Real Networth

Bring Back the 90s

2024-08-04T18:33:00.001+05:30

Love those days where Music was discs and cassette,

We got excited ,gifted and swung to the tunes,

Radio threw elements of Surprise about the next song,

Now just flipping stations or mood playlists on apps,

Cut to today Reduced attention span,

Hopping on the next song is the plan,

Not appreciating the acoustics or the artist,

At times old school magic had the posie and guile,

Bring back the 90s ,

Limited resources never limit our fun,

Now it seems we are always on the run,

The happy days with friends and fun,

No treadmill of Life on which we pretend to run,

Empty desires of unfulfilled and never ending dreams,

Ohh we miss the fun,

It's not to do with lifestage or age,

Have to be more open and breathe a little to have more fun,

Appreciating beauty in small things,

Not consumed with consumerism and comparison,

Off the race where we all all Rats,

Bring back the 90s when we had so much fun !ext box.

Lessons in Empathy by My Wife

2023-09-29T22:35:00.001+05:30

We at times get trapped in a web casted by facade of our own principles.

I found engulfed in one such situation.

It was drizzling on a sept evening, wrapping work early, we went to bazzar to stich up pending work to station and rain god's took a pause.

Mumbai rains can come in colours of romance, irritation and sticky sultry spells of humid sweaty weather.

We finished our work it was twilight time but felt like 8, in a quest to go early and have dinner before Sunset, we rushed ro a custard apple vendor.

The usual suspect a lady begger showed up in typical irritating way she started her elevator pitch. The pitch was to buy a fruit.

I have a principle to not to pay in cash especially to those who are capable to put in a labour. The weather got better off me made me tick, I have her a stare, she seemed young as a daisy, eyes were nice and bright and had no remorse of perils of asking for help despite of competencies to earn bread.

I convinently ignored her and continued to bargain with the custard apple vendor.

My wife had a rise smile on her face, sorted a ripe custard apple carefully and gave it to her from our bag.

She could see what my judgemental eyes missed on the ladys bulge belly. I froze and my heart just sunk, before it could recover it was plunged into depths of darkness by my Wife's explanation to her act of kindness,"_She was Expecting"_

I was speechless, i marched towards my car , anxious me couldn't restore my heart by one nostril breathing.

That that I learnt lessons from my wife about observation, kindness and mindfulness.

What If ?

2023-07-16T18:40:00.001+05:30

What if i was evolved to know you were ready,

Ready to walk that walk with me,

What if u were not blinded by what I never wanted,

What if you and me would watch the setting sun in Tuscany,

What if we didnt have our constraints,

We would breath better,

Less anxious, less half empty,

Filling each others life with hope,

What if and only if I could travel back and fix a few stitches,

Our fabric of lives could be so better !

I Like the 90s

2018-06-17T07:20:00.001+05:30

I Like the 90s... Life had less options and more fun. I captured secrets in a dairy and won't spray them for the world to watch.Spoke hours on the landline calls and even though difficult I was more connected to friends and family ! Now wishing birthdays on WhatsApp group has become a tick box exercise. An invisible unknown peerpresure creeps in what if I have missed out ? At times I keep messages unread to keep unwanted folks at bay! I laugh less type more write less, worry more, care less. Man I use to love the 90s when pockets we're halffilled and we had overflowing hearts with love. Now l get a very short lived instant gratification on my each conquest of a purchase I make online. I have gadgets gizmos to save time, still i am stressed for lack of it...Back in the days I was back home early and stress-free.. I seem to be more happpy on pictures and selfies than I really am. I at times wonder all the time that tech has saved me is lost on making my profile better or uploading a story which never unfolded on social media. I am caught an analog signal lost in Digital World !

Things To Say If You Get Caught Sleeping At Your Desk

2013-02-06T22:49:00.001+05:30

**************Sleeping On The Job******************

Things To Say If You Get Caught Sleeping At Your Desk

15. "They told me at the blood bank this might happen."

14. "This is just a 15 minute power-nap like they raved about in the last time management course you sent me to."

13. "Whew! Guess I left the top off the liquid paper"

12. "I wasn't sleeping! I was meditating on the mission statement and envisioning a new paradigm!"

11. "This is one of the seven habits of highly effective people!"

10. "I was testing the keyboard for drool resistance"

9. "Actually I'm doing a "Stress Level Elimination Exercise Plan" (SLEEP) I learned it at the last mandatory seminar you made me attend.

8. "I was doing a highly specific Yoga exercise to relieve work related stress."

7. "Darn! Why did you interrupt me? I had almost figured out a solution to our biggest problem."

6. "The coffee machine is broken...."

5. "Someone must've put decaf in the wrong pot."

4. "Boy, that cold medicine I took last night just won't wear off!"

3. "Ah, the unique and unpredictable circadian rhythms of the workaholic!"

2. "I wasn't sleeping, I was trying to pick up contact lens without hands."

AND THE #1 BEST THING TO SAY IF YOU GET CAUGHT SLEEPING AT YOUR DESK:

Timeless Men!

2013-02-05T22:46:00.001+05:30

Things are meant to be timeless and.... Men... immorta

Quote

2013-01-29T21:06:00.002+05:30

RBI IS A BIRD FOR SURE...IT CAN BE HAWKISH..DOVEISH..But...poor ..Markets can't fly.. they can only be Bull or a Teddy Bear!...

Fear an Enmy of Growth !

2012-08-04T17:15:00.001+05:30

Fear is a big factor in corporate world, as we grow up we are taught to be fearless, be afraid of nothing take the world in your stride,but as we grow old the system is fabricated and weaved with a thin thread of insecurity,which engulfs you in a web called faliure, and one can define an indiviuals movment towards getting stuck in the web as fear. What if something happens to you?, What if you lose your job,fear invites an invisible ally in name of pressure, we go through all kinds of pressure right from passing your semester exams with good grades,fear of failing to achieve defined target to pressure of performing in bed! Its embedded in every action which has some degree of expectation attached. I am not saying its bad and should not exists, pressure is good and gets best of some indiviuals, but using fear as a motivation hardly works... its incredible what a human mind is capable if bombarded with positive ideas !

