Nostalgia eh.....

Time travels faster than light .. how true ..

Similar was a case of my MBA ... never realised when it started and when did it end ... was jus happy it did end ... (sigh) ....

Suddenly, today I happened to find out that my Lappie has jus about of 15 GB's of space left... so I decided to delete some of the not so neccessary things in it ... Now, since the MBA is done with; you dont require all the educational stuff nemore ...and hence I clicked on the 'Courses' folder on the 'C' drive .... and therein was a list of all courses I had taken up in the MBA ... The list started with 'ACF' and ended with 'Valuations' (name of the courses) ... So now the deletion started ... I double clicked the ACF folder ... and amongst notes I found 4 assignments which my grp had done for ACF ... I double clicked assignment 1 ... Texas High Speed Rail corp ... and it reminded me of the day my group mates sat in an empty room doing it .... then I click on assignment 2 .. hey its MW petro ... ah ...the one I completed at 4 am on the submission day ... huh ..it was some genius ...i distinctly remember I had done smthng the prof had challenged no one could do ... he he ...had a big argument in class tht day wid the finance prof (a 1000 ppl told me to calm down on IP tht day)... Looked thru the 3rd assignment and then the 4th .... I also remember that despite everything I topped tht subject .. my grp got the max marks in grp works.... so I decided not to delete nething from tht folder ...

In every folder; i clicked on the assignments, the notes I made in class (some ppl thought I used to chat in class .. lol ).... all had some memories ... I cudnt delete ne single one of those folders ... nor a single thing in those folders.......they all have loads of memories in them .. they remind me of days n nights I used to sit n break my head over things... they bring back all those moments I spent in my MBA ... Every day is so clear in my mind today .. the assignments/notes acted as a point of refernce for things I had forgotten ...

There is that folder called 'Dic-Dic' in my 'C' drive .... Dic-Dic is named after ADIC ... tht was the only interview I was gonna sit for in the entire placements... it has the best of data ever avaliable about markets .. infact on my interview day .. i knew where each particular stock market was, what were the rates for G-7 currencies.. wht the credit market in U.S was headed ... possibly everything one wud wish to knw abt finance still lies in tht folder .... There are folders which I made for friend(s ) ..carrying info abt tht job they were applyin to .. there are folders of a terrific SGP ... similary of a super dissertation (though the case was ..the evaluators never understood wht they were) ...

How could I delete all of this .... I can't ... m not that gutsy ... wht i realised is that how precious this data is for me .. n i need to take a back-up instead of deleting smthng frm it ...

There are things, people I would wish to forget abt from my MBA days .... however there are many good things that happened to me that I would wanna take ahead with me ....

Time travels fast and its important u leave behind traces to know where you have come from ... bcuz tht always helps u figure out where u are headed next ....

Silly me ... was trying to delete that part of my life away ... !!

Who holds wins....

Caveat: If you are already bored of finance ..dont read this blog !!

Suprisingly, BSE Sensex is about to make a move towards one more historic land-mark. Yes, the land-mark being 16000!! .. pretty amazing isnt it .... I can only imagine the euphoria in every borkers office in mumbai rite now ... the season of gujjubhai's 'Mal Laoo' has made a come back .. those mad punching of orders, those constantly ringing phones, those khaman's and dhokla's and those beer parties in the night..I am sure its not less than an unrestrained rush of emotions every trader/every investor is goin thru at the moment...

I started tracking markets from 6700 levels (it was August 2005) if I remember correctly...and in 2 years time it has zoomed to the current levels... despite 3 major setbacks mid-way the markets have made a come-back rite frm the wall, if I may say so... and amazingly its not the story of the markets alone.. its a story abt India !!, an emerging economy (if tht word still applies) which has been tranformed by its people....

There have been a lots of theories about markets...some do work actually ..others dont .. however one theory which has never been wrong (even if you factor in inflation) is the long-only investing .... You will find millions of traders who chop n churn their portfolio's .. there are millions of investment advisers who recommend trading rather than investing .. infact I, being from the alternatives side of the business, am a tactical trader as well ... for me the game is two-alpha ... and its purely a short window for me ... 3 months is an awful lot of time...

Though what I write next is contrary to what I do, fact is a fact after all.... Short horizon investing never helps ... two fundamental reasons being - firstly a normal investor doesnt have access to superior information - secondly a normal investor cant sit on his pc all day analysing how a pair is gonna perform; given the speed of convergence - its a high end thing after all ... and thts wht people like me are here for ;) .. These are people who are already fed up of life and computer screen amazes them ..so they have screens at their home as well .. they dont sleep bcuz they will miss a news flash ...

Investors who have tried acting smart have always failed ... no body ever made a fortune jus trading ... u need to invest long and thts the only fact abt the markets... I dont intend to demean traders who trade on technicals, hedge fund managers who trade on algorithms ... those guys are nerds and tht business is all together different .. they want their alpha and are happy with it... whereas a normal investor like me needs Beta+Alpha ... which is only possible in a long-only investing... Look at ne equity market in the world .. and you will find that only long-only investing has added value in the long term....

