Sunday, March 30, 2008

The laziest countdown

As the month of March draws to the close, as ta typical Libran does the best during a crucial period of decision making...brood, sit-over, over think, over analyse without arriving at a decision. Its been a difficult week as I am coming to the fact that in a few days I will be partying myself from something close to the heart, a place I was born, grew and became a citizen off. as I prepare myself to pack myself off in a few weeks, I was getting all nostalgic of this place, and places I used to roam around. Last week I visited the DLFH SEZ facility might be the last time for me, then went to Gokul Chat. Was pretty deeply hurt for the fact that this place had a special place in my heart, partly due to my visits to this place to eat, partly due to the shopping-backed snack during my 4- years of engineering and a bit of my special time here too. Then been to Mehdipatnam. Yaa there was a glimmer of hope that I could somehow someway catch a glimpse of my ex, for the last time. Been longing to meet and express my feelings and tell how badly I needed to express and see her and let go of all the emotions deeply tied down, buried deep inside.
More so at office an amazing nostalgia begins to surround as the organisation I've somewhat proudly been associated and somewhat cursed it for not keeping upto my expectations did seem to be becoming an oblivion of the futures past. My disassociation with the company as it becomes inevitable has started to pinch me terribly hard. The people I've been with at the company felt deeply bonded and entrusted to a few of them quite emotionally, and being with them did make me comfortable and happy. And probably thats the precisely the same things which I am running away from
Running away from the comfort, support, love, and care of the well wishers. I do know I need to rediscover myself, spend and gain my own experience and way of solving problems. I hope being alone makes me come out transformed as a more improved person than I am today. More exposure less of dependence I believe should do atleast a small wonder. So as the countdown to move on begins, and lookout for new beginning, the past which has its own good and bad, and the nostalgia all around is holding me back, and very true I happen to sway around in a infinite space of suspended animation beyond the very constraints of time.

Movies that I was watching


Over the last week, was lying in my sofa couch, switched on the TV and popped in the DVD which was lying around with me for over 6 months. Not a high romantic movie bluff by any standards, except for a few of Julia Roberts movies.
The basic plot revolves around Marissa, a mother of ten year-old boy and a maid in a posh hotel in New York. While trying on a guest's designer clothes, she encounters Chris, a local politician who mistakes her for a guest.The film is briefly amusing when Marissa is trying to avoid Chris at work. Though not the best of the romantic comedies, the movie had my interest in for a while. It had a touch of fantassy of Cindrella and a bit from my favourite romantic movie of all Notting Hill. What was touchy is the mentality of Marisa in trying to avoid the Senator while having fallen for him, for the very reason that the fitment is not good and unacceptable by the society. The climax where Chris finally meets up with the love of her life and accepts the reality is the touchy part, though not unique to many of the movies in the genre.
Ever since I have returned back from Mumbai, I've fallen in love with the place and the fascinated started with the Mumbai's life-lines the Mumai Local. The Xulfi song from the movie was also quite catchy with me. The movie revloves an incident with a call centre employee who misses his last ride home but goes through unimaginable twists in that short period of a few hours. The movie potrays the hardships of the people of Mumbai and its immigrants. It depicts the hardships of the people and their means of overcoming the same craving for small moments of happiness. A few glimses of realities of life, corruption and underworld were comicaly presented in the movie.
A feel good movie, and ever gorgeous Neha Dhupia, ensured that she can sizzle wearing just a Salwar in the entire movie. At end of the movie of gets a feeling of why the life can't be like a jackpot, very easy money, easy girl and easy life are made available at the door step.
On the whole though these two were not much hyped or talked about movies they still were a feel good movie to just relax and enjoy without expecting much of a roller coaster ride in emotions etc.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Bearish after the Bears collapse (The beginning of the end of dollar hegemony)

Credit Crunch fears sending markets for a spin downwards and investors sentiment round the world turned ziffy with the US Sub-prime credit situation claiming another victim. This time its
Bear Stearns; Founded in 1923 and employing some 15,500 people worldwide, Bear Stearns was one of the “big five” Wall Street investment banks. In 2005-2007, Bear Stearns was recognized as the “Most Admired” securities firm in Fortune magazine’s. The second largest US underwriter of mortgage bonds, With the de facto collapse of Bear Stearns, however, the housing and credit market collapse has claimed one of the titans of Wall Street.


