I fully agree with what Arvind Lavakare has stated. Add to this the corruption that is plaguing our nation. Unless we get out of votebank politics and corruption, our nation will never become a great nation.
It was a national humiliation
Arvind Lavakare
Arvind Lavakare may be 71, but the fire in his belly burns stronger than in many people half his age. The economics post-graduate worked with the Reserve Bank of India and several private and public sector companies before retiring in 1997. His first love, however, remains sports. An accredited cricket umpire in Mumbai, he has reported and commented on cricket matches for newspapers, Doordarshan and AIR. Lavakare has also been regularly writing on politics since 1997, and published a monograph, The Truth About Article 370, in 2005.
Hang your heads in shame, my countrymen. Do it because a dozen-odd terrorists traveled 500 nautical miles of the Arabian sea from Karachi to Mumbai's Gateway of India, just opposite the grandiose Taj Mahal Hotel and proceeded to humble the city of 16.4 million into utter helplessness for over 48 hours even as over 125 civilians and some distinguished professional security men lost their lives to the hand grenades and rifle bullets of a fanatical mindset. It was a humiliation worse than the drubbing the Chinese army gave us in 1961.
It was because our motherland, India, is a soft nation, tested and proven so several times. Despite the weighty evidence of Clement Atlee, the Britain's post World War II prime minister to the contrary, the Congress party brainwashed the entire nation, including the press, that it was the non-violence strategy of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi that brought us independence.
Atlee had expressed fears regarding the rage of Subhash Chandra Bose's Indian National Army as a reason for its decision to give us independence; another reason was that World War II had liquidated the British Empire and left it to ration even eggs to the citizens of England. But Gandhi disliked Bose's guts and gumption and Nehru sent the officers of the valiant INA to a secret trial in the Red Fort.
Thus, even as the Congress of Gandhi and Nehru, his pampered disciple, ahimsa, non-violence, became the motto of our motherland. So bad has this become over the last 60 years that today even killing a stray dog on the street, however vicious and sick, has become a crime, courtesy another Gandhi, Maneka by name.
Take the more serious issue of terrorism. Excepting during the Khalistan uprising in the eighties that was ultimately doused by K.P.S. Gill and his brave police force, our country's approach to terrorism has all along been tepid and timid, castrated and impotent.
Because almost all the terrorist acts in recent years have involved Muslims as the perpetrators, and because of the Congress fetish of appeasing the minority Muslim community at any cost, our soft national psyche inherited from Gandhi, our response to terrorism has become a combination of impotence and vote bank politics sought to be covered by rhetoric and pleas for peace.
At every stage of our every "encounter" with a terrorist act, our collective national response has been reactive rather than active, defensive rather than offensive. Public statements are issued, action is promised. Period. Nothing else really happens.
At the base of it all is the shameful fact that we choose to be confused by terrorism. We are not sure whether to treat it as a law and order problem or as an act of war against the nation. Our elite journalists of the print and TV/radio world are not even sure as to whether to describe those who indulge in an act of terror as "militants" or "terrorists".
Reams of newspaper reports are testimony to this confusion. The latest Mumbai drama was no different as one prominent TV channel kept on describing the killed terrorists as "militants". Politicians are, or choose to be, equally confused in this simple matter.
Yes, it is a simple matter because the English dictionary will tell you that a militant is one who confronts, face to face, not one who wears a mask; and this militant does not wield an AK 47 or throws hand grenades or detonates a bomb with remote control mechanism.
Further, we have had the phrase "terrorism act" well defined in one of our Constitutional documents right from 1985.
Called "The Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Order", it empowered Parliament to enact any law to prevent "terrorist acts" and went on to define "terrorist act" as "any act or thing by using bombs, dynamite or other explosive substances or inflammable substances or firearms or other lethal weapons or poisons or noxious gases or other chemicals or any other substances (whether biological or otherwise) of a hazardous nature." By corollary, the perpetrator of a "terrorist act" is a "terrorist If you get your concepts right; the right action will follow --- provided you love your country more than your political party or your own advancement in political circles.
Tragically, that hasn't happened in our country so far and is unlikely to ever happen till, heaven forbid, a colossal and unbelievable act of terror paralyses the entire country into a daze.
Just recall some events of recent years. The UPA government that came in 2004 quickly repealed the Prevention of Terrorist Act (POTA) which the Vajpayee-led NDA government had introduced after the ghastly attack in December 2001.
It was not withdrawn because of its stringent features but because it was allegedly misused against the minorities (read Muslims). The basic fact was that the Congress, which heads the UPA sarkar, wanted to appease and win over the Muslims with one more lollipop.
Amusingly enough, any call by the BJP for the re-introduction of POTA or some such tough law is counterattacked by the Congress. "Did your POTA prevent the attack on the Akshardham Temple?" they ask.
Forgotten in this child-like question is that it was POTA that secured the conviction of Afzal Guru. Forgotten is that the acceptance of a confession to the police as evidence (considered a draconian legal provision) was what led to the conviction under TADA of Rajiv Gandhi's assassins.
In several other areas as well, our successive governments have failed to act in ways so crucial to minimize, if not totally stop, the reign of terror that now occurs so frequently that from a tragedy it has become a joke for the cynic.
Take the policing of our urban areas which are the focal points of terrorism. Lt General Sinha recently disclosed that in the last sixty years after Independence the number of police stations in the country has increased by a laughable 15 per cent over the figure of 12,000 that existed then.
In contrast, he says, our population has increased four times in that same period even as policing has become so much more complex than before.
Further, whatever police force available is overworked but underpaid, apart from being manipulated and exploited by their political bosses. That is why, at least Mumbai's policemen, and policewomen , look so unfit, almost obese, and so blank in face.
Ditto with our Intelligence force. Marginal increase in their strength has occurred, but assignments include assessment of likely performance of the ruling party in the coming elections. And why the National Security Advisor should have been involved so much in the Indo-US nuclear deal as he actually was is a mystery.
Then there's the human rights industry and our politicians' concern for it much beyond national interest. And there's that impractical concern for "guilty beyond reasonable doubt" even in matters of terrorism. If cockroaches had votes and rats had a religion, our politicians would enact a law prohibiting killing of those two living species as well.
Imagine the People's Democratic Party of Jammu & Kashmir granting pensions from government to families of slain terrorists. Imagine, the Prime Minister himself disclosing his sleepless night over the plight of the mother of an Indian Muslim held in police custody in Australia on suspicion of being involved in a bomb blast but not over the plight of mothers of thousands of his innocent countrymen killed in terrorist violence.
Imagine two Cabinet Ministers oppose the ban on SIMI despite the latter's proven guilt. Imagine one Cabinet Minister wanting all illegal migrants from Bangladesh to be given full citizenship rights, when it is well-known that many among them have links with terrorists. Imagine another Cabinet Minister approving of a University vice chancellor's decision to deploy funds provided by a foreign government to be utilized for the legal defence of two of his University students accused of involvement in terrorist violence.
Imagine, lastly, that amounts running into thousands of crores have been spent on the Haj subsidy for Muslims but the security of our very long coastline on the west is so ill-funded that terrorists can come from Karachi across the Arabian Sea to Mumbai without being spotted.
Contrast all of this is typically indolent-cum-idealistic-cum-selfish Indian attitude to the stark realism and patriotism of the USA when 9/11 occurred in 2001. One thing that nation did shortly after that dastardly day was the enactment by the USA Congress of what's come to be known as the USA Patriot Act. That nomenclature is really an acronym, and the full name of that legislation is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001". If a name can arouse emotions, that one certainly does. And however draconian that law has been, it has prevented the recurrence of 9/11.
Unless the whole young nation of ours forgets non-violence as a magic mantra and unless our politicians show a commitment similar to that of the USA to engage in a literal war against terror, we shall continue to allow just about a dozen-odd terrorists to humiliate an entire nation for over 48 hours, even as a naïve Prime Minister calls the Pakistan chief of intelligence to share info with us.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Sorry state of India's Infrastructure Projects --- Hijacked by Politicians
Delhi court gets to bottom of highway project delays
The Times Of India, 19 December ,2008,Mumbai
Slams Day-To-Day Meddling By Govt In NHAI Affairs
The Delhi high court seems to have hit upon the root cause of why crucial highway projects across the country have been moving at a snail’s pace in the past few years. And the discovery has left the court both shocked and angry.
The HC found that the ministry of surface transport and highways was indulging in “day to day interference’’ into the affairs of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), a statutory body granted functional autonomy by Parliament. The court was so aghast by the fact that NHAI has seen five chairmen in the past twoand-a-half years that it recommended that a law be enacted to ensure that heads of public enterprises have fixed tenures of 3 to 5 years. A division bench comprising Justices Mukul Mudgal and Manmohan said the Law Commission and Centre should seriously consider bringing in such a law which “in our opinion will ensure transparency, efficiency and accountability’’.
The HC’s stinging indictment comes close on the heels of widespread criticism of Union surface transport minister T R Baalu’s reported role in the recent change of guard in the NHAI, which saw N Gokulram being transferred out. There have also been allegations of repeated interference by the ministry resulting in stalling of key highway projects across India.
The court’s strong remarks came while deciding a batch of petitions filed by infrastructure companies assailing NHAI’s shortlisting of bidders for construction of the Hyderabad-Vijaywada section of National Highway 9. In its verdict, HC quashed a government circular rejecting the candidacy of one of the petitioner, GMR, to participate in the bidding process even as it upheld co-petitioner Reliance Infrastructure being declared ineligible.
