Rise and Fall of Sensex, and the 'analysts' in between

Circa 2008. January 10.

The world is falling flat at India's toes. Atleast this is what our great analysts on CNBC are talking. Sensex is floating above 20k (yes, that 'k' actually means thousand) and each jaggu, maggu and mallu (india's tom dick n harrys) are clamoring to put their new year salaries into the Grandest Circus on earth - the Indian Stock Market. Sensex touches 21000, and next target is 30000, 'announces' CNBC.

Same year. January 18.

Its hardly been a week that every warren buffet of the world wanted to invest in India...or so said our Anal-ysts! And the circus has played its trick...its magician jokers turned the tables and suddenly every new entrant in the circus has lost his shirt (or pants too...depending on the stock). Sensex closes at 19000. And this is just the beginning. Analysts predict a bounce back to atleast 25k in near term. Don't panic, hold your positions guys. What will FIIs earn if you too start selling, huh!

Same year. March 17.

2 months since the inevitable bounce-back was predicted, and the clouds just get gloomier. Sensex is 14.8k. Blame the 'global cues'...says - who else but- CNBC!

The story goes on till today, Oct 14, when we are floating in the range of 10-11k. And suddenly analysts have started to double check their script before reading it out on tv, coz maybe we are still 2 days away from bottom, and it might be too early to predict bounce back till 20k. Wait till Oct 16! :)

All this reminds me of an adage a read somewhere...

"...There are 2 golden rules of stock market...

Rule no. 1: For every analysis, there is equal and opposite analysis.

Rule no. 2: Both are wrong

..."

Enjoy trading. Its humor, if nothing else.

Whats a 'must buy' when you are in US on a B1

B1 visa i mean. If someone had an issue getting that (or took B1 as some WW-II fighter plane), very immodest to say, but you wont really find any value-add reading through rest of this post.

Anywhichway, crux of this post of mine to share my choice of electronics with all those gadget-freaks out there, who are on their 3-month dream-ish trip to the land of best gadgets on this planet. Just to clarify, I said B1 because mostly guys on short-term trip have the energy, excitement and early return plans which means the stuff they buy using their hard-saved dollars, wont go stale by the time they land up in India.

To start with, here are my picks:

Koss KSC75 Headsphones

http://www.amazon.com/Koss-KSC75-Portable-Stereophone-Headphones/dp/B0006B486K

You like music. You like quality sound. And you understand you should not be asked to rob a bank to get these together. If its so, you cannot go wrong with this pair of headphones. Costing some 11$, they are one of the cheapest (in terms of money) and *best* souding cans in the market. Believe me, you will feel new beats coming out of the same music you would have been listening for months now. I felt that. And hence got 2 of them with me, coz as u can guess, these are not yet available in India.

Sony 8-device Universal Remote

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-RM-VL600-8-DEVICE-Universal-Learning/dp/B000F7JCRA/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5108594-5402263?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1190558161&sr=1-1


Though many people haven't experienced a universal remote...still its one thing which should be classified as one of the most useful gadget any house can use. It allows you to "make it learn" commands from various remotes and then allows you to - guess what - throw all of them, coz once this is in hand, you will switch your TV on an off, bring your dvd player and home theater to life, lesses the temp. of room AC etc., all through this one magic thing. Love it. Costing just 20$, love it even more!

More coming on later.........

Who is the boss!

Precisely at 14:15 hours Eastern-time on Sept. 18 in US of A, money.cnn.com representative announced - Fed cuts rate by 50 basis points. And behold, who got affected? Wall street nerds? Lehman Brothers' equity experts?? or maybe, around a million software developers back in India?? Say that again! Indian coders, who at 23:45 their time, normally would be having a drink at a bar or taking a hard night sleep, are eyes wide open for this dry a stuff (fed is not definitely non-boring)! Yup, today they were awake, desperately pressing F5 to get latest news on if Fed is going to do something to bail out US economy out of mortgage mess.

But why were they bothered?

Because US economy means jobs for atleast 65% of those million. It goes down, and the scarier-than-WW III clouds, something akin to 2001 recession, start filling minds of these nimble souls. But why blame them. Everyone from ugly Indian Left to weirdo european peace-nickers to lead-overdosed chinese manufacturers may frown upon the US, but any given day none of them could breathe comfortably without the financial engine of planet gushing in full speed. And in the process, continuing to tease the whole world with one single question - who is the boss!

I am sure the answer is not that tough to guess (unless ofcourse you are the president :-)