holdyourthoughts

Elections are coming up in the state of West Bengal (not sure why we keep calling West Bengal, when there is no East Bengal in India, just Bengal would have made more sense), and as per popular media, it seems Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Congress combine is likely to win. Before I start, let me clarify my political inclinations. I typically favour any political formation that can create and sustain economic growth and provide good governance. I do not vote for any party. In that sense, I am what is known as a “floating voter”. I tend to see politics through the eyes of economics and eventually the stock markets. In Bengal, there are two things that are close to the people's heart – sports and politics. After nearly 34 years, the Left Front comprising of the CPIM, CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc are on the verge of losing the possession of the famed Writers Building – the seat of political power in Bengal. In their place, a coalition of TMC and Congress alongwith ...

Nokia's recent announcement of chucking out their Symbian platform and bringing home the Windows Phone 7 is an interesting move by both Nokia and Microsoft. This is marriage of two partners who were once the greats and now are fighting younger, nimbler opponents on their own turf. Apple with its iPhone and later Google's Android platform has made life very difficult for Nokia. Similarly, Microsoft is battling its monopoly on operating systems and office suites on multiple fronts like the Google Chrome OS platform, Google Docs, Facebook, Open Doc movement. What is interesting for me is Nokia's perspective here. They were still the market leaders overall in mobiles. By moving away from their own platform, they have own relegated themselves from a A league to the B league. There is no difference now between a Chinese or Taiwanese mobile assembler and Nokia. They have moved from a high margin business to a commodity oriented low margin business. What prompted them to do this ...

I had made five resolutions last year . It's time to review how I have done with respect to those and take a fresh guard for 2011. Year Resolution Result Remarks 2010 Lose 5 kgs (or more) of weight I have gained a little bit of weight at the fag end of the year, so now I am back to 78 kgs! ·          Continued in 2011. Needs a better detailed plan. ·          2010 did not work out well. ·          Plan to reduce atleast 0.5 kgs per month. 2010 Exercise everyday - walk/exercise for 15-45 mins everyday Did stay on course for this for most part of the year. Walking around 30 mins 3-4 times a week in general. Started playing tennis regularly again after nearly 16 years of break. Now averaging 2 days per week. ·          The walk needs to...

"You have a choice. You are either too busy dying, or you are too busy living." -- Shawshank Redemption He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. -- Old saying It is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen. -- Winston Churchill on the qualifications for becoming a politician We have to do what we have to do, so that we can do what we want to do. When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you. - Lao Tzu

Is there a market bubble going on now? Is the markets going higher or lower? Should I put my money in the markets now? Will the markets crash? These are some of the questions I keep getting from people I know. Manias, panics, excesses, whatever you may decide to term them as, rarely come gift-wrapped announcing itself beforehand. Just the fact that everyone around is so cautious negates the herd mentality and makes it more difficult for the market to crash. So, does it mean, you should put all your money in the markets now? My answer to that is, "It depends...". Like in everything in life, investment is a very individual process and it is not possible to comment on personal investment decisions without having a good understanding of your aspirations, risk appetite, personality and other such traits. The best way to invest is to always look for undervalued stocks and periodically buying into them. Does it mean that there is no bubble in the markets? Where is so much liquidity ...

Here are the details of Indag Rubber:- The company is the the tyre retreading business. RoE is approx 32% and RoCE is 28.5% FY10 Sales is 111 cr and profit is 11.5 cr Market Cap is currently around 55 cr. i.e, Market Cap is lesser than prev year sales Dividend Yield of 3.8% Last 3 year PAT CAGR is 40% and Sales CAGR is 22% Current PE is around 4.7 Notes from Annual Report 2010 Increase in raw materials has exerted pressure on operating margins Expanded manufacturing capacity at its Nalgarh plant in Himachal Precured tread rubber production is now at 1200 tons per month and 1800 tons of uncured rubber gum Due to a increased demand of precured tread rubber, product accessories such as URSG and vulcanizing cement (both are basically the adhesive for pasting the tyres to the pretreads by the cold-bonding process) are also seeing increased demand Manufacturing is at 100% capacity for these additives, but demand is much greater. The increase in capacity will cater ...

Here is what I came yup with by crystal-ball gazing (the crystal ball is now pretty cloudy and filled with dust, but what-the-heck...it sure is some fun to look at it once in a while... Sensex/Nifty will make a dash for the all-time high sometime soon (maybe as early as October end) Either breach it or turn back just short of it. A bout of profit booking follows. Indices go down 10%-15% (back to around 18K-18.5K) Main indices remain sideways for the next couple of quarters. Mid caps move up from now as the last few weeks the valuation gap has widened. Sometime after 2-3 quarters, the next up move starts for the main indices. By that time, PE is down to about 22 (which is still high but certainly not hitting the roof). One point to consider is that the 2008 debacle is still fresh in the minds of most people, and as long as it remains, the sentiment of fear will be there. That will prevent the markets from having a runaway rally or a breakneck fall. I sure hope I am right!!! ...