The book Sense, Sensex and Sentiments written by M R Venkatesh, an experienced chartered accountant, describes the ways corruption is practiced in India with illicit outflow of domestic capital. | |
| As per John Christensen, an authority on secrecy jurisdictions, who has written the foreword of the book, India ranks fifth in the world, in terms of the scale of its illicit outflows, and between USD 22-27 billion of domestic capital flows illegally out of India every year. With the increase in corruption levels in the country in the last few years, scams hitting the headlines every day, and the government remaining a silent spectator, the book is very timely and educative for all. As the author has pointed out, corruption is the manifestation of poor governance and results in the flight of capital from an economy. Capital flight causes poverty, which in turn feeds on terror. Terror leads to chaos, crisis and calamity and in this situation, the corrupt, criminals and terrorists flourish. As an accountant of great experience, the author has shared details of hawala, money laundering and tax havens. While there are no official estimates of the amount of illegal wealth parked in tax havens abroad, as per the most conservative estimate, USD500 billion is parked in tax havens. Information about 1000s of Swiss bank customers from about 180 nations is available, which is now in the possession of the French government. Spain, Italy and Germany have obtained their share of the data, but there is no mention about India showing any interest in this matter. The book has touched upon important aspects of market sentiments, the role of the media in the swings and its effect on the stock market. The investment by the financial sector into the commodities and futures market is affecting food prices, irrespective of the demand-supply relationship. Today, as we witness an abnormal rise invegetable prices and the government’s helplessness to control the rise, the discussion in the book on this aspect is pertinent. The media plays a very important role in influencing the psyche of the people. As such, the role of the financial players in influencing the views of the media also needs to be looked at. The arrangement between the media and financial players through ‘treaties’, affects the media’s role as an independent commentator. (more…) | |
Archives of “calamity” tag
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10 Famous Quotes for Trading
There are some meaningful and aspiring quotes that i have read from books or i heard from my coaches. Today i’m going to share with you guys. Hope that it will inspire you and you might use the quotes as a daily reminder or as a form of motivation.
“Trading is hardwork, laborious and boring, just like any other jobs. If you are excited about it, you are gambling” by Conrad
“There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. There is no guilt than discontentment. And there is no greater disaster than greed.” by Lao Tze
“Its not about being right or wrong, rather, its about how much money you make when you’re right and how much you don’t lose when you’re wrong” by George Soros
“Luck is what you have left over after you give 100 percent” by Langston Coleman
“In the business world, the rear view mirror is always clearer than the windshield.” by Warren Buffet
“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.” by Vernon Sanders Law
“Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” by William James
“The only that overcomes hard luck is hard work.” by Harry Golden
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Antonie de Saint-Exupery
“If i can do it, so can you” by Adam Khoo
Lessons From John Templeton
1. “I never ask if the market is going to go up or down, because I don’t know, and besides it doesn’t matter. I search nation after nation for stocks, asking: Where is the one that is lowest priced in relation to what I believe its worth?” Like every other great investor in this series of blog posts John did do not make bets based on macroeconomic predictions. What some talking head may say about markets as a whole going up or down was simply not relevant in his investing. John focused on companies and not macro markets. He was a staunch value investor who once said: “The best book ever written [was Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham].
2. “If you want to have a better performance than the crowd, you must do things differently from the crowd. I’ve found my results for investment clients were far better here [in the Bahamas] than when I had my office in 30 Rockefeller Plaza. When you’re in Manhattan, it’s much more difficult to go opposite the crowd.” The mathematics of investing dictate that investing with the crowd means you will earn zero alpha, because the crowd is the market. You must sometimes be willing to take a position that is different from the crowd and be right about that position, to earn alpha. John put it this way: “If you buy the same securities everyone else is buying, you will have the same results as everyone else.”
3. “The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell. Bull markets are born on pessimism, grown on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. People are always asking me: where is the outlook good, but that’s the wrong question…. The right question is: Where is the outlook the most miserable? For those properly prepared in advance, a bear market in stocks is not a calamity but an opportunity.” To be able to sell when people are most pessimistic requires courage. Being courageous is easier if you are making bets with “house money.” Making bets with the rent money is always unwise. Templeton believed problems create opportunity. For example, it was on the day that Germany invaded Poland that he saw one of his best buying opportunities since prices were so low and values so high. Simply telling his broker that day to buy every stock selling under $1 yielded a 4X return for John. (more…)
Fear in the Markets
I think there is something to be said for the idea fear-based arguments standing out in people’s minds. Highly charged, emotionally relevant information is certainly processed differently from normal information, which is why advertisers will show very happy people drinking Coke, or people having car wrecks relying on their insurers. The correlations of investor margin debt and price movements of the markets might be one way to quantify how fear impacts speculative behavior …
That having been said, I do notice a kind of cultishness to the permabears… it is an ingrained belief that organizes their thinking about markets, the future, etc. The motivation, I suspect, is a desire to belong to a special group that will be spared the oncoming calamity.