“Nice to meet you. Just hold on for a second. I need to send an SMS to my husband.” My cousin and I stood there waiting. The girl, a manager with a private sector bank, busily tapped out a text message on her new iPhone. She was pretty slow with the typing, but we knew what was going on. She was just showing off her new Rs 30,000 iPhone – hot stuff for Alwar, a small town in Rajasthan where I grew up and which has a relatively … [Read more...]

Here is how the Indian stock markets have behaved over the past four months. I’ll skip the reasons for the same as you must have heard it somewhere (or everywhere). To say the past few months have been dreadful for investors is an understatement. But it is times like these that test your conviction in your stock picks or whether you want to sell it off and run for the hills. … [Read more...]

One event that catches attention of the investor community every three months is the monetary policy that is announced by the Indian central bank, the RBI… …like it did today when the RBI announced its quarterly review for the monetary policy for 2011-12. Every move the RBI makes, even if it is irrelevant to the long term performance of the Indian economy or financial markets, is dissected and discussed threadbare. Leave the RBI … [Read more...]

“You should always buy the stock of a good company.” In isolation, this seems a very valid statement. But look at this – “You should always buy the stock of a good company, whatever the price.” Now, this is a highly dangerous advice to give to someone. A great company can translate into a great investment. But all great companies do not translate into great investments. Confused? Well let me clarify. There is a business … [Read more...]

The reason that pain hurts is because it should. Pain is nature’s way of telling us to get out of harm's way. Like fever tells us that something’s not right inside of us and that we must take the necessary medication to avoid doing a greater harm to our body. This is also true when it comes to investing in stock markets. When the market moves and I'm losing money, I know it hurts. But more often than not, unlike in life, I would … [Read more...]

The BSE-Sensex is down almost 1,000 points over the past 3 days alone. Newspapers have started shouting out – “India, tottering and sputtering”. Some are calling this crash a “tragedy”, while there are others who are describing it as a “disaster” for investors. And then, of course, there are many who are predicting that the future is going to get worse and that investors must stay on the sidelines till the dark clouds … [Read more...]