A Letter to First Bench Toppers

2011-12-07T16:41:00.001+05:30

Before I proceed, let me clearly accept that I am a back bencher since my school, I still am and I still will be if given a chance and I also accept that, I’ve never been a topper in academics. BUT, that doesn’t mean that I’m writing this just for the sake of taking any grudges out of those who’re successful in their academics. So, keep this in mind before reacting or making any comment.

An Open Letter to the First Bench Toppers by a Last Bencher

Dear toppers,

A simple hello from me, a last bencher. All of my life, I will regret not being one of you guys and only I know how difficult it is to be a back bencher no matter how cool we are and this and that and sometimes I really feel jealous of you guys for the very same reason but that doesn’t mean you’re superior.

I know how you show us your ego when we come to you for any academic help and just feel so happy inside for being a topper and start talking nonsense and ignoring us. I know, I’ve gone through this situation many a times but I’ve never complained yet.

It’s not that I do not have topper friends but they don’t show attitude like you first benchers do. All you know is how to keep staring at the white board and your books and top the class with good grades. Come out and have a real battle of life with us and you will be nowhere, I bet. I pity those teachers who even encourage them to get “just” more grades and kill their creativity. Shame on yourself for being a teacher.

I am finding no words right now because the words said above has hurt me so much so I would just like you to know what a last bench students or a dropouts can do. How they’ve changed the world.

Thanks,

A back bencher, Rahul Banker.

Actually, we live in a culture where people seek for the “permission”. Permission to do what they love to. Permission to let their ideas and vision have place in the world. They wait for someone to manage them and their dreams instead of taking responsibility for their own lives. They complain instead of solve and wait for a list of tasks they can check off and say “done”.

Education isn’t bad. But too many people use it as an excuse. I have a list of many people who chose to be different. They didn’t wait for the permissions, they went out and made their own fortune.

I TYPED (not really) these words on a computer designed by DELL founded by a college dropout . The program I used to write it was created by Microsoft, started by the college dropouts Bill Gates and Paul Allen and as soon as it is published, I will share it with my friends via Twitter, co-founded by the college dropouts Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and Biz Stone, and Facebook — invented, among others, by the college dropouts Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, and nurtured by the degreeless Sean Parker.

Well, the above lines were those I read somewhere and had it saved in my notes but I found them pretty attractive and inspiring that degrees ain’t everything in life. If you need more, read below.

I didn’t complete my University : Bill Gates
I Stitched Shoes in childhood :Abraham Lincoln
I was the one who served in Hotels : OBEROI
I was Conductor : Rajnikanth
I worked at Petrol Pump : Ambani
I Failed in class 10th : Sachin Tendulkar
I was a Drop out n Keyboard Player : A R Rahman
I Slept on a Bench & borrowed Rs. 20 everyday from friend to travel to filmcity : Shahrukh khan
I used to serve Tea to support my Football Training : Lionel Messi

My recent inspiration Gautam Adani who is a dropout from my college itself and there is of course Larry Page of Google – another Stanford doctoral program dropout.

Bill Gates, Carl Icahn, David Geffen, Gautam Adani, Jack C Taylor, John D Rockefeller, Ralph Lauren, Sheldon Adelson, Steve Jobs, Ted Turner, Michael Dell are the few names I can recall who were not one of those first bench toppers and instead, they were dropouts. Do you know what the total worth is of these 11 people? $805 Billion as per Sept. 2011 records. Does that make you feel “awwww”? icon biggrin An Open Letter to the First Bench Toppers by a Last Bencher

I can recall a very nice quote from the karate kid which I personally like that goes like : “People will knock you down, its your choice if to get back up”. I am not saying that toppers can’t achieve what dropouts does. Look at Warren Buffet, a Masters in Economics and is definitely a billionaire but why he is a billionaire? Because he convinced himself to take a risk for the dreams he wanted to pursue rather than joining any other economic or financial firm.

So what does this say about the utility college education? Perhaps nothing – college is a reasonable way for most people to launch their careers. On the other hand, these examples prove that for the truly intelligent, motivated, and brave, there may be better ways to spend several youthful years than sitting in a classroom.

I don’t want to have any verbal battle with a topper but I just want to put what I really feel when we feel like we’re not one of them but today I want to tell you that you’re not one of us either. Watch your words because now I know how words can kill!

This is ME, Rahul Banker just giving out a message to all those narrow minded people who think college education with good grades is necessary to be successful in life. Please don’t kill the creativity your child has or you have. To the teachers, please understand that not all students are same and don’t try expect from each of your students to get good grades, some are just not interested. Recently I had a very bad experience with my own teachers and now I openly say, I don’t like either of them and I really do hate my college for trying to kill my passion and creativity.

I am not saying that being a back bencher or a dropout is an easy thing! You don’t know what phase we go through and what difficulties we face in our success stories but we somehow gather all the power to fight against all the odds and at the end, here goes what a great man said :

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Be strong enough to fight against the world. All the best and if you’re a topper, please never say to your mate that he is ruining his/her life. Life has a cruel/intelligent way of changing things in a flash. cheers.

Decoupling Theory Goes to Bin

2010-05-19T20:52:00.002+05:30

The Blood bath on the street has rejuvenated the chances of Double dip recessions, the last bloodbath on street was due the failure of the Banking system, this time around we have another reason for the plunge ‘ fear of Sovereign Debt crisis in Eurozone’.

