My take on GlobaL EcoNomiC CrisiS...

Let us start this from beginning. I don't know how many people remember the inflation in 1970, that shook US and it took more than a decade to come out of it. Lets throw some light on it for starters.

The 1970s were America's only peacetime inflation: the only time when uncertainty about prices made every business decision a speculation on monetary policy. In magnitude, the total increase in the price level as a result of the sustained spurt in peacetime inflation to the five-to-ten percent per year range in the 1970s was as large as the jumps in the price level as a result of the major wars of this century.

The truest cause of the inflation of the 1970s was the shadow cast by the Great Depression. The Great Depression made it impossible--for a while--for almost anyone to believe that the business cycle was a fluctuation around rather than a shortfall below some sustainable level of production and employment.

Now lets switch to 2008.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke(United States) made a statement sometime back that he does not believe the United States will experience the out-of-control prices seen with 1970s oil shocks.Then, as now, the U.S. endured a serious oil price shock, sharply rising prices for food and other commodities and sub par economic growth, he said.

Today's economy, however, is more flexible in responding to difficulties and the country is more energy efficient than a generation ago, Bernanke said. This was the situation about 3 months back, in June.


Now in October, Mr. Ben Bernanke says the country’s economic health won’t snap back quickly even if confidence in the U.S. financial system returns and roiled markets finally calm.

And he is the same person who in year 2002 made a eye-brow raising statement: "People know that inflation erodes the real value of the government's debt and, therefore, that it is in the interest of the government to create some inflation."

Ben Bernanke made this statement as one argument why deflation was unlikely: governments benefit from inflation, therefore inflation would normally be promoted. At the time, deflation seemed a real possibility: the Consumer Price Index (CPI) had risen only 1.6% over the 12 months of 2001. At the time, Ben Bernanke was not Fed Chair. Both of those facts would soon change.

Ben Bernanke became Fed Chair in February 2006. For the prior year, the CPI rose at 3.2%. In 2006, it rose only 2.9%-- a very reasonable rate of inflation.

Then something changed. During the twelve months of 2007, the CPI rose 8.6 points, or 4.3%. From January to August of this year, it rose another 8 points, for an annual rate of 5.7%. That's the highest rate of increase since 1989, when it jumped 6.2%. To find a year with an increase greater than that, you'd have to go back to 1979-80, when it rose over 10%.

What caused this sudden resurgence of inflation? The Bush administration's policy of excessive deficit spending surely promoted inflation, but why did it take such a sudden turn for the worse after six years of bad budgeting? There must be surely something else. Lets find out.

For a moment, let's ignore the housing market, the credit crisis, and the plunging stock market. What happens when inflation rises and the Prime Rate remains low? First, more inflation, since banks are pleased to borrow money at cheap rates with the idea of lending it to others (you and me) at higher rates. As they borrow money from the treasury, more and more money goes into circulation. That's the very definition of inflation.

But now arises an important question !!

"What kind of a bank would lend money for less than the inflation rate? Isn't it sure to lose money?"

Sure, banks love to borrow cheap money. But they're loathe to lend cheap money when it's below the rate of inflation. In order to make money, they need to lend their money at a higher rate. That means the supply of cheap money lent between banks and from banks to businesses dries up.

S it seems the lending lockup is a key reason why the U.S. economy is faltering. Unable to borrow money freely or forced to pay a high cost to borrow, employers are cutting jobs and reducing capital investments.

Now can anyone explain me : Why would one loan money at 1.75% when inflation is at say 6%? One wouldn't as common sense suggests.So the question is:

" What does one get by dropping interest rates and encouraging inflation at same time? "

Now look, we are pretty much aware that inflation makes it easier to pay off the staggering national debt.But with it comes the flip side: borrowed money gets more expensive, so companies relying on it can't get it leading to lost jobs, lower profits, and obviously less tax revenues which ultimately causes more national debt. So what goes around, comes around.Finally the conclusion drawn is that by encouraging inflation with irrationally low interest rates, has turned the housing bubble into a global crisis, which is affecting world economies.

