My cup Overfloweth (The Lord is my Shepherd)

PSALM 22:1-3.5-6

R The Lord is my shepherd

There is nothing I shall want

The Lord is my shepherd

There is nothing I shall want

Fresh and green are the pastures

Where he gives me repose               R

Near restful waters he leades me

to revive my drooping spirit

He guides me along the right path

He is true to his name                     R

You have prepared a banquet for me

In the sight of my foes

My head you have anointed with oil

my cup is overflowing                     R

Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me

all the days of my life

In the Lord’s own house shall i dwell

for ever and ever                             R

Dubyaman Quotes

Here are some interesting quotes from George W Bush found in today’s London Metro.

‘I have opinions of my own – strong opinions – but I don’t always agree with them’

‘Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.’

‘First, let me make it very clear – poor people aren’t necessarily killers.’

‘I understand small business growth. I was one.’

‘One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures’

‘It is clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.’

‘Never again in washingdon DC do I have to make explanations I can’t explain.’

‘It’s amazing  I won. I was running against peace, prosperity and incumbency.’

‘I think we agree, the past is over.’

Now that we are on it, here is another gem from Brooke Shields:

‘If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life’

Who can disagree?

An amazing blogger!

If you want to read a great blog, you should go to Pallavi’s ‘Crocodile’s Tales’.

I like it so much that I am adding it in my favourites.  Her blogs are very refreshing. And I respect her deeply for the principled stand she takes on several issues.

Way to go Pallavi!

Manager Tools

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance

                                                                      – Will Durant.

‘Manager Tools’ website has very nice collection of podcasts and articles on Management, Effective communication and many other topics.

Here is their list of Podcast Archives and their Article Archives. 

(I just nominated them for the 4th Annual Podcast Awards.)

My favourites.

This is my favourite little football team of Indian Stocks. I am rooting for them by investing every spare paisa I can manage.

1. Educomp – Sunrise sector, Education. I dream of opening a world class School where every single product and service from Educomp is used.
2. Larsen and Toubro - Look at their projects and their order book. You will see why.
3. Kouton Retail and Pantaloon Retail – Going by the claustrophobia we felt every time we went to a big-bazaar.
4. Bharti – Hey, they have never given any dividend yet. So what, they had the Highest ever-net addition of 75.09 lakh customers in a single quarter in Q1 FY09.
5. NTPC, BHEL, Tata Power – Our bet on power story for the next 10+ years
6. HEG – The book says there is value at the current price.
7. Bartronics – The Smart card and RFID growth story.
8. Geojit Securities – Good time to enter for the future growth from all their new 100+ branches which will open in time for the next wave of buying frenzy. And brokers make money no matter what.
9. Balkrishna Industries – A specialist tyre company. Rubber prices are cooling off now. And the growth looks good too.
10. Tata Chemical - The fertiliser sector may have some good time ahead. Or so we heard. The numbers look good.
11. DLF - Just because we don’t own any real estate property.  The only one which did not convince me entirely to enter. But thought I will enter and see what happens.
12. V-Guard – Just in case they become India’s answer to Disney land. In fact their stabilizer business itself is decent. And we like the Man behind this company.

Comments anyone?

Tennis

Started playing Tennis.  Learning to play rather.

After one week into this, my feeling is that the whole thing is overrated really. Arguably from the fact that I suck at this. My movement in court is as if I am wearing heavy magnetic boots.

This cool picture is from flickr images of Andrew Caird

Antidote to market analysts..

I am reading ‘Taming the lion’ by Richard Farleigh.  Been only through a couple of chapters, yet, I am hooked. His views are very clear and the reasoning is impeccable. Nice read and very informative.

On a  regular basis, we hear analysts who predict multiple future events like “Sensex is about to re-trace to 12380 in short term before making another upmove to 15800 levels and subsequently to break the old highs sometime in 2009″.

As if the future of markets and even the exact levels therein is something well within their predictive capacity. I wonder why they failed see the same in Jan 2008 while the same experts predicted “at 21 PE and 21000 levels, India has a lot of steam left (compared to china which traded at 45 PE aparently!)  in terms of upmove potential”.

Months of market bloodsheds (and many suicides) later, they still predict stuff with absolute confidence and with the air of someone who knows it all.

