Murder: How an industry was systematically killed

The great Government of India has killed the telecom industry with such astounding brutality that it deserves special applause.

A bit of background - the telecom industry is somewhat special - to survive, it needs spectrum, which (like the Reliance D6 gas) is a national resource. A lot of players invested a lot of capital and took huge risks to start the industry from scratch in the 1990s. Just when they reached the end of the long investment cycle (10-15 years later!) and should have sat back to earn their returns, the government of India jumped in and started killing them.

First, in Jan 2008, the (dis)honourable minister for telecom suddenly changed rules midway and said that more operators would be allowed in the industry. This, despite the law saying categorically, that new licenses would NOT be given out. The incumbents, who should have got more spectrum by law, were now told - sorry! you will not get any more. We will give it away (almost for free) to friends and cronies (who by the way are going to make millions of $$s selling this spectrum to the likes of Telenor, Etisalat etc etc, without investing a single rupee of their own. Sorry, correct that - they are going to bribe me, the honourable minister, so that I can get a nice little fund going in my Swiss bank accounts.) Also, I'm going to keep an arbitrary date for consideration of applications for spectrum, so that ONLY my friends get this spectrum AND I'm going to change the rules on which incumbent gets spectrum first.

As a result, Reliance Communications, which by law was last in queue to get spectrum, will now jump to #1 position.

In any other country, this would have led to corruption charges against said minister, and he would have been in jail. But thanks to our strangely perverse country, the minister not only thrives, he actually got a second term in the government of the supposedly 'clean' Mr. Manmohan Singh despite a huge uproar on the blatant theft of revenues that should have accrued to me, the mango man of India.

The result of this was that fly-by-night operators came in, the industry got screwed because of irrational pricing, call quality suffered and investors got punished.

But the honourable minister had only begun. He now says - ha ha! you incumbents - you had the temerity to oppose my despotic theft - I will make you suffer more. So he says, retroactively AGAIN changing the rules - I am now going to arbitrarily decide that spectrum above 6.2 MHz (which I gave you 4-5 years ago for the same price that the new guys got it for) will now be priced at rates determined by the 3G auction (or more than 10-12 times what the new operators paid for their spectrum just last year). I will, perversely enough, not charge anything from the new operators. The losers, not surprisingly, are Bharti, BSNL, Vodafone and Idea. Reliance Communication, not at all surprisingly, totally not affected by this decision.

The incumbents today are large, respected companies not because they bribed thieving ministers and bureaucrats. They have built companies painstakingly, putting to risk large amounts of capital, effort and resources, and believing in the law of the land and principles of justice. To see them being systematically killed is a matter of shame. Strangely, perpetrators of this murder continue to line up their bank balances and enjoy their positions of power. But such is life in our country.

Analyst? With credibility? Ha ha...

I have nothing against research analysts. I have quite a few friends who are research analysts with respected fund houses. A few are very good and I respect their views. However, I would never ever want to become a stock analyst. A vast majority of these guys have no credibility. I would strongly advise the retail investor to strongly disregard analyst views and NEVER ever buy based on analyst recommendations. Trust me - my job gives me access to all the reports ever published, and I read quite a few of them (for a few laughs, and mostly during leisure time).

Sample this. I choose this at random - this is, in my view, a representative example of what analyst views are worth. Disclaimer: I do not have anything against these particular fund houses, just used here as examples. All of them are as good or as bad. Take a sugar company called Shree Renuka Sugars ('SRS'). The business is cyclic, and totally commoditized. Everyone knows that commodity cycles turn with great regularity. If sugar is scarce today, it will be in plenty tomorrow (and vice versa).

In a report dated Jan 18, 2010, Morgan Stanley recommended Overweight on SRS, with a target price of INR 125 (adjusted for bonus). In a short period of 3 months, the price target was reduced to INR 70 (or a downward movement of 45%). This was primarily because the stock corrected by approx 45% during this period! The world did not change in this 3 month period, and the outlook on sugar should have been known as recently as 3 months before!

Ditto Merrill Lynch. As recently as Feb 11, they said BUY with a price target of INR 173. In 2 months, the price target suddenly became INR 80 (or 50% of the one before). Talk about volatility!

Or Credit Suisse. They take the cake. They went from INR 128 to INR 58 in a similar period of time.

Credibility, anyone?? Why should anyone believe these jokers? It is not my case to trivialize the important work analysts do. However, there is something called perspective! And something called balance. And foresight. Just moving target prices around because the stock moves in that direction does not a credible analyst make! When will this change. Dot-com, Enron, Lehman - nothing has changed analyst behaviour so far. I wonder what will!

Elina

The reason for my vastly reduced blog posts these days:

Volatility? Whew!!!

Interesting times for markets globally, to say the least!

• Tiny, inconsequential Greece re-engages with history books, with a government soon about to go bankrupt, a striking and rioting public that seems spectacularly dense and insular, and overall an enactment of the theatre of the absurd. Repercussions include a 1,000 point drop in the mother of all equity market indices, the mighty Dow Jones - in about 15 minutes, and while the media goes to town with the usual cliches - never happened before, six sigma event, yada yada yada - my take is that these days six sigma events happen every six months. Poor Spain and gluttonous Portugal have to suffer for the Grecian's fun. Lesson: In the party, get drunk while you can. If you are still sober when it ends, you may be left cleaning someone else's puke!!

• The Sage of Omaha puts his 40-year reputation on the line as he defends the newest villian of the times. Move over Osama bin Laden, Goldman Sachs is here. 2 idiots who got screwed are crying foul at Goldman's mercenary ways, but I think they are more to blame than they let on. Caveat Emptor, anyone? They forgot the golden rule - Goldman Sachs will screw you when it can.

