Fortune Fantasy Executive Game

Found this link for Fortune Magazine's Fantasy Executive Game. Its two minutes of fun. Go check it out (if you're into that kinda thing).

See my team below. Click here to play.

Let me know how your selection goes! 

The Other Manmohan?

Today I learnt that, as of April 2012, the IMF employs an economist/researcher named Manmohan Singh. Look.

That is all.

P.S.: Here's a photo of the man I managed to find. Rather dashing chap, ain't he? 

Oh LIBOR, LIBOR...

I cannot believe that I have missed this when it was making its way up the shitter.

What, you ask? 

That LIBOR, which is as basic a rate as you can find in the whole of finance, was consistently manipulated by Barclays (and God knows who else).

If you're a finance guy, think of it for a second. LIBOR is the bedrock of any (and most) deals done throughout the world. There are more than $360 TRILLION worth of contracts which are based directly on the LIBOR rate. 360-Fucking-Trillion. And these guys are manipulating this rate. It is insane. 

The best part? Barclays paid a $450 million fine and (I suppose) walks away. That's it. Nothing more. That 0.000125% of whatever damage they may have caused.

And there might be some criminal cases against a few employees, who obviously cannot afford to pay $450 million.

As I say again, this is insane. They manipulated LIBOR. Look, I know the world of high finance isn't all fairies and chocolates, but even I thought there would be a limit somewhere. Duping retail investors, forcible foreclosures etc. etc. are basically crimes by finance against outsiders (or normal society, as we call them). I wan't as jaded as to think finance guys would turn on other finance guys, especially on something as fundamental as this.

Must know more about this. I am woefully under-educated. Stay tuned. 

Whew... Finally!

PM takes stock of economic situation

You all can totally chill now. The PM (now also the FM) has finally decided to 'take stock' of the economic situation.

I know, I know, you all might be thinking why he hadn't gotten around to it earlier. But better late than never, yes?

I feel totally confident already. 

We'll never let you go...

You see all these MF ads wherever you turn. Some new scheme launching or something else. Although the ads have come down since their peak in 2008-09 (remember the marketing blitz associated with the Reliance Small Cap fund launch?), their ads are still pretty common.

But the thing is, once you do actually start a SIP, they make it as difficult as humanly possible to stop you from getting out. Actually, what they do is they count on our laziness to postpone tasks and to generally put things off to drag out the thing as long as possible.

I started off with SIPs sometime in 2009-10 and was looking to make a few changes this past year. Here's how I fared.

Reliance SIP: You can download the form, fill it and send it to them. No online stopping business. If they don't get the form 21 days before the next SIP date, they automatically disregard the request and don't bother to inform you. 

HDFC SIP: Just creating an online login involves sending in some form (in triplicate, I think). I haven't been bothered (yet). Couldn't cross pehla padaav only.

Sundaram BNP Paribas: No online forms. You can buy anything you like, and generally transact in any way, except stopping your SIP. No forms, period. Write a letter mentioning all relevant details, then hand-deliver it to one of four offices in Mumbai and that too 30 days before the next SIP. Or else, thank you, come again.

Fidelity: They allow you to invest/redeem/switch/SIP etc. etc. but nothing on their system allows you to stop one. Frankly, I still don't know how. Couldn't find anything on the website. Might have to call up the helpline and ask. Their website doesn't even have a search facility.

Birla Sun Life MF: Nothing to stop a SIP within their customer login. Again, you can purchase, redeem, switch, start an SIP/SWP, but no stopping. One document states that cancellation request has to reach their office 30 days before next SIP, but how to go about doing it I don't know. I couldn't find out how to cancel on the website. Again, will require calling them up I suppose.

ICICI Pru MF - Have a cancel iSIP option when you login to their customer desk, but not one if you've started the old-fashioned way i.e. by filling out a form. Still, something better than nothing, yes? They have a FAQ section, which absolutely does not tell you anything about how to stop your SIP. Le sigh...

Can't SEBI make giving a simple "Stop SIP" button on the website mandatory? Or AMFI? Someone? Anyone?

CDR Cases - India (Oh, and copying?)

Two quick graphs on CDR cases in India via Reuters:

Any way you look at it, industry's not going to be able to pull on (well) for much longer. 


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The above was my original post. These pictures, I originally got from a Moneycontrol article titled: Deadbeat corporate borrowers? Not in India
Then I went searching on Reuters and to my surprise, got the same article, with the same title, same authors, same photo even and the same copy here: Deadbeat corporate borrowers? Not in India
See for yourself:

Agreed, on moneycontrol, it was filed under 'Wire News' but can we still do that? Just copy paste stuff from reputed news sites, without linking to the original, and scrape page views off? I guess I should get someone to write a script for me that does the same. Pageviews guaranteed.
Interesting...