Change of guard....

Recently my friend told me that in Bull market you should be more optimistic than others and in Bear market be more pessimistic. Frankly i didn't agree with this, because this looked like a strategy to lose more money in the market irrespective of the conditions. An improved version of the said strategy is that in Bull market be less optimistic than the market (so you dont buy everything that comes your way) and be less pessimistic in Bear market (so you dont lose good opportunities). For eg. BIOCON even in this market is looking good (Disclaimer: this is not a stock tip, pl do your homework).

The time has come when we ask ourselves the most fundamental question: " Why do i Invest in stock market?".....and the answer is to make money. This is much better than saying....to make quick bucks!! If the market is turning out to be an expense account then start afresh. The inflation is falling and hitting new lows. Surely an indicator of rally in bond markets. Again i am against floating rate bonds and in favour of g-secs. This should beat the market. This calender year has seen a drop of 5% in bond prices that means there is an opportunity in the market. I am targetting 12-15% returns in Bonds and g-secs. Very ambitious target but last year an unthinkable return of 27% was given by the sector ( some good funds gave more than that). 

Do not take a fight with someone who has got nothing to lose. Stock market has nothing to lose, but you have. Stay away from it for some more time. Dont get tempted to buy stocks in a rising market 'coz fundamentaly nothing has changed in last one week. Please don't assume that current rally means revival of trends. 

I had mentioned earlier that Automobile sector will do better and it did work due to undervaluations. It may outperform for some more time. Pharma is looking attractive and so is media. But very selectively. 

Elections are round the corner. Another coaliation bomb is in the making. Lets fasten the seat belts for a bumpy ride ahead.

As sure as the spring will follow the winter, prosperity and economic growth will follow recession. We have to deal with it bravely. 

Guess What?

Last year i suggested that gold will touch 15000 (ref my first blog posting). Many of my friends laughed and asked me to visit the doc. I did but it didn’t help. Now Gold is trading close to 16000. 

I also suggested that averaging is not a good weapon, but alas, no one believed. Now you guys are writing in to say that you  have lost good money in bad averaging GAME. 

So whats next?

Let’s try and assess:

We are going for elections in April and we will not have the next government till May end (at least). The way rupee is depreciating ahead of elections (are there any real reasons?) makes me wonder is there any big ticket politician who is bringing his black money back in India? (just a joke, take it seriously). Anyways. In coalition politics we are likely to lose more than gain. We probably need two party elections at the centre and at state level we can have regional parties. Why? Because that will give us good leaders who can take us to the next level. 

 

Let me wear a cap of an optimist. An optimist will say Government should tap this slowdown, recession, mandi (whatever you want to call it). We should build great infrastructure for ourselves as most of the commodities are available at all time low levels. This will keep on stimulating the demand for a while. Also, it will be an opportunity to create jobs for masses. So by the time this tsunami of recession is over elsewhere we are more developed and will keep buzzing for many years to come. For politicians its another opportunity to showcase their achievement.  Call it Rajiv rojgar if you are congress supporter or Atal rojgar if you are from BJP. 

But when you have many parties and many politicians and pseudo secularism in the country what you get is corrupt government and forget about addressing the recession they will not even be aware of it. Now let me be pessimistic and say the probable outcome of the election will be another coalition government and opportunity loss for the economy. 

 

So politics can turn the wheels backwards or forward and we need to take elections more seriously. If not for the country at least for the economy!!

 

Jai Hind!!!