• Meanwhile, the Conservatives seem set to gain a majority in the UK (though not a government, apparently). Traders troop in to work at midnight in the financial district of London. The Tories promise to implement what I think is the solution to the whole 3 year old debt-fuelled crisis - cut the UK government deficit and apply brakes to government spending. For the sake of Britain's economic future, I hope they get their shot at fiscal prudence.

• And here in India, Reliance Industries emerges unscathed from its bruising courtroom battle with kid brother ADAG controlled companies - I think the outcome is very rational and fair and square in the national interest - natural gas found in India's territory cannot be divided between individuals. It belongs to the mango man (the aam-aadmi) and should be priced for the benefit of said mango man. So sorry, Mr Anil Ambani - you cannot make umpty zillion rupees buying my gas for cheap (disclosure - I own RIL shares)

What does one make of all this? My opinion (could be in-famous last words) - ignore all the noise. Buy the dips and hold emerging market (Indian) equities for the next 5 years. While one may or may not make a packet, one will surely be spared watching the value of painstakingly hoarded cash erode due to inflation. And keep at least 10% of the portfolio in gold. It remains the only hedge against global insanity

Too smart for our own good?

An experiment that shows that too much smartness could be counter-productive! I think this is also the reason that good businesses are not built solely by numbers and analytics, but by that indefinable thing called the instinct or gut-feel or intuition.

Sourced from here:

The Trouble with Humans: Why rats and pigeons might make better investors than people do

"Psychologists have long known that if rats or pigeons knew what the NASDAQ is, they might be better investors than most humans are. That's because, in some ways, animals are better than people at predicting random events. If, for instance, you set up two lights in a laboratory and flash them in a random sequence, humans will persistently try to predict which of the two lights will flash next. Stranger still, they'll keep trying even when you tell them that the flashing of the lights is purely random. Let's say you flash a green light 80% of the time and a red one 20% of the time but keep the exact sequences random. (A run of 20 flashes could look something like this: GGGGRGGGGGGGRRGGGGGR.) In guessing which light will flash next, the best strategy is simply to predict green every time, since you stand an 80% chance of being right. That's what rats or pigeons generally do in a similar experiment that rewards them with a crumb of food whenever they correctly guess the next outcome".

But humans are apparently convinced that they're smart enough to predict each upcoming result even in a process they've been told is random. On average, this misguided confidence leads people to get the right answer in this experiment on only 68% of their tries. In other words, it's precisely our higher intelligence that leads us to score lower on this kind of task than rats and pigeons do.

Karthik calling Karthik

is a good movie. Not romantic, not horror, not even very thrilling. Dark, foreboding and realistic. And very very spooky - I've been having nightmares last two nights on account of this movie.

Farhan acts well, especially in the climax, when the mystery gets revealed. Deepika looks lovely as usual, and the few other characters are all quite real. The movie is probably one that wont be remembered for long as anything special, but I kind of admire the people who made it, since it represents something different from the run of the mill kind of stuff we are accustomed to seeing. The songs are also good, and do not jar in the least.

Recommended as a watch for a taste of something different.

Dork

Finished reading Dork (authored by Domain Maximus) over the weekend.

Immensely entertaining for the first 85% of the book. While I thought the last 15% was a bit abrupt, I think overall it is a fantastic effort.

By the way, inner sources say the book is derived from largely true life incidents in the author's short year at a "leading mid-market consulting firm". I can totally identify with it :-)

Someone is finally talking sense

I have a young cousin who wants to get into IIM. She believes that an MBA (or PGDM, to be precise) from any of the IIMs will set her up for multi$$$ moolah.

This is obviously not true. Who is to blame? Fair and square, I think our popular media is the culprit. They print grotesque, inaccurate and non-comparable salaries year after year after year on the front pages of newspapers. It has become a given, a vulgar and obscene race to bigger and bigger material scores - speak to a layperson, and they will ask "Beta, you are from IIM? Oh you must be earning crores". If one tries to talk sense to this person, and explain how things really are, the reaction most likely is "Hmmm. This dude was probably near the bottom of his class. The Economic Times / Times of India / Jhumri Talaiya Khabrein cannot be wrong"

Anyhow, I was mightily pleased to read the following article. I hope it encourages other institutes to speak up and let the truth be known:

IIM-A has denied a front-page report in The Economic Times which said a recruiter made a Rs 1.44 crore-plus salary offer at final placements currently on at the school.

“Sure, no one’s talking yet. But ET has learnt that Deutsche Bank, which had set the upper ceiling in 2008 by offering a Rs 1.44-crore package, has broken that record this year”, said the ET report.

In a blog link sent by student media co-ordinator Rohan Desai, the school said (Desai also urged that we put-up the link on our blog to reach a wider audience):

“We would like to clarify in interest of the entire community that this is incorrect. Also, converting dollar salaries to rupee terms does not portray the correct picture and hence we provide the average dollar salary separately in our press releases.

We felt compelled to communicate this clarification because we believe it has the potential of driving aspiring students into making misinformed decisions and also gives incorrect signals about the economy.

IIMA over the last few years has chosen not to disclose the highest salary offered as we believe salaries are just one component of the jobs offered and also because the highest salary is in no way representative of the recruitment scenario.”

While the purpose of this blog is not to run-down competition, and we have never done that,Mint understands why students, and teachers, wish to project b-schools as more than just places where students turn into crorepatis. While salary figures are indicative of the economy, we stick to the official version released at the end of the placement season.

Placements can be covered in other ways. This is one of the reasons why the writer of this blog was allowed to live on-campus during placement week in 2007 at a time when there was a media black-out.

Pronab Da zindabad!!

In my humble opinion, the Union budget 2010-11 has its head and heart firmly in place.