“The actions of the Union of India...indicates that not only autonomy granted to NHAI by Parliament through a statute enacted in this regard has been curtailed and eroded, but NHAI is sought to be reduced to a mere department of the ministry of road transport and highways,’’ the HC noted.
The Times Of India, 19 December ,2008,Mumbai
Slams Day-To-Day Meddling By Govt In NHAI Affairs
The Delhi high court seems to have hit upon the root cause of why crucial highway projects across the country have been moving at a snail’s pace in the past few years. And the discovery has left the court both shocked and angry.
The HC found that the ministry of surface transport and highways was indulging in “day to day interference’’ into the affairs of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), a statutory body granted functional autonomy by Parliament. The court was so aghast by the fact that NHAI has seen five chairmen in the past twoand-a-half years that it recommended that a law be enacted to ensure that heads of public enterprises have fixed tenures of 3 to 5 years. A division bench comprising Justices Mukul Mudgal and Manmohan said the Law Commission and Centre should seriously consider bringing in such a law which “in our opinion will ensure transparency, efficiency and accountability’’.
The HC’s stinging indictment comes close on the heels of widespread criticism of Union surface transport minister T R Baalu’s reported role in the recent change of guard in the NHAI, which saw N Gokulram being transferred out. There have also been allegations of repeated interference by the ministry resulting in stalling of key highway projects across India.
The court’s strong remarks came while deciding a batch of petitions filed by infrastructure companies assailing NHAI’s shortlisting of bidders for construction of the Hyderabad-Vijaywada section of National Highway 9. In its verdict, HC quashed a government circular rejecting the candidacy of one of the petitioner, GMR, to participate in the bidding process even as it upheld co-petitioner Reliance Infrastructure being declared ineligible.
“The actions of the Union of India...indicates that not only autonomy granted to NHAI by Parliament through a statute enacted in this regard has been curtailed and eroded, but NHAI is sought to be reduced to a mere department of the ministry of road transport and highways,’’ the HC noted.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
The Oil trouble continues --- Indian Oil has no money to buy crude
State-Run Oil Co Needs $3Bn Every Month
IOC has no money,
bonds to buy crude
Sanjay Dutta TNN 26th July 2008
New Delhi: Oil’s relentless rally till the last fortnight combined with government lethargy in issuing bonds to make up losses on fuel sales have put Indian Oil Corporation in a spot. The flagship refiner-marketer has run out of money as well as the Centre’s IOUs—which the company has been encashing for foreign exchange—to buy crude.
Indian Oil needs roughly Rs 12,000 crore ($3 billion) every month to buy crude but loses Rs 413 crore daily on fuel sales. As a result, the company has been borrowing heavily from banks and incurring further expense on interest. Lately, it has also been encashing the bonds under an RBI mechanism. In June, IndianOil used up the last of the bonds it had to raise about Rs 9,900 crore through the RBI mechanism. It is now left with bonds worth about Rs 4,300 crore that had already been securitised for raising funds from the overnight call market.
Indeed, IndianOil—as also HPCL and BPCL—has been running on borrowed money. “Our borrowing had reached Rs 42,000 crore in May. In June, it came down to Rs 35,000 crore but if another tranche of bonds does not come through quickly, the borrowings will rise again,’’ a top IndianOil executive said. The company board sometime back had cleared an enabling provision to raise the borrowing limit to Rs 80,000 crore.
The oil ministry has asked the finance ministry for over Rs 50,600 crore bonds to partially make up the losses during the first half of 2008 calendar. The ministry has sought Rs 14,956.17 crore bonds for the last quarter of 2007-08 and Rs 35,672.70 crore more for the first quarter of 2008-09. The total loss on fuels in 2007-08 has been put at Rs 70,579 crore.
Ironically, the situation has been created by none other than the government itself. The government refused to raise pump prices or reduce taxes periodically and let the losses pile up as oil kept climbing. Till last fortnight, the oilmarketers were losing Rs 16.70 on each litre of petrol, Rs 27.61 on diesel, Rs 38.09 on kerosene and Rs 338.53 on each cylinder of cooking gas. This is after the government raised pump prices on June 4 by Rs 5 a litre for petrol and Rs 2 a litre of diesel and Rs 20 per cooking gas cylinder. The government is expected to review the prices in October, but another round of price increase looks unlikely in an election year. If pump prices do not go up and crude remains in the $130 a barrel range, IndianOil reckons it will close the year with a Rs 121,015 crore loss.
IOC has no money,
bonds to buy crude
Sanjay Dutta TNN 26th July 2008
New Delhi: Oil’s relentless rally till the last fortnight combined with government lethargy in issuing bonds to make up losses on fuel sales have put Indian Oil Corporation in a spot. The flagship refiner-marketer has run out of money as well as the Centre’s IOUs—which the company has been encashing for foreign exchange—to buy crude.
Indian Oil needs roughly Rs 12,000 crore ($3 billion) every month to buy crude but loses Rs 413 crore daily on fuel sales. As a result, the company has been borrowing heavily from banks and incurring further expense on interest. Lately, it has also been encashing the bonds under an RBI mechanism. In June, IndianOil used up the last of the bonds it had to raise about Rs 9,900 crore through the RBI mechanism. It is now left with bonds worth about Rs 4,300 crore that had already been securitised for raising funds from the overnight call market.
Indeed, IndianOil—as also HPCL and BPCL—has been running on borrowed money. “Our borrowing had reached Rs 42,000 crore in May. In June, it came down to Rs 35,000 crore but if another tranche of bonds does not come through quickly, the borrowings will rise again,’’ a top IndianOil executive said. The company board sometime back had cleared an enabling provision to raise the borrowing limit to Rs 80,000 crore.
The oil ministry has asked the finance ministry for over Rs 50,600 crore bonds to partially make up the losses during the first half of 2008 calendar. The ministry has sought Rs 14,956.17 crore bonds for the last quarter of 2007-08 and Rs 35,672.70 crore more for the first quarter of 2008-09. The total loss on fuels in 2007-08 has been put at Rs 70,579 crore.
Ironically, the situation has been created by none other than the government itself. The government refused to raise pump prices or reduce taxes periodically and let the losses pile up as oil kept climbing. Till last fortnight, the oilmarketers were losing Rs 16.70 on each litre of petrol, Rs 27.61 on diesel, Rs 38.09 on kerosene and Rs 338.53 on each cylinder of cooking gas. This is after the government raised pump prices on June 4 by Rs 5 a litre for petrol and Rs 2 a litre of diesel and Rs 20 per cooking gas cylinder. The government is expected to review the prices in October, but another round of price increase looks unlikely in an election year. If pump prices do not go up and crude remains in the $130 a barrel range, IndianOil reckons it will close the year with a Rs 121,015 crore loss.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
CANSLIM --- HOW TO PICK STOCKS
http://www.canslim.net/what.htm
What is CAN SLIM®?CAN SLIM® is a formula created by William J. O'Neil, who is the founder of the Investor's Business Daily and author of the book How to Make Money in Stocks - A Winning System in Good Times or Bad.
Each letter in CAN SLIM® stands for one of the seven chief characteristics that are commonly found in the greatest winning stocks. In his book, he cites many examples including:
Texas Instruments, whose price rose from $25 to $250 from January 1958 to May 1960
Xerox, which went from $160 to the equivalent of $1340 from March 1963 to June 1966
Syntex, which leaped from $100 to $570 in the last six months of 1963
Dome Petroleum advanced 1000% in the 1978-1980 market
Prime Computer rose 1595% in the 1978-1980 market
Limited Stores' 3500% increase from 1982 to 1987.
The C-A-N-S-L-I-M characteristics are often present prior to a stock making a significant rise in price, and making huge profits for the shareholders!
O'Neil explains how he conducted an intensive study of 500 of the biggest winners in the stock market from 1953 to 1990. A model of each of these companies was built and studied. Again and again, it was noticed that almost all of the biggest stock market winners had very similar characteristics just before they began their big moves.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
C = Current quarterly earnings per share.
They should be up a minimum of 25% - 50% over the year earlier. In fact, of the 500 best performing stocks O'Neil studied in the 38 years from 1953 to 1990, three out of four had earnings increases averaging more than 70% in the latest publicly reported quarter before the stocks began their major price advance. The one out of four that didn't show solid quarterly increases did so in the very next quarter, and those increases averaged 90%!
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
A = Annual earnings per share.
There should be meaningful growth over the last five years. The annual compounded growth rate of earnings in the superior firms should be from 25% to 50%, or even more, per year. With all of this emphasis on earnings, it is important to understand something about Price-Earnings Ratios (P/E). Factual analysis of the greatest winning stocks shows that P/E ratios have very little to do with whether a stock should be bought or not! In fact, you will automatically eliminate most of the best investments available if you're not willing to by a stock that trades with a high P/E. Remember earlier when I mentioned Xerox? In 1960 it traded at a 100 P/E - before it went up 3300% from $5 to $170 (adjusting for the stock splits). Genentech was priced at 200 times earnings in November 1985, and it bolted 300% in the next 5 months. Syntex sold for 45 times earnings in 1963, before it advanced 400%. For years analysts have misused P/E ratios, and it's amazing to me how so many people will still ask about a company's P/E before they ask about a company's earnings growth.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
N = New product/management/price high.
Usually it is a new product or service that causes the big earnings acceleration we're looking for. Consider these examples:
Rexall's new Tupperware division, in 1958, helped the stock go from $16 to $50.
Thiokol came out with new rocket fuels for missiles back in 1957-1959. The stock blasted from $48 to the equivalent of $355.