Credit Bubble
The underlying problem is the vast credit bubble that was inflated on the basis of reckless and intrinsically unviable home loans and other forms of speculation, including leveraged buyouts and a vast expansion in unregulated credit markets that delivered unsustainably high returns on investment. The immense fortunes amassed by the uppermost echelons of the US population on the basis of such parasitic financial operations have created, as their consequence, a social and economic disaster of historical proportions, threatening tens of millions of Americans, and hundreds of millions more people around the world, with pauperization.

How it started for Bear Stearns ..
Last July, the collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds as a result of the bursting of the US housing bubble sparked a crisis of confidence in the credit system that has gathered steam and expanded in scope to threaten the viability of some of the biggest banks and financial institutions .
The explosive growth of the derivatives market, in which Bear Stearns and other brokers and banks are major participants, has heightened anxiety about so-called counterparty risk( fear that the bank on the other side of a trade will not be able to cover positions if need be). The CDS (credit default swaps) market, which has grown to a notional value of $US45 trillion, has yet to be tested by a major disruption. There has been a potential CDS counterparty problem where we have more buyers than qualified sellers. With Bear having such a large CDS counterparty position, one can't expect to have that $US45 trillion market come apart. Since late Thursday(13th March 2008), anyone looking to unwind a credit derivative position with Bear Stearns won't be able to, since no one wants to face the firm as a counterparty
Speculation about Bear Stearns problems gained momentum amid turmoil in the agency mortgage bond market on the back of the collapse of hedge fund Carlyle Capital Corporation in which Bear Stearns had a major exposure. Carlyle Capital Corporation, a $22 billion publicly traded investment fund controlled by the Carlyle Group, had beenone of the profitable and well-connected private equity firms in the US. CCC has been facing margin pressure and was unable to finance the trades. Once you have a run on the bank you are in a death spiral and your assets become worthless. The stock which once traded at 170$ levels had corrected to below 30$ and now its been valued around 2$,. At 30$ the stock is 60% below its book value of 80$. Re-winding back 8-years ago when ex-CEO Mr. James Cayne’s hinted — that he would only sell the firm for four times its book value — was even then a flight of financial fancy. Wall Street investment banks rarely command such a premium to their book value, given the inherent and unpredictable risks of their business. And this has been proven beyond doubt in the present days frenzy.

For now, the prospect of a new wave of consolidation in the financial services industry seems remote. That is because would-be acquirers and everyday investors alike have lost faith in the values that Wall Street firms are placing on their own assets. Credit ratings agencies Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings both slashed Bear's credit ratings to triple-B, near the bottom of the investment-grade ladder before junk, and Moody's Investors Service cut its rating to Baa1.

Question will be raised on the high leverage such companies have, Bear Sterns is among a highly leveraged company with 33:1 ratio in terms of leverage of Debt to equity. At such cruical moment Capital structure of the firm itself is to be challenged and cost of assets it has.

The Fed's Action of Friday (http://wsws.org/)
The Federal Reserve Board on Friday took emergency action to prevent the collapse of Bear Stearns, the fifth largest US investment bank and one of the world’s largest finance and brokerage houses.
Invoking a little-used provision added to the Federal Reserve Act in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, the US central bank agreed to allow the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to insure an infusion of credit to Bear Stearns by JP Morgan Chase. Under the terms of the “secured loan facility,” to extend for up to 28 days, the risk of a default by Bear Stearns will be borne by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, not JP Morgan Chase. The latter will serve essentially as a conduit for the cash provided by the US central bank.
This mechanism was used because only commercial banks, so-called depository institutions, can borrow directly from the Fed’s discount window. Bear Stearns is not a depository bank, and hence the Fed was obliged to invoke a provision of the 1932 amendment to the Federal Reserve Act that applies when “unusual and exigent circumstances exist and the borrower is unable to secure adequate credit accommodations from other sources.”