For one, the budget does the right thing by reducing direct taxation and increasing indirect taxation. This increases compliance, because the poor overtaxed salaried guy (aside - this is not anecdotal - India has one of the highest personal and corporate tax regimes globally. Scandinavian and developed countries have higher overall tax rates, but they more than compensate in the form of social security benefits. Most Asian countries have tax rates closer to 16-20%. Not surprisingly, compliance is abysmal - close to a pathetic 12-15% from the figures I remember seeing most recently) gets relief; and the smirking tax-stealing business guy pays up more indirectly for all the conspicuous consumption. Reduced direct taxation also stimulates the economy by incentivizing greater consumption - we are a unique country which does not depend on exports for growth, and we should try our damnedest to keep it that way.

Secondly, the budget signals a return to fiscal prudence by targeting a lower fiscal deficit (through lower 'non-productive' non-plan expenditure) and makes a case for transparent and proper reporting of the deficit. No more hiding subsidies 'below the line' by issuing oil bonds and all other kinds of instruments designed to win votes today but burden our children and grandchildren for all time. Additionally, the budget firmly puts disinvestment as a revenue source. Less government is good government.

For all the hoo-haa the short sighted scaremongers in the BJP and the perennially stick-up-my-ass communists are making about petrol price hikes, I think it is a good thing. Petrol prices need to be deregulated - normal laws of economics (demand drops on rising prices) need to be allowed to work. For the economy as well as for the environment.

If anything, the budget should have firmly introduced fuel price decontrol, the direct tax code as well as the GST tax regime. But overall, I look at the budget as a glass slightly more than half-full.

And the hypocritical opposition can shout themselves hoarse.

Kenyes versus ... (err... who is on the other side?)

While our day to day lives are relatively humdrum and routine, we are in the midst of a ferocious worldwide war. The (small) problem is that there is no other side in the war.

The war against the biggest recession globally in the last 60 odd years is being fought as per the principles of John Maynard Keynes, who famously advocated massive deficit spending to work one's way out of a recession. In tandem, central banks globally are printing massive amounts of currency, increasing government spending and increasing government roles in business. The general theory is that debt will be inflated away, savers will be punished, currencies depreciated, and consumers incentivised to 'shop till they drop'.

I'm no expert, but somehow I don't see why this should work. The reason for the recession (as I see it) was too much debt and excessive leverage, leading to asset price inflation in US residential homes. When the bubble burst, people's wealth (equity in their homes) was wiped out, leading to reduced spending, de-growth, mass unemployment, and further wealth erosion - a vicious cycle started. The risk in Keynesian medicine is that it stokes the very fires that led to the problem - artificial floors to asset prices could lead to massive stagflation if consumption does not respond to fiscal stimulus.

Maybe I am old fashioned, but I think it is better to take the bitter medicine today (like Paul Volcker advocated in 1971-72 by massively raising inflation rates. The economy staggered for 3-4 years, but inflation was gone for good, and the next 20 years of excellent growth followed in the US). The problem is that everyone these days is a Keynesian. Where are the monetarists, the Volckers? How will we know who wins this fight if there is no other example to counter the recession? Where is the alter-ego to 'helicopter' Ben Bernanke?

I think (fear) we will keep seeing events like Dubai / Greece / Portugal for the next few years, where nations with excessive debt will keep being unable to pay off their dues. And the Keynesians will declare themselves winners, whether they win or lose.

Increase GDP - buy alarm time pieces!!

I am generally sceptical of the numbers our esteemed government churns out. Having served a large government entity in my previous career avatar, I can imagine how un-robust the data collection process in a large and totally un-automated organization must be.

Even so, this news article takes the cake - the headlines scream that the index of industrial production index (IIP) in December was up almost 17%, or the most in more than a decade. The truth is that 7% (or approximately 40% of this growth comes from (believe it or not!!) 'alarm time pieces'!!!! These esteemed articles, which in my considered opinion no one uses anymore, have a weightage of ~0.3% in the IIP index, and the government would have us believe that growth in this category was 2500% (25x of production a year ago). The mind boggles at this stupendous statistic.

So I know now how India can overtake China in the economic growth sweepstakes! Every urban person just needs to buy a ruddy alarm clock!!!

Addendum

Speaking of Ishqiya, here is another part of the movie I loved... this song plays in the background when Babban is 'having fun'

I agree totally with Calvin

here... (thanks for the link!)

I demand euphoria!!

Ishiqiya

Saw the movie today, and liked it quite a lot. The wife hated it, though. No matter - she did not like The Dark Knight either (shudder....)

Good timepass movie, very grounded. Fantastic performances (esp Khalujaan and Mushtaq Bhai), fantastic songs and music, but best of all:

1) Ch**ium sulphate! I can almost see myself scream this from my car window the next time someone honks needlessly or cuts into my lane

2) Nandu (and his bantering with Babban): worth many many smiles

$104 million! For this!!!! Gulp...

This thing (I can not think of a better word for it) sold for $104 million today! I'm speechless...

What do bankers really do to earn their millions???

Now we know :-) The action starts 1 minute into the video - a must see!!

Power and Beauty

Ever wondered why high heels exist? Why the most common lipstick colour is red? Why women prefer (guys with) cars to (guys with) motorbikes? Most of all, does size REALLY matter? The answers are all simple. Explained in this article (courtesy Mint Lounge)...

Pretty interesting, I thought! Though at the end of it all, I had just one question - what is a pudenda??

Reply To All | Aakar Patel

I have a game I have been trying out at parties for a decade. I ask women to give it a thought, and then choose the order in which they would be attracted to the following types of men as their partner: a) Good-looking b) Powerful c) Stable.

No other quality in these three men is defined, and they are what those words mean. Almost invariably, women choose the powerful man as the one they are most attracted to. This is followed by the stable man and last, the good-looking one. I cannot remember more than a couple of women, and I have polled dozens, who did not choose power as the thing they were drawn to most.

