FULL STOP on Luxury Appartments in India

With the announcement by SBI chief about the Loan Policy for the Housing sector it is very clear that PSU banks are driving the Home Prices lower.

 

A unknown bracket of Rs.5lakh Home Loan was made most attractive with 8.5% rate and 10% margin requirements.

 

Though 5 lakh loan amiunt is unseen in the top 10 cities ... I believe it is very useful for small towns where 1BHK appartments will be mostly between 5 to 10 lakh.

 

This ideally means that government is encouraging very low cost housing and have no mercy for the developers who are not dropping their Prices.

 

Second bracket is 5lakh to 20 lakh is also ok with 9.5% interest rate and 15% Margin. Actually this bracker will meet the requirements of the Urban class but again for the Budget Homes. 

 

Builders in last few years have been solely focusing on the Premium Luxury Home and 3/4 BHK houses targeted for IT setors, Reality investors and NRIs... but all this is changing. 

 

At present in Pune builders are targeting 30lakh bracket to sell 2BHK houses but even this is impossible with 20lakh bracket and they will need to immediately come down to prices between 20 to 25 lakh.

 

Builders have been waiting for the home loan cut and now they are also sure that there is nothing much expected soon.. so they will need to rush and sell homes to all available people and this will create a stiff competition among developers and  prices will automatically fall.

 

So overall a 15% drop in Home prices is clearly visible in next 6 months. Secondly All developers will not goto Tier 2 and 3 cities to acquire land for the low cost housing schemes.

 

But 5 lakh loan is interesting and will make many developers target this with homes prices between 5-7.5 lakh in Tier2 and 3 cities

World to Become Better After Financial Crisis

 

People are at present focusing only on the immediate consequences of the Financial Crisis.

Lets look at the possibilities post the crisis.. May be 5-10 years later..

 

I think the world will be much better after this crisis... Every Crisis is end of a System and starting of a new system. What changes we expect to see in new system ?

 

The current crisis is the result of Leveraging Power given to Investors. For every $100  your have it was possible to invest upto $1000... 10 Times Leverage.

e.g.

If you have $10000 then you could easily buy a home worth $100000 ...

If you have $10000 then you could invest in  financial instruments like derivatives upto $100000

If you start a new business with $100000 , then investors were ready to value it immediately to $1million or sometimes even more..

Even corporate, builders were able to get such a leverage.

 

This 10x Leverage is the main reason for the crisis. Financial institutes either invested in Derivatives, Projects or Lend to people.  It has been good times and future growth looked secured, all the profits they earned was again invested with same leverage until few intelligent people started thinking that its too much and raised the alarm. Alarm sounded loud , that some big  institutes started freezing money and all the ones above them started falling like pack of cards.

 

What it meant ?

Above 10x formula meant that Richer can become Rich much faster then poorer can become richer. In addition richer has much higher leverage available to him then a poorer. This is very clear if you analyze the data.

 

What post Crisis ?

Post crisis Rich people will not be able to leverage their money so much. Actually millions of Rich people would have become Poorer by the end of the crisis and they will never be able to reach earlier levels in several decades without focusing on Real Business Value.

 

This 10x Leverage took interest of businesses and entrepreneurs out of the basic fundamental of offering Real Value to the customers. They were purely interested in putting something forward so that they get 10x immediate value, and then they were looking for the next thing that will give this value.. Even though this process created jobs but unhealthy ones.

 

So reversal of this trend means Richer will not become rich quickly , they will have to offer fundamental value in the market, do innovation and face stiff competition. Which means creation of much larger number of healthy jobs, focus on value creation and long term outlook.

 

This will be very healthy for the economy and will create much larger number of jobs and significant value creation with long term focus. Hence I think that the post crisis period will be quite look for hard working individuals.

 

I remember in one entrepreneur meet in Bangalore, I heard one guy saying "These investors can make so much quick money in Real estate and Stocks that unless these things do not come down , we have little opportunities to get respect for our work" ... At that time I did not give much thought to it, but I think this is what will happen now. Very soon investors will look for intelligent, capable teams that have ability to build real value rather then play marketing and financial games.

 

What it meant that the "Opportunities of Growth presented by Small Businesses" who did not had enough leverage, were not attractive enough for Investors and hence they were not given due respect.. Instead investors were telling them to hire some HiFi CEOs or Financial manager who can actually ensure that the investment provided by the Level 1 investor gets its 10x value (some wanted 100x) from level2 investors... and Level2 gets 10x form level 3...

 

This is what they call as exit strategy... This is the man reason why you will see that many startups in India were mainly  founded by Management Graduates with finance experience or CA .

 

So look for great time ahead and be happy that this world of financial gurus has come to an end.

 

 

 

 

World Wide Recession

All of you are aware of WWW but here is new term coined by me  WWR (World Wide Recession) ....

