Markets

 I have been a bit busy traveling. Have not written a while.

I do not know about the rest of us, but I clearly missed the recent market
boom. My calculations were proven totally wrong.. I expected a hung parliament,
like most of us... but the people decided otherwise.

I had exited stocks before the elections... I did a quick calculation... had I
persisted, my portfolio as of yesterday would have given me about 92%... 
instead I only cashed in with about 60%... clear loss of opportunity.

However, I am not complaining.

1.60% returns over six months is good by any standards.
2. It is very difficult to time the market.
3. Had the results gone the way I had predicted, then the reurns could have
dwindled... imagine 15% drop in a day... which happened in 2004 Oct..


Going forward, from the looks of it, almost all stocks are back to their high
levels. there is very little upside left, given the earnings estimates for FY
2010. Market is at a PE of about 20 right now... close to the 21000 levels we
saw in May 2008...

Hence I have no choice but to wait for a correction in order to get back in. If
I get in now, then I should be prepared to wait for another 3 years at the
least, to get decent returns. They are predicting that the Sensex would go all
the way up to 19500 this year.. I am not sure about that, given the decadence
in the US $ and the pursuant global crisis 2.0 that is building up... but
anything is possible in India!!

Effective CMs

I am hearing a lot about the good work Nitish Kumar has been doing in
Bihar. See URL: below.

http://www.ndtv.com/news/blogs/a_fine_balance/bihar_transformed.php


Amongst other popular CMs, I hear very good coverage about Biju Patnaik, Sheila
Dixit and of course Narendra Modi.

These people have shown that it is possible to get votes not just by partisan
politics, but by good governan