History repeats itself ...

Six Summers back in 2001
I was working here...Mumbai
Close to this same place...Nariman Point
Almost on the same topic...Mutual Funds
Bouyant with the same emotions...Experience of a lifetime!

An International Connection
never fails to have a local influence
One Simple e-mail changed my life forever
....Almost!

Here i am again
in the same circumstances...
sitting infront of my computer screen
pondering over an email...!

Have i travelled back in time?
Has nothing changed in the past six years?
Does everything have to come down to this very moment!

I dont wish to be shattered again
Define "Again"
I know i can get through this feeling...
Its just one of those days...
when the seas are rough...and your mast is stuck!

But i have a very long way to go...
And i cannot go ahead in this way!
I need to take some decisions...
or else,
History will repeat itself

AGAIN
Define "Again"

Five out of Eight over...

Close to 5 weeks over for the MIP
3 more weeks of work...
1 more week of rest at home...
...and then,
the story continues!

Jaage hain...

Jaage hain der tak hamein
Kuch der sone do
Thodi si raat aur hai
Subaah toh hone do

Aadhe adhoore khaab jo
Poore na ho sake
Ek baar phir se neend mein
Who khaab bone do

- Gulzar in Guru

My mood swings...in pics!

(Waiting to walk out of...walk into...)


('Treasure'eeeeeeeeee....One amongst Many!)


(She's gone...) SOB SOB


(Unplugged)


(Let me take you there...)


(Don't have anything else to pawn!)


(Been there,Done that)


(I make my own lines!)


(Being Myself in race here...)


(Destiny under construction at MIP)



Source: Deviant Art, Not me!!

Alive

Son, she said, have I got a little story for you
What you thought was your daddy was nothin but a...
While you were sittin home alone at age thirteen
Your real daddy was dyin, sorry you didnt see him, but Im glad we talked...

Oh i, oh, Im still alive
Hey, i, i, oh, Im still alive
Hey i, oh, Im still alive
Hey...oh...

Oh, she walks slowly, across a young mans room
She said Im ready...for you
I cant remember anything to this very day
cept the look, the look...
Oh, you know where, now I cant see, I just stare...

I, Im still alive
Hey i, but, Im still alive
Hey i, boy, Im still alive
Hey i, i, i, Im still alive, yeah
Ooh yeah...yeah yeah yeah...oh...oh...

Is something wrong, she said
Well of course there is
Youre still alive, she said
Oh, and do I deserve to be
Is that the question
And if so...if so...who answers...who answers...

I, oh, Im still alive
Hey i, oh, Im still alive
Hey i, but, Im still alive
Yeah i, ooh, Im still alive
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah


- Pearl Jam

Ode to my family

Understand the things I say, don't turn away from me,
'Cause I've spent half my life out there, you wouldn't disagree.
Do you see me? Do you see? Do you like me?
Do you like me standing there? Do you notice?
Do you know? Do you see me? Do you see me?
Does anyone care?

Unhappiness where's when I was young,
And we didn't give a damn,
'Cause we were raised,
To see life as fun and take it if we can.
My mother, my mother,
She hold me, she hold me, when I was out there.
My father, my father,
He liked me, oh, he liked me. Does anyone care?

Understand what I've become, it wasn't my design.
And people ev'rywhere think, something better than I am.
But I miss you, I miss, 'cause I liked it,
'Cause I liked it, when I was out there. Do you know this?
Do you know you did not find me. You did not find.
Does anyone care?

Unhappiness where's when I was young,
And we didn't give a damn,
'Cause we were raised,
To see life as fun and take it if we can.
My mother, my mother,
She hold me, she hold me, when I was out there.
My father, my father,
He liked me, oh, he liked me.

Does anyone care?...

- Cranberries

Should i or should i?

Fountainhead!

Me!

Here she goes again...write about Me,
And i do so for thee!

A mind so free
Like a lonely tree
A heart to care
Seldom to share

Buildings, Structures, Interiors
Juggling between careers
On the lines of a Fountainhead
On paths we dread

All the best
Dont care so much about the rest!!

This city is DRIVING me crazy...!!

(Source: Not Mine)

A walk down Marine Drive...Second time...experiences of a lifetime!

Still wondering about the treasures inside...!! ;)

A Mumbai get together...of sorts!

Hemanth, Manish & I...Badmaashi et al!

Someday we will be (Shambhavi in the loop too) great Advertisers...Ads for Otis and IBM are ready!!! Models ready too...!!

"YOU NEVER NOTICED...WE MOVED!"

Yeah....

Karen's Model

Factors that affect the stock price of a company...BIIIG picture!!

Garfield strips made on some special days...

1st Sept 2001 (Keep Guessing!!)



25 March 1982 (Budday time)



19 October 1981 (Its that time of the year again...)

The First Garfield Cartoon Ever...1978

The Unreasonable Man

(Another Boring Article for Promit...this time not on Finance!!)

This sounds like Winston Churchill or John Kenneth Galbraith. Actually, it is George Bernard Shaw, the playwright and a founder-member of the London School of Economics, who was himself an unreasonable man. The greater the number of unreasonable men in a society, the faster is its progress. All great scientists are unreasonable men; so are great social and political reformers. Gandhi was very much an unreasonable man. But it is his unreason that helped us oust the British within 30 years of Gandhi's arrival in India from South Africa. And he had nothing to his name when he died, only an old watch, a spinning wheel, a chappal and dhoti.