 

For several decades WWR will be remembered by you and your children... When you become very old, people will ask your , were you alive at WWR time ?

 

Each and every history and economics book will have chapters on WWR, People will compare markets and business against WWR ...

 

Is there any relation between WWW & WWR ?

Some people say Yes, WWW changed the world and brought WWR....

 

Some points put forward are :

 

-  WWW lead to complete world to come closer and learn how others make money, Specially hoe USA work, How people live and earn money in USA, specially how USA markets and exonomy work. All this helped countries worldwide to implement similar systems. Most companies tiedup with USA companies to get technology and operational knowhow...

 

- In turn companies and individuals started investing in USA markets or in international markets thru USA. All international companies come to USA to get financed, and so does all investors. It was easy and simple single point location. i remember when my bank were to transfer money from Mumbai to Singapore, it use to transfer it first to usa and then a usa bank use to route it to singapore 9even when singapore was one of the major financial center of asia)

 

- WWW has a major role in doing this. USA companies were happy to see such a large amount of cash flow , actually the amount of cash available was less then the amount of investment opportunities availabe. Also the type of investment options were limited. This is when financial institutions came out with many ideas to use this cash flow with risky mortages, derivatives, hedge funds and more..

 

- The rapid growth of USA and some countries where investments were routed did quite well. Financial institutes assumed that things will continue as it is and became more and more greedy.  Housing Market crisis in USA was related to this..

 

 

- Oil .. It is believed that when some Fund managers identified that if the world were to grow like think the oil will become short, they shifted large amount of money form their hedge funds to investment in Oil, which spiked Oil to such a high price that it became risk for the growing economies...

Indian Terrorism Taking Dangerous Turn

I like to write about something very Dangerous Social Developments taken place recently and very hot topic in News channels these days.

 

- Arrest of Hindu rights groups and senior Indian army officials in malegoan blasts.

- Also some other blasts taken recently near Masjid in Hyderabad and one other, where Indian mujhedeen and SImi did not take any responsibility are being assigned to Hindu rights group.

 

 

These 2 events are so dangerous that they can complete change the face of India in near future. I like to bring some facts before bringing the real points.

 

- Terrorism has been a big challenge to Indian government since several decades. Terrorists have killed several lakh people and displaced many others.

 

- Indian government has failed to control terrorism and rarely taken any strict steps against it.

 

- Congress that has been in power since independence, has been shying away to take any strong steps to keep terrorism away from India. Steps taken by Indra Gandhi against Khalistan/Sikh movement did gave very good results but similar steps were not taken against Muslim terrorism.

 

- Governments always tried to project that terrorism is grown and controlled in pakistan and there is nothing required to be done in India except monitoring and reactive actions.

 

- Border monitring and Internal reactive actions mostly failed and Terrorist groups were able to make inroads into India and involved Indian Youths and Muslim rights groups.

 

 

- USA 9/11 success of terrorism effected thoughts of several muslim youth. It gave them a impressions that terrorism is very powerful. If it can give such a big jolt to USA then it can certainly help them achieve their simple political aims. Its glorious and can be financially beneficial.

 

- This made it easier for terrorist organizations to spread wings, and involve youths. This means that now terrorist do not come to India , but they live and operate from India.

 

 

All this lead to following additional events recently:

 

- Indian people lost faith in Indian government in countering terrorism. There are several movies that shown what India should have actually done to counter terrorism and showed that indian government is idiot in not doing this.

 

- Indian Army  is having less then 1% muslims where as it should be 12% as per population average. Same is the case for Police in most states. This means that muslims are not involved in maintiang Indian security and harmony.

 

- Hindu Rights group observed that terrorists are attacking Hindu worship places like Temples, Religious cities. This was a direct challenge to Hindu rights groups.  None of the government steps have helped reduce terrorism.

 

- Even after the pakistan and kashmiro movement took downtrend, the terrorism instead of decreasing , actually increased.

 

- All this has encouraged Hindu Rights groups to give direct answer to the Muslim terrorists by creating anti muslim movement and doing blasts in Masjids and Muslim populated areas. 

 

- Involvement of Indian army officials show that, there is large rift in Indian army and they are not happy with the way government has been handling terrorism. Army is considered responsible for prevening Terrorism from penetrating into India. Army has been asking for actions on pakistan which indian government has not been permitting. Government has also prevented army several times from taking strong steps against terrorists in Kashmir. Several terrorists caught by arm were also release in different situations. All this probably has created rift that Government  "Choodiya phen ke bhathi hai" .

