Thursday, November 13, 2008

Inflation down to single digits; Dow down 400 points...

For the week ended November 1'08, inflation in India (as measured by the WPI) dropped sharply to 8.98%. [read here]. This is clearly a positive.

But, will we embrace the sharp the drop in inflation or will we discard it and follow stock markets across-the-globe to sink further?

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Uncertain Times: Threat or Opportunity?

Uncertain Times:
  • Domestic Non-bank credit is as good as gone
  • Overnight rates are on an average higher than 3-yr Fixed Deposits
  • A sharp slowdown in the overall economy, led by the mfg sector
  • Slowing sales and rapidly deteriorating profits and profitability
  • Thanks to higher interest rates, rapidly deteriorating corporate India's performance, consumer demand too remains poor and is expected to only worsen hereon
  • Stock markets continue their rapid journey down-south
  • Serial bomb-blasts taking place across-the-nation, city after city
  • National & a host of assembly elections coming up with no certainty or clue of who will form the new government
  • Disputes amongst state politicians over jobs & reservations (Mah, Bihar, & Assam)

Testing times (that's quite an understatement) for the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and the RBI.

However, as an investor, how should one see and behave in such a scenario? Is this a threat or an opportunity of a lifetime to invest?