Long time No see...

And i am back once more after a long long break. Itz just that there were too many things going on at my work and in the world in general that blogging never entered my mind. But still, like Sachin says, i dont have any plans of getting retired in the near future.

Come to think of it, the near future is getting gloomier. The US financial market crisis is getting from bad to worse day by day and being part of the firm that is in the epicenter of this tremor is always gonna be difficult. It is just like a movie, a child is born, a young boy plays, couple get married, and in the last 5 mins or so during climax, couple get old or couple die. Complete in 3 hours. The fate of lehman bros and Merryl lynch were pretty much the same. 158 years of legacy was just buried in a weekend. This is claimed to be the worst crisis after the 1920's economic depression in Wall Street.

Come to think of it, those were days when Wall Street meant "Walled Street" and Fed meant nothing. Honestly, be it dot com bubble or bust, it did not count. But the last few years have been so much enlightening in terms of the financial markets and how things work. Inspite of being a ardent fan of "some of "Ayn Rand's philosophies, only recently did i truly understand to appreciate it. But then, given that we are in India, it is a long shot.

Come to think of it, Indian markets dont seem to function independently as claimed by some wise investors. As i had posted in one of my earlier posts, India is not going to be shielded from this crisis. Being globalized means to share the fame and the pain equally. The extent of damage caused by financial markets might not be very high, but then there are lot other issues in India that makes up the cumulative damage sum high. The journey has just begun and it is a long road ahead.

Come to think of it, the grand prix in Singapore was just awesome and sheer grandeur not because of the race but because of the roads. As rediff rightly put, both Alonso and Singapore were winners in race against time.

Finally as our good old Indian cricket team, who always makes us expect the unexpected, the author will like to ensure that he is not part of this team and does not value this principle very highly.

Bottomline ... more posts coming along....

Is there a Recession ??

This is the question that every salaried person today asks, but doesn't wish to know th e answer.

With markets looking down big time, it is clear the bear mood has set in, unclear is it here to stay? I strongly believe that US is in recession. I also believe that the world economy (Including India) is tightly coupled with the US economy. This means the world is experiencing a slow down.

This is not rocket science and doesn't require prodigious financial skills to predict. I don't think there is anything physical as recession, meaning it can't be quantified. We can't say if X > Y then there is recession. It is pure sentiment. If people refrain from taking risks, their investment exposure decreases which means, people sell to take back their money, the more they sell, the price comes down and if it is a market leader brings the sector down.

Thats what recession is, some firms get affected big time because they would have risked so much, their loss is also huge, so huge that they have to sign off. People are not ready to take more risks, not ready to buy new firms, not ready to invest money. This means there aren't enough clients for Ibanks to do business with, which means they don't get the usual money inflow they need to.

I read a few days before that with 8pc GDP growth, India is totally shielded from the tumultous world markets. This seemed to be an absolute paradox. With the age of globalization setting in, we were talking about decoupling of world economies. The truth dawned last week, when the NSE/BSE followed the tracks of NYSE and suffered a blood bath. There is recession and India is not saved from it.

The question is how long ?