G R E

These three letters are on my head for last 3-4 months now. And yeah, I know that is enough time for the preparation but I have been bogged down by my own sluggishness and then the fact that I live with my friends & colleagues and that becomes a nice excuse for me sometimes. Well, I have finished Barron’s wordlist once but I cannot recall many of the words. I generally attempt 25 questions right out of 30. I find quant relatively easy but till now have always done 1 or 2 mistakes and that, I realise, is detrimental to my score.

Now I have not yet registered for the exam and it’s already getting late. Right after this post I am going to do that for Sep 02, 2008. 1400 looks achievable but I am pretty apprehensive about it. Well now it can’t be postponed anymore as September has to provide time for post-GRE steps. Let’s hope for the best.

And no, that’s not me (should I say “I”?….naah) in the pic. Some guy from the internet.

Survival and Winning

I read this story on Dailyspeculations, Jim Sogi posted it there. The original words are of Lewis Carroll. Read it here.

This crisp anecdote sums up the importance of perseverance and excellence at surpassing oneself over and over again. I wonder how many people are doing their best all the time and yet every year they find themselves at the same place. It does require “one extra step” to reach the goal and yeah, it does include shifting the goal-post every time you reach one.

An Entrepreneur’s views on Startups, Entrepreneurship, Markets

I today read this interview of Mr. Deepak Shenoy, CEO of Moneyoga. Moneyoga gives insights and organized data about Indian Financial Markets. Deepak is joined by Kaushik Gala (who writes GalaTime) in this venture.

Excerpt from the interview:

“I think people overrate entrepreneurship. It’s not the Holy Grail, and it definitely won’t make things happen any better than if you worked at big-name company. That disappointment tends to kill a lot of startups way early in the process.”

Read full interview here.

Guns that Fire

My dear friend Shreyans, who works at Lehman Brothers, pointed me to an interesting article detailing “job losses” at financial firms.

Citi – 7,900

Bear Stearns – 7,500

Merrill Lynch – 5,600

Lehman Brothers – 5,000

Morgan Stanley – 5,400

UBS – 4,380

JPMorgan – 4,000

Bank of America – 3,650

Goldman Sachs – 1,800

HSBC – 1,800

WestLB – 1,530

Credit Suisse – 1,500

Royal Bank of Scotland / ABN AMRO - 1,200 (Rumours abound that up to 25% of the combined 28,000 corporate and investment banking staff could eventually go)

Read full post here.

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The figures at Morgan Stanley surprise me as the numbers are at par with Merrill Lynch which was in far deeper waters than Morgan Stanley. Even Goldman Sachs cut the payroll by 1800 which makes me think as if it is one of the things you do when all others around you are doing the same. Or maybe everyone is making a cautious preparation by removing the load for days ahead !!!

IF makes the difference

These great words by Rudyard Kipling stir up something. I read a part of this poem in Victor Niederhoffer’s book – Practical Speculation, courtesy books.google.com

[IF]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

Who wants to get hit?

Recently Financial Times reported that central banks in US and Europe were in talks about the prospects of buying mortgage-backed securities (MBS) with public funds in order to alleviate the recent turmoil in financial markets. It said the BoE was the most upbeat about the idea, Fed was positive for the method, “but only as a last resort”, and ECB was the least interested.

BoE and Fed came to deny any such talks and said that they were looking for other measures to pacify the crisis. BoE cited that they would not propose any schemes which require the taxpayer rather than the banks to assume the credit risk.

Till now central banks were prepared to lend against MBS, the very same contracts which put the banks in problem. In any case the money central banks use to pump in the markets is taxpayers’ or correct me here if I am wrong. A better solution, rather than buying these securities, would be to lend this money to consumers, the people who are in default. But maybe this is easier said than done in a democratic setup, monarchy will be helpful here.

But in my view, taxpayer should not suffer for the negligence of hot-shot masters of the Street.

Fall of a Bear

I was going through Bear Stearns‘ website and found Shareholder FAQ. A naive question in there is: “How could this have happened to an 85 year old firm?”. The answer sights “extraordinary condition” and tightened credit as reasons. Moreover they blame the rumors about their liquidity which caused the investors to withdraw the funds.

The very fact that they are 85 years old must have fed the impression that they had the ability to sail through “under normal conditions”. Everyone knows that no investor stays invested when you are not able to deal with your problems. This had to be incorporated in their calculations. Maybe it’s unsaid rule to close your eyes and let the storm pass. Moreover this is not the first that a firm so old is close to bankruptcy. Under not-so-normal conditions anyone can be forced to shut.

As Blankfein of Goldman Sachs said in an interview,” We keep in mind that the worst-case scenario we are prepared for is still not the worst”. The worst has to be unexpected. But how can one be prepared for the unexpected? Maybe they were helpless. And when analysts predict that this whole subprime mess will wipe out 400-600 billions from the market, we might still have to see some many-year-olds to go. This is the might of not-so-normal conditions.

Bear Markets

Here are Ten lessons from Recent Bear Markets by Victor on Daily Speculations. First and last ones are my personal favorites.

Parasites

Good post by Victor Niederhoffer drawing some correlation between Parasites’ behaviour and Societe Generale blowup at Daily Speculations. Victor can always find some relevance to markets in anything he lays his hands on. Good food for a healthy mind.