I ask men to choose from the following:

a) Beautiful

b) Rich

c) Homely

Men always choose beautiful first; most pick homely second and rich last.

We are uncomfortable with accepting the extent to which our instinct, formed over tens of thousands of years as hunters-gatherers, dominates our intellect. But it is true that our sexual instinct is not entirely in our control, and women are drawn towards the powerful male.

A wealthy man, no matter how ugly—Aristotle Onassis—will bed the most desirable women in the world: Jacqueline Kennedy, Maria Callas. Given that fact, powerful men often practise what is called serial monogamy, monopolizing a beautiful woman for the best years of her beauty and then moving on to the next woman. That’s why rich men often have many divorces—Larry King is on his eighth wife, Johnny Carson had four, Mickey Rooney eight.

Other powerful men have a different model, a stable family life but constant sexual relationships on the side: Tiger Woods, David Beckham and Bill Clinton.

Evolutionary psychologists attribute this behaviour not to sex addiction but the instinct to spread genes. Man has an unlimited number of potential offsprings because of his ability to generate sperm. And so the most important aspect of whether or not he will mate with a woman is not love or even attraction, but opportunity. Most males will accept this if asked, and any number of studies show it to be true.

One study, a few years ago, had a beautiful woman on a college campus approaching strangers to have sex with her. Every single man she approached agreed. When an attractive man did the same with the campus women, not one agreed. Again, the reason for this is thought to be primal, and it is this. A woman will have three or four and a maximum of perhaps a dozen or so children (Mumtaz Mahal was rewarded with the Taj Mahal for producing 14). So, in a species where man is provider, she must be more careful in selecting her mate because she has to ensure he is capable of protecting her limited offspring. This explains the female attraction to power.

Gujarati women find Narendra Modi very attractive sexually and, even more than the man, it is the urban Gujarati woman who has made Modi a heroic figure in that state. An ageing woman does not have appeal in society because man is instinctively trained to see that her utility is low. This is why women hide their age more than men. It is because of her declining fecundity that age is unattractive on a woman though it’s irrelevant in the rich man. This is not to preclude that a man might find a beautiful woman of older age sexually attractive: He will (remember the opportunity rule). But this will be a relationship of casual sex, because man is first drawn to the nubile woman. Exactly how nubile? The male preference for shaved pudenda offers an indication.

The idea that women are drawn to power opens up doors that many men would rather be left shut. The myth in health literature that penis size does not matter is subscribed to primarily by men. Women would actually have been attracted genetically to the large organ before the use of clothing, which is quite recent. This is because a larger organ is more efficient at depositing sperm, thus ensuring fertilization.

We know that organ size matters because it conditions the unusual behaviour of males in the toilet. In the men’s room, when a urinal is open between two standing men, a third man entering will avoid the spot in the middle and head for the fifth urinal so as to keep one open space between him and the next man. This is because he is conscious of his neighbour sizing him up.

Indian men are particularly insecure and toilets here have a wall—often as high as a standing man’s head—between each urinal.

Incidentally, this competition among men for women is a clear indicator that the anti-homosexual sentiment of Christians and Muslims is Old Testament prejudice. Instinctively, all heterosexual men should like homosexuals because they are not a threat. Often we send out sexual signals that we think are effective, but are actually meaningless. The man who colours his hair black does so without understanding that his youth isn’t what women primarily find attractive in him. It is important, however, for a woman to colour her hair, and the defiant woman who doesn’t, finds it difficult to get men to view her in a sexually attractive light.

Despite the male obsession with large motorcycles, and the advertising that suggests that women find them alluring, an expensive car, say a Mercedes-Benz, is much more effective at communicating a man’s quality. Money power being the key here, and not mechanical power. Similarly, the female predilection for handbags is unfathomable to men, though wearing stilettos is a good idea. Women should wear high-heeled shoes. They make a woman physically vulnerable, teetering, and that makes her attractive to a man, because he likes to think of domination. The heels reform her posture forwards, and that also has its appeals.

Nail polish and lipstick are most appealing to men when red, because it indicates health and vitality, and that was the original purpose of cosmetics. Brown, blue and black and such other colours are quite useless in attracting men.

So can we escape our instinct? Yes, but only episodically. It keeps coming back and it’s always lurking in our head if we observe it. Our prejudice is quite marked and women who are both gorgeous and intelligent are remembered for their beauty. A man who is striking-looking and intelligent is noted for his brains, even by women.

It’s banal but true: To improve their odds in the love market, men need to focus on making more money and women on looking more beautiful.

Unadulterated BS

I have nothing against Mr. Bejan Daruvala. The dude writes a weekly zodiac horoscope in the Sunday Times of India, which I'm sure a lot of people read and forget in a jiffy. However, these days Mr. Daruvala is beginning to bug me a bit - the guy has become a financial expert!!! He advises people on what to buy, sell or trade!! So much so, that he gets star billing on CNBC (dunno if he actually appears on the channel, but certainly on the website!)

I found this mildly amusing initially, but now the trend seems to be really propagating. I was stunned to find that a well educated (MBA, no less!!) acquaintance checked Mr. Daruvala's prophesies daily. Call it superstition or looking for divine guidance, but I call it sheer idiocy. Investing is tough enough as it is - but using these kind of 'astrological' guideposts is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. Check out some specific examples of divine guidance:

05-02-2010 to 18-02-2010 Repeatedly make entries and exit. The time is not good. If you follow the above rule you will make money in atleast 7 out of 10 deals.

19-03-2010 to 01-04-2010 Sell off shares that you purchased at low pricesas they will fetch good prices. Wait for the prices to fall prior to purchasing.

02-05-2010 to 19-05-2010 Not a very good time. Don't trade unidirectionally. During bullish time trade bullishly and in bearish trends trade bearish. Stick to the trends and don't act reverse to avoid risk, advises Ganesha.

