Hedgies are not dead .... not yet.

http://www.iimagazine.com/Alpha/Articles/2165684/TODAY/Brother,_Can_You_Spare_a_Billion?.html

Inspite of the stupendous losses that the markets have seen (a year of great learning as a colleague puts it) a few fund managers have made staggering amount of money. On average $474 million. Awesome. Someone should put out a number on funds that went down.

Mr Obama are we going to regulate this next?

Next story about their lifestyles? Voyeurism at its best.

RBI cuts rates!!

I have been tied up a bit - but this rate cut by RBI is very very intriguing. By clearly signaling that they want to keep the window of rate cuts only for the next crisis only a few days ago, the RBI has done an about turn and cut key rates. The cuts are even more baffling considering the comfortable liquidity position of the system and by now it has become pretty clear that interest rate cuts will not lead to increase in lending by banks.

In terms of monetary actions there is nothing that this cut would do unless there is expectation that govt. borrowing would suck out all liquidity from the market. Or more likely is the this a politically forced bailout to stimulate the now dead real estate market.

None of the commentators I have read have called for a rate cut. What is going to happen?

1) A large scale govt. borrowing program
2) Calls for banks to reduce lending rates (whether they lend or not is a different matter). Having recently seen the benefits of the PM s scheme to build local roads I am convinced you are better off putting money into people s hands that way.
3) Rupee under further downward pressure.

Interesting times.

What is the reason for the optimism?

Been traveling and working late the last few days. There seems to be a muted optimism in the markets, almost as if people expect a breakout. I am not very good at this predicting thing, so lets see what has been dished out.

A flurry of positive news
1) We did (will do) 7.1% growth apparently, what grew that much you might want to ask?
2) The Govt. will announce a new stimulus plan on Feb 16th, they have a lot of room to play with the interest rates how far will they go and how soon
3) Implied change in FDI classification, I mean implied because the fine print is what determines the validity of any of these announcements
4) A host of real estate firms have rolled on their debt, falling interest rates hence are making home owners come back
5) The worst is over, Q 3 is possibly one of the worst ever quarter, but you cant really go down on earnings from here

US collapsed yesterday, but India (along withe Asia actually) held pretty strong. Deal flow seems to be pretty good and fund managers seem to be more inclined to listen to stories.

Everybody is a friggin realist now. Bhalue is king.

5 lakh jobless; Stats and wicked stats

Sample size of 2581 units covering 20 centres across 11 states was taken up for the survey. Eight major sectors like textile and garment industry, metals and metal products, Information Technology and BPO, automobiles, gems & jewellery, transportation, construction and mining industries were also included in the survey.

5 lakh? ~0.04% ? Not a chance, must be way higher. Ports are at a standstill, house construction has stopped (when was the last time you heard of someone you know buying a house), auto sales/CV sales are down, bank disbursements are down, industrial productivity is flat, tax collections are down....

This should be seen as to be in the category of the "quick" estimate released by the Central Statistical Organization (they have two revisions from their first numbers - this is the first revision). GDP will still grow spectacularly. Election tactic? Not so sure. Heard that the 'noodle strap' agitation is being done in national interest, if you wear more cloth it will mean more employment in the textile industry. In the same vein the well draped Sushma Swaraj is going to ask all of us to wear more, now that she is not contesting.

Anil Bhai and Mukesh bhai, all their 'refined' and 'power'ful troubles not withstanding are still close the top of the Forbes list... among other news.

It takes great courage to cry....

In what turned out to be an extraordinary ending to an extraordinary Australian open, Fed Ex, the great Fed Ex broke down. Federer - the expressionless almost cold demolisher. Match after match, game after game, tournament after tournament Fed Ex played his impersonal game. Till he faced his counter at the other side (both are of the gentlemen kinds tho'), a guy who knows his limitations, a physical player and a guy who has nerves of steel.

"God, it killing me", he said and then he started crying. He could not stop it even if his life depended on it. I guess modern sport is unforgiving, putting you under the scanner. Every single shot analyzed. Every statistic replayed. And then there were the records. When you ve lost the chance to make it to the history books, it becomes lonely.

Was Nadal into his psyche - making his task near impossible? Was it being so close to greatness? Was it just the reaction because he blew it, this time more than any time ever in his 13 defeats. It was his match to lose after all, and he lose he did. Spectacularly falling apart in the final set. Why could nt he, arguably the greatest player ever effectively conquer his only true competitor? What more could he do?


Some week it was? Murray and Djokovic - the new entrants to the drama were blown apart. The French Triplet (or how many ever there are) Tsonga, Monfils, Simon all played their part. Verdasco stopped everybody in their tracks and he seemingly should have taken out Nadal too - he hit 90+ winners in that epic match. That match was atleast 2 notches above the tennis quality of the final and Nadal had stood his ground.

Thats precisely what you love Nadal for. His sheer will, his game honed through enormous practice and a steely determination and his superstitions. Banana, bottles, undie .... and the guy is a sportsman. Nobody will ever doubt that Fed Ex is possibly the greatest tennis player of all time --- its only unfortunate that he has to face Rafa Nadal the greatest tennis athlete ever seen.
I thought after winning the US, Federer would regain his confidence. Thats not to be...

National award for Shakeela please

Whats the criterion for selection of the Padma awardees one may ask? It’s a topic that raises questions repeatedly, it is by the way our money that is being spent for the awards. Maybe we should use RTI to find out what exactly goes through.

This year atleast a few blokes must have been easy: you can beat Kazakhs and Cubans as Sushil and Vijender did but that would mean little to the organizers. You need to have a life time full of achievements like that of an Akshay Kumar who s made a khiladi of generations of Indian s and our very own death knell of acting, that 27^th wonder of India, Mrs Bachan, not the older one, but Aishwarya. Other notable awardees include the Tamil comdedian Vivek for his outstanding contribution to the mirth in Tam land.

I think in the same breath I propose to give a national award to Shakeela (imdb reference here, and maybe a posthumous reference to Silk Smitha) too, those beauties who have provided to large part of South Indian lands (or maybe South Indian xxxxx after the close sounding Hindi word). In an era where women were not seen in pubs (and hence did not get bashed up), the only (ok not the only) source of entertainment to those masses have been these two breath taking women. The horny southie (it progressed very fast across south of the vindhya s I am told) male s lust was quenched by banging the moth filled chair in some dingy theater (or his own home after all those channels started beaming them later) and more often than not the first introduction of the male to nirvana. For educating thousands, I hereby propose Shakeela name for national awards – lifetime contribution.

The other way to do this is for someone to stand up and say, “we give a damn to what you guys think about who should win awards, we will award them to whoever we please”. Maybe they already did and I did not listen. Too dense to understand about national honours.

PS: No offense to the actors mentioned...i mean Shakeela and Silk Smitha

Chart of the day (via bloomberg)

Bloomberg shows the attached chart on performance of banks in which the Govt. has bought in through TARP. They have lost 4 times more than the S&P.


How far will the fed go in its bailout?

Surreal, Dilbertesque.