Showing posts with label Sensex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sensex. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Mr. Chidambaram – The bubble maker

The last two crashes in Indian Stock market (May 2004 & May 2006) has experienced are unique because it recovered much faster than it generally does in a crash. And the credit for that goes to Mr. P Chidambaram the Finance Minister.

Every speculative market like Stock Market has inherent tendency to build up bubble. Margin trading, F & O, derivatives are all methods to increase speculation. And all these financial innovations are nothing but a step to circumvent regulation which tries to curb speculation. As the market goes up everybody is leveraging himself to take maximum exposure hence gain maximum from the rise. But when the market falls they also bear maximum loss.

Stock markets has a system called stop loss where after a certain fall the bulls book losses to stop further loss adding to selling pressure. Added to this the brokers have to revise the margin requirement for their clients forcing them to sell at loss and adding to selling pressure. This is snow ball effect and hence it’s called a Bubble.

Mr. Chidambaram is a veteran of the financial markets and knows this very well. Hence in May 2004 after BJP lost the elections and Congress came to power, he through the government controlled Financial Institutions made sure that this snow ball falling down the hill is stopped in between hence not leading to crash. He was successful then and managed to control triggers like stop loss and margin plays. Many people who were saved in that crash should thank him. Gaining confidence from his last success he did the same in May 2006 crash and successfully again. He managed to prove me wrong for a long time (http://neerajgutgutia.blogspot.com/2005/09/stock-market-burst-is-inevitable.html ) but lets see if he can repeat it this time. He might, he might not but remember each time he does that the snow ball is building up latent energy and increases the chances of bigger fall the next time and ‘faster fall’.

My analysis says that market should not be above 9000. Lets see whether he is able to delay the bust further. Even if he is successful this time, remember is can just delay it.

Another trend worth noting is that most these crash like situation happens around the time when a high profile IPO is getting listed. (The reason of the same might be that lot of cash which was circulating in the market and building the bubble get locked up for month or so in the IPO). Last time it was Air Deccan, this time it is Cairn India. And if Mr. Chidambaram manages to hold the snow ball for a while, the next might be DLF IPO.
Sorry readers if this read like salt in your wounds but you deserve it. Remember Mr. Chidambaram by protecting you every time is just exposing you to bigger risk. I feel like humming " Kab tak chupaogi jawani o rani......"

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Stock Beta is a fraud concept

The concept of Beta: A measure of a stock’s volatility, or systematic risk, in comparison to the market as a whole. Also known as "beta coefficient." Beta describes the sensitivity of a stock to broad market movements. The stock market (represented by an index such as the Sensex or Nifty) is assigned a beta of 1.0. By comparison, a stock which has a beta of 0.5 will tend to participate in broad market moves, but only half as much as the market overall. A stock with a beta of 2.0 will tend to benefit or suffer from broad market moves twice as much as the market overall.

There is an inherent assumption in this theory that a particular stock would move in the same ratio in comparison to market regardless of whether the market is going up or going down. However this is questionable.

A stock which is fundamentally strong should go up at more than 1x when the market is rising but should fall less than 1x when market is falling. Similarly a stock which is fundamentally weak should rise less than the market when the market is rising and fall more than the market when the market is falling.

To prove my point lets check the movement of Reliance Industries with that of Sensex or Nifty since the time the company got demerged. It is showing two different Betas. One result when market is going up (which is more than 1) and another when market is going down (which is less than 1).

As this inherent assumption behind Beta theory is absurd this theory is absolutely useless.