Mahant!

A very good representation of virtuous and vicious cycle of innovation.

Global liquidity does not get destroyed, it simply moves from one place to another. The illiquidity in money markets has simply seen liquidity sit on the sidelines but beyond this there is the focus on the bigger global liquidity pool. From Asia it went to the TMT (Technology Media & Telecommunications) sector and from here it went into the asset backed market and now I think it will end up in Asian equities and commodities. From Commonwealth Research report

Just an attempt at visualization going by Flowing Data blog. I realize it is not 'professional' but just an attempt nevertheless.

Came across this article an interesting take on Ratio. Nothing insightful but gives you a definite picture / visualization of the ratio. But my favorite part is this: The second stage of this bull market will probably be characterized by a huge ‘silver catch up’. Using the word 'will' is definitely accurate, as it was not the case up to this moment of the second stage of this bull market. Its not that he gave a very good insight on silver movement but the fact he showed wisdom in highlighting the "will". Thats a huge difference. I routinely come across reports from mortals who use 'will' like as if future was their dad's property.

I have often looked back at the how miraculous our freedom fighters were. The passion with which unarmed prople took on the empire. I have often wondered what I would have done, if I was born then. How will have contributed to that or contributed at all. But I am sure I would have taken good part in the freedom fighting movement, though how is a figment of imagination. If I have have such ideal aspirations why is that I cannot or do not anything for the society now. Whenever the thought of freedom fighter comes across, it also brings along the question who would I have followed? Mahatma Gandhi? Subash Chandra Bose? Vallabhai Patel? Bhagat Singh? Bal Gangadhar Tilak? Jawaharlal Nehru? Aruna Asaf Ali? Sarojini Naidu? or so many thousands of leaders who lead agitation big and small. Who would have ignited my mind to take up the chants for motherland? Under whose inspirational leadership would I have martyred for liberation of motherland? Cut to present, whom do we have to follow? hmmm.......

Monsoons are here and just at the time monsoons showers hit Indian heartland, Indian markets seem to have rekindled hope. Its very early to say the markets have turned back and the low of 12800 will stand. The way it looks, it may probably stand for some time. The MACD of index is turning positive though it is still in negative territory. [Interpretation: MACD turning positive in a negative territory does not mean the asset is bullish, it just means the negativity is completed and we may see positiveness moving forward. This usually triggers a good bout of short covering which spurts the prices initially. Conventionally, bullishness can only be confirmed when the indicators move into positive territory.] I have given you my take on MACD interpretation and going by that we are still in 'corrective' rally. This 'corrective rally' (I hate this jargonish word, btw) is recovery from the fall than a start of the new rally. The confirmation of new rally would come from re-test...

It’s a relief of sorts that markets finally realized the sub-prime crisis is not over. The fact is the dirt accumulated over the years is not going to be washed away as soon as newspapers forget them. Out of headlines does not mean problem-solved. Sub-prime remains the biggest of all the financial risk possibilities, more than inflation, because nobody knows which bank is next on the line and if the financial system will be able to digest these near-bankruptcies scares quite well. The last estimates from Bloomberg quotes about $391billion write downs due to sub-prime. This is certainly not the end. It was speculated at WEF, Davos that total amount of $1trillion may need to be written off from the banking system books. That’s still $609billion away. So, how and when is this $609billion going to be written off? My guess, in a much orchestrated fashion with Fed helping out the bankers clean up their closet with tax-payers money. Fed does not have a choice. Tax-payer, as always is be...

A friend sent me couple of photographs showing couple of boys rescuing a dog. At first I thought it was cute. It took a minute to understand. This wasn’t as simple as it looked. It was indeed A Great Rescue Operation (as the email was titled). It is possible that boys did not know swimming or the currents were too strong there - else they might have taken the dive. In this context this rescue achieves great proportion. If this is not worth noting here, then nothing else is!

US Govt seems to be a maze of amazing nonsense, here have a look at this: "The US government is putting a hold on new solar energy projects on public land for two years so it can study the environmental impact of sun-driven plants. The Bureau of Land Management says the moratorium on solar proposals is needed to determine how a new generation of large-scale projects could affect plants and wildlife on the land it manages." From : Telegraph

Pictures from a different blog

The technological innovations are happening on an exponential curve. If you understand what this means, you will never look at future in the same way. The technology as we know it will see hundreds of generations within our lifetime. What we buy, use and are used to will be totally different and obsolete in a very short time. Contrary to what one may expect the per capita energy consumption is likely to rise many folds over next few decades. The innovations though will come in the way we produce this energy. We now know what can be produced and have a blue print of that, it is just a matter of time we can hit the innovation curve. Innovations in renewable energy have not been high on the list because of no investments going in to its research. With the focus shifting back to them, the RE energy innovations are likely to hit booster button and the costs associated with these energies are going to decrease exponentially. One such IEA estimate is given below.

The chart of sensex is trending very nicely to the downside but there are many reasons to believe that the easy downside is almost over. The level of 12500 assumes critical importance as it is the support for many reasons not detailed here. The breach of level of 12500 has potential of taking it to 11500, I assume in more spiky fashion. The pundits are calling for 10000 level index, which I am not ruling out, but I do not see that happening in this wave. There are lots of falling gaps which if not closed will be a pain in the neck for a long long time. We also have to take into account the selling that will come at the higher prices and the accumulation at these levels will need a long time to complete. More time sensex stays below the levels of 15000 more the chance 10000 is hit.

Bullet-point abuse: The only place where a person can legally plunge bullet after bullet into your head is in a presentation room. If you in corporate world you would have undoubtedly experienced it. Presenters’ sometimes use multiple levels of bullets, and when the limit is crossed the experience becomes worse than a Chinese torture. So, when does a bullet-point use become bullet-point abuse? There can be no clear demarcation. Bullet-points have becomes such a routine exercise, that the very importance attached to bullet-points is extinct. On the contrary, we are on the other side of the curve, where use of bullet points may signify the lack of any significant points to communicate! Even if we had strong content to communicate, it could easily be drowned in the sea of obscurity. Cliff Atkinson, who wrote Beyond Bullet Points, gives a very interesting analogy. For more than 100 years films have communicated and held audience in rapt attention, again and again, wit...

The outsourcing/offshoring is an inevitable flattening of earth (oh, such a cliché!) The telecommunication networks have become so powerful; it is immaterial if a person we are communicating with is in next room or 1000 miles apart. The communication has brought people together. And companies are an association of people coming together to achieve a certain commercial objective. With the death of distance, people from across the world can join the team and work together. This comity of people, a century in making, is seeing its first light of impact in real world. The most visible aspect is offshoring of jobs to other nations. The involvement of each component of teams, who will be virtual and location would be irrelevant, would increase in future. The cursory changes or realigning of productivity, for the next step in productivity, is what we have seen now. The major changes and realignment is when the critical activities of company operations can be implemented without any ...

Billions of dollars are spent on research funding that has no use or some insane use. How many times have you come across some insane researcher giving you statistics that are absolutely useless? Malaria on the other hand is one the biggest killers in tropical countries. It causes one to three million deaths each year and it is safe to assume these are underreported by a large margin. There are about 500 million reported cases each year. The indirect costs of these losses of life and health in Africa are estimated to be $12billion per year. Even though with high impact cost the global research spend on Malaria was $323million (2004). 50% of these funds came from just two entities US NIAID and Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. 90% of the global grant was funded by just 12 entities including the above two. Even though considering its enormous influence on tropical countries Malaria research is on backburner. The prime reason for this is probably the lack of aware...