Now today’s (19’th May 2010) fall was purely due to tinkering with the free markets, history has proved time & again, banning of short selling has never helped in the past (Academic Study), but even regulators as experienced as SEC have failed to understand that short selling is a simple tool to avoid asset bubble formation, still we have politicians with their own whims & fancies & they expect the markets to work according to them. Last week we started on a good note but as expected Germany’s Chancellor’s comments made its ending weak, markets rejoiced on 11’th of May on the news that EU and IMF agreed to act as fairy godmother and pay a $1 trillion emergency-bailout package to stem the sovereign-debt crisis. Sounds good but I have my doubts that we will come out of the tunnel unscratched, & I have my reasons to believe so:-

1) 1)The Bullish pattern in the Fear Index: - The INDIA VIX index , many call it the fear index is trading well above its 15 day moving average. Thus indicating the fact that volatility is the only reality. CBOE VIX is also trading well above its 200dma & staying there.

2) Yellow metal still shining bright:-

The very fact gold is able to close above $1200per ounce on a consistent basis, indicates the aversion of risk from EM’s, Currency , Crude & Commodities ( Non precious).

3)No takers for Euro :-

The Euro index has seen a freefall & has also breached the lows it had touched after the Lehman Bros. crash. It has breached a strong support of 123-125, still people are feeling the good old dollars are safest currency to stay in.

1) 4)China Commodity Scare:-

I I am scared of China’s growth & fear that its insatiable thirst for Natural resources could lead to

A bubble formation, which if burst’s it could create a catastrophic scenario.

So if Money is not parked in EM’s, Commodities, Eurozone, Equities in developed markets, then Gold seem to be the most likely option. So its safe to assume that 2007 high’s of 21K on sensex is still a distant dream, but a possibility if we see the so called as ‘ Decoupling Theory ‘ coming true due to good monsoons, but I personally expect Nifty to first go to 4600 levels & then 6200.

PS:- Many facts & figures are taken from Mr. Deepak Singh’s Blog. ‘ State of the Market’, Deepak is a vetran technical analyst, and my role model.

In a Stock Broking Firm who is really happy?

2010-03-24T09:24:00.002+05:30

Was taken aback by gigantic screen's showing CNBC TV 18.... Series of Computers with dealers punching ...plush office... beautiful girls who also seemed intelligent... all nicely dressed people.... they looked so happy & rich? I had doubts... do I belong here...forget winning can I survive here... After all it is India's Biggest Broker.....

We work hard, we spend sleepless nights, we make it to the best schools, we struggle to survive, we fight to compete to get the highest paying job, we strive to outperform peers, and end up being victims of our Business Cards & Designation’s inscribed on it.

Designation becomes our destination & we are in this blind Rat race running on treadmill weaved by the numbers, targets or KPI’s designed to extract best out of us. I see this in my Office, yeah a top notch Sock Broking firm, the people who really seem to be happy are the traders in the dealing room, the analyst seem to be under extensive pressure to generate those research report with highest ‘hit-rate’ so we can claim that our research is the best in the market & we have the arsenal to tame the vilely old beast called Stock Market. But the Analyst are a breed one of its kind passed out of Ivy leagues, never tasted failure or pain, they will always be in the most aspired & envied job in Investment Industry. But the grass always seems to be a tinge greener on the other side of glass cubicle, what we don’t see are the thorns on that chair of an Analyst.

So let me talk something interesting, let me talk about my team oh-yes we are the rain makers!...We are the self proclaimed sexy bitches, of the company, oozing with confidence, oh yeah we are the sales guys, we seal the deals, we bring business on the table, the most important leg (again self proclaimed) of the broking tripod, but behind the ooze there is lot of midnight booze just to get some sleep & few hours of target-less life.

And if you think traders are a jolly bunch, then I need you to dig deep, as there is more to it than what meets the eye, beneath the laughter & joy there exists a deep sorrow of small child who sat on the trading desk & never grew, always one regret I wish to learn more, know more , grow more.

How can we forget the back office guys, there name has nothing to ride home about, nothing appealing, no lime light, there life gets stuck up in not so cheesy words like T+2, delivery, settlement, compliance.

So we conclude the clients who make money rest in eternal bliss, wait a minute when you are deep out of the money or when your netwoth has reduced to half & in middle of operation in Operation theater if your dealer calls & ask “Saheb tamaru MTM loss vadhi gayu chee aane position continue karva maatein tamne bay lakh bharva padsse”( Meaning: Sir your MTM losses have escalated, your a/c is showing a debit bal of Rs 2 lac, you need to pay so as to continue with your existing positions.)

How can a doctor possibly operate under this severe traumatic condition?

So who is a happy bunny in all this process, without a speckle of doubt it’s the Brokers...

“You Win Big… You Lose Big…. I only Win!”

It’s a great irony of life that everybody wants’ to go to heaven but none ready to die for it.

Still we work hard in a belief “We are just a trade away from being a millionaire & bankruptcy, there exists a grey space somewhere in between that’s where we reside.”

Disclaimer:-

I have no intention to malign any profession,employer, or any entity living or dead, the article should be taken in the right spirit. The events in this piece are part fictional.

Bond investors Want Actions & Not Just Premium From Greece Govt.

2010-03-05T20:39:00.002+05:30

Invesco Ltd. (NYSE: IVZ) is an independent global investment management company managing assets worth $423 billion, expected more action from the Greek Govt. to resurrect it’s finances, as just highest bond yields in the euro area wont lure investors to buy more Greek bonds. Invesco reduced its holdings of Greek bonds in the fourth quarter as the fiscal deficit was more than 12% of GDP as compared to EU’s 3% limit.

The Govt. announced as much as 4.8 billion Euros ($6.5 billion) in extra cuts in deficit two days ago reacting to this investors bought 5 billion Euros of Greek 10-year bonds yesterday, Axel Blasé a fund manager expect concrete structural changes rather than myopic actions, before they decide to invest, he also added the current spreads look attractive but also cautioned against volatility ahead.