In 1957-1960, Polaroid came out with the "picture in a minute" self-developing camera, the stock went from $65 to $260. Then in 1965-1967 they came out with a color-film version. The stock repeated with an amazing, split adjusted, rise from $23 to $133.
Syntex, in 1963, began marketing the oral contraceptive pill. In six months the stock soared from $100 to $550.
Computervision stock advanced 1235% in 1978-1980, with the introduction of Cad-Cam factory automation equipment.
Price Company went up 15 fold in 1982-1986 while opening their chain of wholesale warehouse membership stores.
Get the point? 95% of the greatest winners in the 38 year study O'Neil conducted were companies that had a major new product or service.
The other important thing to consider is the price of the stock. Most people miss the biggest winners in the market because of what O'Neil refers to as "the great paradox" of the stock market. It is hard to accept, but the stocks that seem too high and risky to the majority usually go higher and what seems low and cheap usually goes lower. If you don't think this is true, I challenge you to look in an old newspaper from a few months ago and observe a good number of stocks highlighted because they hit new highs and new lows. Then see where they are today. Most of the highs will be higher, and the lows will be even lower.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
S = Supply/Demand: Small Cap + Volume
Supply and demand dictates the price of almost everything in your life. The law of supply and demand is more important than all the analyst opinions on Wall Street. The price of a stock with 400 million shares is hard to budge up because of the large supply of stock available. Yet, if a company has only 2 or 3 million shares outstanding, a reasonable amount of buying can push the price up rapidly because of the small available supply. If you are choosing between two stocks to buy, one with 60 million shares outstanding and one with 10 million shares, with all other factors equal, the smaller one will usually be the bigger mover. Stocks that have a large percentage owned by top management are generally better prospects. Again referencing O'Neil's 38 year study, more than 95% of the companies had less than 25 million shares outstanding when they had their greatest period of earnings improvement and stock price performance.
Foolish stock splits can hurt a stock's performance. Watch out for companies that split their stock 2 or 3 times in just a year or two. The splitting creates a larger supply and may make a company's stock performance more lethargic, like many "big cap" companies. Large holders who thinking of selling are often inclined to sell their 100,000 share positions before a 3-for-1 split would have them looking to sell 300,000. Smart short sellers (an infinitesimal group) pick on stocks beginning to falter after enormous price runups and splits, realizing that the potential number of shares for sale (particularly by funds) has dramatically been increased.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
L = Leader
People often buy stocks they're comfortable and familiar with, like an old pair of shoes. Usually these are draggy, slow-pokes rather than leaping leaders. It is really important to look at how your stock is performing in relation to the overall market. The 500 best performing stocks from 1953 to 1990 averaged a relative price strength of 87 (scale of 1-99) just before they began their major advances in price. Avoid laggard stocks and look for genuine leaders.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
I = Institutional Sponsorship
It takes big demand to move a stock significantly higher in price. Institutional buyers are the most powerful source. You don't need a large number of institutional owners, but should have at least a few. No institutional sponsorship in a stock is a bad sign because odds are that many institutional investors looked at the stock and passed it over. The things we are looking for with C-A-N-S-L-I-M are really signs that the bigger money (mutual funds, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, etc.) is coming into the stock. See that there is a better-than-average performance record by at least a few of the institutional owners.
Another good thing about some institutional sponsorship is that it provides buying support for the stock. Beware of stocks that become "over owned". By the time performance is so obvious that almost all institutions own it, it is probably too late. Pay attention to whether the number of institutional owners is increasing or decreasing.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
M = Market Direction
You can be right on everything else, but if you are wrong about the direction of the broad market you are still likely to lose money. The best way to analyze the overall market is to follow and understand every day what the general averages are doing. The difficult to recognize, but meaningful changes in the behavior of the market averages at important turning points is the best indicator of the condition of the whole market.
What signs should you look for to detect a market top? On one of the days in the uptrend, the total volume for the market will increase over the preceding day's high volume, but the Dow's closing average will show stalling action, or substantially less upward movement, than on prior days.
The spread between the daily high and low of the market index will likely be a bit larger than on the earlier days. Normal market liquidation near the market peak will only occur on one or two days, which are part of the uptrend. The market comes under distribution while it is advancing! This is one of the reasons so few people know how to recognize distribution (selling).
Immediately following the first selling near the top, a vacuum exists where volume may subside and the market averages will sell off for four days or so. The second, and probably the last early chance to recognize a top reversal is when the market attempts it's first rally, which it will always do after a number of days down from it's highest point. If this first attempt to bounce back follows through on the third, fourth, or fifth rally day either on decreased volume from the day before, or if the market average recovers less than half of the initial drop from it's former peak to the low, the comeback is feeble and sputtering when it should be getting strong. Frequently the first attempt at a rally during the beginning of a downtrend will fail abruptly. Possibly after a one day resurgence, the second day will open up strong, only to sell off toward the end of the day and suddenly close down.
After an advance in stocks for a couple of years, the majority of the original price leaders will top, and you can be fairly sure the overall market is going to get into trouble. It is very important to pay attention to the way the leading stocks are acting.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
What is CAN SLIM®?CAN SLIM® is a formula created by William J. O'Neil, who is the founder of the Investor's Business Daily and author of the book How to Make Money in Stocks - A Winning System in Good Times or Bad.
Each letter in CAN SLIM® stands for one of the seven chief characteristics that are commonly found in the greatest winning stocks. In his book, he cites many examples including:
Texas Instruments, whose price rose from $25 to $250 from January 1958 to May 1960
Xerox, which went from $160 to the equivalent of $1340 from March 1963 to June 1966
Syntex, which leaped from $100 to $570 in the last six months of 1963
Dome Petroleum advanced 1000% in the 1978-1980 market
Prime Computer rose 1595% in the 1978-1980 market
Limited Stores' 3500% increase from 1982 to 1987.
The C-A-N-S-L-I-M characteristics are often present prior to a stock making a significant rise in price, and making huge profits for the shareholders!
O'Neil explains how he conducted an intensive study of 500 of the biggest winners in the stock market from 1953 to 1990. A model of each of these companies was built and studied. Again and again, it was noticed that almost all of the biggest stock market winners had very similar characteristics just before they began their big moves.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
C = Current quarterly earnings per share.
They should be up a minimum of 25% - 50% over the year earlier. In fact, of the 500 best performing stocks O'Neil studied in the 38 years from 1953 to 1990, three out of four had earnings increases averaging more than 70% in the latest publicly reported quarter before the stocks began their major price advance. The one out of four that didn't show solid quarterly increases did so in the very next quarter, and those increases averaged 90%!
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
A = Annual earnings per share.
There should be meaningful growth over the last five years. The annual compounded growth rate of earnings in the superior firms should be from 25% to 50%, or even more, per year. With all of this emphasis on earnings, it is important to understand something about Price-Earnings Ratios (P/E). Factual analysis of the greatest winning stocks shows that P/E ratios have very little to do with whether a stock should be bought or not! In fact, you will automatically eliminate most of the best investments available if you're not willing to by a stock that trades with a high P/E. Remember earlier when I mentioned Xerox? In 1960 it traded at a 100 P/E - before it went up 3300% from $5 to $170 (adjusting for the stock splits). Genentech was priced at 200 times earnings in November 1985, and it bolted 300% in the next 5 months. Syntex sold for 45 times earnings in 1963, before it advanced 400%. For years analysts have misused P/E ratios, and it's amazing to me how so many people will still ask about a company's P/E before they ask about a company's earnings growth.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
N = New product/management/price high.
Usually it is a new product or service that causes the big earnings acceleration we're looking for. Consider these examples:
Rexall's new Tupperware division, in 1958, helped the stock go from $16 to $50.
Thiokol came out with new rocket fuels for missiles back in 1957-1959. The stock blasted from $48 to the equivalent of $355.
In 1957-1960, Polaroid came out with the "picture in a minute" self-developing camera, the stock went from $65 to $260. Then in 1965-1967 they came out with a color-film version. The stock repeated with an amazing, split adjusted, rise from $23 to $133.
Syntex, in 1963, began marketing the oral contraceptive pill. In six months the stock soared from $100 to $550.
Computervision stock advanced 1235% in 1978-1980, with the introduction of Cad-Cam factory automation equipment.
Price Company went up 15 fold in 1982-1986 while opening their chain of wholesale warehouse membership stores.
Get the point? 95% of the greatest winners in the 38 year study O'Neil conducted were companies that had a major new product or service.
The other important thing to consider is the price of the stock. Most people miss the biggest winners in the market because of what O'Neil refers to as "the great paradox" of the stock market. It is hard to accept, but the stocks that seem too high and risky to the majority usually go higher and what seems low and cheap usually goes lower. If you don't think this is true, I challenge you to look in an old newspaper from a few months ago and observe a good number of stocks highlighted because they hit new highs and new lows. Then see where they are today. Most of the highs will be higher, and the lows will be even lower.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
S = Supply/Demand: Small Cap + Volume
Supply and demand dictates the price of almost everything in your life. The law of supply and demand is more important than all the analyst opinions on Wall Street. The price of a stock with 400 million shares is hard to budge up because of the large supply of stock available. Yet, if a company has only 2 or 3 million shares outstanding, a reasonable amount of buying can push the price up rapidly because of the small available supply. If you are choosing between two stocks to buy, one with 60 million shares outstanding and one with 10 million shares, with all other factors equal, the smaller one will usually be the bigger mover. Stocks that have a large percentage owned by top management are generally better prospects. Again referencing O'Neil's 38 year study, more than 95% of the companies had less than 25 million shares outstanding when they had their greatest period of earnings improvement and stock price performance.
