Deepavali
the festival of lights, brought in cheer and joy for all…. It was great time,
it did rain but allowed fair share for people to burst crackers and celebrate
grandly…. In a debate [patti mandram] a
speaker was heard saying ‘Deepavali is festival of the masses but every celebration
becomes festival for the traders ~~~ he went on to say that ‘traders are
capable of creating festivals where none exist’ – and thus you ‘aadi discount
sale’ on a time when the popular belief that nothing would be bought during the
month …. Also the Valentines Day, Akshaya Trithay and the like were all created
to ensure a boom for themselves……….
For those with
financial acumen, there was cheers too as Samvat year 2070 commenced with a big
bang at the ‘Muhurat’ trading session and the benchmark BSE S&P Sensex hit
a fresh lifetime high of 21,321.53. The Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share index
resumed better at 21,278.08 and firmed up further to a high of 21,321.53,
before closing at 21,239.36, at 07.30 pm, showing a gain of 42.55 points from
its last close. After hitting a high of 6,328 at open, the NSE 50-share Nifty
closed at 6,317.35, higher by 10.15 points. The rally has puffed up the
valuations of some shares, but a larger number have lagged behind. Skewed stock
indices do not give a correct picture of the stock markets, leave alone the
broader economy ~ so, this may not mean realtime good news for those of us who
have invested heavily in the market [by your own standards] and having a
portfolio which has never been performing too well………
On a
day when you had no newspaper, there was news of a 71 year old MP in Kerala
being booked on a complaint of molestation by a Kerala actress – that too in a
public function. There was news that Police
charged 71-year-old Congress MP N Peethambara Kurup with IPC sections 354 and 354 (A) for assault
or criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty. Kurup,
who represents Kollam in the Lok Sabha, was booked within hours of a police
team recording the statement of the actress in which she stood firm by her
charge against the politician. Shweta Menon …………. Day later, the snowballing controversy over Malayalam film
actor Swetha Menon’s allegation that Congress MP N. Peethambara Kurup had
physically misbehaved with her here on Friday has lost its momentum somewhat
with the actor withdrawing her complaint late Sunday evening. In a message
e-mailed to media institutions, Ms. Menon said she was withdrawing her
complaint, taking also into account the apologies tendered by Mr. Kurup. She
had no complaint that she was humiliated, Ms. Menon said.
Sure you would have
seen pandals erected in EA Mall for the sale of Apple’s i-phones. According to a report in ET, some 30,000
units of iPhone 5s and 5c models were distributed in India in the launch phase,
which includes some 6,000 units of iPhone5s. New stock of iPhone 5s will
available again from Wednesday. It seems Apple got it right this time by
launching the two new phones during Dhanteras.
It is reported that Apple has
completely sold out its premium iPhone 5s in India in less than 24 hours of its
retail launch, while the iPhone 5c model has become the fastest-moving model in
stores and is expected to be sold-out during the weekend, the country's top
multibrand cellphone retail chains said.
The Cupertino-based giant launched its two new iPhone models in India at
5pm on Friday in a series of events in the top six cities of India and
commenced retail sales in select Apple premium resellers and multi-brand stores
from 7 pm onwards. The Apple iPhone 5s is priced between Rs 53,500 and Rs
71,500, depending on the size of the internal memory, while iPhone 5c is priced
at Rs 41,900 (16 GB) and Rs 53,500 (32 GB).
It is stated that the
gold color model was the most sought after one….. may be it still is the
colour and not the features behind the success of the premium product too. Globally, Apple's CEO Tim Cook last week
acknowledged in an analyst conference call that the company has a significant
supply backlog for its iPhone 5s model due to high demand.
For those of you who
are not as interested in cricket – there is some learning – with persistence……….
Long back a comment by Sunil Gavaskar that ‘you are seeing the future of India’
when Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma were on screen, outraged me… Rohit had just
returned making less than 15 runs in 5 innings in Lanka and followed up with a
4 at Chepuak against Pakistan. He was a
great success in IPL and now his mind-numbing innings of 209 against Australia
in the 7th ODI at Bangalore had distinctly separable phases……… first 50 runs –
71 balls (SR 70.42) Next 50 runs – 43 balls (SR 116.28) Next 109 runs- 44 balls
(SR 247.72) ~ so it was not speed all the time and there was a time when he was
farming much of strike, but Dhawan was scoring freely. This 209 runs (the second highest ODI score
ever) placed him in a new sphere 16
sixes (a world record), 12 fours (he hit more sixes than fours), 9 twos, 47
singles, 74 dot balls. His 491 runs in this series are a world record in a
bilateral series. Rohit Sharma’s average when not opening the batting was a
middling 31.43 ~ perhaps not good enough to justify his continued existence
ahead of many others now as an opener in 26 matches, he is averaging 50.34.
So is it
Dhoni’s mastermind, selector’s persistence, or the real talent ~ which one has
catapulted him to success ~ and would this continue in the same vein ?
For the uninformed,
the SENSEX - the S&P BSE SENSEX
(S&P Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index), is a free-float market capitalization-weighted
stock market index of 30 well-established and financially sound companies
listed on BSE Ltd. The 30 component companies which are some of the largest and
most actively traded stocks, are representative of various industrial sectors
of the Indian economy. Published since 1 January 1986, the S&P BSE SENSEX
is regarded as the pulse of the domestic stock markets in India. The base value
of the S&P BSE SENSEX is taken as 100 on 1 April 1979, and its base year as
1978–79.
To
understand how the market is buoyant, see this chart [courtesy :
moneycontrol.com] ….. it might still be a paradox that your shares are not
doing well – Financial analysts would jump to say that it shows that your
investment was not on sound bluechips …… still – for a common man, when things
go up, everything should rise………
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
4th Nov.
2013 - @ 07.00 am..