Not that many people visit this site. Hardly gets around 100 hits a day unless some troll decides to brighten up an otherwise dull day. When i was with WordPress, the blog used to have thousands of hits daily. Not to mention that i used to blog much more regularly out there.

With the amount of work, i hardly have time to catch up with friends. Blogging has sort of taken a secondary interest in life. But i still cant believe that i could sustain interest for over 7 years. Meanwhile have finished reading some good books. Most of my updates on the blog have been on the Movies and Reading pages. They are the only ones getting updated constantly. Read a book on Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff. Being a history buff, i liked the book. Wish i could find some movie or documentary on the same.

Also finally finished reading “The Warren Buffett Way” which i had been reading on and off while simultaneously reading other books. The other one is the unofficial Dhirubhai Ambani biography “The Polyester Prince” which also have been reading in fits and starts. The only way i seem to be able to finish a book faster is by listening to audio books. E-books and physical books seem to be taking months for me to finish. Its precisely why i have no interest of going in for an iPad or a Kindle. I think i will stick to audio book readers till the time i can improve my reading speed.

Still, have managed to finish about 19 books in the first 6 months of the year which i believe is pretty good enough. The target was to read a book a month. I have far exceeded that target. The next book that iam excited about reading is “Why Men Hate Going To Church – David Murrow“. The title of the book so defines me. My parents tried for more than 30 years and my wife has been trying for the past 3 years. I still cant bring myself to voluntarily go to church on a sunday. Not do do anything with my beliefs. I do pray regularly, but church is one thing that has been unable to keep me hooked. Maybe this book will give me some pointers on this issue.

Have watched some good (Hanna, X-Men, Millenium trilogy of Stieg Larsson) and lots of not so good movies over the past few months. Pyaar Ka Punchnaama as well as Shaitan were good too. As for telugu movies, the lesser said the better.

Time flies. We are almost into the 2nd half of the year. Time for me to take stock of the situation and make some hard choices. Do i still want to continue with what i have been doing all along or take the plunge into the unknown? Maybe the coming few months will give me the answer. Meanwhile what i need desperately is a holiday.

Above picture courtesy: Lifeconnectionchurch

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From being in debts of more than 40,000 rupees to employees sponging off the resources of the airlines by assigning even their grandchildren as dependents and mooching discounted airfares to having offices across the world where hardly anyone flies, Air India and Indian Airlines combine are nothing but a disgrace to the image of India.

What the striking Air India pilots don’t mention in their litany of complaints is how at a board meeting earlier this year they vehemently opposed any curbs on their royal privileges — “passages” or free return trip tickets for their family. And even refused to accept the private airline definition of “family”.

Unlike private airlines’ employees, who have restricted passages and specific definition of family to include only immediate members such as self, spouse, dependent children and parents, Air India’s definition is far more generous.

According to Air India, an employee’s family, entitled to travel free with him/her, includes: spouse, children, step-children, parents, brothers, sisters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law and even grandchildren up to 12 years.

Even those who have retired are entitled to passages. “This has led to a situation where former Air India employees, currently employed with private airlines, avail passages on Air India,” said another executive.

Read the full article : Me, my family, my son-in-law: Pilots want a freebie parivar.

Iam someone who has borne the brunt of the whimsical attitude of the airline and have sworn off flying the so called national carrier for years.  Also make it a point to educate all friends and family not to fly Air India – Indian Airlines ever.

At a time when the private airlines are providing such good service and have proved that they can do well inspite of no support from the government, its an utter waste of money to spend even a single rupee to keep the pathetic airlines running.

The simple point that Air India is monstrously in debt and that it would be ridiculous to up already high salaries now seems to be one the government is unable to make forcefully enough.

Possibly the government’s culpability in bringing Air India to this pass makes it speak softly in argument. The merger was poorly thought out; and the decision by an empowered group of ministers in UPA 1 to take on additional debt to purchase a new fleet is now being seen for the folly it was. That decision was born of the misguided belief that the Centre has a duty to “revive” Air India, a mantra that has been repeated by one civil aviation minister after another. We now, post-reshuffle, have a new minister in charge, Vayalar Ravi. The last thing that he needs is to have this albatross around our necks for the foreseeable future. The wise move for Ravi would be to acknowledge that past decisions have dug Air India into a hole of mismanagement and debt — Rs 40,000 crore deep — from which there is no escaping. Wiping out Air India’s debt would cost several times more than the Centre spends on rural health annually. This is not an expenditure that a government can justify — especially on something in which the private sector has amply demonstrated its ability to satisfy the public’s needs. Instead of throwing good money after bad, the time has come to stand up and say: yes, Air India must be shut down.

