A load of crap from an idle brain

What a recovery it has been for the markets.  Just a year ago, the Sensex crashed to 8160 points.  Now its trading above 17000 points.  More than 100% growth in just a year.  No other sector (gold, PPF, debt, realty) would give you that kind of growth.  When the markets were down last year and i was talking about the opportunity to buy into some good companies, many of my friends dissuaded me from doing that.

“Buy when everyone sells and sell when everyone buys” is probably the only way to make money in the market.  Following the heard mentality is sure to give a lot of heart pain in the long run.

The exhilarating bounce from the lows that the Indian equity market touched on 9 March 2009 is now a year old—and what a year it has been. These 12 months have been a wildly profitable time for those brave souls who held their nerve and bought stocks, while it has been a missed opportunity for those who thought it was a short-lived bear market rally and thus preferred to sit on cash.

The benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index, or Sensex, closed on Tuesday at 17,052.54, up 109% over a year ago, though just about nobody believes the next 12 months will be as good.

Read the full article here

Above picture courtesy: Livemint

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Been swamped with work. Have no time to read websites let alone update this one. Have taken a break from reading books too as i realised that the business magazines that i had bought are gathering dust in a corner.  So, carry them in my bag to and fro work hoping to read them than stare at other people’s faces in bus/train.

Have taken tons of pictures too. No time to even sort, upload and share them.  Sometimes i feel that 24 hrs is not enough in a day.  Wish there was some way to increase the number of hours in a day.  It would be good as long as the extended hours doesnt mean that i need to spend them at work

As expected, my investments havent slacked, infact they are on the upswing.  Bought a few shares in SREI Infrastructure, Alok Industries.  But my biggest mistake has been to ignore Tata Motors.  Its the kind of multi bagger that can make you rich for life.  A year ago i bought very few of them around 140 rupees and then left it at it.  Today, Tata Motors is trading above 750 rupees.  At one point of time, it had even crossed 800.

That’s the kind of shares i should have been chasing instead of stagnant ones  like BILT and NHPC.  Another multi-bagger is L&T.  I had bought a few at around 650 rupees and today it is consistently trading above 1600 rupees.

Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well  -  Warren Buffett

I should try to follow the above mentioned statement more faithfully and only then will i be able to cash in on the opportunities that lie ahead.

Picture source: MIT Admissions

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The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) at Hyderabad built and operated by the GMR group has been declared the 5th best airport in the world and the Number 1 in the 5-15 million passengers category.

Approach road to the airport

Another example why the Government of India has no business running any critical infrastructure in the country.  Look at the shabby airports run by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and then pass through the Hyderabad airport.

The airport air traffic control tower

You will never realise that its situated somewhere in India.  Top class infrastructure with top class service has resulted in RGIA gatecrashing into the hallowed group of airports worldwide. To be even talked in the same breath as Changi, Incheon, Hong Kong etc is an honour and GMR must be roundly applauded for bringing up RGIA to international standards.

This is how the Airports Council International (ACI), an autonomous body representing world airports, adjudged the airports

1.  Incheon, South Korea

2. Changi, Singapore

3. Hong Kong International Airport

4. Beijing International Airport, China

5. Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad, India

News source: Economic Times

Pictures source: Blacknwhite, Marie, Vincent Tulio, Bert Roos

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After losing out on MTN and pocketing Warid of Bangladesh, it looks like Bharti Airtel is on a tearing hurry.  As the world’s fastest growing telecom market, India becomes more and more competitive with more than 10 service providers already, Bharti is looking to spread the eggs across other markets.

Bharti Airtel is in $10.7 billion talks with Zain to buy most of the Kuwaiti telecom’s cellular assets in Africa — the Indian firm’s third attempt to gain a foothold in the region.

The deal, if clinched, would be India’s biggest overseas acquisition since Tata Steel’s $12 billion purchase of European steel maker Corus in 2007.

Mobile subscriber additions are running at a monthly average of about 15 million in India, making it the world’s fastest-growing wireless market. The rapid pace has attracted new foreign operators such as Telenor and Sistema, making competition more intense.

Call charges have fallen sharply, to as low as a fraction of a US cent per minute, squeezing margins and clouding earnings growth potential.

Bharti reported its slowest profit growth in more than three years for the December quarter, and average revenue per user (ARPU) — a key operational gauge — fell 29 per cent to 230 rupees ($5). The market is also showing early signs of saturation, with penetration reaching about 45 per cent.

To beat the slowdown, Bharti has been scouting overseas, with a focus on high growth-potential emerging markets. After failing to get a deal with South Africa’s MTN Group, the company has set up a new unit to drive overseas expansion. It also agreed last month to acquire control of Bangladesh’s Warid Telecom.

Africa is attractive for Bharti as the mobile user base is low there, with just over a third of the population having a mobile.

Zain’s 15 African operations included in the deal have a combined user base of about 42 million, and the operator is No.1 in 10 markets, ranking second in another four, according to brokerage reports. ARPU in these operations ranges from $3 to $25, with 10 of the 15 having higher ARPU than Bharti.

Rest of the article here

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India’s gold obsession never ends

At a conservative estimate of 15,000 tonnes, India’s privately held gold reserves, at present prices, are valued at $550 billion – nearly 40 per cent of India’s stock market capitalisation of $ 1.4 trillion, reveals a report from HDFC Securities. India’s net retail investment in gold has also doubled from 90 tonnes to 200 tonnes over 2003-08 and is now a $7 billion market. HDFC Securities analyst Anupam Gupta expects that a 1 per cent shift in savings from bank deposits to gold can add 4 per cent to India’s annual gold demand.

India’s obsession with gold is well known. Accumulated over generations, India’s privately held gold reserves are estimated at 15,000 to 25,000 tonnes. At present prices, this is valued at $548-913 billion and can act as a potent driver to sustain the wealth effect in India. While jewellery remains the dominant mode of possessing gold, India’s net retail investment doubled to 200 tonnes in 2008 from 90 tonnes in 2003, reflecting a marked shift in consumer attitude towards gold as an asset, the report said

Another way to look at gold ownership in India is to compare it to annual savings patterns. Indians purchased 660 tonnes, or $19 billion, of gold in 2008, which formed an approximate 15 per cent of physical savings and 5 per cent of total savings. “This implies enough headroom for growth because attitude toward gold ownership changes from jewellery to investment. As attitudes change, we expect Indians to open up to the idea of owning gold as an investment, rather than an asset,” Gupta said.

Gold loans also present a huge opportunity. Even if banks tap 5 per cent of average private gold reserves of 20,000 tonnes, this translates to a market size of $37 billion, Gupta said. Banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), such as Manappuram General Finance and Muthoot Finance are expanding their network to tap into this fast-growing and underserviced market.

News source: MydigitalFC

Picture source: CometoIndia

Previous articles on Gold & India
RBI buys 200 tonnes of gold from IMF
Joy Alukkas to open world’s biggest jewellery shop in Chennai

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