 

- Recent blasts that indian Hindu RIghts groups and Army is a startling revelation but a late one. Normally it is expected that such a thing should have happened long back

 

- A movie released recently called "Wednesday" show the frustration among a common man and what he can do to counter terrorism. He plants bomb to kill 4 major captured terrorists and he succeed in it. At last complete police department support his efforts and applaud his efforts. Several movies with similar concepts have comeearlier. THis clearly show that there is concensus among common people , police and army that they should kill terrorists and people supporting them

 

- Most people believe that Muslim groups governed thru masjid are supporting muslim terrorism. and hence Hindu groups to act against them is expected.

 

 

What is expected in future ?

 

- For Muslim population and groups , this is a dangerous news. THis ideally means that they if any blash happen in any Hindu target, similar attacks are assured in Muslim targets. Earlier Muslim groups have been arguing that muslim terrorism have never harmed them so they should not be against them but now they have to rethink, they will be the soft targets of Hindu groups and they cannot do anything but to alienate themselves form muslim terrorism. They will have to openly say as well as practice this.

 

- This will certainly help in muslim terrorism to loose their support among othe rmuslim groups. this will reduce the fast growth seen in terrorism.

 

- But before this happen, there are chances that there will be a war among Hindu & Muslim terrorism groups. THis means that muslim groups will conduct several blasts in hindu targets and same will be the respocne by the hindu groups. THis will be most dnagerous situation in India and lead to political unstability.

 

- It is expected that after this war common hindu and muslim people will strongly start opposing terrorism both Hindu & Muslims and sloly terrorism will subside. But I am not sure how long it will take. As per Indian situation such social changes can take decades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Estate Prices to Fall Further in India post Diwali

Recent News flow has been suggesting that the Real Estate Prices will now stablize post diwali and Things will look upwards.

 

This is concluded by some real estate companies with claims that "RBI has cut Rates", "Banks are about to cut Interest Rates", Realestate company shares have already fallen a lot and further fall not expected. and stuff like that...

 

But I like to warn buyers that this is not expected to be true.

 

- Actually real estate prices have not fallen much as projected. The prices have fallen only in Suburbs and location where builders were quoting (only quoting not real sales) 5-6 times higher then normal expected prices.  Builders had started projects on large land and put up rates that were just like rates at the city center. At present Builders have only reduced rates on these projects. which is actuall not a price fall but just a new price quote.

 

- The price fall means that if average (average in a quater)  registered deals were being done at say Rs.5000 per sqft ... and this quater the average is Rs.4000/- then you can say that there is 20% price fall. In reality in many new projects that were launched there were no dealers done just price was quoted,, and now they are quoting low.. This is not what we can call a price fall.

 

- Many builders are projecting it as 20% price fall and saying that no further fall will happen, In reality they are making us fool. Obviously there is a price drop in real deals also but its not enough .

 

- Hence there is chance of a real price fall, Real Price fall is a Price Level at which the Buying Picks up and keeps growing atleast for a quater. At present there are no indications of this. Interest rates are comming down but now people are aware that its going to fall further in next few months so , people will wait.

 

- Also there is a huge dispute that has propped up in the Builders , before diwali all Builders has united for not to drop prices (except above artificial drop) and they were expecting sales to grow in diwali. But post diwali some builders have picked up argument (probably after seeing that there is not much sale in diwali) that the Real Price drop is necessary for the market to pickup.

 

- I believe that soon many builder will drop the rate and others will need to follow. This drop will be bigger and builders will offer low cost housing. Only if the demand grow significantly , people will start buying Real Estate shares. So even if builders do not make any profits  but have sales, they can make up for it in their stock prices..

 

- Also there is news that all Private Equity deals in projects is being re-negotiated . This means that all new project plans will be changes. Instead of comming up with premium homes, IT parks they will get converted into low cost housing. And Builders will be forced to reduce prices significantly to ensure quick sales.

 

 

- Today SBI dropped the PLR by .75% . This is obviously very good for the Real estate section but I think it will need to be substantiated with real fall in prices.

 

- So wait for Real Fall in Price and more fall in Interest Rates. Overall wait for a feeling that you are getting a great deal that you never saw in the past.. Once this feeling come go ahead and buy.

 

- I also like to tell you that the Actual Real Estate Projects are still to come and nearly 10 years down the line. These projects will be associated with huge infrastructure projects and they will be of as big scale as a city. ALso they will be more affordable. Hence you will need to change your home anyway after 10 years. So while buying you home just think of it as 10 years deal.. Do not end up buying a Premium home with large EMI thinking that its your onetime investment.  look for a home that is comfortable for you and near the place you work.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Buying Options to save your Mutual fund / UTI investment, insure your investments

I like to let Mutual fund or UTI and other stock market related instrument buyers to learn about Options.

 

Options are instruments that allow you to protect your Investments in downtrends. Its like Insurance.

 

You Family is dependent on you so you buy mediclaim and life insurance to compensate for the losses due to medical problems and death.

Similaly you buy insurance for you Home and other assets.