Foolish stock splits can hurt a stock's performance. Watch out for companies that split their stock 2 or 3 times in just a year or two. The splitting creates a larger supply and may make a company's stock performance more lethargic, like many "big cap" companies. Large holders who thinking of selling are often inclined to sell their 100,000 share positions before a 3-for-1 split would have them looking to sell 300,000. Smart short sellers (an infinitesimal group) pick on stocks beginning to falter after enormous price runups and splits, realizing that the potential number of shares for sale (particularly by funds) has dramatically been increased.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
L = Leader
People often buy stocks they're comfortable and familiar with, like an old pair of shoes. Usually these are draggy, slow-pokes rather than leaping leaders. It is really important to look at how your stock is performing in relation to the overall market. The 500 best performing stocks from 1953 to 1990 averaged a relative price strength of 87 (scale of 1-99) just before they began their major advances in price. Avoid laggard stocks and look for genuine leaders.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
I = Institutional Sponsorship
It takes big demand to move a stock significantly higher in price. Institutional buyers are the most powerful source. You don't need a large number of institutional owners, but should have at least a few. No institutional sponsorship in a stock is a bad sign because odds are that many institutional investors looked at the stock and passed it over. The things we are looking for with C-A-N-S-L-I-M are really signs that the bigger money (mutual funds, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, etc.) is coming into the stock. See that there is a better-than-average performance record by at least a few of the institutional owners.
Another good thing about some institutional sponsorship is that it provides buying support for the stock. Beware of stocks that become "over owned". By the time performance is so obvious that almost all institutions own it, it is probably too late. Pay attention to whether the number of institutional owners is increasing or decreasing.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
M = Market Direction
You can be right on everything else, but if you are wrong about the direction of the broad market you are still likely to lose money. The best way to analyze the overall market is to follow and understand every day what the general averages are doing. The difficult to recognize, but meaningful changes in the behavior of the market averages at important turning points is the best indicator of the condition of the whole market.
What signs should you look for to detect a market top? On one of the days in the uptrend, the total volume for the market will increase over the preceding day's high volume, but the Dow's closing average will show stalling action, or substantially less upward movement, than on prior days.
The spread between the daily high and low of the market index will likely be a bit larger than on the earlier days. Normal market liquidation near the market peak will only occur on one or two days, which are part of the uptrend. The market comes under distribution while it is advancing! This is one of the reasons so few people know how to recognize distribution (selling).
Immediately following the first selling near the top, a vacuum exists where volume may subside and the market averages will sell off for four days or so. The second, and probably the last early chance to recognize a top reversal is when the market attempts it's first rally, which it will always do after a number of days down from it's highest point. If this first attempt to bounce back follows through on the third, fourth, or fifth rally day either on decreased volume from the day before, or if the market average recovers less than half of the initial drop from it's former peak to the low, the comeback is feeble and sputtering when it should be getting strong. Frequently the first attempt at a rally during the beginning of a downtrend will fail abruptly. Possibly after a one day resurgence, the second day will open up strong, only to sell off toward the end of the day and suddenly close down.
After an advance in stocks for a couple of years, the majority of the original price leaders will top, and you can be fairly sure the overall market is going to get into trouble. It is very important to pay attention to the way the leading stocks are acting.
C - A - N - S - L - I - M
Warren Buffet's Tenets
http://www.investorweb.com.au/school/buffett.asp
Warren Buffett Methodology
Content
Who Is Warren Buffett?The Warren Buffett Investment MethodologyBuffett's TenetsSummary of Buffett's Investment Process
Who Is Warren Buffett?
Warren Buffett is Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a holding company, with interests in several subsidiaries engaged in a number of diverse business activities. Included in these subsidiaries is GEICO Corporation, the seventh largest auto insurer in the United States. Publicly traded companies include a 10.5% holding in American Express Company, 8% of The Coca-Cola Company, 9.5% of Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, 8.5% of The Gillette Company, 16.5% of The Washington Post Company and 8% in Wells Fargo & Company. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. also has holdings or owns several private companies.
The Warren Buffett Investment Methodology
Warren Buffett's investment methodology is based on the following 12 tenets.
Buffett's Tenets
Business Tenets
Is the business simple and understandable?
Does the business have a consistent operating history?
Does the business have favourable long-term prospects?
Management Tenets
Is Management rational?
Is Management candid with its shareholders?
Does management resist the institutional imperative?
Financial Tenets
Focus on return on equity, not earnings per share
Calculate "owner earnings"
Look for companies with high profit margins
For every dollar retained, make sure the company has created at least one dollar of market value
Market Tenets
What is the value of the business?
Can the business be purchased at a discount to its real value?
Summary of Buffett's Investment Process
When Buffett invests, he sees a business whilst most investors see a stock price. According to Buffett, the investor and the business person should look at the company in the same way, because they both want essentially the same thing. The business person wants to buy the whole company and the investor wants to buy portions of the company. Buffett believes that in the long run, the price of the stock should approximate the change in value of the business. He believes it is foolish to use short-term prices to judge a company's success. Instead, he lets his companies report their value to him by economic progress. Once a year, he checks several key variables:
Return on beginning shareholder's equity
Change in operating margins, debt levels and capital expenditure needs:
The company's cash generating ability
If these economic variables are improving then Buffett concludes that the share price should reflect this in the long term.
Buffett avoids companies that are in need of major overhauls. He will only purchase companies that have shareholder-orientated managers. His investment methodology follows a four step process.
Step 1: Turn off the stock market
Buffett does not have a stock quote service in his office. He believes that by owning shares in an outstanding business for a number of years, what happens in the market on a day-to-day basis is inconsequential.
Step 2: Don't worry about the economy
Except for his preconceived notions that the economy has an inflation bias, Buffett dedicates no time or energy to analysing the economy. He prefers to buy a business that has the opportunity to profit regardless of the economy.
Step 3: Buy a business not a stock
Before investing in a company Buffett addresses the following key questions:
Is the business simple to understand?
Does the business have a consistent operating history?
Does the business have favourable long-term prospects?
Is management rational?
Is management candid with its shareholders?
Does management avoid the institutional imperative – irrationality?
From a financial point of view Buffett advocates.
Focus on return on equity, not earnings per share – a true measure of annual performance because it takes into consideration the company’s ever-growing capital base, the ratio of operating earnings to shareholders equity.
Calculate the "owner earnings" – Buffett seeks out companies that generate cash in excess of their needs as opposed to companies that consume cash. To determine owner earnings add depreciation and amortisation charges to net income and then subtract the expenditures the company needs to maintain its economic position and unit volume
Look for companies with high profit margins
For every dollar that has been retained, make sure the company has created at least one dollar of market value – to calculate this subtract from the company’s net income, all dividends paid to shareholders. Add the company’s retained earnings over a 10-year period. Then find the difference between the company’s current market value an its market value 10 years ago. If the change in the market value is less than the sum of retained earnings, the company is going backwards.
Then from a market perspective Buffett asks:
What is the value of the business – the value of the business is determined by the estimated cash flows expected to occur over the life of the business discounted at an appropriate interest rate. Buffett uses the 30-year US Treasury bond rate to discount expected cash flows.
Can the business be purchased as a significant discount to its real value – Buffett’s rule is: purchase the business only when its price is at a significant discount to its value.
Importantly, it is only at the final step that Buffett looks at the stock’s market price.
Buffett believes that whilst calculating the value of the business is not difficult, problems can arise when an analyst wrongly estimates a company’s future cash flow. Buffett deals with this problem in two ways:
He increases his chances of correctly predicting future cash flows by sticking with businesses that are simple and stable in character; and
He insists that each company he purchases there must be a margin of safety between the purchase price and the determined value.
Step 4: Manage a portfolio of Businesses
Buffett believes that wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing. "On the other hand if you are a know-something investor able to find five to ten sensibly priced companies that possess long-term competitive advantages, conventional diversification makes no sense to you".
Back to TopDISCLAIMER This report is prepared exclusively for clients of InvestorWeb. The report contains recommendations and advice of a general nature and does not have regard to the particular circumstances or needs of any specific person who may read it. Each client should assess either personally or with the assistance of a licensed financial adviser whether the InvestorWeb recommendation or advice is appropriate to their situation before making an investment decision. The information contained in the report is believed to be reliable, but its completeness and accuracy is not guaranteed. Opinions expressed may change without notice. Neither InvestorWeb, nor its parent IWL Limited accept any liability, whether direct or indirect arising from the use of information contained in this report. No part of this report is to be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any investment. The performance of the investment in this report is not a representation as to future performance or likely return. © 2008. IWL Limited. The material contained in this report is subject to copyright and may not be reproduced without the consent of the copyright owner.
Warren Buffett Methodology
Content
Who Is Warren Buffett?The Warren Buffett Investment MethodologyBuffett's TenetsSummary of Buffett's Investment Process
Who Is Warren Buffett?
Warren Buffett is Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a holding company, with interests in several subsidiaries engaged in a number of diverse business activities. Included in these subsidiaries is GEICO Corporation, the seventh largest auto insurer in the United States. Publicly traded companies include a 10.5% holding in American Express Company, 8% of The Coca-Cola Company, 9.5% of Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, 8.5% of The Gillette Company, 16.5% of The Washington Post Company and 8% in Wells Fargo & Company. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. also has holdings or owns several private companies.
The Warren Buffett Investment Methodology
Warren Buffett's investment methodology is based on the following 12 tenets.
Buffett's Tenets
Business Tenets
Is the business simple and understandable?