So what is happening in India in lieu of this Global Economic Crisis?

Lets have a look at current inflation rate in India which is 11.44%. Far more than January 2008. 2008 began with inflation rate of 3.79 per cent for week ended on January 5, prices rose as the year progressed.

The wholesale price based inflation crossed 4 per cent by end of January and 5 per cent in February. As per the latest data, the price line rose 7 per cent in the week ended March 22.

And it was during January 2008 only when sensex touched 21k mark and now on October 17th it has fallen below 10k.

Similarly 1 US$= INR 39.20 in January'08
And 1 US$= INR 48.68 in October'08

So what does this suggests? There has been certainly something going wrong with Indian Economy in this year. Rising inflations followed by cutting interests rate by RBI shows the double face of Indian Economy. Infusing liquidity in market is the way to get out of this financial crisis as it seems to everyone now. But this would be a short term plan which may infuse some stability in the market, but investors who have stayed invested for long times, what about them? What about pink slips being shown by every other company? I won't even talk about IT industry who have mostly clients from US.

As for the next stability in markets would come by a upward move of US market, which could come by end of this year, when seemingly Govt would change at US.

Investors should stay invested in equities, and should look for short term profit booking by end of November. This is the right time to buy blue chip stocks, because market could see a upward boom by the Christmas. Also General Elections are going to be held next mid-year. That would also bring good news for Indian Stocks. All in all I can foresee sensex touching at least 15k by June'09.

But for that inflation(India) needs to come to 8.5 at least by March'08 and hope Federal Govt. is the opposition(US) comes Christmas this year.

Finally

" What goes around, comes around !! "

MEDIA - BuLLshiTT !! BiG BanG theory gone awry !!

Today almost every person in India is aware of this "Big Bang" experiment that was carried out somewhere. Thanks to our so called plethora of news channel !! The great source of knowledge and enlightment source for the masses, atleast in India. So does that mean these news channels ala India TV & Aaj Tak deserve KudoS for there overwhelming coverages of the "bullshits" all over the world? I put this question to the 'common man' in India ! and I don't think there is any need to define the 'common man'. So a perfectly well planned masterstroke from scientists was very melodramatically documented by our so called ever alert Indian Media, rather say wide range of opportunist news channels across the TV, each of them trying to outwit and win the race "We showed you first" syndrome. And in doing so they go a mile further in decorating there news with ultra stupendous catchy HEADLINES "Duniya ka Sarvnaash, aaj shaam 6.00 baje special coverage, sirf humare news channel par" !!

Moreover in reports published earlier this year, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research said the collider presented "no conceivable damage". Butwhat has happened is that during last few days news channels, and I don't fear in mentioning specially IndiaTV & AajTak, have gone overboard with there coverage over this Big Bang experiment and even speculated about its 'catastrophic effect on the world'. People or I would mention the word 'common man' was led to believe that some time on 10th sept, rather say 12:30 p.m. if the experiment fails, the world would end !! "yes!! END OF THE WORLD". For this i would cite some examples how this whole episode, was blown out of proportion and affected the life of a common man, or rather in this case common girls, and they do have their own mechanism of Grey cells, the whole feminine sex in India think in their own peculiar way, ooops, all over the world in fact! This was the scene of a professional college, New Delhi, where a group of girls,names withheld, well educated and from well to do families, doing Bachelor of Journalism and Mass Communication(an irony in itself) were busy worrying and messaging friends and foes about the END of world and were actually shattered by the after thought of the failure of the experiment. Yes! the word had spread, even quickly than a forest fire, and people were feeling uneasy about the whole proceedings. Prayers were being offered and India was deeply affected by an experiment that was supposed to be held many nautical miles away in Geneva. There was a widespread chaos across the country, and the whole India, mostly non-working class, and easily maneuvered by media people, were busy stuck on either of the news channels they thought to be appropriate, generally more the vociferous channel, more the public viewership. And this led to war between the news channel, each trying to get better than other and using every trick in the way to attract more TRP.