Who's next ??
Today morning when the US markets opened, all the brokerages were sharply lower, with Goldman Sachs down 6%, Morgan Stanley off 8% and Merrill Lynch down 9%. Indeed, investors are taking a grim view of the prospects for other investment banks like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. Next to Bear Stears, Lehman is the smallest and least diversified brokerage firm on Wall Street, so there are worries that it will be the next firm to come under attack as firms that trade with Lehman pull back in a bid to protect themselves.
Citigroup, one of the US's largest banks, is now trading below its book value. Lehman Brothers, at $39, is trading just below the book value it reported at the end of last year. This year, Bear’s stock is down 65 percent and Lehman’s has sunk 40 percent.
Indicative of the broader reverberations from the Bear Stearns collapse, the share price of Ambac Financial Group, the world’s second-largest bond insurer, fell 93%, on widespread fears that the company will not have sufficient capital to meet claims from its creditors.
And analysts are speculating that Lehman may not play a big enough role in the markets to justify a Fed-backed bailout like the one at Bear Stearns. And while Bear’s peers on Wall Street are not yet in such dire shape, they have surely accepted the reality of leaner times and lower valuations in the months to come.
Very true that this has been proven time again since the Great American Depresion and Oil Shake that the fact is thatBanks and brokerages are a house of cards built on the confidence of clients, creditors and counterparties; If one where to take chunks out of that confidence, things can go awry pretty quickly, pack comes crashing down.

Impact on India
The timing of the move made its urgency clear: If Bear could have held out until March 27, it could have borrowed directly from the Fed itself under a new program announced.
The maximum size of the loan is not predetermined, but is limited by how much collateral Bear Stearns can provide to satisfy the Fed’s requirements. The loan by no means assures Bear Stearns’s survival. More likely, it was granted in the hope that it would buy time for a more orderly disposition of the firm’s fate and head off a panic response by bankers and investors to its demise.
The impact on hedge funds dealing with the bank could be that those that rely on the bank to finance trading and hold securities would be stranded and could be looking to other banks for trading and financing. Bear Sterns has interests in more than 15 companies--from real estate, infrastructure, energy to capital goods. The investment bank has maximum exposure in RPG Transmission at 8.93 per cent, trading in the counter is suspended at the moment and on the lower side, 1.06 per cent in Hindustan Construction Company. Bear Stearn's has already sold off close to 900 (250 on Friday & 650 on Monday) crores of equity in the Indian markets, and in situation where the markets have so little cushioning to offer, the companies in which Bear Stearns had its interests in would go down along with its sell-off.

Bear Stearns forced to sell off assets at fire-sale prices to raise cash needed to meet creditors’ demands, the value of untold billions in assets held by other financial institutions would drop, leading to more margin calls from creditors, further institutional collapses, more panic selling of debt and securities—a vicious spiral to the bottom with the potential of a breakdown in the entire capitalist financial system. Brokers in India are already feeling the pain; The BSE benchmark Index Sensex witnessed its 2nd largest fall in its history recording a fall of 951 points due to the sell off. Investor sentiment (mine included) has been beaten down heavily and this will continue untill a few more institutions fall off.
Companies like India Bulls, Motilal Oswal, ShareKhan have had deep corrections with dropping trading volumes and huge market risk, this happend to be just a prelude of what will hit out markets.
All these developments and the impact of the same in terms of market reaction locally all prove that the So-called De-coupling is far from reality for the Indian markets as we continue to out perform in terms of fall we exhibit in comparision to markets globally.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Void, the current state of mind (life??)