Does the business have a consistent operating history?
Does the business have favourable long-term prospects?
Management Tenets
Is Management rational?
Is Management candid with its shareholders?
Does management resist the institutional imperative?
Financial Tenets
Focus on return on equity, not earnings per share
Calculate "owner earnings"
Look for companies with high profit margins
For every dollar retained, make sure the company has created at least one dollar of market value
Market Tenets
What is the value of the business?
Can the business be purchased at a discount to its real value?
Summary of Buffett's Investment Process
When Buffett invests, he sees a business whilst most investors see a stock price. According to Buffett, the investor and the business person should look at the company in the same way, because they both want essentially the same thing. The business person wants to buy the whole company and the investor wants to buy portions of the company. Buffett believes that in the long run, the price of the stock should approximate the change in value of the business. He believes it is foolish to use short-term prices to judge a company's success. Instead, he lets his companies report their value to him by economic progress. Once a year, he checks several key variables:
Return on beginning shareholder's equity
Change in operating margins, debt levels and capital expenditure needs:
The company's cash generating ability
If these economic variables are improving then Buffett concludes that the share price should reflect this in the long term.
Buffett avoids companies that are in need of major overhauls. He will only purchase companies that have shareholder-orientated managers. His investment methodology follows a four step process.
Step 1: Turn off the stock market
Buffett does not have a stock quote service in his office. He believes that by owning shares in an outstanding business for a number of years, what happens in the market on a day-to-day basis is inconsequential.
Step 2: Don't worry about the economy
Except for his preconceived notions that the economy has an inflation bias, Buffett dedicates no time or energy to analysing the economy. He prefers to buy a business that has the opportunity to profit regardless of the economy.
Step 3: Buy a business not a stock
Before investing in a company Buffett addresses the following key questions:
Is the business simple to understand?
Does the business have a consistent operating history?
Does the business have favourable long-term prospects?
Is management rational?
Is management candid with its shareholders?
Does management avoid the institutional imperative – irrationality?
From a financial point of view Buffett advocates.
Focus on return on equity, not earnings per share – a true measure of annual performance because it takes into consideration the company’s ever-growing capital base, the ratio of operating earnings to shareholders equity.
Calculate the "owner earnings" – Buffett seeks out companies that generate cash in excess of their needs as opposed to companies that consume cash. To determine owner earnings add depreciation and amortisation charges to net income and then subtract the expenditures the company needs to maintain its economic position and unit volume
Look for companies with high profit margins
For every dollar that has been retained, make sure the company has created at least one dollar of market value – to calculate this subtract from the company’s net income, all dividends paid to shareholders. Add the company’s retained earnings over a 10-year period. Then find the difference between the company’s current market value an its market value 10 years ago. If the change in the market value is less than the sum of retained earnings, the company is going backwards.
Then from a market perspective Buffett asks:
What is the value of the business – the value of the business is determined by the estimated cash flows expected to occur over the life of the business discounted at an appropriate interest rate. Buffett uses the 30-year US Treasury bond rate to discount expected cash flows.
Can the business be purchased as a significant discount to its real value – Buffett’s rule is: purchase the business only when its price is at a significant discount to its value.
Importantly, it is only at the final step that Buffett looks at the stock’s market price.
Buffett believes that whilst calculating the value of the business is not difficult, problems can arise when an analyst wrongly estimates a company’s future cash flow. Buffett deals with this problem in two ways:
He increases his chances of correctly predicting future cash flows by sticking with businesses that are simple and stable in character; and
He insists that each company he purchases there must be a margin of safety between the purchase price and the determined value.
Step 4: Manage a portfolio of Businesses
Buffett believes that wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing. "On the other hand if you are a know-something investor able to find five to ten sensibly priced companies that possess long-term competitive advantages, conventional diversification makes no sense to you".
Back to TopDISCLAIMER This report is prepared exclusively for clients of InvestorWeb. The report contains recommendations and advice of a general nature and does not have regard to the particular circumstances or needs of any specific person who may read it. Each client should assess either personally or with the assistance of a licensed financial adviser whether the InvestorWeb recommendation or advice is appropriate to their situation before making an investment decision. The information contained in the report is believed to be reliable, but its completeness and accuracy is not guaranteed. Opinions expressed may change without notice. Neither InvestorWeb, nor its parent IWL Limited accept any liability, whether direct or indirect arising from the use of information contained in this report. No part of this report is to be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any investment. The performance of the investment in this report is not a representation as to future performance or likely return. © 2008. IWL Limited. The material contained in this report is subject to copyright and may not be reproduced without the consent of the copyright owner.
Sam Walton's Ten Rules
Sam Walton 1918 - 1992
Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, grew up poor in a farm community in rural Missouri during the Great Depression. The poverty he experienced while growing up taught him the value of money and to persevere.
After attending the University of Missouri, he immediately worked for J.C. Penny where he got his first taste of retailing. He served in World War II, after which he became a successful franchiser of Ben Franklin five-and-dime stores. In 1962, he had the idea of opening bigger stores, sticking to rural areas, keeping costs low and discounting heavily. The management disagreed with his vision. Undaunted, Walton pursued his vision, founded Wal-Mart and started a retailing success story. When Walton died in 1992, the family's net worth approached $25 billion.
Today, Wal-Mart is the world's #1 retailer, with more than 4,150 stores, including discount stores, combination discount and grocery stores, and membership-only warehouse stores (Sam's Club). Learn Walton's winning formula for business.
Rule 1: Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you — like a fever.
Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in your partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.
Rule 3: Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.
Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your associates to know what's going on, they'll know you really don't consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.
Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free — and worth a fortune.
Rule 6: Celebrate your success. Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm — always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"
Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines — the ones who actually talk to the customer — are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.
Rule 8: Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want — and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses — apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.
Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For twenty-five years running — long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer — we've ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.
Rule 10: Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.
====
Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, grew up poor in a farm community in rural Missouri during the Great Depression. The poverty he experienced while growing up taught him the value of money and to persevere.
After attending the University of Missouri, he immediately worked for J.C. Penny where he got his first taste of retailing. He served in World War II, after which he became a successful franchiser of Ben Franklin five-and-dime stores. In 1962, he had the idea of opening bigger stores, sticking to rural areas, keeping costs low and discounting heavily. The management disagreed with his vision. Undaunted, Walton pursued his vision, founded Wal-Mart and started a retailing success story. When Walton died in 1992, the family's net worth approached $25 billion.
Today, Wal-Mart is the world's #1 retailer, with more than 4,150 stores, including discount stores, combination discount and grocery stores, and membership-only warehouse stores (Sam's Club). Learn Walton's winning formula for business.
Rule 1: Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you — like a fever.
Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in your partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.
Rule 3: Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.
Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your associates to know what's going on, they'll know you really don't consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.
Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free — and worth a fortune.
Rule 6: Celebrate your success. Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm — always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"
Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines — the ones who actually talk to the customer — are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.
Rule 8: Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want — and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses — apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.
Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For twenty-five years running — long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer — we've ranked No. 1 in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.
Rule 10: Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.
====
Thursday, June 12, 2008
And Now it is RBI's turn to rescue the Oil Companies
Oil firms can sell more bonds via special window
BS Reporter / Mumbai June 12, 2008, 4:07 IST
Public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) have another reason to cheer with the Reserve Bank of India today allowing additional amount of bonds to be sold through the special market operations to ease the liquidity pressure on these companies.
On May 30, RBI had decided to allow the three public sector OMCs – Indian Oil Corpoation, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum – to sell the oil bonds issued to them through designated banks to help them avoid selling them at a discount. It had, however, put a ceiling of Rs 1,000 crore for a single day.
In a late evening statement today, RBI said that it has decided to enhance the ad-hoc ceiling to Rs 1,500 crore a day.
So far, only IndianOil has sold bonds through the special window.
A NewsWire 18 report said that RBI bought Rs 955 crore of 8.40%, 2025 oil bond today from IndianOil. Yesterday the largest OMC encashed bonds worth Rs 950 crore and has been almost exhausting the limit alone.
The move comes at a time when crude oil prices have been hovering over the $130 a barrel mark and is putting fresh pressure on the OMCs to generate cash.
Though the government has allowed a marginal increase petrol, diesel and cooking gas prices, these companies are still facing liquidity pressure and the gains from have been eroded with the Indian basket, or the price at which OMCs buy crude, has crossed the $125 a barrel mark. On Tuesday the cost of the Indian basket was estimated at $130 a barrel.
Apart from the special window for oil bonds, RBI had also provided OMCs the facility to purchase foreign exchange through designated banks at market exchange rate.
BS Reporter / Mumbai June 12, 2008, 4:07 IST
Public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) have another reason to cheer with the Reserve Bank of India today allowing additional amount of bonds to be sold through the special market operations to ease the liquidity pressure on these companies.
On May 30, RBI had decided to allow the three public sector OMCs – Indian Oil Corpoation, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum – to sell the oil bonds issued to them through designated banks to help them avoid selling them at a discount. It had, however, put a ceiling of Rs 1,000 crore for a single day.
In a late evening statement today, RBI said that it has decided to enhance the ad-hoc ceiling to Rs 1,500 crore a day.
So far, only IndianOil has sold bonds through the special window.
A NewsWire 18 report said that RBI bought Rs 955 crore of 8.40%, 2025 oil bond today from IndianOil. Yesterday the largest OMC encashed bonds worth Rs 950 crore and has been almost exhausting the limit alone.
The move comes at a time when crude oil prices have been hovering over the $130 a barrel mark and is putting fresh pressure on the OMCs to generate cash.