The spread, which averaged 54 basis points in last 10 years, reached a high of 396 basis points in January, the biggest gap since before the euro’s debut in 1999. Bloomberg reported Greek public debt is the worst performing in the Euro zone and has lost about 1.4%.

Some companies like DWS Investment Gmbh wish to take a contrarian approach to Invesco’s call to stay away from buying Greek bonds as they expect its European partners will help Greece to come out of the mess without scars. Many investment experts see a value in buying Greek bonds as a robust demand was seen for 10- year bonds yesterday & the order book exceed 16 billion Euros more than three times of face value on offer.

India Inc. to See Pay Hike's

2010-03-05T09:48:00.000+05:30

Year of Tiger has got some good news with it, we can see those double digit pay hikes with average pay hike being around 10.6% which is highest in the Asia pacific region according to survey by Hewett Associates.
It's expected that India based Co's will provide better pay hikes as compared to Mnc's just due to the robust performance of India Inc.

Expert's believe that Sector's which might see spike in salaries are those which have close association with the consumer story, as The Union Budget for 2010-2011 has left lot of money with vibrant middle class, which will form's backbone of the next consumption led Bull-run. Sector's to benefit would be Media & Entertainment, Retail, Banking & Financial Services,Investment & Insurance Co's.

It’s Raining Pay Hikes at Wells Fargo (WC)

2010-03-04T21:36:00.002+05:30

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) has almost doubled in size after its successful acquisition of troubled bank Wachovia (NYSE: WB), so has the compensation of its top executives. Wells Fargo & Company rewarded its top five executives with compensation more than $11 million in 2009, while CEO John Stumpf went home with a package of $21.3 million reports The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Stumpf received $5.6 million in fixed salary and $13.1 million in stock options (ESOP’S), also his pension saw an increment of $2.6 million. His remuneration in 2008 stood at $8.8 million.CFO Howard Atkins remuneration more than doubled in 2009 to $11.6 million from $4.9 million a year ago. Wells Fargo bank has repaid all the $25 billion it received in 2008 from the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP thus liberating itself from few Govt. restrictions.

US Stock Index Futures Maintain Status- Quo Prior to Key Economic Data

2010-03-04T20:02:00.000+05:30

U.S. stock-index futures didn’t show any excitement before release of home sales, factory orders and jobless claims data. Meanwhile shares of Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) fell by 2.9% to $12.18 after Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. downgraded the stock to Market performer as they believed the stock was fairly priced at these levels. Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) & Coca Cola Company (NYSE: KO) jumped 1.9% & 1.1% respectively after buy recommendation by BofA- ML & UBS respectively.
On back of good earnings growth expectations in the banking sector & possible resolution to Greece’s sovereign debt crisis S&P 500 rose to its highest point after Jan 20. Economists expect a better performance in the housing sector due to extension in tax credit, they also feel that jobless claims would go down.
The euro fell from a two-week high against the dollar. Fund Manager’s feel the dollar might rise against global currencies thus resulting in an exit from riskier asset classes.

How do Operator's Make Scrip's go Bannana's

2010-02-20T00:40:00.003+05:30

This is a nice short story i picked from traderji.com
Gives us lesson at the end of the day just like in a game of Black Jack, it's the dealer who make's the money.... same is the case of operator driven Penny Stock

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the
villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs10. The villagers seeing that
there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started
catching them.

The man bought thousands at Rs10 and as supply started to diminish, the
villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy
at Rs20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching
monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people
started going back to their farms.

The offer rate increased to Rs25 and the supply of monkeys became so
little that it was an effort to even see a monkey let alone catch it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs50! However,
since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now
buy on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. "Look at all
these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them
to you at Rs35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell it to
him for Rs50."

The villagers squeezed up with all their savings to buy the monkeys.
Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys
everywhere!!!!

PRICE/BOOK (P/BV)

2010-01-21T18:15:00.000+05:30

This ratio is widely used in analyzing Financial Services Companies & Bank’s, the assets of these companies are in form of cash, deposits or marketable securities its relatively easy to value the accounting value. For instance if we take case of Indian banking industry, the PSU banks have there P/BV value ( P/BV = CMP*No of outstanding Shares/ Accounting value of assets) less than one indicting undervaluation, but historically the ratio’s have been at these levels, the probable reason could be :-

1) Inferior quality of assets.
2) High Level of NPA’s.
3) Lack of fee based revenue as compared to its Private counterparts.
Every ratio must be taken with a pinch of salt.
This ratio is widely used by corporate raider’s to analyze potential target, force a spinoff & strip the assets.orate

Lesson's in Excellence ( Valuation- Vol 1)

2010-01-01T22:22:00.003+05:30

I will be posting video's which are focusing on Asset Valuations, this is the 1'st one of them

2 idiots are Known.... is the Third One You?