The purpose was served, the viewership was at its very high and news channel were busy calculating their increased TRP's, sorry no statistics to prove this, entirely my opinion. So the whole episode served the basic purpose of getting high TRP for news channel, and this heavy intended speculation on END of WORLD idea was a brilliant masterstroke by the Indian Media ! The various interpretations followed and helluva analysis was done over the after effects of failure of the 'Big Bang' Experiment. even a particular news channel went as far as going to Nostradamus's predictions regarding the end of the world and drawing parallels.

So, what next? The experiment went without any ill effects but not in India. we already have the first mishap regarding this whole melodrama. Now, very ironically, according to media reports, a 16-year-old girl, daughter of a farmer Bihari Lal in Sarangpur village in Rajgarh district of MP, died after she consumed some pills on seeing the 'world coming to an end' prediction on the neighbour's television.

BBC Reports:

Bihari Lal said Chaya - the eldest of his six children - had been frightened after watching local TV reports that the experiment would cause the "Earth to crack up and everybody in the village would die".

"We tried to divert her attention and told her she should not worry about such things, but to no avail," he told reporters.

Her uncle, Biram Singh, said Chaya, whose parents are labourers, had seen the reports at a neighbour's house.

The BBC's Faisal Mohammed in Bhopal says Chaya consumed insecticide some time on Tuesday, when her parents had gone to work.

She was taken to Shajapur government hospital where she told police before she died that she had been worried by the doomsday predictions.

Virendra Singh Yadav, the policeman who took her statement, told the BBC she said she had watched programmes suggesting the Big Bang experiment might cause a great earthquake and great holes.

"She said she could not bear to see the destruction of all that was dear to her and therefore thought it was better to end her life," he said.

Police have registered a case of death by poisoning and are investigating.

Now can anyone answer the question :

Was it entirely stupidity and dumbness of that little girl that she committed suicide?
The answer is NO !!

I put the blame on media, infact according to me entire blame on media, considering that we are Indians and we, the media, we all know that large sections of society still don't have access to any form of knowledge database or get any specialised education to understand a complicated issue like 'Big Bang' experiment and its after-effects. All a common man understands is what he sees on news channels, and these act as a catalyst in their day to day life. And speaking of housewifes, who form the core of viewers of these news channels nowdays, have a tendency to fall for evry crap that is shown or highlighted. These people, read news channels, are constantly airing series on black magic, vampires, various superstitions; even sensationalising a natural phenomenon such as a eclipse by saying that it means bad omen.And now by prophesising that the Big Bang would bring doomsday can have a disastrous effect on a emotionally weak person,obviously and we don't know what all effects may have occured n various people all across the country.

Now it seems that government has taken some steps as reported and they have asked some news channel to restrain on the coverages of such panic creating news. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has issued an advisory to two television channels -- Aaj Tak and India TV -- earlier this week, for 'showing content that appears to be spreading panic and fear', reports rediff. Also, a ministry official told PTI that the advisory has been sent quoting Sub Rule 6 1(O) and 6 (5) of Cable Television Network and Regulation Act 1995, related to unrestricted public exhibition; and programme affecting children, respectively. The official added that the ministry has issued the advisory to the said TV channels as an act of first warning to the channels on its own, though normally it acts on complaints received from people regarding objectionable content being shown on TV.

But its high time that we take the onus upon us and start spreading awareness among people, all category n class, that news needs to be taken as something informative, and where should we draw the line, in what to believe and what to watch? Its never late to wake up and start a campaign against these so called special reports and over dose & extremes of stupid coverages like these. And government needs to put some limits and censorship on the content, since freedom of media has been a boon undoubtedly, but one needs to be responsible and understand when the boon starts becoming curse!!