Though the government has allowed a marginal increase petrol, diesel and cooking gas prices, these companies are still facing liquidity pressure and the gains from have been eroded with the Indian basket, or the price at which OMCs buy crude, has crossed the $125 a barrel mark. On Tuesday the cost of the Indian basket was estimated at $130 a barrel.
Apart from the special window for oil bonds, RBI had also provided OMCs the facility to purchase foreign exchange through designated banks at market exchange rate.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Government's less than half hearted measures
Govt raised prices of petroleum products but the raise is clearly insufficient. Total deficit is now at Rs. 245,000 crores (and every dollar increase in oil prices increases it by USD 700 mn--at current exchange rate).
Price rise will reduce deficit by Rs.22,000 crores and duty reduction will reduce deficit by Rs. 22,000 crores both totalling Rs. 45,000 crores. We still have a gap of Rs. 200,000 crores.
This is proposed to met by oil bonds (banking system)-- Rs. 95,000 crores and upstream companies ---Rs. 45,000 crores, a total of Rs. 140,000 crores. This leaves a gap of Rs. 60,000 crores for which no provision is made.
Money is not going to come from thin air and this gap may have been left in the hope that oil prices will come down and the actual deficit will be lower. It is disastrous to manage economic affairs on hope.
And in any case, what the government is saying is that Rs. 200,000 crores has to be met by oil companies and banking system. Question is whether these sectors have such financial resources and what happens to the long term economic health of these institutions?
And what shall be do in 2009-10? Where is the money going to come from? Remember in 2007-8, oil companies and banking systems have already funded Rs. 70,000 crores.
Price rise will reduce deficit by Rs.22,000 crores and duty reduction will reduce deficit by Rs. 22,000 crores both totalling Rs. 45,000 crores. We still have a gap of Rs. 200,000 crores.
This is proposed to met by oil bonds (banking system)-- Rs. 95,000 crores and upstream companies ---Rs. 45,000 crores, a total of Rs. 140,000 crores. This leaves a gap of Rs. 60,000 crores for which no provision is made.
Money is not going to come from thin air and this gap may have been left in the hope that oil prices will come down and the actual deficit will be lower. It is disastrous to manage economic affairs on hope.
And in any case, what the government is saying is that Rs. 200,000 crores has to be met by oil companies and banking system. Question is whether these sectors have such financial resources and what happens to the long term economic health of these institutions?
And what shall be do in 2009-10? Where is the money going to come from? Remember in 2007-8, oil companies and banking systems have already funded Rs. 70,000 crores.
Keynes vs Monetarists
An interesting article appeared in Mint (WSJ of India) couple of days ago. It talks of Keynesian economics (his solution for 1929 depression was to dig roads and fill them)- which believed in fiscal stimulus and the monetary economics -- which believes in controlling economy through interest rate changes.
today we are in an era where fiscal discipline is assumed (so keynesian economics is dead) and monetary policy is used the world over. in india also, over the past few years we have seen importance of budget being reduced and it is the RBI's policy which is eagerly awaited.
fiscal deficit works if it reaches the intended beneficiaries-- thus dig roads and fill them would lead to money reaching the poor -- but if fiscal deficit goes to fund subsidies, it has proved disastrous-- recent examples would be countries like Argentina, Brazil, Zambia etc.
monetary policy also has to be used carefully--- if its focus is only inflation control, which is how it is being used world over, will hurt growth--- too much tightening hurts growth and too liberal would lead to excesses in economy including asset bubbles, as has happened in USA.
it is my view that our current set of policy makers are all strict monetarists--- Dr. Manmohan Singh, Dr Rangarajan and YV Reddy and their policies are hurting growth. also strict monetary policy would assume fiscal discipline which is lacking in India.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Views
Keynes has a lot to teach us
John Maynard Keynes was born 125 years ago this week. Three giants —Keynes, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek— dominated 20th century economics and continue to be relevant in this century. Keynes had led a successful revolution against the mainstream economics of his time. He was also a man of practical action. Keynes has been closely identified with a style of economic policy which believes that monetary policy is often toothless and that fiscal policy is the best antidote to slowdowns and recessions. This was the conventional wisdom in the three decades after the end of World War II. A very crude version of Keynesian policy even went so far as behaving as if huge government deficits were not much of a problem. There was often a gap between what the great man said and how his many disciples interpreted him. The Keynesian consensus fell apart in the 1970s as stagflation gripped the Western world. Monetarism made a comeback, and since then we have come to believe that central banks hold the key to stable economies. The successive bubbles blown by central banks over the past decade and the growing power of financial markets has cut into both the credibility and efficacy of monetary policy. There are signs that fiscal policy is making a comeback. Even the International Monetary Fund has softened its opposition to bigger fiscal deficits. (Fiscal deficits of the type India has will continue to be a worry.) But there is another Keynes who has a new relevance in our times. He was a student of probability. Uncertainty and expectations play a big role in his economic writings. He believed that investment in an economy is driven by something as subjective and psychological as "animal spirits". Keynes was also a master speculator. He understood both power of financial markets and their shortcomings. "Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done," he famously wrote. How true.
today we are in an era where fiscal discipline is assumed (so keynesian economics is dead) and monetary policy is used the world over. in india also, over the past few years we have seen importance of budget being reduced and it is the RBI's policy which is eagerly awaited.
fiscal deficit works if it reaches the intended beneficiaries-- thus dig roads and fill them would lead to money reaching the poor -- but if fiscal deficit goes to fund subsidies, it has proved disastrous-- recent examples would be countries like Argentina, Brazil, Zambia etc.
monetary policy also has to be used carefully--- if its focus is only inflation control, which is how it is being used world over, will hurt growth--- too much tightening hurts growth and too liberal would lead to excesses in economy including asset bubbles, as has happened in USA.
it is my view that our current set of policy makers are all strict monetarists--- Dr. Manmohan Singh, Dr Rangarajan and YV Reddy and their policies are hurting growth. also strict monetary policy would assume fiscal discipline which is lacking in India.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Views
Keynes has a lot to teach us
John Maynard Keynes was born 125 years ago this week. Three giants —Keynes, Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek— dominated 20th century economics and continue to be relevant in this century. Keynes had led a successful revolution against the mainstream economics of his time. He was also a man of practical action. Keynes has been closely identified with a style of economic policy which believes that monetary policy is often toothless and that fiscal policy is the best antidote to slowdowns and recessions. This was the conventional wisdom in the three decades after the end of World War II. A very crude version of Keynesian policy even went so far as behaving as if huge government deficits were not much of a problem. There was often a gap between what the great man said and how his many disciples interpreted him. The Keynesian consensus fell apart in the 1970s as stagflation gripped the Western world. Monetarism made a comeback, and since then we have come to believe that central banks hold the key to stable economies. The successive bubbles blown by central banks over the past decade and the growing power of financial markets has cut into both the credibility and efficacy of monetary policy. There are signs that fiscal policy is making a comeback. Even the International Monetary Fund has softened its opposition to bigger fiscal deficits. (Fiscal deficits of the type India has will continue to be a worry.) But there is another Keynes who has a new relevance in our times. He was a student of probability. Uncertainty and expectations play a big role in his economic writings. He believed that investment in an economy is driven by something as subjective and psychological as "animal spirits". Keynes was also a master speculator. He understood both power of financial markets and their shortcomings. "Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done," he famously wrote. How true.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
india's looming economic crisis ..... we could be headed for hyperinflation....
