Blog

Can we do a standstill pact with Mr. Market ?

—Feb 20, 2019 Recently there was news that some business houses had stitched a “standstill pact” with its lenders under which they will not sell any of the shares held as collateral for the period of 6-7 months. On a lighter note, the investors would be wishing that only if they could arrive at...Read More

Haar Kar Jeetne Wale Ko Baazigar Kehte Hai

— July 20, 2018   There is this epic dialogue in the Hindi movie –“Baazigar” – “Kabhi kabhi jeetne ke liye kuch haarna padta hai….aur haar kar jeetne wale ko baazigar kete hai”. Translated in English it means – “Sometimes to win you must be prepared to lose ….and the one who ends up...Read More

Aur Dikhao, Aur Dikhao

—May 9, 2018 Amazon India had a very successful marketing campaign – “Aur Dikhao…., Aur Dikhao” which drove one key message to the Indian consumer that it has a wide variety of product options to choose from and that too from the comforts of their phone. The campaign was an instant success and underscores...Read More

Heuristics & Biases in Investing

– November 30, 2017 According to classical economics theory, people are rational “wealth maximizers”. However there have been many instances where emotions & psychology have influenced decision making causing us to behave in an irrational manner. Behavioural finance, a relatively new field, seeks to combine behavioural and cognitive psychological theory with conventional economics and...Read More

Are you looking for thrill from your investment activity?

– March 10, 2017 The Stock Market is enthralling and deceptive in the short term. However, in the long run it can be boring and reliably predictable. The Stock market is captivating and mischievous, always trying to tease investors with news about the state of the economy, inflation, company defaults & bankruptcies, government policies...Read More

Moral Fabric and Moral Hazard ….Oct 20, 2016

I was watching one of the Harry Potter movies in which the protagonist of the movie, Harry Potter, inspite of finishing last in a challenge in an inter-school competition, gets awarded the second prize for outstanding moral fibre. Outstanding moral fibre! Sounds great doesn’t it? So how does one gauge the moral fabric of...Read More

In a manner of speaking….. …..Sep 1, 2016

A phrase that has become quite popular with analysts and experts who feature on business channels is “Having said that….” As you have hedging tools to guard you against price movements of stocks, commodities, currencies etc., you have this wonderful phrase to guard you against fallout of giving out your opinion in public. Earlier...Read More

Can you spot the Invisible Gorilla in the room? … Aug 17, 2016

Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, both psychologists, met at Harvard University in 1997, where they began to collaborate on research. In 2004 they shared the Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology, awarded for “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think”, for the experiment which they titled –“The Invisible Gorilla”. In the...Read More

Investing on intuition …. June 17, 2016

Intuitions or gut feelings are sudden, strong judgements whose roots we cannot immediately explain. It’s almost like that the gut has a mind of its own! The best explanation that psychologists offer is that it is a mental matching process i.e. the brain takes a situation, does a very quick search of its “stored...Read More

MAYbe different this time ? …. May 16, 2016

There is an old stock market adage – “Sell in May and go away”. I did some reading to find out whether there was any causal relationship which led to this adage being coined, but I didn’t find anything conclusive besides some lame reasoning that the economic activity becomes sluggish during the summer months...Read More