Wah!! This last one really is very useful :-) I just wish to offer the poor suckers who trade according to the wishes of this dude a bit of unwanted advice - if this guy could really predict the market, would he be wasting his time telling you how to trade?

Idiot? Certainly not...

I read this article and felt a bit confused - is this good or bad? Then I figured that this is really really bad - in fact a guaranteed fact that shows just how massively screwed up our education system is!

Nobel laureate Ramakrishnan failed IIT, medical entrance tests 5 Jan 2010, 2138 hrs IST, PTI

BANGALORE: Venkataraman Ramakrishnan won the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 2009 but decades ago he failed to clear entrance tests for both the IITs and a reputed medical college. At a public lecture at the Indian Institute of Science campus here, he recalled his journey from Baroda where he went to school and college before moving to Ohio University for his Ph.D. He shifted to Baroda from Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu when he was three. He noted that he appeared for the IIT entrance test but "did not get a single seat in IIT". "My parents were somewhat old-fashioned; they did not believe in coaching classes (in preparation for entrance test)," Ramakrishnan told a packed J N Tata Auditorium, where many could not even enter because it was crowded. They (his parents) thought coaching classes were "nonsense". He also appeared in the entrance test for a seat in the reputed Christian Medical College in Vellore in Tamil Nadu but was unsuccessful. Giving an explanation, he said that those days, there were only a small number of seats for men. The (really sad) takeaways I have after reading this stupendous article is Getting into IIT (and other prestigious institutes of higher education) is a function of what kind of coaching class you have been to There are no avenues within the country for potentially brilliant scientists or other skilled professionals if they do not conform to the rat race (IIT / SRCC / AIIMS / NLS etc etc) Now that I try to think hard, I cannot recall any Nobel prize winner who is from IIT. I can think of many people in finance though (self included!). To me, this is a travesty of IIT's purpose

Thoughts in a New Year

A New Year, and a new day, week, month, and if you so believe, even new decade. A time to sit back, relax and count the innumerable pleasures of life. A time to feel the privilege, bask in joy and burst with happiness :-)

Worries on the horizon? I can not recall a single day when I was not worried about something or the other. One year out, I don't even remember 95% of the things I was worried about - feels funny that such trivial inanities should fill 95% of my waking thoughts. When I count my joys, my reasons to be happy, I find I discount them very quickly. Life moves on instantaneously towards the next goal, the next struggle, the next trivial pursuit. How much of this do I really care about? How much of this do I desire? How much can I do without? Mostly all.

The fundamental bedrock of needs - health, safety, family, friends, freedom - are all present in abundance and for free. It is up to me to savour these or take them for granted. I hope I can make the right choice!

Happy new year :-)

Tis the season to be merry...

1) Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day

2) If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you

3) It is darkest before dawn. That's the best time to steal your neighbour's newspaper

4) Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away and you have their shoes!

5) Warning sign on a Japanese food processor: Not to be used for the other use

6) Instructions on a Chinese product used to relieve painful haemorrhoids: LIE DOWN ON BED AND SLOWLY INSERT POSCOOL UP TO THE PROJECTED PORTION LIKE A SWORD-GUARD INTO ANAL DUCT. WHILE INSERTING POSCOOL FOR APPROXIMATELY 5 MINUTES, KEEP QUIET

7) Market definition: Bear market: a 6-8 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewellery and the husband gets no sex

8) Market correction: the day after you buy stocks

9) Institutional investor: someone who sells a stock big time a day or two after you have bought it, for no apparent reason

10) From an engineering exam:

What does this mean?

If this is marketing strategy, then I'm really glad that I didn't major in marketing. This is the sign put up by Haagen Dazs in a posh south Delhi mall.

Not only do I not understand what this means, I don't think anyone else does, either!

Are they trying to stress how premium their ice-cream is? So premium that only foreigners can eat it? Well, perhaps. But then, why are you launching in India???

In my opinion, this is a really stupid and 'guaranteed to fail' method for launching any new brand. In fact, it is probably downright illegal. If I were sitting in the head office of Haagen Dazs, I would fire the top management.

The biggest paycheck in history

There is probably a lot of happiness in becoming rich. However, there is almost certainly more happiness in being right. And its best to become very very rich by being right about something that others didn't agree with! To my mind, no one captures the essence of being right more than John Paulson. Boy, he was right. And how!

This article from the tech ticker is worth a read:

The bursting of the housing bubble cost the American economy trillions of dollars and brought Wall Street to its knees. But a few savvy investors, most notably hedge fund manager John Paulson, made fortunes betting against housing and related securities.

In The Greatest Trade Ever, Wall Street Journal columnist Gregory Zuckerman details how Paulson pocketed $6 billion as his firm made $20 billion betting against the boom from mid-2006 through early 2009. These returns included $4 billion for Paulson personally in 2007, which Zuckerman describes as the single-most lucrative payout in history.

While few, if any, will ever approach Paulson's staggering accumulation of wealth, Zuckerman says there are some timeless lessons for the rest of us, including:

Have the courage of your convictions: Paulson stuck by his thesis even as the trades didn't initially pay off in 2006, myriad housing "experts" told him he was on the road to ruin, and seemingly all of Wall Street's machinery was working against him. And when the bets starting paying off in 2007, Paulson didn't book profits and run as many advised -- and some clients begged. After shorting subprime in 2007, Paulson effectively doubled down in 2008, shifting some of his firepower to bets against Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Wall Street firms knee-deep in the MBS market.

See the forest for the trees: As an outsider to the mortgage world, Paulson was able to see the carnage coming that those on the inside missed. The ability to think independently and see beyond what the "experts" are saying is critical for individual investors because more financial bubbles are likely, Zuckerman says.Hindsight being 20-20, it's clear the housing market was a bubble and Paulson's strategy of buying cheap insurance against subprime mortgages - in the form of credit default swaps - seems like a no-brainer.