The moral of the story is if u wanna invest ..invest long term ... greed never pays !! ... Who holds always wins ... and a win be big or small its a win afterall ... To continue with Indian e.g. when I went to my brokers office this time I was in mumbai .. i saw the entire old bunch of traders missing... new traders had replaced the old ones ... suprisingly the same people who called my broker earlier still called !!


(ok the last sentence was the punch line ... ah u didnt get it?)

Who told you so ....

Things have changed ..and so should we ...

I am sure every1 has heard of this phrase - 'Slow and steady wins the race'... the story being of a Rabbit and a Tortoise... This story was so revelant when I was a small kid ... may be 15 yrs back this made complete sense ... now my answer to ppl who say this is - 'u must be kiddin me'..

People who still say this have missed an important point ... we all learn from our mistakes and surely the rabbits have too... no longer a rabbit sleeps while he's in a race ... and essentially now the race has turned into a Rabbit race rather than a conventional Rabbit-tortoise race...

If you have guessed wht gonna follow read on for confirmation and if havent followed it yet well read on ...

What I mean by 'Rabit' are people who know how to run fast (not literally) but those who wanna achieve a goal early ... probably look for one more goal after they have achieved their first, second, third..... Look around urselves and you will find rabits today run all organisations, they decide where the world go next, people look at them in awe ..y? ..before they are fast, they are aggressive, they know whr to go next even before they have reached a planned destination.... everything go as per plans because they knw every possible exit out of every roadblock tht comes in their way ... The rabit today has learned when to get up and start running again ..well before the tortoise even crossed him ... and as i mentioned earlier world's today a competing place for all rabits .. tortoise's have been outpaced long before and chances of there recovery are next to nothing....

So wht does a rabbit have that a tortoise doesnt .... first of all they have a high degree of self motivation, secondly they have a plan in place even before the problem was created ... they know whts coming next even before it was pronouced on them - its called 'Negative Inertia'... Tortoise on the other hand is a patient being and likes to go steady without being bothered by much of the things arnd ... he is jus happy to be slow !!

The choice now is wht you wanna be ....

One way to look at it is why be a rabbit ..bcuz at the end of it only one rabbit is gonna win out of many rabbits ... in true sense only a few ppl wud be successful n rest wud have to follow...

Take ur pick !! ...wanna die fighting or wait till it comes to you..

If you are not a rabbit think again ... try n be that before its too late !! .. or as they say in Arabic .. life is 'KHALLAS'

Make a pick !!

Once my primary school teacher told all of my class a story ... it was about two kids ...

Both kids started to learn alphabets; the first kid learned the alphabets and moved on to study numbers from 1 to 10. The second kid learned the alphabets n did it well... and on the exam day..the first kid scored 8/10 and the second kid scored 10/10. Ya the exam was on alphabets... interesting isnt it ...whom wud you consider better? who is more intelligent? who is smarter and who is not? ...

The universe is divided into these two kind of people ... some people do differently things...some stick to wht they do ...n tht's the only thing they do n surely they do it well .....

The important thing for every one is of us to pick amongst these two categories ... the answer to above questions is tht both the kids are intelligent..both are smarter... only thing is tht they have chosen different paths for themselves.....and both wud do well if they stick to wht they do...

I met one very successful fund marketing officer today ... and one first thoughts I came to conclusion tht this guy is good ..y doesnt he manage a fund of his own .. y does he come n sell some1 else ... probably the answer to tht question was tht 2nd kid .. who does wht he does n tries to do tht well ... he doesnt wanna go ahead..he is happy where he is ...

Essentially we need to decide wht makes us happy ... U cant do everything under the sun and someday the 1st kid wud have to stop ... however he wud have enjoyed many different things he's seen on his way ...

I wudnt say which one of them is better ... I wud say I am the first one ... bcuz I believe to appreciate the good u need to knw whts better ....

Ample time ....

Hmm... wht does one do when he has ample time at disposal ??? .... the question being on my mind since last thrusday ....

The concept of 8 hour working is really bad and believe me India is much better..cuz u spend most of the time in office n dont have to bother abt being boundless... I am trying my best to implement tht concept in my new hat here..however the max i am able to do in 10 hours in office ...

Imagine u get up every morning..make your breakfast .. go to office... work ... come back at 6pm.. roam in the same mall everyday ..same place .. same shps ..how boring is tht !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Life mei change kahan hai.... for a hopping rabit like me this is too slow a life ... essentially the thing is not abt being slow or fast ... i jus dont wanna be left behind working less when the fellow investment bankers around the globe are working 80 hours a week .. hardwork always pays n i m not working hard here ....

Now when u have ample time you can do two things with the time u have ... either in can go find urself a gf or if u dont wanna get bugged by silly talks the best thing u can do is start reading a book ... and given tht i m a good boy ..i have decided to do the latter....

Now since i have decided to read up something ... y not clinch one more degree ... aise bhi padhai aur aise bhi padhai .... thts a good idea isnt it !!

So i have decided to pursue one more course ... CAIA .... the big thing in the Hedge fund industry ...

CAIA here i come baby.....

Thank you for being there always .... my dear books !!!!!!!