816metropark

Fed Doctor or Fed Pharmacist

2008-01-16T06:24:00.000-08:00

A doctor’s job is to diagnose and provide correct recovery path to the ailing patient. For that Doctor may run a lot of tests on patient and in consultation with his/her colleague create a path for recovery.

On the Other hand a pharmacist is strictly doing his/her job in terms of providing prescribed medicines to the patient. Pharmacist with some experience may help a patient with some fever relive the fever for some times but would not cure a cancer or a sickness whose symptoms may be deep.

When I read today’s WSJ about inflation rising and WSJ commenting its not bad enough YET to stop fed from cutting interest rates. I ask the same question is FED playing the Doctor or a pharmacist or just a new resident experimenting.

In any case, if all the pharmacists are predicting interest rate cuts and FED is ignoring inflationary pressures, the road ahead is going to get steeper.

The Symptoms
1. Market is down and depressed before the FED rate once again
2. Inflation is a cause for concern once again
a. Price of Gas is higher
b. Price of Milk is higher
c. Price of GOLD is higher
d. Price to rent an apartment is up
e. Price to buy a news paper is higher
3. Financial firms are reporting BAD loans once again
4. Dollar is wakening

I have been a critic of FED for last few years because I think we need to take the pain and be done with it in place of enlarging the period by acting in a market responsive manner.

Make your own meaning

Every time there is a FED meeting market goes down...

From Book "Big Deal" - By Bruce Wassersten

2007-12-07T09:54:00.001-08:00

"When Beggers and shoshine boys, barbers and beauticians can tell you ho to get rich it is time to remind yourself that there is no mor dangerous illusion than the belife that one can get something for nothing."

- Bernard Baruch, on the 1929 crash (Baruch: My Own Story)

So why is Etrade(ETFC) a good buy?

2007-12-04T15:21:00.000-08:00

ETFC

Etrade stock has lost 25%, it has been downgraded by three big analyst. But I’m of the opinion Etrade is a good buy and not just opinion I have bought some in last few days.

Why When Citadel invests in Etrdae a $2.5 Billion. They must have looed at their portfolio of loans. Yes, Etrade gave away $2.5 Billion of portfolio for $800 Million. But Etrade alos entice Citadel to invest $1.4 Billion of equity in it. That is a great show of strength.

When anlyst is arguing ETrade has $11 Billion worth of mortgages, I don’t think all the mortgages will go sour. The mortgages Etrade has must also have PMI and they are back by illiquid and falling housing prices agreed, but the market is bound to come back. If mortgages are the issues why would BOA invest $2 billion in the CFC, all the banks should be in the same line as Etrade.

So it’ a buy baby buy

Mindmapping revisted

2007-10-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

Last year at the school, mindmapping helped me in great deal to organize my thoughts to work on the cases (an avg 3 cases a day). To put those cases in perspective interms of putting important information in one cheat sheet, mindmapping software tool was a great help.

I used a tool called freemind an opensource mindmapping tool then. I knew of another tool that I thought could be a great help, The brain. The brain has been used by Kurzweil's site for a long long time and I have always been intrigued by how they display the information on their website.

Since I’m a opensource user by compulsion (can not afford these $100 software tools), I tried the tool and never used it in November 2006. Now Thebrain is free with some features removed.

I’m loving the tool.

Next step try out online mindmapping tools claims to allow collaborations.

Freemind
Thebrain

Bad Practice

2007-09-28T05:39:00.000-07:00

In olden days when some one got injured, or when some one had blood from infection or /injury, the physician would let the bad blood out. The person with wound would feel weak after the fact that he/she lost a lot of blood, but the person would not have venom/ infection in his/her body.

In such a scenario if some doctor were to just stop the flow of bad blood and allowed to keep the blood in the body, what should one say about Doctor’s practice? Purely bad practice. The motive for such bad practice could be anything. A short term gain to make that person fight a war ( may be at a cost of sacrificing injured arm/leg or the person) or it could be plain old gullibility/stupidity.

