WILL RAHUL BRAND DELIVER .........?

Ruling congress party has declared that party will face next general election in 2014 under Rahul Ghandhi's leader ship. Will it work? I think Rahul is increasingly becoming a burden to Congress. His only plus point is that he is from the Nehru-Ghandhi political dynasty. His ability to lead the party and the nation is in doubt. Party failed to make any advantage in UP and Behar assembly poll which was fought under his leader ship. His performance as a parliament member is also very poor. During the last eight years he spoke only two times in the parliament. He was tight lipped in various scams that grappled the party and the government. Any way Congress party to end up with heavy loss in the next election ................  

Should India try to join NATO?

I feel that the non-aligned movement is absolutely useless in serving India's foreign policy, geopolitical and diplomatic interests. As a largely poor country (sorry to break this so brutally to the mypoic chest thumpers amongst us), India needs strong alliances in order to punch above its weight in global matters. In a way the G20 has helped us, but it is largely a talking shop. We are not part of any major security framework that could, for instance, deter adventure seekers in Beijing to try something funny in Arunachal in 15 years' time.

I believe that India belongs in the league of the world's free nations and has nothing to fear to align itself whole-heartedly with the United States, the European Union, Japan and other like-minded countries. It does not mean breaking off old relationships (e.g. with Russia), but we have to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of being in (as opposed to being out) of a security umbrella. With 1 million soldiers, 800 combat aircraft, a blue water navy, a nuclear arsenal and most importantly, the world's largest democracy, India is a strong candidate for joining NATO.

The thought may give heart-attacks to people who can't think out of the box, but I say it is a good organisation to be part of. In return for committing troops to NATO operations and defending attacks on other NATO member states, it would in an instance put the armies of America, Britain, France, Japan, among others, between our sovereignty and the intentions of a certain rogue neighbour in the north.

It may mean India has to allow NATO military bases in some strategic spots (e.g. the Andamans) and I say why not? Contrary to the xenophoebia quite often present in India, we have nothing to fear from the West. In fact we have a lot to learn and gain from them. So let's stop dithering and throw our lot in with the world's civilised and free nations

Building deterrence for peace

Recent demonstrations in China over Japanese claims on the Senkaku Islands indicate a new belligerence and nationalism among the Chinese populace that does not augur very well for India-China relations. While Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and other contested spaces in China’s immediate neighbourhood occupy “pole” position when it comes to the dominant nationalistic discourse, a stronger India has started figuring actively in the academic discourse.

for more:http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/building-deterrence-for-peace/article4013770.ece

Behind the war

Fifty years on, how the events leading up to 1962 were perceived by China remains almost entirely absent in Indian narratives of the war. Unlike the wars with Japan and in Korea that have a central role in Chinese propaganda about a national revival led by the Communist Party ending “a century of humiliation,” the conflicts with India and Vietnam, where China was the aggressor, are largely airbrushed from today’s Chinese history textbooks. Few Chinese students are even aware of 1962.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/behind-the-war-a-genesis-in-tibet/article4013766.ece

Do FDI in Multi Brand retail harmful to India ?

Hot debate is going on about Union Govt's recent move to more liberalization. Last week govt announced its fresh policies. 51 % FDI in Multi Brand Retail is one among them. Do this move destroy the unorganized retail sector in our country?
Absolutely never ... According the said plan International retail chains will open their malls only in cities with population more than 10 lakhs.
Modernization in retailing will create an atmosphere in which the farmers will get reasonable price for their products . retailers will buy farm products   directly from the farmers. which avoid unnecessary meddle men
if Big retail chains like wall mart open their shops in India it will employ millions directly and indirectly.

gold price charts

gold price charts

Gold may glitter more........

Gold touches new highs daily ... if we go through its recent price movements, it is on a terrific up Trent. It  is just like stock market indices done in 2007.

 where will it stop? unpredictable....!!

world economic situation is turning to worse from bad....

Europe in trouble..... US in trouble... news coming from China is also not good...


So people depend Gold..... It will not end soon....

Who will win next US election ……..?

The current candidates for the 2012 US election are Mitt Romney, and incumbent Barack Obama, Now Obama is doing well and has fundraised more than twice as much as the Romney on the campaign trail. However, there are people who believe he hasn’t helped the economy. He said a growing middle class can help eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor. Some call him a socialist but most people don’t have a problem with him. America has spent more on defense/security in the past than on domestic issues like health and small business, which is what Obama is trying to do. Obama eliminated programs that weren’t working and cut taxes for small business owners. Some perhaps did not see the changes they expected with Obama in office. He is working on fixing problems, but there are so many of them, and he just hasn’t had enough time Will this help him to get a second term in White house?

It is not easy to predict. Resent surveys indicates majority of American White men think against Obama. This gives an up hand to Mitt Rmney.