2009-12-25T01:31:00.002+05:30

The Consumption story can seriously backfire if greed of entrepreneur’s to be the Street’s darling exceeds boundaries of rationality. Such a thing recently happened where the Movie 3 idiots’ tickets are priced exuberantly by the Producers & Multiplex owner’s which listed entities are. The Ticket prices are as much as 100% higher for morning show especially keeping in Mind youth being the TG (Target Group), which forms a major chunk of occupancy for the morning shows.
Many movie theater owners have gone for innovation and have plans to go for a 6:00 am

show, targeting Morning walker’s & call center employees, but even for such odd timings, now the real crux of the matter is even if tickets are cheap as compared to peak & prime time rates ( Rs 400/-), they are good 60-70% more than morning show rates, the movie producer’s rationale to this is that “it’s a Christmas season & we are just reacting to market forces”, Now what baffles me without any commodity gets traded ( in this case movie release for general Public) how can one talk about market force.
The Air & anticipation created by marketing prowess is only good enough to pull the first batch of viewer’s (Audiences), & if you wish them to stay away because of premium pricing, where is good old formula of Viral marketing gone.
The people in showbiz always complain& compare the ticket rates in India & developed countries, but my answer to that we have far more eyeballs here than anywhere else, and moviemakers always forget the volume game, by doing so they are just digging their own grave of Piracy.
The roof-popping prices have just made watching a movie with family in theater an indulgence of elite

Speculation is Good

2009-12-23T10:08:00.005+05:30

Speculation is one word that has been over used and defined by every individual in their own suitable way. There are two kind of Wealth creators, one who create wealth over a period of time, by creating real assets giving consistent and modest returns year on year and then there is a breed of people like Georg Soros, Jim Roggers , Harshad Mehta who rise on the scene out of nowhere, and end up becoming hero’s and legends overnight. They don’t create wealth they own it. One might argue that one should create real assets and Jobs that would add value the Society. And we almost always blame the Speculators for rigging the prices, and take prices of commodities and stocks or for that matter any other asset class to nightmare proportions.
If you ask me speculation is the biggest gift of free markets, to the world. When we talk about great success stories scripted by Real wealth creators, we seldom forget the contribution of Speculators to their achievement. The most important thing that speculators bring to the table is liquidity. Speculators are buyers of risk they buy risk from hedgers or investors having interests or positions in underlying assets.
We have this tendency to blame speculators for bubble formation, and we don’t blame the bubble here, we tend to blame the breaking of it and me make the hoolah only after a crash, as we loose money else , we have a fantastic word for any asset bubble formation and that is ‘Bull-run’, the aftermath obviously brings us the pain , and we start to blame, but is it right to blame the Speculator? The real culprit is the leverage in the system .History has testified that men who were not over levered have survived the carnage of asset bubble bursts.
I am against banning of trading in commodities; the Govt. by doing so is not addressing the real cause of the price escalation. The degree of leverage is extremely high in the Commodities Futures market. For instance if we take the hottest sticky story of 2005 Guar Gum a commodity which saw nightmare prices, and daily trades greater than the actual yearly production. This commodity’s initial margin was 7% ( In case of additional volatility a special margin is charged on both sides in respect of all outstanding position, which will remain in force for next 2 days, after which the special margin will be relaxed.) this translates into a basic leverage of 14.3 times.
The extra leverage though earns you big, but then when it comes to taking back its very brutal. Managing risk’s is extremely important to impart sufficient liquidity and having logical proportions of leverage. Else we will see more asset bubble formations.

*Any Exchange requires its members to deposit and maintain in their accounts a certain minimum amount of funds for each open position held. These funds are known as margin and represent a good faith deposit that serves to provide protection against losses in the market. The Clearinghouse collects margins directly from each of MCX clearing members who in turn are responsible for the collection of funds from their clients. Margin requirements and contract specifications are subject to change.

This document by MCX was used for reference

Guru Of Markets

2009-10-20T16:08:00.006+05:30

One and Only Guru (Abhi Arora)

Where heroes are made,

History is written &wiped off,

Where Ethics are butchered,

Greed, Hope, despair dominate the proceedings,

And winning the Rat Race is the only thing,

Where wealth is created & destroyed,

Where Multibaggers, wipe off your net worth,

Welcome to bazaar,

Amidst this volatility,

Emerges a hero,

Who looks like a simple Man,

But has charisma of a Ferro,

His knowledge is divine,

And makes millions out of a single dime,

He believes it’s a zero sum game,

If you are here for fame,

Your life won’t be the same,

He says market is like vilely old beast,

Difficult to tame,

Yeah you investors you like to play game,

If you win you are a hare,

And if you lose,

It’s just not fair,

But it’s the question can you do the dare?

It’s a zero sum game

If you are here for name,

Think Bollywood that will help you in achieving the same.

Georg Soros is his mentor,

When he sells a stock, he won’t reenter.

They say winning is habit,

He says it’s your attitude!

And his way of life!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This poem is dedicated to Abhishek Arora, one person whom i admire a lot!

KP was treated as a Hero by Press in 2000

2009-06-24T08:27:00.002+05:30

Mystery Man

Who is Ketan Parekh, really?

The Money Bureau

Rumours of an income tax raid on Ketan Parekh resulted in the stockmarket getting smashed on January 11, 2000. The Sensex fell 222 points. Eventually, it turned out to be an income tax survey that found Rs 92 crore (Rs 920 million) of undisclosed money. Parekh paid an advance tax of Rs 13 crore (Rs 130 million) and all is well; at least for the time being.

This isn't the first time that the Sensex fell on "Parekh rumours". The rumours that have come and gone have included Parekh in a payment crises (this has happened several times), various bulls and bears tussles with Parekh and a rumour that rediff.com columnist Sucheta Dalal was planning to expose a scam in the next day's newspaper. The result is always the same: the market gets smashed, a panic follows, small operators and day traders are forced to exit from their positions (they normally exit from long positions at the slightest hint of a problem), some big operators (who know the truth) buy stocks at bargain prices and subsequently pull the market up rapidly.

And these are not all of the Parekh rumours. The market loves discussing him. The Sensex does get linked to Parekh's acquisitions of a jet (false) and a new car (true). Day traders also monitor Parekh's travel plans and keep a track on his business meetings and holidays abroad. And, of course, Mumbai's 'Party of the Millennium' was Parekh's bash at Mandwa across the city's waterfront.

Show of strength

Who is this man who can cause the Sensex to tumble? Ketan Parekh came into prominence only these last two years, and has since built a solid reputation and substantial wealth. He makes day traders feel ecstasy and paranoia. "KP's in it," is often the only reason to buy a stock. His killings in Zee Telefilms, Pentafour Software and Ranbaxy are legendary.