That’s exactly what FED is doing / has done so far. The FED has reduced interest rate after the credit market crunch or as some call it sub prime meltdown. As a Doctor, Fed did not let the bad blood flow away. The FED has just put the bandages on the wound and readied the (tired/wounded) US economy to continue on growth path. Eventhough, everything in the real world is arguing FED to do opposite.

1. inflation is high
Even though the indicators don’t/may not show inflation
I’m paying more for Milk, Gas, Commute, Food, Restaurant and the most important housing.
The only place I’m paying less is for technology and services (not the most necessity of life).
2. US economy is not doing well compared to China, India, Europe (some one would say dragging)
3. US trade deficit is rising
4. US Budget deficit is at highest
5. US is in the middle of WAR

So is it not a Bad practice according to conventional wisdom.

One possible caveat
It is possible that FED has more data and better understanding of the problem. By elongating the problem FED it suffocating the problem or in a way applying new medicin. And all the other symptoms I mentioned (1 thro’ 5) are not life threatening while the Sub prime symptom is life threatening.

A kool website for risk management

2007-07-26T09:43:00.001-07:00

It's been time I have been thinking of writing on my learning of uses of financial learning from school. It's about time.

Yesterday, I came across a pretty kool website on risk management. It sounds like this website is bible on RISK management and VAR.

http://www.gloriamundi.org/

The site houses pretty good papers on VAR and it's implementation aspects.

Living in a flat world

2007-07-10T12:16:00.001-07:00

Just came across this picture in an email I subscribe to J

Innovator’s curse – Keep innovating or leave the arena

2007-07-05T16:30:00.001-07:00

When was the last time I used "yahoo!" the search portal. After a few minutes of pause my answer is, I can't remember when. I'm sure many of us have the same answer. I remember using yahoo for a while in late 1999, but yahoo was never a great search company, yes they were the first. But yahoo was the best email and the chat firm for me for a while. But now yahoo email has become catch my bulk subscription mailbox while Google's gmail has become my defacto email so it has to my friend Vishal and few others. So what is it that yahoo stands for, a just another portal company who is good for nothing but exists for me for some legacy purpose and some network externalities.

So why am I writing this? I'm writing this because when I read from business-week article few weeks ago about "will jerry yang change the yahoo?" I could not help but felt compassion for yahoo. Is a person solution to yahoo's problem. Absolutely NO. I don't think yahoo with it's current course going to cut out and become the leader, why?

I think yahoo is one innovation firm who has forgotten it's DNA. What do I mean by that? Yahoo was born as an innovation – the new use of internet to serach information, to connect well. But what has been last innovation from yahoo? I scratch my head and say chat. May be not, email may be not. I guess yahoo is one kid who forgot it's DNA as soon as it came to life.

That why does yahoo exists. My opinion, It's first innovation was not challenged for more than five years and it gave it enough time to build so called network extranalities for it's users. But Google broke it's two network externalities successfully mail and seach. So why should yahoo exist? If they don't innovate they should DIE. It's innovator's curse. Continue innovating or don't survive. You see Apple, 3M, Corning, Google and the theory get's it's strong backing.

Finance and technology

2007-06-22T07:53:00.001-07:00

While I have started writing about my day to day travel, I also wanted to write few things on what I do. I'm working in financial technology space. I work with capital market firms in implementing their operational strategy.

For now, I'm in a bit of learning mode. Learning that is about real life that takes place at the capital market firms. I'm very familiar with financial products and technology but the operational stuff is something I'm getting my hand on.

I hope to write about my learning in future posts that has helped me see a whole new world of financial operations.

My Mnnesota trip

2007-06-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

For past few days, I'm in Minnesota on a business assignment. The first impression I got from after landing last Sunday was, this place has a lot of resemblance to Main, my long long ago residence (1998). And I'm not wrong, the days are longer, the highways are emptier (no peak hours), people are warmer. But besides similarities there are peculiarities that Minnesota would call it's own.