Some more CrickeT HumouR

An Actual Incident that has been told by Dean Jones himself !!

The scene is set at a Test match between Australia and the West Indies at Adelaide Oval back in February 1989. These were the days when the Windies were the greatest power the cricketing world had ever seen, the days when they used to select 11 fast bowlers in the team and a 12th man who was a fast bowler just to be on the safe side.And it was into just such a furnace that the young bowler Mervyn Hughes walked - with bat in hand. Figuring fortune favoured the brave, Hughes wielded the willow like an axeman his axe, and somehow - after snicking fortutiously, connecting full-bloodedly, and missing entirely - he finished the day's play at 72 not out.The tradition in Test cricket is that the batting side take a few beers into the fielding side's dressing-room afterwards, but not on this evening. Instead, Merv took an ice-box full of bottles, so keen was he to give the men of the Windies the full blow-by-blow account of every run he'd made. So it was that half an hour later, Jones - who himself had contributed 216 - and Hughes and several other Australian players were in the Windies dressing-room, when a sudden hush fell upon the gathering.They looked to the door and there was Sir Donald Bradman himself, being ushered into the room by several South Australian cricket officials. The Don had expressed a desire to meet this mighty team, and now here he was.For the next 15 minutes or so, the great man was introduced to the visiting players, with each West Indian standing up well before Sir Donald got to their position on the bench. Then, when their time came, they warmly shook his hand and had a few words.This all proceeded splendidly until Sir Donald got to the last man on the bench, Patrick Patterson - the fastest bowler in the world at that time. So the story goes, not only did Patterson not stand, he simply squinted quizzically up at the octogenarian. Finally, after some 30 seconds of awkward silence, Patterson stood up, all two metres of pure whip-cord steel of him, and looked down at the diminutive Don."You, Don Bradman!?!" he snorted. "You, Don Bradman?!?! I kill you,mun! I bowl at you, I kill you! I split you in two!"In reply, Sir Donald, with his hands on his hips, gazed squarely back at Patterson and calmly retorted: "You couldn't even get Merv Hughes out. You'd have no chance against me, mate!"

Current Market Volatility - Investor's View

I took some time out of my slightly tight schedule two days ago, to find out about share markets and trading in general. And the irony was that the person who was to give me all this wisdom(read knowledge) is the same guy who sits just in front of my machine(same cubicle) and is supposedly my team senior in my latest project. Now if you are unable to understand the use of ‘irony’ in my last sentence, then to make it a bit more clear, that is because my slightly tight schedule is due to this recent project only.

So it happened as if this guy (same cubicle) sees me logged on to ‘icicidirect’ website and enquires about whether I do trading. I very confidently snapped back with a yes, it was then when he mentioned about the term ‘margin trading’. This was an entirely new term and concept for me but as things turn out, I get hooked into listening him about the whole concept of margin trading. Now I have been trading for last 2-3 months only, and I have been just accumulating stocks at a low rate(nothing like low rate exists hypothetically) and looking them to sell at high prices. So when I came to terms with the concept of margin trading, it actually lust for it, it was an easy short cut for easy money I felt. Today was my 2^nd day doing margin trading and I’ve realized two things in just two days.

1. There is nothing like easy money in this world at least.
2. You should never put all your eggs in one basket.

Now for those who don’t understand the concept of Margin Trading(Intra-day trading), lets brief you about that first.

Look in simple layman’s language; it is as simple as buying stocks almost 4 times the money you actually possess. Let’s take an e.g. Suppose I have Rs 10,000 in my trading a/c. then I can buy shares worth say Rs 40,000. Now the idea is this no money is deducted from my a/c at that moment. It allocates you say 1000 shares of Rs 40 each. Now during the whole day before 3:15 p.m. it is upto me when do I sell them. If I see the stock value rise to say Rs 43 I can sell them right away, for Rs 43000, thus making a profit of Rs 3000 minus some brokerage amount. But it is not smooth sailing always, suppose the stock value don’t rise above Rs 40, and decreases to say Rs 37, I’ll have to wait till it gets back to above Rs 40. But this wait is only till 3:15 p.m. else the system automatically sells the stock by that time, irrespective of the value. So one has to be prepared to face losses too. In other words, this is very similar to legalized gambling.