What he can do to a stock is evident from three examples. He bought into a small software company Aftek Infosys at Rs 30, 40 levels about a year ago and there hasn't been any looking back for the stock since then. It now trades at Rs 2,400 levels. The company is expected to grow at a fantastic pace and the stock has entered many a mutual fund portfolio. But Parekh was there first.

Pentafour was another case. In June 1998, the stock was hammered to half the price in a few days on bad publicity. Parekh entered and pulled it up, also selling the idea to most fund managers. The company performed well thereafter.

Ranbaxy was different. KP's reputation was strengthened further with this stock. It was a unique case as the participation of smaller traders/investors was high. The company was changing and was on the last leg of developing a new drug delivery system in mid-1999. The stock had risen from Rs 500 to Rs 750 and declined back to Rs 550 from April to June 1999. This was one story where every BSE liftman and panwallah around Dalal Street made money as the stock scaled a high of Rs 1,264.

After the Ranbaxy killing, the bull trained his guns on Global Tele-Systems and Himachal Futuristic. Both stocks are up five times since their August 1999 levels. By now, Parekh had leader status and the crowd bought shares in which he was interested.

Who is KP?

India's two major business newspapers call him the Pentafour Bull and the One Man Army in their market gossip columns. The market, with its fancy to cut redundancy, calls him KP or associates him with his firm NH Securities.

Not much is known about the man. But a recluse he isn't. He meets people, including the press. But there is one cardinal rule: No pictures, please. We suppose he takes the Wall Street wisdom too seriously -- get your picture on the cover of BusinessWeek or Fortune and the end is near. And Ketan Parekh obviously doesn't want to retire early.

This chartered accountant by training is a down-to-earth man with an extremely sharp mind. Ask him how the market is and don't be surprised by a J P Morgan-type answer, "It will fluctuate." If you know him well, he will give you a tip too. If you are strong-hearted, you buy the share and forget it for a while. You will see some really wild swings, but in the end you will make big money.

His market style and personality are often compared to Big Bull Harshad Mehta. But there are some stark differences.

First, Mehta was a poor man's son. Ketan isn't. His family has been into stockbroking for some time, and he is related to many big brokers.

Second, Harshad operated in a closed-but-liberalising market and with other people's money (as it transpired later) as the last recourse. Parekh works in a more mature market with electronic trading, higher volumes and a stronger institutional environment.

Stories have to be created and sold aggressively to institutional investors for everybody to make money, which Parekh has done successfully. Unlike Mehta's aggressive publicity campaigns, Parekh is silent.

What are his stocks?

He picks out-of-favour stocks that are expected to grow rapidly. These are also companies that investors think lowly of or have doubts about the business, accounting standards and management. He was the first to see the software boom spreading over to second-rung software companies in 1998. His first killing came in Pentafour which had been consciously avoided by most institutional investors. Parekh came and sold them a solid growth story and the rest is history.

Ranbaxy had moved in a narrow trading range for five years. There were pending warrant conversions and institutional investors feared that the management came and sold at higher levels. Parekh spotted the change in management and the company's new drug discovery system becoming successful. He sold this story again and reaped a rich harvest.

Global, Himachal and DSQ Software will not fit in the universe of an institutional investor, but for Parekh's presence. The country's largest mutual fund, UTI's Unit Scheme-64, had Himachal Futuristic (1.48 per cent of the portfolio), Ranbaxy (1.39 per cent), Pentafour (1.35 per cent) and Global Tele-Systems (1.05 per cent) on September 30, 1999.

Parekh is also one of the few brokers who understands the power of online trading. Most operators work through a large team of trusted dealers and jobbers. (Word should not spread that he is buying or he would not be able to acquire enough shares.) An operator would also need to indulge in buy and sell orders so that his dealers remain quite confused on whether he is in or getting out.

Every big broker has enough enemies. These are the people he has crossed or the people who crossed him on his way to the top. Alleges one of his adversaries, "Most of these rumours are spread by the KP gang so that they get to smash prices, enter at lower levels and then pull the market up."

Does he always succeed? There are two ways of judging this. One is the level that a stock reaches and then declines. BPL is a good example. The stock went to Rs 600 levels; it is currently at Rs 270 levels. That has happened in many companies. The other is of a stock just not moving up after he buys it -- that happened in MTNL some time ago when it would find some new seller to stanch the stock's rise. This is an aberration when you compare stocks like Aftek, Himachal, Global, Zee and Pentafour which are on a continuous upswing and an investor getting in at any point will be in the money.

KP travels a lot and meets company managements regularly. He likes buying a substantial stake in relatively smaller companies by a private placement (like in Aftek) and then waits for other players to catch his fancy. He has also bought a stake in many unlisted companies. As is the way of the world today, he is building a nice portfolio of Internet start-ups too.

He is big for the market and getting bigger. But investors and speculators are not complaining. Nor are institutional investors and the government unhappy. The current level of the Sensex and the hope in every eye near an online terminal of ten-baggers are this man's doing, at least to some extent.

PS: This article is taken from Indian Express dated 13Jan 2000, just few days before scam came to forefront. Its no where mentioned KP's links with Harshad Mehta whereas in his early days KP use to work under Harshad Mehta and must have taken lessons in excellence from his scam.