Minnesota is called land of 10,000 lakes. Anywhere you go you find lakes. The other few things I hear from natives here is everyone heads to Cabins during th week end. Either everyone has a cabin or knows some one who has a cabin. Another funny thing I heard was, Minnesota has two seasons 1. Winter and 2. Road development. I guess in summer they can't do anything and every Summer, which is particularly hot, they have road construction going on everywhere.

Oh before I forget, I almost had an encounter with Tornado yesterday. No I did not see it, but we had a Tornado warning yesterday evening on my way back home. I was just few miles away from the expected path. So this is the closest I came to real Tornado for now.

I wish I had brought a camera... may be next trip.. I'll be coming here often...

My current book read : "The monk who sold his ferrari " - 1

2007-06-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

I’m currently reading this book “the monk who sold his Ferrari”. Some one had told me few months ago that this book was not worth spending time. So the copy has been sitting and being ignored as untouchable.

But to get some break from my learning of financial operations and in general life, I just opened the book. Wallah, for me book has become an addiction. I’m reading hoping to finish this book in one week. This one week is after 12/day job & the commute+ 4/5 hours/day family. So I’m hoping to spend every hour I can on this book.

I must have read about 60/70 pages in a day and so far the books has been surprisingly no-nonsense, easy for anyone to relate and a different approach of teaching some basic Indian philosophical lessons.

The book so far speaks about Julian – the lawyer turned monk’s journey to India and some of his experiences in Sivanas. Talks about few techniques of mind control
try to remove as many or all bad thoughts
watch for 10-20 minutes a day rose technique
spend 10 minutes a day on the daily retrospection + tomorrows betterment thinking

These are really powerful yet simple and simply put techniques for removing clutter out of the mind.

A good book so far … :-)

Is chivillary dead?

2007-06-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

Are people that uncivilized in New York? Today, I heard from a lady in her fifties that she did not get place to sit in her trai commute when she was pregnant. This is the second time I have heard, rather third time I have heard this statement in last few weeks.

On my 8:16 today, I got the seat from Newark. I got a seat next to this lady. So I’m listening to my podcasts and next stop come Secaucus. I saw a African American lady looking for a seat. So I got up. I guess she did not want to sit by making some one else stand. So she politely refused. And than I hear the comment from my neighbor lady of Indian decent.

The same thing had happened few days ago on my Bus ride back to home from Metrpoark. The context was different the group of ladies and a guy (who in his opinion was himself was the most civilized person on the earth) were discussing should people offer ladies to get in to the bus first. I was of the different opinion exceptions should only be made for pregnant, disabled and elderly and not for ladies. But I kept my opinion to myself and kept listening.

The ladies who were speaking were talking about their examples few years ago about how they did not get sit on Metropark train when they were pregnant. I and a pregnant lady were the silent listeners. So I guess this may not be an isolated incidence. In our hurry we may have forgotten on being polite and caring. I’m not sure if there is any law or not for having pregnant ladies preferential seating. I’ll look on my next train ride.

Anycase, this is a depressing sentiment for a society that has all the comforts and prides for itself being a multicultural accommodative society.

One thing that was also striking, all the ladies I heard the statement from were either Indian (2) or African American (1). Was this just the coincidence? It could be so because as many as 9 out of 10 folks from metropark are colored. I hope so it’s just a coincidence.

Some India TV

2007-06-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

While I have left working in india this time again, I miss india more than I did before. Afterall we lived a one year of action packed/fun packed life.

One thing though has changed from a year ago in US is helping me stay close to India is the Online News channels ...

here are the links ...

CNN IBN
CNBC TV 18
CNBC Awaaz - The Indian-Hindi CNBC
The IBN 7 - live

All these TV stations are keeping me closer to India than I had thought of.

a new life.. a new blog

2007-05-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

Those who are familier with NY/NJ, you will know why my blogname is 8:16 metropark.
The 8:16 is the local that i take from Metropark (usually) to reach the City. (New Yorkers don't like to use the name they just call it "the City". I guess it's part pride and part ego.)

So the new life begins everyday @ 8:16 a.m and never ends... :-)