Soham Das

India: The Next Subprime Crisis?

"The problem is the bankers. We know all too well what happens when bankers smell easy profits from exploiting the financially illiterate."

Exploiting the Financial Illiterate???

Exploiting?
Profit is good, monsieur.

Financial Illiterate.
They might be academically illiterate, but not quite financially. A recent research paper, has shown that marginalised folks in EM have much better personal finance habits than even the blessed in Western Hemisphere.
All said and done, crisis comes time and again, but not the same one!

2009: What to Expect - And What Not to Expect

I guess, time is validating me nicely.[which doesn't serve much except ego smothering]

1. Obama again, I reiterate has very few resources at hand, and bailouts, TARP/CRAP/TRAP are all ways to say "Alright, let me see, if this works....oops!" [Bailouts: Check]

2.Job losses in 2008, was staggerring but nothing compared to the ones we will have in 2009. [Job Loss: check]

3. Auto Loan Default mode is already on. GM annoucing possible bankruptcy. [Loan Defaults : Check]

4. Housing Mortgage Failures [Partial check]

5. I am wondering if India will turn by '09Q3 or not.[Cross]

There are a few developments which are rolling in right now. The year is still young. And I am shorting [for disclaimers and disclosures]

Capital Markets Defy Terrorists

Interesting perspective.... but the crux of my opinion is that the general social mood defines market.

In a bear run [which in turn is an exhibition of increasingly negative social mood] companies who underperform get hammered but those who generate results outside street's expectations [positive] just stay placid. The situation just reverses in bull market.

Information will be seen from a general lens of social mood. And to say that 'this' news made the markets rally high is flawed. You might say the social interpretation of so and so news made it rally high.
And this social interpretation is decided by prevalent social mood

Capital Markets Defy Terrorists

You are making a mistake in believing that news makes or breaks a market. Run some historical check, and you will realise that if you show the charts without the time stamp to any other technical analyst, and ask if he can point out the most probable time a bad news hit the market, he will fail.

Because markets are dominated by crowd behaviour and crowd behaviour is essentially emotion driven and not logic driven, thus expecting it to rationally analyse the situation while a news hits the market is irrational in itself.
We are forgetting, markets are not efficient.

A few words delving deeper in this arena is given here:

jumpup.wordpress.com/2.../

India Investors Best Off Sitting on the Sidelines for Now

Haha...

@hownow... of course I am not changing my tunes now... I am still long on Indian economy and bullish on it... but this report is just a short term report... wait till August [preferably, citation needed] to see some movement...

And the April one was a socio economic take... mentioned in comments as well, which forecasts long term prospects, not the short term investing scenes.. which matches with my present take as well [both long]... [ :) Faulty data, tell me about it ;) ]

Cant you see, all the previous three articles deal with LONG investments?

The Dance of the Elephant: India in Action

Ivan,
Your takes are interesting, but my line of reasoning is not in the same line.

I am arguing more from the socio-economic point of view. In fact the article could have been better named had there been a byline for the article, socio-economic analysis of India.

I do agree inflation is burning a deep hole, I do agree that elections are going to happen and populist measures are taken by the establishment, but my analysis focuses on 'extra' long term something to the effect of 4-5 years of horizon. And this was justified via the socio-economic mood study, as done by Robert Prechter in his first seminal study in 1985.

As for the bullishness of the economy in the long run, I think we both agree here. Socio-economic moods can very actually predict the long term trends of a nation.

The Dance of the Elephant: India in Action

Nielsen India has released some new findings about the Indian consumer being the third most brand conscious in the world, as late as last month.

So I really don't believe that the consumer confidence is tanking... but yes any data to shed light on it can give us some perspective

[Normally Nielsen releases at the end of the year, so I don't think the latest ones are out yet]

The Dance of the Elephant: India in Action

@nick

Thanks.
And yeah definitely the private barometers are less likely to be skewed than the governmental. Nielsen India often comes up with Indian business news. But for papers you have to shell out some dough.

The Dance of the Elephant: India in Action

@bonchi
True... but I think investors need to look beyond the projections and stories of media, to appreciate all the facets of an investment

The Dance of the Elephant: India in Action

@hownow

The data shown over here from MasterIndex is six months forward projecting. So Dec 2007 consumer confidence index shows the consumer confidence for the next half yearly period of 2008.