Also there is a concept of ‘short sell’ which is just the reverse procedure of the above procedure. In this one has to sell the shares(expected to go down during the day) first and when market goes down, and when the stock value falls, one has to buy the shares, thus raking in profits. But there is a similar risk attached here too, that if by 3:15 p.m. the prices of the share don’t decrease, one would have to buy them on high rates, thus losing the money plus brokerage amount.

Now lets come to my case, I being very excited by the thought of this concept(read scheme) invested for the 1^st time yesterday. Looking at the market trends nowadays I was very sure of increase in stock prices on Wednesday. So looking at the situation when market opened to a low of 150 points, I was very sure of increase in the value of one particular stock Reliance Communication. So I bought about 100 shares for some Rs. 40,800. I was very sure of its prices going up, and it even rose a little for a while, but I was planning to gain heavy profits, thus ignoring the advice of my team mate from my project, yes the same one who enlightened me about this whole idea, and waited on, to realize soon that it was going to be an another bleak day for market, and I would be losing about Rs 1000 in the 1^st day itself. But to my relief market showed some exceptional bounce during the end of day and at last I was relieved when I reported a loss of only Rs. 200. So this was my 1^st day of margin trading.

Now today morning I was pretty sure that yesterday was an off day, and today I would be booking profits surely. To my happiness I saw that markets opened to a SENSEX high of almost 500 points and Nifty high by 100 points. I made my decision, totally on my gut feeling and some common sense, that today market has opened this high, it would surely fall by the end of the day. So it’s the best situation for short-selling i.e. selling some stock with high quote now and wait for day end for the stock to crash. Then again came some words of wisdom from my team mate(read cubicle mate), trying to deter me from my path to success and glory. But I was very sure of myself, so I sold away 100 shares of DLF Limited for Rs. 410 each, and that seemed to me a very high price for it since it was the most it has reached this week. Now I was very sure to book profits today, but to my slight disappointment it prices went till 412 and then kept hovering around 415 mark. I was still not perturbed a bit, as I was almost sure that markets would come down, to my relief it even came down, but DLF Limited remained hovering around 415-417. I didn’t understand any logic. It was about 3:00 p.m. when I actually started worrying when the price was still not down; in fact it was now about Rs. 420, a loss of almost Rs 1000. But still I thought that may be like yesterday something may happen today also, and the price would come till Rs 412-414, so that my losses would be about Rs 200-400 only. But then while clicking on the refresh button repeatedly; I got the greatest shock in 2 days, the price of DLF ltd shot to Rs 425, the next moment I decided to buying it as it was not worth waiting more, and I bought back 100 shares, but to my grief it was at Rs 427 per share. And yes the loss was Rs 1700 plus the brokerage amount for the day, which made it almost Rs 1800 for the day, and Rs 2000 for my first two days in margin trading. I thought that this was the last time I have indulged in this, not again, but there was more to follow. I decided to check on that had I waited for 3:15 p.m. could I have saved more?

The answer was :

NO !!

The price of DLF ltd had gone to Rs. 435 by that time and I would have lost more of Rs 800. I was relieved to know my quick decision making of buying 100 shared for Rs 427 had worked. I am good with stocks !! I said to myself, and smiled.

Let us hope tomorrow is a new day, and finally my days become bright, and I still have a gut feeling that I am going to recover all losses tomorrow.

And yes I know my team mate(read cubicle mate) is going to stop me tomorrow also, rather say warn me, but I know me !!!