But as Zuckerman details in the book, getting the trade right wasn't easy; others tried but failed to match Paulson's stellar returns because they were either too early, had the wrong trading strategy or didn't see the bet through to its ultimate conclusion.

Furthermore, Paulson struggled in early 2006 to raise money for a fund dedicated to betting against housing securities, Zuckerman reports; Paulson was viewed as an "outsider" in the mortgage market at the time and didn't reached legendary status until after the mega-profits had been booked.

I'm a rightist libertarian!

I read a blog post about the political compass today. Nothing spectacular about it, just a simple questionnaire that lets you know a bit more about yourself. I took the test, and found no surprises :-( It was as I always suspected - I'm a boring kind of centrist guy - leaning towards libertarianism (i.e. laissez faire, live and let live etc etc) as well as economically rightist (the market may not know best, but it sure as hell knows much more than the smartest planner in the world)

Here is my map:

No politicians are like me :-(

Milton Friedman is the closest match. Does that mean I should have been an academician? I think, very very deep down, that I was cut out to be an academician or a researcher!!!

I love such games :-)

The end of a dream?

Today I spotted a Toyota Fortuner on the road - the first time I saw the car outside of a picture or a website.

Unfortunately for me, it was quite a disappointment! I first mistook it for some version of the Innova, then double checked the name, and finally figured that the damn thing does not remotely resemble a power-packed animal. No doubt it is very efficient and indeed powerful, it just does not look so! I think the key factor is the ground clearance - our desi cars have high clearance and a higher back, while the firang cars (while more elegant) have lower centers of gravity and rounded backs. A bit of crudeness is missing!

Give me the Scorpio or the Safari anyday (till then I can dream about the Land Rover and the Audi Q7)!

Some photographs:

Fortuner:

Land Rover:

Q7:

Scorpio:

Tata Safari:

How much is too much?

A question that a lot of people have asked me, and I many! How much is enough? What is the magic 'x' amount of money/assets/material stuff that if one owns, one does not desire anymore?

Clearly, unlike the ultimate answer to the question of life, the universe and everything, the answer is not 'forty two' or any other number. It cannot be, is my personal experience. When I was an engineering student, I used to think a salary of 40k per month was the end-all of most dreams. Then the investment banks came in and spoiled us with dreams of many zeros at the end of some obscene number of dollars in annual compensation. The bar kept rising higher and higher (as indeed did inflation - of houses, cars, food, everything else).

My buddy, who probably earns in fractions of millions of USD in Hong Kong, has also undergone the same phenomena. Last when we spoke of such things, he said he would be happy with something that gave him risk free income of some x amount. Needless to say, he has surpassed that target quite some time ago, but is still on the hunt for more mammon. He sometimes feels unhappy at his pace of life, but on the whole the feeling of being on-the-move energizes him.

Of course, money is not the only thing most people desire. I always like to read the stupid celebrity interviews where the subject is asked to rate by order of priority - fame, money and power. Invariably fame and power get higher billings than money. This is true for a lot of us as well. Money is just a way of keeping score!

The answer to the question therefore, in my mind, is truly what you limit yourself to - and also what you can aspire to. It is a bit like Maslow's heirarchy - when one target is met, one automatically moves to the next one, because without targets there is only boredom. Rare (and very lucky) is the person who has enough! How does this mythical dude entertain himself??

The big bear turns positive on India

Nouriel Roubini shot to fame thanks to the global financial meltdown of 2008. He didn't make too much money out of being right (unlike John Paulson or George Soros), but certainly earned name and fame!

Since his heyday at the height (depth?) of the armageddon in October 2008, he has been as vocal as before, but not quite so prescient, as markets everywhere have ignored his calls of doom, and have rallied massively. It is interesting to see what the big bear says about Indian markets now...

And surprise surprise! The guy predicts new highs for us next year. The reasons he gives are: 1) The USD carry trade and 2) the fact that India is the top pick in the emerging economy universe and is relatively scarce (i.e. foreign investment can come into India only in the equity market, not through debt, real estate or other investment classes). Both points are well taken.

But I start getting sceptical when the sceptics start becoming believers!! Will Mr. Roubini be right this time? That is the trillion INR question :-)

More on politics

Thanks DD for this pic - check out the gold on this 'social worker'!

This is what we have become

Politics always repulsed me. But our politicians every single day plumb new depths, and still retain their ability to deeply wound and trouble me. Today I am ashamed to be part of this venal, hypocritical and spineless country. It has a doomed future.

The immediate provocation - a common thug, whose only claim to fame is that he is related to so-and-so, with a very very calculated and cynical eye to a vote bank, commands a diktat which is illegal, unconstitutional and immoral. He says that new MLAs to the Maharashtra assembly should only take their oath in Marathi. While this in itself should be reason enough to put the guy in jail for the rest of his sorry life, what actually happens is that one particular person takes the oath in Hindi, and 4 MLAs from the thug's gang actually beat up this person in the assembly in full view of cameras, security and the country. These people are elected representatives who are supposed to frame our laws.

But what gets my goat is this - I quote verbatim: Eknath Khadse, the BJP group leader, called for a sympathetic view of the entire incident. "Nobody supports what happened today. But, there is nothing wrong in checking the footage again to verify the MNS claim that it was Azmi who had provoked them through his body language," he said. Khadse said since it was the first day of the new house, a lenient view should be taken.

Indeed. Punish the victim. This is what we have become. This is what we stand for. We have lost all humanity, dignity, and morality. We are doomed.

Alliterative flights

Mom: You need to lose all that unwanted ungainly weight

Me: Verily wanton weight

Unwelcome unwholesome weight

Ultimately ululating weight

and then later (staring ahead on an airplane):

Me: Verisimilitudinally vituperative weight
Finally my favourite: Vacuously vaccilating weight!!!