If any financial tsunami sweeps in Europe (chance for which is very high) then it will not be a nice situation for the President. In 2008, collapse of Lehman Brothers and global financial turmoil there after made things easy to Obama

Another move that may change the situation is a possible US military intervention in Siriya or an Israeli bombing in Iranian nuclear facilities

Ten Trades of all Time

1. John Paulson’s bet against sub-prime mortgages made his hedge fund a cool $15 billion in 2007,that is billion with a ‘B’. he is only one of a very exclusive club that was able to make this call and win with it. That was a call of a lifetime that everyone was blind to even deep into the crises.


2. Jesse Livermore’s call on the Crash of 1929, Jesse Livermore did not need any computer models, technical indicators, or derivatives to make $100 million dollars ($1.2 billion in today’s dollars) for his own personal account during a time when everyone was bullish and then almost everyone lost their shirts. It was an amazing day when Jesse came home and his wife thought they were ruined and instead he had the second best trading day of anyone in history.


3. John Templeton invested heavily into Japan during the 1960s, when Japan was beginning its three-decade long economic miracle, Templeton was one of the country’s first outside investors. At one point, he boldly put more than 60 percent of his fund in Japanese assets.
From its founding in 1954, his Templeton Growth Fund grew at an astonishing rate of nearly 16 per cent a year until Templeton’s retirement in 1992, making it the top performing growth fund in the second half of the 20th century.
A $100,000 stake invested in 1954, with distributions reinvested, would have grown to $55 million in 1999.


4. George Soros’ breaking of the bank of England by shorting 10 billion worth of pound sterling and forcing the U.K. to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM)(September 16, 1992). Soros made $1 billion in the process, which was an unimaginable sum back then.


5. Paul Tudor Jones’ shorting of Black Monday. Paul Tudor Jones correctly predicted on his documentary in 1986 based on chart patterns that the market was on the path to an crash at an epic level. He profited handsomely from the Black Monday crash of 1987, the largest single-day U.S. stock market decline (by percentage) ever. Jones reportedly tripled his money, making as much as $100 million on that trade as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 22 percent. Another amazing trade to walk away from  with a fortune when so many others were ruined in the aftermath. He played it to perfection.


6. Andrew Hall’s back in 2003, when oil was trading at $30 barrel and the economy had just recovered from the dot-com crash, Andrew Hall wagered that prices would top $100 per barrel within five years. When oil prices blew past $100 five years later in 2008, Hall’s employer Citigroup made a bundle and Hall took home $100 million as a part of his compensation for this and other successful trades. He predicted the amount of the trade and the time frame and structured futures contracts to profit greatly from the move to $100 or expire worthless. He did what is suppose to be impossible, predict a price and execute a trade perfectly far in advance for maximum profit.


7. David Tepper’s bought severely depressed shares of big banks early in 2009, Bank of America and quadrupled in value and Citigroup tripled in value from their bottoms earlier in the year.  That was good enough to earn Tepper’s hedge fund $7 billion. His personal cut was $4 billion. His bet was that they would be bailed out and not nationalized. He was correct.


8. Jim Chanos’ prescient shorts correctly predicted, and profited enormously, from the demise of Enron. Other examples of his successful shorts include Baldwin-United, Tyco International (NYSE: TYC), Worldcom and recently homebuilders like KB Home (NYSE: KBH)


9. Jim Rogers’ spotted the secular bull market for commodities way back in the 1990s. In 1996, he created the Rogers International Commodity Index. Subsequently, he worked on ways to make that index invest-able. Since 1998, the index has returned 290 percent through the end of 2010. This compares to the 10 percent return of the S&P 500 Index during the same period.


10. Louis Bacon’s made a killing in 1990 by anticipating that Saddam Hussein would invade Kuwait. Bacon went long on oil, short on stocks, and helped his new hedge fund return 86 percent that year. In the following year, he also correctly bet that the U.S. would quickly defeat Iraq and the oil market would recover.

Bubble will Burst...!!!!!!!!!!!

People think that speculation is the menace only seen in stock market. Is it true?
Does it exist in other investment options like gold and real- estate? Sure .first of all we have to check what is speculation? Buying an asset at an unreasonable price with the view that it can be sold at a margin is speculation. When a large number of people buy a particular asset with a speculative view, first it appears like a boom, and then it leads to bubble, when that bubble burst, our money evaporates
What is the situation in real estate in India? It is sky rocketing all over the country, especially in cities. People still buy properties with the expectation that some one will come to buy from them, any way this speculation will not last for ever and some will end with some properties which they could not sell
Situation will not be different in the case of gold too. What is the rational in believing that the yellow metal leads the world economy?
Before in vesting any asset class should have enough awareness about its value and price

SIVAPRAKASH P. R 

Bulls make money bears make money but the pigs get killed

Retail investor lose money in stock market

If we go through various investment options all over the world, we can see stock market and real-estate have given maximum return during the last 100 years 

But still in our country retail investor lose money in stock market
Only Less than 5% Indians have minimum awareness about stock market
In this 5% only less than 1 % makes profit from stocks…… Why?