Albert Einstein too was the most unreasonable man. He was turned out of school because he was weak in mathematics, but also because he asked too many awkward questions about the universe, which in the end he turned upside down. The westerners have always had their share of unreasonable men, which is why they have dominated the world for the last so many centuries. Their scientists and engineers always asked awkward questions, something we Indians are told not to do. We are also taught to treat our teachers as demi-gods and to behave respectfully before them. But that is not what they are told to do in the West.



When I first attended my class in London, immediately after the war, I was amazed at the way British students behaved in the class. They not only interrupted the teachers and argued with them all the time but also put their feet on the desk and smoked in the class, yes, smoked, right in front of the teacher. In India, neither the teacher not the pupils smoked in class. We were all very reasonable men.



There was not a single business or management school in England when I was there. We studied either social sciences or pure sciences, and only one college in London taught engineering. There was a time when almost all senior officers from the ICS, the so-called steel frame of India, came from Cambridge or Oxford where they learned Latin and Greek, but very little engineering or sciences, and ultimately they found they simply could not cope with the fast changes taking place in India. Ultimately they had to wind up the show and return to England.



Now there are management schools by the score in England, but the managers they produce now manage foreign companies, for there are few British firms left to manage. All the great British companies have vanished. A company like ICI or Imperial Chemicals, once a great chemical company, manned by scientists and engineers, has sold all its plants and refineries and makes only paint. Now, they have no scientists, only managers, who, almost by definition, are reasonable men, which means conformists, and unable to think outside the box.



We need unreasonable men as badly as living organisms need oxygen. We have lots of men who can buy foreign companies but very few who can design and set up now plants from scratch, invent new technologies and come up with new products, instead of copycat companies who do what foreign companies have been doing for years and claim these products as their own. How long can we go on copying the West? Only reasonable men are happy imitating others!
By Jay Dubashi (ValueResearchOnline)

Here i am...Here i work !!

My MIP workplace...

State Bank Bhavan, State Bank of India,
Madame Cama Road, Nariman Point, Mumbai

This is what it looks like from outside!





This is what Mumbai looks like from the inside...inside Treasury Dealing Room!




...and this is the Dealing Room, Treasury...one of its kind in the country!





...and a closer closer look at the Equity Desk!!!





The game is of Volumes here...We make or break the market!!!
Money Market Quotations run on our quotes...Debt Portfolio is the largest in India!
Forex, OIS, Derivatives...you name it and its here!!

What does churn indicate?

The markets seems to have found their firepower again and are galloping, and the charisma of equities which refuses to die has been so intense that even the most conservative of investors have not hesitated to take a call on the markets. The money has flown in the markets from all the quarters and as fallout the assets under management of the mutual fund industry have also demonstrated spectacular growth.

The focus in India has always been skewed towards active management of funds be in terms of stock selection or active buying and selling, and this active fund management to an extent has been reflected in the fund performance too. However investment theories invariably favors the benefits of long term investing as true value unlocking of any holding happens over a long period of time whereas, on the other hand frequent churning increases the expenses in terms of brokerage and taxes and thus lower returns.
This raises the question that should an investor prefer a fund that trades frequently or choose one that takes a long term call and stick to its holdings for a longer time. Portfolio turnover ratio assumes importance here as it provides some meaningful information on the fund’s investment strategy. It is defined as the lesser of securities sold or purchased during a year divided by the average of daily net assets. A ratio of 100% means that fund changes its portfolio once over the year.

Given that long term investing is the best way to take advantage of equities, the factors that really induce portfolio churning are the style of investing and the prevailing market conditions. Investment managers often point that given the volatile trends in Indian market and extensive potential of equities portfolio churning is indispensable. For example, if the markets are booming and the fund has achieved its targeted return then it may prefer to churn its portfolio and invest in some more defensive stocks than it otherwise would have. Similarly if the markets are rangebound changing the portfolio composition may help to realize better gains.
Another important factor not to be ignored is market sentiments, which often forces fund managers to include momentum picks in their portfolio and however this a short-term strategy but nonetheless it adds to the churning rate. Also factors like unexpected redemption and change in fundamentals of the company may influence the fund manger to offload the securities. At the same time correction in the market provides them the significant opportunity to buy the stocks and deploy surplus cash if any which in turn impacts the portfolio turnover ratio.

So the question whether active churning of the portfolio is detrimental to the overall health of the portfolio or is it the ‘buy and hold’ strategy that enhances the return is not clearly evidenced from the facts analyzed. In practice long term investing always meant staying invested in a stock through thick and thin, though in today’s market it requires courage and skill to hold on to stocks for a longer time. As there is no fixed formula and what really works best for the investors is difficult to ascertain, but the fact can not be overlooked that portfolio churning does not come free of the cost as churning adds to the expenses and is often not a small component and may subdue fund’s returns especially when the markets are not booming.
At the end fund manager must be able to strike the right balance between churn and performance. If the fund has unusually high turnover ratio which is not justified by the performance a fund that has been rightly able to do so should be preferred. Churn the fund if it undertakes excessive churn and returns are not rewarding.

Although there is no direct correlation between portfolio turnover and performance, and high churning rate does not necessarily translates into better performance, but what it does mean is high costs for the fund. Therefore, an investor holding a fund with high turnover rate is justified in feeling that he should he compensated in terms of returns for all the extra costs that the fund is incurring. Over time, portfolio turnover rate becomes an important number to look out for while selecting a fund and informed investors will be well advised to look for best of both the worlds.


Does churn indicate best performance?

Source: MutualfundsIndia.com