Read the full Indian Express article editorial here.

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Most surprisingly, it was engaging and i was never bored.  Considering the short attention span that i have and the trouble i have listening to a 5 minute talk without my mind wandering off;  I managed to hold my concentration well to listen to the whole book.

For starters, the book is not exclusively about the investments of Warren Buffett, its just a part of that.  The book is all about Buffett, the man, his family, friends, investors, rivals (if any), his fears, his interests, his integrity, his failings, his winnings.

If you are someone who idolises Warren Buffett, then stay away from this book.  It does present him in a not-so flattering way.  There are constant references to how Buffett shies away from confrontation with people, his little quirks, his almost complete dedication to his work that he almost ignores his wife who loves him unconditionally.  The ignorance leads to separation of Buffett and his wife (but they never divorce).

Its said that when the book released and Warren realised the not too flattering account of him in the book, he distanced himself from the author of this book, Alice Schroeder.

The book starts with a detailed background description of Warren’s parents, Warren’s growing up days. His almost obsessive pursuance of money from a young age.  At a age when youngsters of his age are busy playing, Warren distributes papers, chewing gums, pepsi, works as a caddy etc to earn his pocket money, file income taxes for the first time at the age of 14.  Warren’s interaction and working with his guru, Benjamin Graham is also mentioned in the book and also Graham’s influence on Buffett.

At the age of 11, he buys 3 shares of Cities Service Preferred for himself, and 3 for his sister Doris.  He sells the shares at a small profit and then looks on as the stock price goes up 10 times.  That’s when he learns his first lesson. And that is “If you really believe in the company, then the holding period for the stock is almost forever”

His investments in Coca cola, Geico Insurance, General Re, Borsehims Jewelry, Net Jets, Star Furniture etc is legendary. Not to mention the down to earth and modest nature of the man who stil stays in the same house he bought in 1957 for about $31,500.

Inspite of being the world’s richest person he doesnt indulge in the usual rich people’s intersts like yachts, jewellery, mansions, ranches etc.

For someone who was known as being tight fisted when it came to donating money to his own children, he decided to donate a significant amount of his assets to The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation.  The following saying by him highlights his thoughts about wealth

I don’t have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It’s like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GDP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don’t do that though. I don’t use very many of those claim checks. There’s nothing material I want very much. And I’m going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die.

Some more quotes by the man which i have found interesting over the years i have read about him.

• It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently

• Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked

• You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong

• I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.

• I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.

• I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.

• If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

• Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.

• Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

• Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

and my most favourite one….

• Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
Author – Alice Schroeder
Pages – 832
Publisher – Bantam

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India is now the largest petroleum products exporter in Asia, surpassing South Korea. According to the data compiled by oil and metal information provider Platts, India’s gross exports currently average 1 million barrels a day, inching past South Korea which exports 0.9 million barrels a day.

With the commissioning of a new refinery by Reliance Industries at Jamnagar and Essar Oil increasing refinery output at Vadinar, India overtook South Korea by mid-2009 and has since then consistently maintained the lead position.

India’s average petroleum products export grew from 0.77 million barrels a day in January 2009 to one million barrels a day in August 2009. In the current year, the average oil products export from India stands at 1.07 million while South Korea exports average 0.88 million.

In fact, India’s refining capacity at 3.69 million barrels a day is the third largest in Asia after China and Japan, which have a refining capacity of 9.6 million bpd and 4.64 bpd respectively. Platts’ compilation is based on the data from individual countries.

“Both Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar and Essar’s Vadinar refineries contribute more than 90 per cent of the petroleum products exports while the rest is by public sector oil companies,” said Ms Vandana Hari, Asia Editorial Director, Platts.

Read the full article here

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“While we will maintain a distinct identity between Mahindra and Ssangyong vehicles, there is a potential for sharing platforms,” Pawan Goenka, president incharge of Mahindra’s automobile and tractor business, told reporters at a news conference.

Mahindra was selected as the preferred bidder by Ssangyong’s creditors on Aug. 13 to acquire a majority stake in the Korean firm, which has been under court-led bankruptcy protection since early last year after experiencing a severe cash shortage due to a slump in sales of its mainstay SUVs.

Goenka said synergies between the two companies might help bring down vehicle development costs. He refused to elaborate on the likely deal size or on the stake it plans to buy in the Korean auto maker.

But Goenka said Mahindra may consider introducing in India Ssangyong’s new sport-utility vehicle, Korando C, which goes on sale in South Korea by December.

Ssangyong is likely to sell between 70,000 and 75,000 of its vehicles in its home market this year, more than double of the 35,000 units it sold in 2009, Goenka said.

