chetan bhagat and 3 idiots

Yes it is one more issue dealing with money and other things...there is a common understanding in commerce and economics that goes caveat emptor or simply put...buyer beware....but in the case of chetan bhagat and the 3 idiots, the concept has been turned on its head...chetan is claiming that seller should beware....after selling the rights, he is pretending to have some kind of interest in the goods sold. It is like the seller of a house complaining that the buyer has painted it blue. Come on Chetan, you are an ex investment banker, you should know better. You should sit back and appreciate the fact that they made a damn good movie of your plot less book and bask in the reflected glory, instead of balming it on your mother who cried cos she did not see enough credit to you..grow up son.

also Aamir, why get involved? you are just an actor and a damn good one at that..plus you have not even read the book..you did not need to.you just acted out brilliantly the script that was handed out to you..why take sides? it just muddies the water further..

tiger by the tail

Speaking of money and other things, Tiger Woods has it all. Talent, money, a beautiful wife and a string of women. Finally the tale telling women have the tiger by the tail.

After doing it to professional golfers on golf courses round the world, Tiger is finally having it done to him off the course..below par again, of course.

But is it news? For me? No. What he does off the golf course is his business, and now a multi million dollar business for all the females involved. In the feeding frenzy that is sure to follow, I only hope that Tiger remains Tiger on the golf course.

Why does the media go crazy about something like this? It is not as if we elected Tiger to the job of the best athlete in the world. It is not as if Tiger was into performance enhancing (no pun intended) drugs. He just slept with a few women on the side. Thats between him and the women..and his wife. It should be no body else's business.

My advice to Tiger. Dont go on Oprah or anywhere else shooting your mouth off..just let your club do the talking ( again, no pun intended)

mumbai terror and beyond

It is now almost a week since the terror attacks in Mumbai. A week is enough to go through the full repertoire of human emotions, starting from shock, to grief, to shame, to anger and then despair. Is it not time to act?
Who are these people? what do they want with us? my city? our city? whats their cause? who is their god? who is their leader?

They were a bunch of young men who knew no better than to be manipulated and to die on a strange shore, mere pawns, expendable, in someones gambit..should we accept this gambit or decline it? we who have had no war to fight or no cause to band under, can never engage in a battle with unknown enemies united by their hate, let alone win it.

So do we then tolerate this affront to our peace and wait for the next strike, by a bunch of new recruits with even more sinister plans. We know by now that those in whom we relied are incapable of protecting us. Ten kids proved that over 60 hours. Our defenders have no weapons, no training, no technology, and mostly no motivation. While we should undoubtedly be proud of the men who despite all this laid their lives on the line, what about their masters? The men who hide behind level Z security, whose protection we pay for, whose protectors seem well equipped enough to stop a small war. Did we elect them to serve us , or rule and loot us?

What lies beyond this terror? Surely this is not the end, but more like the opening moves in an ever escalating war of nerves. Can we rely on our leaders who have already let us down so badly, to manage the next few steps responsibly? I think we all know the answer. We have leadership on both sides, which has lost the respect of its people, and certainly are not in control.

Stand by and wait for a war fought by powerless men driven by their greed for power. A war in which many more young men will die. Many more innocents will end up being collateral damage. We will stand by and watch as they steal the innocence from our children. As a generation we have failed and have been failed by those whom we put in power.

regulators and confusion

why is India an emerging market..we now know the answer to this..it is mostly because the regulators are prone to knee jerk actions and reactions and often confused about thier roles and identities..why else would Sebi who is the capital market regulator intervene with policy changes to prevent dollar inflows? i thought that was clearly RBIs role..
the markets shut down on the basis of these ill conceived policies announced by Sebi, and the finance minister appears on on cnbc to soothe ruffled feathers and claims that FIIS are buying..how can the FIIs buy when the markets are shut? is there an unregulated offshore market in Indian securities that none of us are aware of?
what is this confusion on P notes? whose interests are being protected? every investor knows that p notes are part and parcel of the market and in fact fortunes have been made on the presumption that inflows based on p notes investments will continue..you close or regulate the tap and you run the risk of shaking confidence levels in the market..precisely whats going on in the market right now.
nothing has changed on the fundamental india story..what has changed is that SEBI has shifted the goal posts, and created somewhat of a floating goal post where investors are no longer sure if what they invest may end up being a self goal..
funny times these..

While the markets continue to fox professionals and those pundits on CNBC things happen and money is made or lost based mostly on conviction, analysis and as all investors know, but wont admit, dollops of luck. I follow the Indian and the U.S markets and it never fails to amaze me how what you hear with total conviction on CNBC is often complete trite and very often driven by self interest and the hopes of the speaker.
The Indian market today was a yo yo and after close to a 100 point fall in the NIFTY all the experts on CNBC were full of "I told you so, get out while you can" type of advice to the 'retail' investor, only to have mud all over their faces a half hour later when the market added close to a 100 points, when they all had to backtrack with alacrity.
My advice ? Stay in in if you got in early enough, else stay out. Thats for the Indian market. As for the U.S. a lot of things could go wrong in the financials space, but good tech, aapl, syna, goog, csco , who are leaders in their own areas and have great brands and lots of cash on the ablance sheet,seem good bets still to me.
Let me also caution anyone who reads this blog and decides to punt..I am not an expert, but as likely to be right as anyone you are currently hearing or reading..