Art.. and a new vocation :-)

The wife is very artistic, and spiritual to boot. She has demonstrated an aptitude for a dazzling new career :-) Meet Mata Gayatri Devi (drumbeat roll....).

The following pics say it all...

Old email folders

I happened to look through some old email folders recently (the kind that you file away while you were a young student and never look at again), and I was amazed to see that I had worked with some really great people!

Even when I was just a (supposedly lowly) intern, in a (supposedly parochial) country where I did not speak the language, there were these guys who were super friendly, considerate and helpful! While I did not value all this at the time, I really am quite touched to read those emails again as the memories come flooding back! Really, there is so much more to life than the pursuit of money and constant compromises to achieve this pursuit. Work is something we all do, and a enabling work environment really does wonders for productivity and efficiency. In my earlier avatar as a management consultant, I was (ironically!) very cynical about this mythical beast called the 'culture' of an organization. I now think it matters tremendously more than I thought. And that it exists in a good form very very rarely!

Note to self: Try to spend the rest of my days in the pursuit of happiness, and not moolah!

Amazing what some old emails can do!

Wise and Otherwise

The wife picked up this book by Sudha Murty last week. I've been reading it, and its contents make me wonder a bit at how removed I am from the pulse of the our country. For those who do not know, Sudha Murty is the wife of one of Infosys' founders and runs the Infosys Foundation, a charitable and social organization.

The book itself is very easy reading, with short 'stories' each commenting upon some idiosyncratic aspect of life in the real India. It is easy to get moved by the plight in these stories of the common person in India, grappling with poverty, social pressures and ills and yet maintaining a stoic and dignified attitude. That said, the book is not heavy at all (something I had feared) and has a liberal dose of light moments.

For me the real story was the kind of transformational work being done by the foundation and the amazingly simple and direct approach of the author. It is easy to see after reading this book why Infosys is a real revolution, and why it (and its founding philosophy) will survive forever. It is easy to throw money at charity or social work (something I've been guilty of) but difficult to devote all one's time, efforts and skills at it. This is the real greatness of the author and the foundation.

I'm going to stop shorting Infosys as a mark of respect. The company has a wonderful future!

I'm very pissed...

...with my bank (hypothetical situation). What do I do?

I ask the bank for compensation for my ire.

How much? One lakh? Ten lakhs? One crore? Hundred crore? One million crore?

Or a sextillion? (i.e one followed by 21 zeros)?

Not enough? How about ten sextillion?

Yeah! that sounds good! Ten sextillion then, is what this gentleman decided!

To call this absurd is akin to saying that Mallika Sherawat is ugly. i.e. highly understated!!!

When melancholy strikes...

...one remembers some old time poignant movies. E.g.

1. Ijaazat: The story of a couple and how they discover each other when its too late. For the story click here
2. Parinda: The story of two brothers and how fate intervenes to tear them apart. For story, click here
3. One of the all time greats: The English Patient. Lyrical, forbidden love which is doomed. How humanity transcends nationality. Story here
4. On the Waterfront. I could'a been a contender. I could'a been somebody! Story here

The common theme running in these classics is that of loneliness. Terrifying, slow loneliness. Attractive, alluring loneliness.

Very good interview

To complete the troika of bad, good and best, here is the final quote from the same website (but a different analyst):

Q: What do you do now for someone who has been left out in this rally for the past couple of months?

A: Conventional wisdom would suggest that as more and more people who have been left out get frustrated, they get sucked into the market and when the last of them gets sucked in that is when this market will break. Having said that, for me it has been a period of frustration, we are now less in cash than we were earlier much against my better judgement. We are clearly not looking at new ideas, at new stocks but adding a little bit to existing stocks in the midcap space which were looking cheap earlier, which are still looking cheap. My fundamental sense still tells me that there are too many dichotomies in this market, in this purely liquidity led. On the one hand you have consumer price inflation running away with itself but nobody believes that interest rates will go up. Commodity prices are heading higher but nobody believes that global economic recovery will suffer. The world has been through its worst economic crisis over the last twelve to fifteen months but everyone believes that the worst is over. The party is now well and truly on. I don’t think we are going to find too many people coming onto your channel and saying the next band is down. Everyone is saying that the next band is up and rightfully so because a lot of levels have been taken out. But this is a dichotomy. China is another huge imponderable here, three or four months ago, everyone was saying that Chinese growth will bailout the global economy but today China seems to be slowing down. But the view of the world has not changed. It is like one should not worry about China, everything will be fine. It is like the question you asked about the monsoon a little while earlier. The monsoon has not recovered but one should not worry, everything is fine, this market will go up. So that is the mood and it is the liquidity that is driving this mood and who are you or I to buck that trend.

And this is how it should be done...

This is a different guy on the same question:

Q: What about Tata Motors, can the current price be justified? Are you revising your price targets there?

A: Fundamentally, it’s difficult to recommend buying Tata Motors at these levels. First of all the biggest chunk of revenue at about 65-70% still comes from JLR which is geared to the US and Western European markets. That revenue and earnings stream remains quite unpredictable so there is this huge degree of variability in the earnings forecast for Tata Motors. With that kind of a risk I think, these valuations may not be justified at the current levels. In the auto’s side, there are far better opportunities which have a far steadier earnings stream and a lesser degree of risk associated with the business which one can buy. It’s difficult to recommend a risky earnings stream at high valuations at this point in time.

This is a decent answer - the guy talks about headwinds for the company, says that financial performance is difficult to predict, and that a risky earnings stream trading at high valuations is not to be recommended. Anyone who buys after this knows that she is taking a pure punt. This is what a good analyst should do.

What is bullsh***ing 'analyst'

Just read this 'expert' on business channel CNBC's website. I quote:

Tata Motors a good buy?