Story Of The Big Bull

2009-06-12T18:57:00.004+05:30

Harshad Mehta
Harshad Mehta was an Indian stockbroker caught in a scandal beginning in 1992. He died of a massive heart attack in 2001, while the legal issues were still being litigated.
Early life
Harshad Shantilal Mehta was born in a Gujarati jain family of modest means. His father was a small businessman. His mother's name was Rasilaben Mehta. His early childhood was spent in the industrial city of Bombay. Due to indifferent health of Harshad’s father in the humid environs of Bombay, the family shifted their residence in the mid-1960s to Raipur, then in Madhya Pradesh and currently the capital of Chattisgarh state.
An Amul advertisement of 1999 during the conterversy over MUL saying it as "The Big Bhool" (Bhool in Hindi means Blunder)
He studied at the Holy Cross High School, located at Byron Bazaar. After completing his secondary education Harshad left for Bombay. While doing odd jobs he joined Lala Lajpat Rai College for a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce.
After completing his graduation, Harshad Mehta started his working life as an employee of the New India Assurance Company. During this period his family relocated to Bombay and his brother Ashwin Mehta started to pursue graduation course in law at Lala Lajpat Rai College. His youngest brother Hitesh is a practising surgeon at the B.Y.L.Nair Hospital in Bombay. After his graduation Ashwin joined (ICICI) Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India. They had rented a small flat in Ghatkopar for living.
In the late seventies every evening Harshad and Ashwin started to analyze tips generated from respective offices and from cyclostyled investment letters, which had made their appearance during that time.
In the early eighties he quit his job and sought a job with stock broker P. Ambalal affiliated to Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) before becoming a jobber on BSE for stock broker P.D. Shukla.
In 1981 he became a sub-broker for stock brokers J.L. Shah and Nandalal Sheth. After a while he was unable to sustain his overbought positions and decided to pay his dues by selling his house with consent of his mother Rasilaben and brother Ashwin. The next day Harshad went to his brokers and offered the papers of the house as guarantee. The brokers Shah and Sheth were moved by his gesture and gave him sufficient time to overcome his position.
After he came out of this big struggle for survival he became stronger and his brother quit his job to team with Harshad to start their venture GrowMore Research and Asset Management Company Limited. While a brokers card at BSE was being auctioned, the company made a bid for the same with financial assistance from Shah and Sheth, who were Harshad's previous broker mentors.
He rose and survived the bear runs, this earned him the nickname of the Big Bull of the trading floor, and his actions, actual or perceived, decided the course of the movement of the Sensex as well as scrip-specific activities. By the end of eighties the media started projecting him as "Stock Market Success", "Story of Rags to Riches" and he too started to fuel his own publicity. He felt proud of this accomplishments and showed off his success to journalists through his mansion "Madhuli", which included a billiards room, mini theatre and nine hole golf course. His brand new Toyota Lexus and a fleet of cars gave credibility to his show off. This in no time made him the nondescript broker to super star of financial world.
During his heyday, in the early 1990s, Harshad Mehta commanded a large resource of funds and finances as well as personal wealth.
The fall
In April 1992, the Indian stock market crashed, and Harshad Mehta, the person who was all along considered as the architect of the bull run was blamed for the crash. It transpired that he had manipulated the Indian banking systems to siphon off the funds from the banking system, and used the liquidity to build large positions in a select group of stocks. When the scam broke out, he was called upon by the banks and the financial institutions to return the funds, which in turn set into motion a chain reaction, necessitating liquidating and exiting from the positions which he had built in various stocks. The panic reaction ensued, and the stock market reacted and crashed within days.He was arrested on June 5, 1992 for his role in the scam.
His favorite stocks included
• ACC
• Apollo Tyres
• Reliance
• Tata Iron and Steel Co. (TISCO)
• BPL
• Sterlite
• Videocon.
The extent
The Harshad Mehta induced security scam, as the media sometimes termed it, adversely affected at least 10 major commercial banks of India, a number of foreign banks operating in India, and the National Housing Bank, a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India, which is the central bank of India.
As an aftermath of the shockwaves which engulfed the Indian financial sector, a number of people holding key positions in the India's financial sector were adversely affected, which included arrest and sacking of K. M. Margabandhu, then CMD of the UCO Bank; removal from office of V. Mahadevan, one of the Managing Directors of India’s largest bank, the State Bank of India.
The end
The Central Bureau of Investigation which is India’s premier investigative agency, was entrusted with the task of deciphering the modus operandi and the ramifications of the scam. Harshad Mehta was arrested and investigations continued for a decade. During his judicial custody, while he was in Thane Prison, Mumbai, he complained of chest pain, and was moved to a hospital, where he died on 31st December 2001.
His death remains a mystery. Some believe that he was murdered ruthlessly by an underworld nexus (spanning several South Asian countries including Pakistan). Rumour has it that they suspected that part of the huge wealth that Harshad Mehta commanded at the height of the 1992 scam was still in safe hiding and thought that the only way to extract their share of the 'loot' was to pressurise Harshad's family by threatening his very existence. In this context, it might be noteworthy that a certain criminal allegedly connected with this nexus had inexplicably surrendered just days after Harshad was moved to Thane Jail and landed up in imprisonment in the same jail, in the cell next to Harshad Mehta's.