As I lay on my bed, sleepless I felt soo void, soo incomplete and soo much empty than ever before. My soul longs for a good friend whom I can be myself. The sense of void within myself is soo much that I its seems to add so much directionless and indecisiveness to life. My current state of affairs at the current zuncture of time is nothing great and nothing seems to be moving even a millimeter; Its seems as though everything has come to a standstill, I see no pressure from anywhere neither professional nor personal. No sense of urgency life's so mono-tonous vibes all-round, its not even black and white it looks all so grey, ripped off its life, excitement to that matter even sadness seems to stay away from me. Only definition I can put at this moment might be loneliness or high sense of spirituality (nah!).
Life seems so directionless that even the winds of inspiration and path towards future seemed to be covered up, as though in middle of doldrums, my life is just waiting for the right winds to set sail to unknown places of happiness and excitement. A roaring forties might be just a few metres ahead but to reached those few metres seems life a big task. So much for the suspended animation of life, I don't even know what toll it is taking on my life and race towards life's ambitions, which seems like nothing.
I hope I come out of this place of nowhere, like in the movie "The Matrix" am in construct program, where one can load anything, though the reality is there is nothing, my construct program is also looks like not functioning for now, need to kick start and reboot the same. The construct program for me would a dream world and world of imagination and aspiration to train and set myself up for the future. Hope this goes ahead in full stream.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Regular blogging could improve your social life

Just happpened to come across this interesting piece of article from the web. Thought of posting and documenting the same, for my blogging habit picked me up from the shambles of life I as getting into after the turn of events that I had during the last part of 2007. I had my sense of being alone, socially withdrawn, professionally written down, mentally and physically stressed out. The blogging which I revived after the course of events actually kept my focus and concentration very much away from not so obvious and obnoxious twists ahead. Helped me regather and take a few steps towards unfulfilled dreams. Though I am not fully 100% out, but the blogging a few times made me a better person, without eating into other peoples time.

Anyways Here's the Article
Sydney, Mar 4 (ANI): A new Australian study has found that blogging can boost people's social life, by making them feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with their friendships, both online and personally.
This evidence is the result of two related studies, conducted by the Swinburne University Technology in Melbourne, Australia, which found that after two months of regular blogging, people felt they had better social support and friendship networks than those who didn't blog.
In the first study, researchers Susan Moore and James Baker compared the mental health of people intending to blog with that of people not planning to blog.
The study, published in the latest issue of the journal CyberPsychology and Behaviour, involved messaging 600 MySpace users a survey link; of which 134 completed the survey, 84 intended to blog and 50 didn't.
"We found potential bloggers were less satisfied with their friendships and they felt less socially integrated, they didn't feel as much part of a community as the people who weren't interested in blogging ... they were also more likely to use venting or expressing your emotions as a way of coping," News in Science quoted Moore, as saying.
"It was as if they were saying 'I'm going to do this blogging and it's going to help me,' " she added.
The follow-up study, which is yet to be published, was conducted after two months and was sent to the same group of users; only 59 individuals responded.
Those that originally intended to blog reported feeling more satisfied socially as a result of being a part of a group of like-minded individuals. Those same individuals expressed a feeling that they could rely on others for help as well.
On the whole, all MySpace users contacted felt more at ease and less stressed after spending 2 months of steady social networking on the popular site.
"So going onto MySpace had lifted the mood of all participants in some way. Maybe they'd just made more social connections," Moore said. (ANI)
(http://www.yahoo.com/)
Though, just blogging might not be the best of the answer and the support I got. I had lot of support all through the current phase of life. From my parents, to relatives (Vanadana, Ramana, Balaji, Sreenu, Sudha, Vanimavayaa, Maheshmavayaa, Peddamma, Tatha, my brother by his invisible presence) collegues (Shankar, Adivi, Venkat, Kamal, Divya, Naaz, Amol, Amit, Vasu, bosses - Munish, CK Rao, Arun & Manda to some extent in their own unique way), friends (Ramya, Ram, Tarak, Naresh, Madhu, Duggu, Madhavi), well wishers like Divya, Ajay and Rama Aunty, and my own confused little sister Sreelekha, and last Poorni whom I am indebted to with my life for all the the troubles whoz very survivability instincts boosts me up.

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