One theory of Richard which strikes me most is that the market prices are about correct at any given time. Put differently, the collective intelligence of the system is far greater than any individual professional/trader/investor.

The most common mistake is to assume that investment success is easy. This is encouraged by so called “expert” views which appear in the media and imply that market prices are somehow flawed, and that there are plenty of opportunities.

The irony is that in thinking it’s too easy, investors make it more difficult. It leads them away from the truth: the starting point must be that market prices are normally about right, and that any opportunities can only be found by identifying their cause and understanding how they work. We need to be careful, experts are vastly over-rated. Most professionals in the markets are not actually outguessing the price, but are making money from clients, transactions and commissions.

Probably this is something CNBC’s and NDTV’s of the world do not want you to read.

I am also reading ‘How to get rich’ by Felix Dennis in parallel. This book impresses me more on the literary quality rather than the real financial advice provided. Well written, amusing and liberally sprinkled with poetry-his own and of other poets, and lots of nice quotes.

In nutshell his message is this: Ardently want to be rich. And be compulsively determined. And be prepared to sacrifice anything (happiness and health included).

I am more inclined to be the Lion Tamer rather than the Gladiator.

Economics, Politics, Trust Vote, and a Little boy’s Dream…

Given below is the extract of the last part of Dr. Manmohan Singh’s speech in parliament just ahead of trust vote.

The Management and governance of the world’s largest, most diverse and most vibrant democracy is the greatest challenge any person can be entrusted with, in this world. It has been my good fortune that I was entrusted with this challenge over four years ago..

…………..

I have often said that I am a politician by accident. I have held many diverse responsibilities. I have been a teacher, I have been an official of the Government of India, I have been a member of this greatest of Parliaments, but I have never forgotten my life as a young boy in a distant village.

Every day that I have been Prime Minister of India I have tried to remember that the first ten years of my life were spent in a village with no drinking water supply, no electricity, no hospital, no roads and nothing that we today associate with modern living. I had to walk miles to school, I had to study in the dim light of a kerosene oil lamp. This nation gave me the opportunity to ensure that such would not be the life of our children in the foreseeable future.

Sir, my conscience is clear that on every day that I have occupied this high office, I have tried to fulfill the dream of that young boy from that distant village.

The greatness of democracy is that we are all birds of passage! We are here today, gone tomorrow! But in the brief time that the people of India entrust us with this responsibility, it is our duty to be honest and sincere in the discharge of these responsibilities. As it is said in our sacred texts, we are responsible for our actions and we must act without coveting the rewards of such action. Whatever I have done in this high office I have done so with a clear conscience and the best interests of my country and our people at heart. I have no other claims to make.

It is heartening to hear the vision and dream of a young boy who lived on to fulfill them at the highest office in the country.

Dream and ye shall attain it.

Sir John Templeton

 

To quote from his obituary site,

As a pioneer in both financial investments and philanthropy, John Templeton spent a lifetime encouraging open-mindedness. If he hadn’t sought new paths, he once said, he would have been unable to attain so many goals. The motto that Templeton created for his Foundation, “How little we know, how eager to learn,” exemplified his philosophy in the financial markets and his groundbreaking methods of philanthropy.

An inspiring life. Great men live beyond their death. Their ideas live on and continue to inspire.

Thank you Mark and David!

(Picture : ‘Cheers’ from Annie in Beziers’s PhotoStream -Flickr)

This post is to express my appreciation and gratitude to my friends at ‘Pasporte’.

Especially to David Frankland and Mark Brookfield.

They deserve special mention due to the alacrity and professionalism with which they approach the problems and fix them while keeping the customer apprised with sensible updates.

My company has outsourced some of the major technology operations to Pasporte and I interact with several specialist engineers from that company on a regular basis.

Some of them have impressed me a lot with their Technical Skills and Professionalism. Dealing with such people makes my working days a lot more fun.

Dave was part of the project team who set up the network infrastructure and Mark is a member of the Operational Support team. Both of them are true assets to their organisation and they are hugely responsible for the customer satisfaction Pasporte enjoys from my company.

I (with great support from my company) can be credited with subjecting these gentlemen with amazing loads work pressure which is often not in proportion to their organization’s size. Yet they have never failed me and consistantly provided a  great level of support.

Just wanted to say my big ‘THANK YOU’ to them and declare to the world that they are true rockstars!