stronger tool for your decision making process.

Portfolio

2011-10-05T07:50:00.000-07:00

What is 'Portfolio'?

A Portfolio in general means a collection. A group of something and such. In the Stock Market, your collection of the total investment can be referred to as the Portfolio. But more commonly the collection or the group of invested stocks by you is called as your 'Portfolio'. Your portfolio could consist of a single stock up to a maximum decided by you.

How to manage your 'Portfolio'?

Portfolio management simply refers to the process of making decisions as to the appropriate investment mix, the potential performance of the investments, managing risks and meeting your investment objectives.

Diversification

The main problem with any type of investment is the certain degree of 'risk' associated with it. Risk could be either favorable or unfavorable outcomes that were not foreseen. There's NO term called 'ZERO RISK', because that is practically unavoidable not to face a risk. But there is a term called 'minimizing risk' or 'managing risk', because that is practically possible. So how to minimize the risk of your overall investment? One word answer. 'Diversification'. Diversification in simple means investing in more than one or two stocks. A more advanced explanation would be, a risk management technique that utilizes a mix of investments in your portfolio.

Let's see how Diversification reduces the risk of the investment. This could be quoted with a popular proverb, "don't put all your eggs in one basket". If you drop the basket by mistake all the eggs are gone. But if you had the eggs in two baskets and if one basket falls and breaks all the eggs, there's still the other basket with a bunch of saved eggs. If you understand this story, you've understood what diversification is really about. It' that simple. But most of us tend to neglect the small facts and go for big calculations, predictions, equations and stuff. But sticking to the basics will not fail you at all.

So it is said that you should diversify your portfolio in order to minimize your risk. Say you have 10 stocks and if five of them go down, there's still hope with the rest five stocks. With diversified portfolio it's very hard to loose the whole game. But if you have just merely a stock or two your chances of failing are pretty high. Investing is a lesser number of stocks is called as 'Under Diversification'.

Over Diversification

This is the other extreme of diversification. Fearing the risk, the investor tends to diversify his portfolio as much as possible. But this is not good at all. Yes, over diversification could bring your risk to a very low level, but the chances of making profits out of these stocks reduce to a great extent. Because of monetary constraints a single stock in an over diversified portfolio will only have a small quantity of shares. Thus it will be very hard to gain a proper profit when all the stock market fees, brokerage fees and other taxes add up to the cost of buying and selling. So it is not advisable to have a HUGE collection of stocks either. The generally accepted number of stocks that should be present in a good portfolio would be 20. But this will vary immensely based on the value of your total investment. But it is advisable that you don't exceed 20 stocks when buying shares.

(this is not buy/sell/hold recommendation.)

Why the Stock Market?

2011-10-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

Savings Account?

Savings account is the normal account any person can open with a bank to safely deposit their hard earned money. This is probably the safest mode to invest money. The banks are regulated by monetary authorities and hence the risk of loosing your money is near zero. They provide you a interest on the balance you have in the account. The interest rate provided is the main tool for attracting customers to deposit their money in banks. This is mostly calculated daily on the account balance and added to the balance monthly. So it's basically earning money with no effort at all. That doesn't sound right, right? Well it doesn't.

Even the best banks in the world will provide you an interest rate not more than 7%-8% per annum. i you have a balance of $1000 at the beginning of the year, you'd have $1080 at the end. (1000*8%) Of course this is zero-effort money, but is it really enough? The answer is NO. This is because the real value of money is decreasing at a faster rate. Real Value of money is the value of actual goods and services that you can purchase with a given amount of money. The Real Value of money is constantly decreasing, thus creating 'Inflation'. Inflation Rate is the rate at which the prices of commodities increase during a given period of time. In a normal economy the Inflation Rate is almost always above the Bank Interest Rate. This would eventually result in a higher decrease of the 'real value' of the money in your bank, than what the 'interest rate' adds to your bank account. Say we live in an economy with a 10% inflation. So in the above example the bank balance grew by $80 during the year. But due to the inflation, the real value of the balance will decrease by $100 (1000*10%). So eventually resulting in a much less value of money than the amount you had in the beginning. (Real Value of the bank balance at the end of the year = Inflation effect - Interest component = -100+80 = -20). So we can see why it's not financially feasible to lock up your money in a bank account.