reposting the table of the previous article
Year SBI Advance Rate GDP at constant Prices GDP growth WPI Inflation Exchange Rate
1970-71 7.00-8.50 474131 14.35 7.5020
1971-72 8.5 478918 1.01% 15.15 5.60% 7.2790
1972-73 8.5 477392 -0.32% 16.67 10.04% 7.6570
1973-74 8.50-9.00 499120 4.55% 20.04 20.22% 7.8370
1974-75 9.00-13.50 504914 1.16% 25.09 25.20% 7.7940
1975-76 14 550379 9.00% 24.82 -1.09% 8.9730
1976-77 14 557258 1.25% 25.33 2.08% 8.8040
1977-78 13 598885 7.47% 26.65 5.21% 8.4340
1978-79 13 631839 5.50% 26.65 0.00% 8.1500
1979-80 16.5 598974 -5.20% 31.22 17.12% 8.1930
1980-81 16.5 641921 7.17% 36.91 18.24% 8.1900
1981-82 16.5 678033 5.63% 40.36 9.33% 9.3460
1982-83 16.5 697861 2.92% 42.33 4.90% 9.9700
1983-84 16.5 752669 7.85% 45.52 7.53% 10.7070
1984-85 16.5 782484 3.96% 48.47 6.47% 12.4300
1985-86 16.5 815049 4.16% 50.61 4.41% 12.3061
1986-87 16.5 850217 4.31% 53.55 5.82% 12.8882
1987-88 16.5 880267 3.53% 57.91 8.14% 13.0318
1988-89 16.5 969702 10.16% 62.23 7.46% 15.6630
1989-90 16.5 1029178 6.13% 66.87 7.46% 17.3248
1990-91 16.5 1083572 5.29% 73.73 10.26% 19.6429
1991-92 16.5 1099072 1.43% 83.86 13.74% 31.2256
1992-93 19 1158025 5.36% 92.29 10.06% 31.2354
1993-94 19 1223816 5.68% 100.00 8.35% 31.3725
1994-95 15 1302076 6.39% 112.60 12.60% 31.4950
1995-96 16.5 1396974 7.29% 121.60 7.99% 34.3500
1996-97 14.5 1508378 7.97% 127.20 4.61% 35.9150
1997-98 14 1573263 4.30% 132.80 4.40% 39.4950
1998-99 12.00-14.00 1678410 6.68% 140.70 5.95% 42.4350
1999-00 12 1786525 6.44% 145.30 3.27% 43.6050
2000-01 11.5 1864773 4.38% 155.70 7.16% 46.6400
2001-02 11.5 1972912 5.80% 161.30 3.60% 48.8000
2002-03 10.75 2047733 3.79% 166.80 3.41% 47.5050
2003-04 10.25 2222591 8.54% 175.90 5.46% 43.4450
2004-05 10.25 2389660 7.52% 187.30 6.48% 43.7550
2005-06 10.25 2604532 8.99% 195.50 4.38% 44.6050
2006-07 12.25 2848157 9.35% 206.10 5.42% 43.5950
2007-08 12.75
Year SBI Advance Rate GDP at constant Prices GDP growth WPI Inflation Exchange Rate
1970-71 7.00-8.50 474131 14.35 7.5020
1971-72 8.5 478918 1.01% 15.15 5.60% 7.2790
1972-73 8.5 477392 -0.32% 16.67 10.04% 7.6570
1973-74 8.50-9.00 499120 4.55% 20.04 20.22% 7.8370
1974-75 9.00-13.50 504914 1.16% 25.09 25.20% 7.7940
1975-76 14 550379 9.00% 24.82 -1.09% 8.9730
1976-77 14 557258 1.25% 25.33 2.08% 8.8040
1977-78 13 598885 7.47% 26.65 5.21% 8.4340
1978-79 13 631839 5.50% 26.65 0.00% 8.1500
1979-80 16.5 598974 -5.20% 31.22 17.12% 8.1930
1980-81 16.5 641921 7.17% 36.91 18.24% 8.1900
1981-82 16.5 678033 5.63% 40.36 9.33% 9.3460
1982-83 16.5 697861 2.92% 42.33 4.90% 9.9700
1983-84 16.5 752669 7.85% 45.52 7.53% 10.7070
1984-85 16.5 782484 3.96% 48.47 6.47% 12.4300
1985-86 16.5 815049 4.16% 50.61 4.41% 12.3061
1986-87 16.5 850217 4.31% 53.55 5.82% 12.8882
1987-88 16.5 880267 3.53% 57.91 8.14% 13.0318
1988-89 16.5 969702 10.16% 62.23 7.46% 15.6630
1989-90 16.5 1029178 6.13% 66.87 7.46% 17.3248
1990-91 16.5 1083572 5.29% 73.73 10.26% 19.6429
1991-92 16.5 1099072 1.43% 83.86 13.74% 31.2256
1992-93 19 1158025 5.36% 92.29 10.06% 31.2354
1993-94 19 1223816 5.68% 100.00 8.35% 31.3725
1994-95 15 1302076 6.39% 112.60 12.60% 31.4950
1995-96 16.5 1396974 7.29% 121.60 7.99% 34.3500
1996-97 14.5 1508378 7.97% 127.20 4.61% 35.9150
1997-98 14 1573263 4.30% 132.80 4.40% 39.4950
1998-99 12.00-14.00 1678410 6.68% 140.70 5.95% 42.4350
1999-00 12 1786525 6.44% 145.30 3.27% 43.6050
2000-01 11.5 1864773 4.38% 155.70 7.16% 46.6400
2001-02 11.5 1972912 5.80% 161.30 3.60% 48.8000
2002-03 10.75 2047733 3.79% 166.80 3.41% 47.5050
2003-04 10.25 2222591 8.54% 175.90 5.46% 43.4450
2004-05 10.25 2389660 7.52% 187.30 6.48% 43.7550
2005-06 10.25 2604532 8.99% 195.50 4.38% 44.6050
2006-07 12.25 2848157 9.35% 206.10 5.42% 43.5950
2007-08 12.75
India's looming economic crisis... we could be headed for hyperinflation....
India is facing severe liquidity crunch
We are fast heading towards bankruptcy as a country. Oil deficit is USD 60 bn and Fertiliser deficit is USD 25 bn, a total of USD 85 bn, which is more than 8% of GDP. This is not deficit as government is refusing to foot these bills. It will ask banking sector to fund oil companies. Incremental deposits in public sector banking sector are USD 100 bn, and it is unlikely that the banks will be able to lend more than USD 30 bn as incremental money to oil companies.
As a result, we would soon witness that oil companies are unable to pay for crude oil imports and therefore refineries will stop functioning. We are losing USD 5 bn a month on oil subsidies alone and therefore the refineries will be able to function at the most for another 6 months.
This situation will not only make blue chips like IOC, BPCL and HPCL sick companies, but also would potentially turn India’s crown jewel State Bank of India into a sick financial institution. This is because whatever money SBI lends to oil companies would not come back.
Early signs of what is stated above has already started appearing :-
SBI has borrowed in aggregate Rs. 18,000 Crores from RBI in 2 repo bids.
Mr. Sarthik Behuria, Chairman of IOC has made a statement that IOC has stopped import of diesel and its refineries will stop functioning in 4 months.
What we are facing here is not an issue of whether there is a deficit or not, and whether oil prices should be raised or not but it is a question of liquidity and because of crunch of liquidity, the country will come to a grinding halt.
Reduction in duties not a solution
Reduction in customs and excise duty is not going to be a solution simply because deficit is too large. For example, India imported oil products of USD 60 bn and if we assume customs duty rate of 5-10%, reduction in customs duty can at best release USD 2 to 3 bn. But this reduction cannot pay for crude. Someone needs to pay for crude. And only solution is to raise oil prices and raise it substantially and immediately.
Government needs to act and act now without losing a minute
What is more worrisome is if the Government does not act decisively and act soon, our currency will lose value. Already the rupee has moved from a level of INR 40 in end March to INR 43 in May, a depreciation of 7 to 8% in less than 2 months. Rupee can easily go to levels of INR 60-70 as outsiders lose faith in the currency. This has happened during 1990-92 when rupee moved rapidly from INR 17 to INR 32. Thus even if oil prices stabilize or go down, if rupee loses value, we would still have a huge deficit.
And we could be heading for Hyperinflation
I hate to say this but we could possibly be heading for hyper-inflation where things simply go out of control. Effects of hyper inflation are :-
Hyperinflation results in transfer of wealth from public to government. It is a form of taxation as government tries to meet its expenses by printing money.
Hyperinflation ends when government committs to fiscal reforms.
People start using dollars instead of rupees.
When you fear hyperinflation, borrow and buy assets, commodities.
Genesis of the problem
And on another note, i believe the genesis of many of our problems is the high interest rates and the misplaced notion that interest rates help control inflation. In fact, high interest rates cause higher inflation. In developed countries where borrowing is high for consumption, raising interest rates helps control inflation by curtailing consumption but in economies like India, which are short on capital, raising interest rates hurts supply, increases cost of doing business and causes inflation. In fact, in India, borrowing accounts for less than 5% of consumption!!!!!!
Our government has kept interest rates high for over a year hurting growth and causing inflation. Last year inflation was 4% and interest rates were raised to 11-12%, for over a year interest rates have been high and yet inflation has gone up. And unfortunately we read bogus economic theory that interest rates must be raised to control inflation.
India grew at 9% during era of low interest rates
India managed to break out of Hindu rate of growth and also saw lower inflation only when interest rates were lowered to 7-8%. The economic ideology of curbing growth and controling inflation by higher interest rates is completely misplaced and disastrous for the country. Hence during the high interest rate era, we hurtled from one economic crisis to another.
I enclose a table which gives Interest rate (I have used SBI Advance rate), GDP, GDP growth and Inflation. It is clear that we started growing above 6% only when interest rates came down. From 1980-1996 interest rate was 16.5-19% and inflation was never below 7%!!!! It is only from 1996 that interest rate started coming down that India actually managed to put its act in place and growth picked up above 8% when interest rates fell below 11% (in fact, though the rates were 11%, we had a phase when good customers were able to borrow below PLR).
Moderate inflation is required for growth economies and whenever economy overheats, RBI is justified in raising interest rates to cool down the economy. But to hold interest rates at high levels for long period of time hurts growth and is not a cooling down policy.
Solution
There is only one solution in the short term and that is to raise prices of petroleum products. The current deficit between end product prices and crude is unsustainable. And if crude prices fall, government can always reduce the end product prices.
And RBI must immediately bring down interest rates so that growth is accelerated.
If we do not do the above, unfortunately we could be headed for bigger economic troubles.
