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Tag Archive: OPPORTUNITY COST


Takings from my last post  A Prop Trader or Rogue Trader and my past posts on the same topic The Rogue Trader or The Rogue Banks and TO BE A ROGUE TRADER would like to share few more views over them. As I reveled in the past that prop trader don’t trade on behalf of clients but they use institution own money to trade.They speculate and their focus are is emerging markets.

The two principles on which they work :

  •  You need to be dispassionate about your trade, to control your internal hurdles that may attach you to it emotionally.
  • You need to have specific knowledge of the asset you’re trading. You must have contacts in the asset’s country that can supply you with information that is open to anyone else (otherwise it’s insider trading) but that is still extremely valuable.
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It’s not mandatory that all good investors are good writers and visa viz that all good finance writers are good investors. It’s the experience of the people who is good or bad that counts . Here again some of the best remarks from Peter Lynch :

  1. When the operas outnumber the football games three to zero, you know there is something wrong with your life.
  2. Gentleman who prefers bonds don’t know what they are missing.
  3. Never invest in any idea you can’t illustrate with a crayon.
  4. You can’t see the future through a rear view mirror
  5. There’s no point paying Yo-Yo Ma to play a radio.
  6. As long as you’re picking a fund, you might as well pick a good one.
  7. The extravagance of any corporate office is directly proportional to management’s reluctance to reward the shareholders.
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Markets & The Emotions :-

Greed is good !! well that’s the tag line on the wall street but how much that is more dependent on your emotion.In the past I did some stories on it and here is great work by Edward zones on the human emotions  and market cycle..

Yesterday was going through a case on the art auction valuation under matters of pinion  an article in Economist,where the UK

High court has passed the judgement against Sotheby’s the leading art auction house where Lord Coleridge claimed that the auction-house expert, Elizabeth Mitchell, was negligent when she gave an auction valuation of a treasured family heirloom. The historic gold chain of office had been in his family for generations, and the Coleridge’s (distant relatives of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge) believed it dated from the mid-16th century. Lord Coleridge had expected that the estimate for his rare Tudor jewel would be £500,000 or more. Ms Mitchell, however, proposed that it was from the late 17th century, and gave it an estimate of £25,000 to £35,000. This, Lord Coleridge claimed, had cost him a good deal of money. He sued for £415,000, the case is interesting and bit difficult to understand Caveat Vendor

Here are some thoughts on the why Art as an alternative Investment has become so popular and its bit complicate to understand the market, the auction houses and the pricing, View full article »

Continuing where I left in my last post Face book all set to fire . As on Feb 1st the social network confirmed its plans for an Initial Public Offerings (IPO) confirming its valuations between $75 billion and $100 billion. The valuation reflect an extraordinary belief that a start-up hardly 8-year-old firm is more valuable than Boeing , the world largest airraftmaker. Are they nuts ??

$100 Billion? 100:1 PE ratio?
I like Facebook but hard to imagine an upside there.
$100B is the same value as Verizon, Cisco, Pepsi or McDonald’s.

Would like to share three things that leaped out at me from Facebook’s financial filing. They involve marketing, hypocrisy and arrogance — in other words, standard Wall Street fair.

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When Greece is trying to reach a deal with private sector creditors that would pave the way for additional bailout funding. S&P confirming even after the deal Greece “in all likelihood” qualify as a default.

IMF warned yesterday and reduced its forecast growth for the world 2012 amid concerns with the European Crisis and the IMF chairman confirmed that the debt crisis in Europe is the biggest threat,  Christine Lagarde also pointed to the challenges facing the U.S. economy.

Yesterday the talks fall apart and Greece is stuck with Troika (EU/ECB/IMF) on the one hand and Bondholders on the other.So here Greece acting as an intermediary( reference entity) where the Bond holders demanding 4% coupon on the restructured debt that is not acceptable by the Troika.

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I am wondering a day in the Indian Financial media when Reliance does not appear in the news. More so since last year when the cash reserve has piled up.