Mumbai: Just as the year 2001 was coming to an end, Harshad Shantilal Mehta, boss of Growmore Research and Asset Management, died of a massive heart attack in a jail in Thane. And thus came to an end the life of a man who is probably the most famous character ever to have emerged from the Indian stock market. In the book, The Great Indian Scam: Story of the missing Rs 4,000 crore, Samir K Barua and Jayanth R Varma explain how Harshad Mehta pulled off one of the most audacious scams in the history of the Indian stock market.
Harshad Shantilal Mehta was born in a Gujarati Jain family of modest means. His early childhood was spent in Mumbai where his father was a small-time businessman. Later, the family moved to Raipur in Madhya Pradesh after doctors advised his father to move to a drier place on account of his indifferent health. But Raipur could not hold back Mehta for long and he was back in the city after completing his schooling, much against his father’s wishes.
Mehta first started working as a dispatch clerk in the New India Assurance Company. Over the years, he got interested in the stock markets and along with brother Ashwin, who by then had left his job with the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India, started investing heavily in the stock market.
As they learnt the ropes of the trade, they went from boom to bust a couple of times and survived.
Mehta gradually rose to become a stock broker on the Bombay Stock Exchange, who did very well for himself. At his peak, he lived almost like a movie star in a 15,000 square feet house, which had a swimming pool as well as a golf patch. He also had a taste for flashy cars, which ultimately led to his downfall.
• Newsmakers of the week: View Slideshow
“The year was 1990. Years had gone by and the driving ambitions of a young man in the faceless crowd had been realised. Harshad Mehta was making waves in the stock market. He had been buying shares heavily since the beginning of 1990. The shares which attracted attention were those of Associated Cement Company (ACC),” write the authors. The price of ACC was bid up to Rs 10,000. For those who asked, Mehta had the replacement cost theory as an explanation. The theory basically argues that old companies should be valued on the basis of the amount of money which would be required to create another such company.
Through the second half of 1991, Mehta was the darling of the business media and earned the sobriquet of the ‘Big Bull’, who was said to have started the bull run. But, where was Mehta getting his endless supply of money from? Nobody had a clue.
On April 23, 1992, journalist Sucheta Dalal in a column in The Times of India, exposed the dubious ways of Harshad Metha. The broker was dipping illegally into the banking system to finance his buying.
“In 1992, when I broke the story about the Rs 600 crore that he had swiped from the State Bank of India, it was his visits to the bank’s headquarters in a flashy Toyota Lexus that was the tip-off. Those days, the Lexus had just been launched in the international market and importing it cost a neat package,” Dalal wrote in one of her columns later.
The authors explain: “The crucial mechanism through which the scam was effected was the ready forward (RF) deal. The RF is in essence a secured short-term (typically 15-day) loan from one bank to another. Crudely put, the bank lends against government securities just as a pawnbroker lends against jewellery….The borrowing bank actually sells the securities to the lending bank and buys them back at the end of the period of the loan, typically at a slightly higher price.”
It was this ready forward deal that Harshad Mehta and his cronies used with great success to channel money from the banking system.
A typical ready forward deal involved two banks brought together by a broker in lieu of a commission. The broker handles neither the cash nor the securities, though that wasn’t the case in the lead-up to the scam.
“In this settlement process, deliveries of securities and payments were made through the broker. That is, the seller handed over the securities to the broker, who passed them to the buyer, while the buyer gave the cheque to the broker, who then made the payment to the seller.
In this settlement process, the buyer and the seller might not even know whom they had traded with, either being know only to the broker.”
This the brokers could manage primarily because by now they had become market makers and had started trading on their account. To keep up a semblance of legality, they pretended to be undertaking the transactions on behalf of a bank.
Another instrument used in a big way was the bank receipt (BR). In a ready forward deal, securities were not moved back and forth in actuality. Instead, the borrower, i.e. the seller of securities, gave the buyer of the securities a BR.
As the authors write, a BR “confirms the sale of securities. It acts as a receipt for the money received by the selling bank. Hence the name - bank receipt. It promises to deliver the securities to the buyer. It also states that in the mean time, the seller holds the securities in trust of the buyer.”
Having figured this out, Metha needed banks, which could issue fake BRs, or BRs not backed by any government securities. “Two small and little known banks - the Bank of Karad (BOK) and the Metorpolitan Co-operative Bank (MCB) - came in handy for this purpose. These banks were willing to issue BRs as and when required, for a fee,” the authors point out.
Once these fake BRs were issued, they were passed on to other banks and the banks in turn gave money to Mehta, obviously assuming that they were lending against government securities when this was not really the case. This money was used to drive up the prices of stocks in the stock market. When time came to return the money, the shares were sold for a profit and the BR was retired. The money due to the bank was returned.
The game went on as long as the stock prices kept going up, and no one had a clue about Mehta’s modus operandi. Once the scam was exposed, though, a lot of banks were left holding BRs which did not have any value - the banking system had been swindled of a whopping Rs 4,000 crore.
Mehta made a brief comeback as a stock market guru, giving tips on his own website as well as a weekly newspaper column. This time around, he was in cahoots with owners of a few companies and recommended only those shares. This game, too, did not last long.
Interestingly, however, by the time he died, Mehta had been convicted in only one of the many cases filed against him.
PS: The content is not original and has been take from the site Management paradise

FII FII jana nahi

2009-05-23T21:01:00.003+05:30

FII , FII jaana nahi,
Hume chodke , humme chodke….
FII mere yaara waada nibhana ….
Bear market mein kahin bhull naa jana…

Bull Market mein tum jor shor se aatein ho….
Sentiments ke weak hote hi laut jaatein ho!....
Car baar sabb beech –baach mene paisa jutaaya,
Market mein daal, abb sara gawaya,
FII mere yaara vaada nibhana,
Humein yaad rakhna kahin bhul naa jana,
Iss baar recession ki maar buri hai,
Lag gai brokers ki vaat poori hai…..
Inflation ki abb worry nahi hai,
Investment ka waqt sahi hai,
FII mere yaar……. circuit ko lagana,
Sarre Short cover karke, tum
Naye long banana ….
FII …FII jaana nahi… jaana nahi….
Hume chodke…. Humein chodke!

Eternal Sunshine Of Asia

2009-05-22T05:08:00.005+05:30

Once a wise man said,

Always face the sunshine,

Shadows shall fall behind,

I asked what if Sun- gods get gobbled up mighty black clouds ?

The Wise man replied,

Face the East,

Is what you could do the least,

I am sure one day following my wise words,

You will have a feast,

Oriental is the flavor of this Century,

Shall remain the same for eternity,

Occidental was meagerly accidental,

Which led to the Global Catastrophe!

Now is time to make amends for humanity!