Betadpur said, it was difficult to figure out a valuation for Tata Motors. “We have looked at the street estimates. It is all over the place as far as earnings per share (EPS) for 2011, our own numbers are around Rs 20 and we can give it a 30 multiple and that gives you Rs 600 - 30 multiple seems a little too much but that is where we are. If we say everything goes well for the stock, Jaguar-LandRover picks up by 2011, that is generating a lot of cash flow for the company and the EPS goes from our current estimates 20 to 30 and then you give it a 30 multiple, you get to Rs 900-1,000 target. That is what some people on the street are saying that Tata Motors can get to Rs 1,000. That is how we believe on the numbers but I don’t think everything is going to go positive for this company. “

What a jerk!!

1) He is not saying anything

2) He is not even providing any justification for his dumbass arguments - why should it trade at 30 times? What will make EPS increase 50%? Cash flow does not equate EPS. So what specifically will make EPS rise? What about the debt overhang? What about historical valuations?

Jokers like this really get my goat. And what business does CNBC have putting such brain-dead pretenders on air? The irony is that about 20,000 people would have read this and will call their brokers tomorrow with orders to buy Tata Motors, saying they have heard (on authority) that it will soon touch Rs 1000!!

They deserve the slaughtering they are going to get!

PS: I have nothing against Tata Motors. I think they make damn good SUVs!!

Mo' on co-bro

Suggestions from Icon-o-blast:

Coveted brother

Colossal brother

Concocted brother

Convoluted brother

Constipated brother

Conundrum-like brother

Follow up from me:

Contrarian brother

Copulating brother

Desi English?

Heard today - "He is my co-brother".

wtf??

What is a co-brother? Is it a shortened version of cousin brother? In that case why no co-bro? Or is it colleague who is thick as a brother? I was bursting to ask, but politely nodded in sage understanding instead.

Ah, the eternal mystery of life!

To no purpose...

Bored and missing the wife (she is off to her parents for a few days), I sit brooding about the general direction of my life. Office occupies roughly 70% of my weekdays, but I find work and office trivial and trite - it strikes me as funny to see other people make the same mistakes as I did and not get penalized even a tenth. I no longer feel rage at the unfairness of it all. I just look at it as a chore that I must finish - the results do not interest me.

Movies and entertainment bore me. Of the dozen or so movie channels that I see on my overpriced DTH satellite service, I can find exactly zero that are playing movies of any interest. The less I say about the trash broadcast on the general entertainment channels the better - if I were dictator for a day I would just ban the whole lot of them (and throw their content directors into dungeons to boot). Ekta Kapoor would be tortured and then exiled forever.

I have finished reading the Perry Mason that I've put off for close to a week, and I dont feel like getting started on George Soros' new book. It looks ponderous and preachy, and I'm not in the mood for that.

I dont feel like researching any stocks. I have run out of money to bung into the market.

I cannot do household chores - it is not efficient for me to do so now. I cannot run the washing machine since the clothes line is full of wet clothes. I cannot run the dishwasher since it does not have a 100% load. I have heated and eaten dinner, made and drunk tea. I have had a couple of chocolates. Nothing more for me to do.

I dont feel like browsing the internet. I will visit the same sites again and again.

I feel like speaking to a few friends - but they are probably asleep at this hour.

Life certainly seems pretty empty right now! I need a hobby.

(I enjoy writing this blog though! Finally!!)

You scratch my back I'll scratch yours

The Business Standard carried this op-ed piece yesterday. It brought to the fore what one already feels in one's bones - we are a nation of insidious insiders. We operate on the philosophy of you-scratch-my-back-i'll-scratch-yours; justice, national interest and fair play be damned. Sample this
- we have 55 billionaires for every trillion $ of gdp (more than the US, approx. 3 times Germany and approximately 3.5 times Brazil). The only country that exceeds us is Russia, and we all know that that country is run by crooks.
- the fact that most (27, to be exact) of our elected 'youth' politicians are the sons / daughters / nephews or brothers-in-law of other politicos.

The article in question raises some probing questions into the national soap opera being played out right now - the ugly saga of the 2 brothers - and its repercussions on national energy security. Had it not been for the younger brother being peeved (and rightfully so, in my opinion!) with not getting what was promised to him, no one would have raised some pertinent questions on the way the gas - a national resource - is being priced.

The way the contract works is quite simple - the gas belongs to India, and the contractor (RIL in this case) is compensated for the capital expenditure incurred and operating expenses in extracting the gas via a revenue share on the gas sold. Obviously, the contractor has an incentive to pad capital costs, since this enables recovery of more revenues from the government. This conflict is supposed to be contained via a review mechanism where a 4 member committee approves the capex. Now, the fact is that the capex per cc of gas DOUBLED in 2 years (from 2004 to 2006) . The 4 wise men who stamped this were found to be related (indirectly, of course) to RIL and sister concerns. The government's independent verifying arm, the CAG, has publicly said that it has not been given access to the contractor's data for the last 18 months, despite asking for it repeatedly!

If this is not bad enough, the oil ministry is siding quite openly in the legal process with one side of the litigants. While there is nothing wrong in this, the rub comes here - it is also openly hurting the interests of NTPC, another national company and our largest power producer. The country’s top law officials, the Attorney General and the Solicitor General have openly criticised Deora’s ministry for having hobbled the public NTPC from pursuing its legal battle against RIL.

It is not my case to take sides in the gas dispute - legality aside, it seems to me that the national interest would be served better by NOT honouring the contract between RIL and RNRL. However, I do think that we need a lot more scrutiny and a lot more transparency to prevent India from turning into another oligarchic banana republic.

Ferozeshah Kotla

Early one morning, a few of us landed up at the ruins of the citadel of Ferozeshah in New Delhi. Some pics (courtesy Anjaani Manzil):