The reasons are many….
Lack of awareness, lack of patients, greed, panic, 

So various institutions in this sector should do some thing for investor educations 

Rubber heading for long term correction

Now it is going to be rubber that put farmers in trouble..........!
we believe it is going to be a long term correction...................!

the immediate support said to be 161 (Spot) next 148 , then 133
if it goes below 133 then it can even touch 92........................!

World economy  heading for a long term crisis .....
which may jeopardize growth and demand..

Auto mobile industry in India is in a cyclical slow down....
production of rubber in world wide improved  so supply side may  go off

National Pension Scheme

In India now social security is only guaranteed for govt. employees in old age because only they are getting pension. Social security should be guaranteed for all. For this purpose central govt. brought New Pension Scheme ( National Pension Scheme) According to which any Indian can open a Permanent Retirement Account Number. (PRAN) By which he can invest for his retirement life.

In order to monitor this entire scheme and its operation to protect the interests of investor, a body is constituted named PFRDA (Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority) under which another agency for record keeping is created named CRA (Central Recordkeeping Agency) which makes the pension fund operations transparent.

NPS differs from the existing pension scheme in the sense that existing pension fund of Government of India offers assured benefits while NPS has defined contribution structure where an individual can decide where his contributed money will be invested. . Another important difference being premature withdrawal is subject to few life changing situations. Let's explore other aspects of this scheme.

Product Structure



The scheme is available in two forms:
1. Tier-I account -  Premature withdrawal not allowed
2. Tier-II account - Premature withdrawal allowed



Features



Until now the pension schemes were available to Government employees and employees of big firms who have provident fund facility. With NPS common man gets an entry to the system. The other important features of the schemes are:



1. Low Cost - Annual Fees of .00009% (90 paisa for Rs 10,000) for fund management
2. You can choose from six different funds for investment
3. Withdrawing from one fund and investing in another will not have any tax implication
4. No upper limit on Investment
5. Minimum limit of investment is 6,000 per year
6. Tax benefit over and above the current limit of 1L under sec 80C
7. All citizens between 18 and 55 years can invest in NPS



Taxation



Under the newly introduced Section 80CCD (2), up to 10% of an employee's basic salary put in the New Pension Scheme is tax deductible. If you fall in the 30% tax bracket, the NPS investment under Section 80CCD (2) will reduce your tax liability by almost 15000. Now onwards, NPS will be more beneficial from the tax angle. From the next financial year, contributions by employers to the NPS accounts of their employees can be deducted as a business expense which was not allowed till now. As such contributions will not be part of the Rs. 1 lakh tax deduction limit under Section 80C, your employer's contribution on your behalf will be a tax free benefit for you.



Fund withdrawal



Premature exits before 60 years' You will have to invest 80% of accumulated wealth to purchase a life annuity from registered life insurer
' The remaining 20% is liable for withdrawal as lump sum



Exits after 60 years' You will have to invest at least 40% of pension wealth to purchase an annuity



No exits till 70 years' Beneficiary account will be closed and the accumulated amount will be transferred in lump sum



In case of death of the scheme holder nominee will receive the whole amount as lump sum.



NPS scheme on its own vs. the one offered by the employer



If the employer is offering NPS he will be making an equal contribution in the scheme from his side. The structure will be of Tier-1 type where premature withdrawal will not be allowed. You will be liable for additional tax benefit on the employer's contribution.



Additional to above structure individual can also choose a voluntary tier-II account having premature withdrawal facility. Government and employers will make no contribution into this account. The accumulated wealth in this account can be withdrawn anytime without stating any reason.



Benefits to investors



1. Additional tax saving ' Both employers and employees will get tax exemption on their contribution
2. Low cost of fund management ' The fund management cost is very low, which will enhance the returns
3. Higher return potential as compared to old plans ' As it's a defined contribution plan, investors can choose from the 6 funds available for investment for better returns.  Rebalancing of accumulated amount is free of cost so you can always invest in the best fund.



The Drawbacks



1. Tier 1 option doesn't give much flexibility ' It's a rigid structure. A little flexibility with respect to premature withdrawal would have made it more lucrative.
2. Annuity rates post maturity is not fixed ' There is no floor rate decided so you cannot be sure of the returns until maturity.
3. Fund management costs might increase in future ' Depending on the pension liability and costs involved this rate might shift northward.
4. Only six fund managers makes it a risky proposition ' If we take into account the working population of India this number seems to be pretty risky. As the number of subscribers increase hopefully government will increase this number.



How does employee and employer benefit?



The scheme will benefit both employees and employers a like when they participate. Employees get tax deduction on their contribution and from next financial year employers will be in a position to show their contribution as business expense generating additional tax benefits for the firm.

Three options are available to any investor . They are Option G: money will be invested in central and state govt. securities . Which is guaranteed by government. So very safe. Option C: it is to invest in Corporate Bonds. Which is also safe to certain extent. Option E: to invest in Stock Market index funds . Which is highly risky. But investor has the freedom to select the option