Fixed Deposits?

Sure, FDs give a higher interest rate than a normal savings account. And for a moment let's assume that even the FD interest rate is higher than the Inflation rate which would result in an actual increase in real value of money, but still there's a problem. That is 'Liquidity'. Liquidity is the ability of an asset to be converted to cash with minimum economic and financial loss. In the liquidity department, the FDs do not look nice at all. Because when opening a FD, you sign an agreement with the bank saying that you deposit the money for a specific period of time, it could vary from 3 months to even 10-20 years. Let's assume that a sudden financial requirement pops out and you cancel the FD and withdraw your money before the maturity of the FD, you will only get a normal savings interest rate for your FD. So now it doesn't look that attractive either.

Stock Market?

This is the big YES! The Stock Market is a gold mine to the person who's ready to harvest the gold. Being 'ready' means knowing actually what you are doing in the market. This Blog is a humble attempt to help you get there. So read carefully the articles and try to grasp the psychology behind the market movement. You don't need to remember all these stuff, but let this be a guide to you. All the best!

ASI and MPI

2011-09-30T09:03:00.000-07:00

What is ASI?

All Share Index (ASI) or also known as All Share Price Index (ASPI) is the main price index of the Sri Lankan Stock Market. This is the weighted price index of all the listed companies on the Sri Lankan stock exchange. Currently there are 259 companies trading in the stock exchange covering 20 sectors of businesses. 'Weighted Price' means that the share prices are weighed based on the market capitalization of each company. 'Market Capitalization' or Market Cap in short is the total issued ordinary share capital of the company valued at current market price. The base year for the ASI is 1985 and the base value is 100. This is the longest and the broadest measure of the Sri Lankan stock market.

What is MPI?

Milanka Price Index (MPI) includes a set of 25 companies selected based on their performances during the last four quarters. However there are some criteria to be fulfilled for a company to be selected to the MPI.

Minimum selection criteria required:

Average of market capitalization of companies for four quarters immediately preceding as at end of the date of evaluation.

Number of trades executed over one full financial year period immediately preceding the date of evaluation. (excluding odd lot trades).

Trading value over the one full year period immediately preceding the date of evaluation as a percentage of average of market capitalization companies as at end of the immediately preceding 4 quarters of the date of evaluation.

List of companies included in MPI 1/06/2011 - 31/12/2011 period

BANKS , FINANCE & INSURANCE
Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC
Hatton National Bank PLC
Janashakthi Insurance PLC
LB Finance PLC
Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka PLC
Nations Trust Bank PLC
Pan Asia Banking Corporation PLC
Sampath Bank PLC
Seylan Bank PLC

HEALTH CARE
Nawaloka Hospitals PLC
The Lanka Hospitals Corporation PLC

BEVERAGES , FOOD & TOBACCO
Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka PLC

INVESTMENT TRUSTS
Environmental Resources Investment PLC

DIVERSIFIED
Aitken Spence PLC
Hemas Holdings PLC
John Keells Holdings PLC
Richard Pieris and Company PLC
The Colombo Fort Land and Building Co.PLC

TRADING
Brown & Company PLC

MANUFACTURING HOTELS & TRAVELS
Ceylon Grain Elevators PLC

John Keells Hotels PLC
Piramal Glass Ceylon PLC
Royal Ceramics Lanka PLC

TELECOMMUNICATION POWER & ENERGY
Dialog Axiata PLC

Laugfs Gas PLC

(All the information relates to Sri Lankan Stock Market)