Year
SBI Advance Rate
GDP at constant Prices
GDP growth
WPI
Inflation
Exchange Rate
1970-71
7.00-8.50
474131
14.35
7.5020
1971-72
8.5
478918
1.01%
15.15
5.60%
7.2790
1972-73
8.5
477392
-0.32%
16.67
10.04%
7.6570
1973-74
8.50-9.00
499120
4.55%
20.04
20.22%
7.8370
1974-75
9.00-13.50
504914
1.16%
25.09
25.20%
7.7940
1975-76
14
550379
9.00%
24.82
-1.09%
8.9730
1976-77
14
557258
1.25%
25.33
2.08%
8.8040
1977-78
13
598885
7.47%
26.65
5.21%
8.4340
1978-79
13
631839
5.50%
26.65
0.00%
8.1500
1979-80
16.5
598974
-5.20%
31.22
17.12%
8.1930
1980-81
16.5
641921
7.17%
36.91
18.24%
8.1900
1981-82
16.5
678033
5.63%
40.36
9.33%
9.3460
1982-83
16.5
697861
2.92%
42.33
4.90%
9.9700
1983-84
16.5
752669
7.85%
45.52
7.53%
10.7070
1984-85
16.5
782484
3.96%
48.47
6.47%
12.4300
1985-86
16.5
815049
4.16%
50.61
4.41%
12.3061
1986-87
16.5
850217
4.31%
53.55
5.82%
12.8882
1987-88
16.5
880267
3.53%
57.91
8.14%
13.0318
1988-89
16.5
969702
10.16%
62.23
7.46%
15.6630
1989-90
16.5
1029178
6.13%
66.87
7.46%
17.3248
1990-91
16.5
1083572
5.29%
73.73
10.26%
19.6429
1991-92
16.5
1099072
1.43%
83.86
13.74%
31.2256
1992-93
19
1158025
5.36%
92.29
10.06%
31.2354
1993-94
19
1223816
5.68%
100.00
8.35%
31.3725
1994-95
15
1302076
6.39%
112.60
12.60%
31.4950
1995-96
16.5
1396974
7.29%
121.60
7.99%
34.3500
1996-97
14.5
1508378
7.97%
127.20
4.61%
35.9150
1997-98
14
1573263
4.30%
132.80
4.40%
39.4950
1998-99
12.00-14.00
1678410
6.68%
140.70
5.95%
42.4350
1999-00
12
1786525
6.44%
145.30
3.27%
43.6050
2000-01
11.5
1864773
4.38%
155.70
7.16%
46.6400
2001-02
11.5
1972912
5.80%
161.30
3.60%
48.8000
2002-03
10.75
2047733
3.79%
166.80
3.41%
47.5050
2003-04
10.25
2222591
8.54%
175.90
5.46%
43.4450
2004-05
10.25
2389660
7.52%
187.30
6.48%
43.7550
2005-06
10.25
2604532
8.99%
195.50
4.38%
44.6050
2006-07
12.25
2848157
9.35%
206.10
5.42%
43.5950
2007-08
12.75
We are fast heading towards bankruptcy as a country. Oil deficit is USD 60 bn and Fertiliser deficit is USD 25 bn, a total of USD 85 bn, which is more than 8% of GDP. This is not deficit as government is refusing to foot these bills. It will ask banking sector to fund oil companies. Incremental deposits in public sector banking sector are USD 100 bn, and it is unlikely that the banks will be able to lend more than USD 30 bn as incremental money to oil companies.
As a result, we would soon witness that oil companies are unable to pay for crude oil imports and therefore refineries will stop functioning. We are losing USD 5 bn a month on oil subsidies alone and therefore the refineries will be able to function at the most for another 6 months.
This situation will not only make blue chips like IOC, BPCL and HPCL sick companies, but also would potentially turn India’s crown jewel State Bank of India into a sick financial institution. This is because whatever money SBI lends to oil companies would not come back.
Early signs of what is stated above has already started appearing :-
SBI has borrowed in aggregate Rs. 18,000 Crores from RBI in 2 repo bids.
Mr. Sarthik Behuria, Chairman of IOC has made a statement that IOC has stopped import of diesel and its refineries will stop functioning in 4 months.
What we are facing here is not an issue of whether there is a deficit or not, and whether oil prices should be raised or not but it is a question of liquidity and because of crunch of liquidity, the country will come to a grinding halt.
Reduction in duties not a solution
Reduction in customs and excise duty is not going to be a solution simply because deficit is too large. For example, India imported oil products of USD 60 bn and if we assume customs duty rate of 5-10%, reduction in customs duty can at best release USD 2 to 3 bn. But this reduction cannot pay for crude. Someone needs to pay for crude. And only solution is to raise oil prices and raise it substantially and immediately.
Government needs to act and act now without losing a minute
What is more worrisome is if the Government does not act decisively and act soon, our currency will lose value. Already the rupee has moved from a level of INR 40 in end March to INR 43 in May, a depreciation of 7 to 8% in less than 2 months. Rupee can easily go to levels of INR 60-70 as outsiders lose faith in the currency. This has happened during 1990-92 when rupee moved rapidly from INR 17 to INR 32. Thus even if oil prices stabilize or go down, if rupee loses value, we would still have a huge deficit.
And we could be heading for Hyperinflation
I hate to say this but we could possibly be heading for hyper-inflation where things simply go out of control. Effects of hyper inflation are :-
Hyperinflation results in transfer of wealth from public to government. It is a form of taxation as government tries to meet its expenses by printing money.
Hyperinflation ends when government committs to fiscal reforms.
People start using dollars instead of rupees.
When you fear hyperinflation, borrow and buy assets, commodities.
Genesis of the problem
And on another note, i believe the genesis of many of our problems is the high interest rates and the misplaced notion that interest rates help control inflation. In fact, high interest rates cause higher inflation. In developed countries where borrowing is high for consumption, raising interest rates helps control inflation by curtailing consumption but in economies like India, which are short on capital, raising interest rates hurts supply, increases cost of doing business and causes inflation. In fact, in India, borrowing accounts for less than 5% of consumption!!!!!!
Our government has kept interest rates high for over a year hurting growth and causing inflation. Last year inflation was 4% and interest rates were raised to 11-12%, for over a year interest rates have been high and yet inflation has gone up. And unfortunately we read bogus economic theory that interest rates must be raised to control inflation.
India grew at 9% during era of low interest rates
India managed to break out of Hindu rate of growth and also saw lower inflation only when interest rates were lowered to 7-8%. The economic ideology of curbing growth and controling inflation by higher interest rates is completely misplaced and disastrous for the country. Hence during the high interest rate era, we hurtled from one economic crisis to another.
I enclose a table which gives Interest rate (I have used SBI Advance rate), GDP, GDP growth and Inflation. It is clear that we started growing above 6% only when interest rates came down. From 1980-1996 interest rate was 16.5-19% and inflation was never below 7%!!!! It is only from 1996 that interest rate started coming down that India actually managed to put its act in place and growth picked up above 8% when interest rates fell below 11% (in fact, though the rates were 11%, we had a phase when good customers were able to borrow below PLR).
Moderate inflation is required for growth economies and whenever economy overheats, RBI is justified in raising interest rates to cool down the economy. But to hold interest rates at high levels for long period of time hurts growth and is not a cooling down policy.
Solution
There is only one solution in the short term and that is to raise prices of petroleum products. The current deficit between end product prices and crude is unsustainable. And if crude prices fall, government can always reduce the end product prices.
And RBI must immediately bring down interest rates so that growth is accelerated.
If we do not do the above, unfortunately we could be headed for bigger economic troubles.
Year
SBI Advance Rate
GDP at constant Prices
GDP growth
WPI
Inflation
Exchange Rate
1970-71
7.00-8.50
474131
14.35
7.5020
1971-72
8.5
478918
1.01%
15.15
5.60%
7.2790
1972-73
8.5
477392
-0.32%
16.67
10.04%
7.6570
1973-74
8.50-9.00
499120
4.55%
20.04
20.22%
7.8370
1974-75
9.00-13.50
504914
1.16%
25.09
25.20%
7.7940
1975-76
14
550379
9.00%
24.82
-1.09%
8.9730
1976-77
14
557258
1.25%
25.33
2.08%
8.8040
1977-78
13
598885
7.47%
26.65
5.21%
8.4340
1978-79
13
631839
5.50%
26.65
0.00%
8.1500
1979-80
16.5
598974
-5.20%
31.22
17.12%
8.1930
1980-81
16.5
641921
7.17%
36.91
18.24%
8.1900
1981-82
16.5
678033
5.63%
40.36
9.33%
9.3460
1982-83
16.5
697861
2.92%
42.33
4.90%
9.9700
1983-84
16.5
752669
7.85%
45.52
7.53%
10.7070
1984-85
16.5
782484
3.96%
48.47
6.47%
12.4300
1985-86
16.5
815049
4.16%
50.61
4.41%
12.3061
1986-87
16.5
850217
4.31%
53.55
5.82%
12.8882
1987-88
16.5
880267
3.53%
57.91
8.14%
13.0318
1988-89
16.5
969702
10.16%
62.23
7.46%
15.6630
1989-90
16.5
1029178
6.13%
66.87
7.46%
17.3248
1990-91
16.5
1083572
5.29%
73.73
10.26%
19.6429
1991-92
16.5
1099072
1.43%
83.86
13.74%
31.2256
1992-93
19
1158025
5.36%
92.29
10.06%
31.2354
1993-94
19
1223816
5.68%
100.00
8.35%
31.3725
1994-95
15
1302076
6.39%
112.60
12.60%
31.4950
1995-96
16.5
1396974
7.29%
121.60
7.99%
34.3500
1996-97
14.5
1508378
7.97%
127.20
4.61%
35.9150
1997-98
14
1573263
4.30%
132.80
4.40%
39.4950
1998-99
12.00-14.00
1678410
6.68%
140.70
5.95%
42.4350
1999-00
12
1786525
6.44%
145.30
3.27%
43.6050
2000-01
11.5
1864773
4.38%
155.70
7.16%
46.6400
2001-02
11.5
1972912
5.80%
161.30
3.60%
48.8000
2002-03
10.75
2047733
3.79%
166.80
3.41%
47.5050
2003-04
10.25
2222591
8.54%
175.90
5.46%
43.4450
2004-05
10.25
2389660
7.52%
187.30
6.48%
43.7550
2005-06
10.25
2604532
8.99%
195.50
4.38%
44.6050
2006-07
12.25
2848157
9.35%
206.10
5.42%
43.5950
2007-08
12.75
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