In fact too much cash reserve lead to lot of speculations and rumors spread that RIL is set for making a hostile bid to acquire Valero Energy, the world’s largest oil refinery in 2011. In fact the other rumor was that RIL in takes with beleaguered Kingfisher airline.

Now today the First Post  break the story that “Overloaded with cash, Mukesh announces RIL share buyback”.

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a) Blacking out is just your brain clearing it’s browser history. RKNXNDJDXWJJ

b) Europe is starting to make African leaders look competent.

c) In the words of Benjamin Franklin, ‘if we say that money doesn’t buy happiness, it might stop poor people from robbing us.

d) US college kids shouldnt complain. China churns outs 3MM engineers every year, many of whom go back to their parents DVD stall.

e) If you have a job where you have to wear a nametag, nobody gives a shit what your name is. 

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Yesterday one of my friend called me and shared his experience that he bought some shares on the advise of his agent (RM) and he cannot sell them as they are in to deep loses.
He was also having some mutual funds but they turned out to be ELSS as the 31st march is nearby.

The Term Financial planning is mis-directed, mis-guided and mis-selling lead to many such situations. I have just shared one of the case there may be many more :-

Systematic Investment Plan is an approach to investing within managed investments which involves investing a set of amount at regular intervals rather than investing a larger lump sum amount in one shot. By investing this way you are not attempting to capture the highs and lows of the market but rather the cost of your investment is averaged over a period of time. The essence of SIPs is that when the markets fall investors automatically acquire more units. Likewise they acquire lesser units when the market rises. This means that you buy less when the price is high whereas you buy more the price is low. Hence the average cost per unit drops down over a period of time.
I have suggested him to start an SIP for the following reasons learning from my prof:-

1. Understand the Power of Compounding: It looks odd to realise that the power of compounding is NOT taught well at school! They give you some simple examples – rarely are you taught the POWER! Even people working in financial services do not appreciate the power of compounding. Ignore this only at YOUR OWN PERIL.

2. Understand the Power of NOW: LEARN the power of starting to compound as soon as possible in life. If you have not understood, NO TIME LIKE TODAY..pick up the pen, call the advisor, click on the net – whateva…just start, NOW, TODAY.
3. Understand the Power of Regularity – start a SIP AND make sure you do it regularly – not missing a single month. If by chance you do miss a month of investing, immediately pick up a cheque and send it in! At the end of a YEAR you should have invested 12* Amount being invested every month. If suddenly you have money, top up the SAME account.
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1)      Paris Pasu http://wp.me/pc3rd-f

2)      RPL METHODOLOGY TO LURE THE RETAIL INVESTOR http://wp.me/pc3rd-i

3)      HDFC all set to buy CBOP http://wp.me/pc3rd-k

4)      Typical spinoff situation http://wp.me/pc3rd-l

5)      MUTUAL FUNDS SURVEY BY BUSINESSWORLD http://wp.me/pc3rd-m

6)      INDIA : THE EMERGING GIANT a book by Arvind Panagariya’s http://wp.me/pc3rd-n

7)      Process of passing the Budget http://wp.me/pc3rd-o

8)      THE ECONOMIC SURVEY 2007-08 http://wp.me/pc3rd-p

9)      Things Which appears First to me http://wp.me/pc3rd-q

10)   ICICI overseas losses mount to $264m credit exposure…http://wp.me/pc3rd-v

11)   CRITIQUE FOR THE BUDGET 2008-09 http://wp.me/pc3rd-z

12)   WHAT TO READ IN AN OFFER DOCUMENT ?? http://wp.me/pc3rd-A

13)   Sensex down 27.5% ..just in 2 months time frame http://wp.me/pc3rd-B

14)   YET AGAIN! FED CUT RATE BY 0.75%, Mayhem in markets http://wp.me/pc3rd-C

15)   CAT Bonds and CAT Swaps http://wp.me/pc3rd-D

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