Read the full article here

Above pictures courtesy: Businessweek & 4theloveofjeeps

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Mukesh Ambani-led RIL’s foray into the telecom sector will entail an investment of about $5 billion, for which it is open to sharing infrastructure of younger brother Anil’s group firm Reliance Communications, company officials said. The flagship firm of Ambani, who is known for making ultra-mega projects, would invest about a billion dollars for rolling out broadband services to attain a target of 100 million subscribers through the just acquired Infotel in five years, RIL top officials told analysts last night.

RIL acquired Infotel for Rs 4,800 crore on the day the Nahata group firm emerged as the sole player to have bid successfully for all-India spectrum at the end of the 16-day-long auction conducted by the government on Friday.Apart from this, the cash-rich RIL will have to pay Rs 12,872 crore to the government as the licence fee for spectrum bagged by Infotel, which would become the subsidiary of the Mukesh Ambani group’s flagship company.

Incidentally, the second largest largest telecom player, RCOM, bagged the highest number of circles along with Bharti Airtel for the 3G license auction, which concluded recently.

Read the full article here

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Riding on the success of its equated monthly instalments (EMI) scheme, denim major Levi Strauss India is looking to join hands with four more banks to drive consumption growth.

Last year, the company had launched this unique EMI scheme in an attempt to fit into tight pockets of consumers during the reversionary phase. This scheme allows consumers to buy premium-priced denims on a zero per cent interest.

At present, the company has tie-ups with Axis bank and HDFC Bank, where a buyer can pay the total amount over three equal instalments using their credit card for a shopping value of a minimum of Rs 1,500.

Read full news here

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The situation now is mirroring the famous words said by some great soul “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is the king“.

So, what does this crisis mean to people who want to invest for the long term?  Its the ripe time to buy.  Dont pump in all your money at once.  Buy good companies in small quantities.  The market might go down further from here. Buy some now and some more when the markets go down further.  Never try to time to market.  The markets might not go down further from here, and if you buy now, you would have still got some great stocks for cheap.

Am a big follower of Warren Buffett when he says “Buy when there is blood on the streets“.  It might not be complete mayhem now, but there are some great companies available for cheap.

I have bought a few more shares of the following companies

Alok Industries

Bharti Airtel

MIC Electronics

Punj Lloyd

I really hope that the markets fall further so that i can pick up some more good stocks at some great prices.

Important Note: Please dont follow my buy/sell advise blindly.  Do your own research or follow the advise of a certified financial planner before investing.  Iam not responsible for any profits or losses you make by following my investment strategy.

Above price charts courtesy:  Yahoo Finance

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Apart from Argentina, the Issue Group enjoys market leadership position in hair colours in Peru, Uruguay and Paraguay including a presence in Brazil.

The deal estimated to be around Rs.230 crore provides a self-sustaining platform for GCPL’s ambitions in haircare and household insecticides segments in Latin America, GCPL said.

Full article here

Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) on Thursday announced the acquisition of the Oman-based Shadeed Iron & Steel for $464 million.

Its project at Sohar in the sultanate is setting up capacity to produce 1.5 million tonnes of hot briquetted iron a year.

The Indian company’s director, Sushil Maroo, told media the acquisition was part of plans to expand operations overseas. “The Sohar plant is a gas-based unit. We are also setting up some gas-based steel units. It is a strategic fit for us,” he added. The acquisition was made through JSPL’s subsidiary, Jindal Steel & Power Mauritius.

Full article here

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Future Group will open Carrefour-branded franchise stores in the country under a deal signed three months ago, said the two persons, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an announcement is yet to be made.

Future Group plans to open between 150 and 300 Carrefour-branded hypermarkets in the next five years, said one of the two persons.

“This is quite ambitious given the challenges in finding right space required for such hypermarkets,” said the person.

Future Group, which runs Pantaloon and the Big Bazaar chains, will pay the French retailer a royalty for using the brand, said the person, who declined to specify the royalty amount.

Indian rules allow foreign multi-brand retailers to operate in the country only through franchise agreements with local firms.

Carrefour has been scouting for a partner for several years, without success. It has previously held talks with Bharti Enterprises Ltd, which teamed up with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Wadia Group, and real estate firms DLF Ltd and MGF Ltd, among others.

In 2007, Carrefour started two separate units in India, Carrefour WC and C India Pvt. Ltd to roll out fully owned wholesale stores, and Carrefour India Master Franchise Co. Pvt. Ltd, which was to partner an Indian company to open the French firm’s branded stores in the country.

Full article here

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