 

You buy Mutual Funds and UTI/ULIP schemes as long term investment for your life. Your retirement or childrends education depend on it. You also invest to save taxes.

 

But in Bear market you may loose 50% or more of your investment within few months leading to tension and stress. The News may increase your BP and you may stop investing in markets.

 

There is a easy way to manage this. Buy Insurance for your Investment.  Its called "Options"

 

Say if you have invested 2 lakh in mutual funds and other market linked assets. and you come accross the bear market that threatens to cut 50% or more of your investment.  .... The best way is to Buy a  "NIFTY PUT OPTION"

 

What is Nifty Put Option ?

 

Nifty means NSE Stock exchange Index. In bear markets it may fall by 50-60%... almost very similar to fall in your mutual fund portfolio.

 

"NIfty Put Option" is a Insurance scheme that will protect your investment from falling.

 

Nifty Put option is valid for 1 month to 3 months. hence you have to renew it agian if require. Norally you may buy them when you expect possibility of significant fall in Stock markets.

 

e.g. To protect 2 lakh investment in Mutual fund against fall of say 25% in 2 months, I will normally buy a Nifty Put option worth Rs.10000/- .

 

If Stock Market Index (Nifty) fall by 25% in 2 months... then The value of Rs.5000/- put option would be atleast Rs.50000/-

 

So My 2lakh investment will be now equal to Rs.1.5lakh but my Insurance policy will cover it up by growing to Rs.50000/-

 

So the total will be still 2lakh...

 

Just by investing Rs.10000/- you have saved yourself from loss of 50000/- in 2 months.. Isn't it amazing...

 

So your friends will by crying but you will be like a Smart Investor giving them tips... and enjoying your Diwali..

 

 

How to Buy Option ?

 

If you have demat account and Trading acocunt, you can directly buy it. But I suggest you to take advice form some broker or person who trade with options.

Tell him that you have investment of 2lakh in market links funds and you want to protect it against any fall for next 2-3 months due to bear market. You broker will calculate a maximum fall expected and can advice you the best option to buy to protect your investment.

 

Do ask him clearly as what is the maximum fall to which this option can protect, and what is its expiry date. Normally options are valid upto 3 months..

 

Then buy the option and relax at home..

 

 

I am not recommending you to buy options for anything other then Insurance. DO NOT TRADE IN OPTIONS.

 

 

 

 

Real Estate Property purchase in Diwali 2008

Beaware of lot of chances of frauds and mis-commitments during diwali 2008 Property sales.

 

The Real Estate Market is in bad shape and this is the time lot of developers may resort to frauds and make fool of the customers.

What is the Problem ?

 

Real Estate Boom was started by working class like us but was hijacked by the Foreign Investors, Builders, Rich Investors and NRI.

 

Foreign Institutional investors were reayd to commit large money for the Builders to do large projects, Builders has started large projects and Rich Investors/NRIs were buying/pre-booking their property in expectations that the real estate prices will rapidly increase and they will sell the property.

 

When Inflation & Interest rates went up, they realized that there are not real buyers (working middle class) and there is little chance that these buyers will comeup for next few years to buy their property at high prices.

 

Recently the Foreign money dried up and no money is available to builders. Builders has also bought many large land banks at high cost by taking loans from banks. they are paying hich interest rates for it and they are not getting income from sales.

 

The big builders like DLF , Unitech are also in bad shape their stock prices have dropped nearly 80-90% and its not possible for them to raise funds for their projects. They have also invested in land and have to make payments for the same. There is news that some of them are defaulting.

 

So the problem is accross the board and things will not improve for long.

 

Old Projects !

 

Woek on old projects has stopped and builders are planning to sell the property first and build later. Also the money they are earning from some sales , is being diverted to pay their loans instead of completing the project.

 

This means that people who have bought property in uncompleted scheme will not get delivery by next 1-2 years and hence their cost of ownership increases at the benefit fo builder.

 

 

New Project Launches !

 

While all this is happening many builders have launched new projects before Diwali and promoting them agressively. This is clear indication of fraud or malafide intensions. When their old projects are themselves not sold , launching new projects is very surprising.

 

The only explaination seems is they want to sell Virtual Non existing attrative projects and lure some investors or buyers to invest in it. And they will use the proceeds for some other work. Also may be collecting money for paying for some dues of land. Also they may change payment terms and try to cheat you by taking higher commitments. I think there projects will take several years to take off and hence buyers must not invest in them.

 

RULE 1: Only and Only buy Ready properties. Go for resale or old properties for sale.  Get premium discount for the same.

 

RULE 2: For buying any property in a partially built project, talk to few older buyers before commiting. Check if builder has been fullfilling their commitments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Options Trading in India

Options is a Mode of Trading in Stocks, Commodities & Indices under F&O (Futures & options) segment.

 

F&O Trading is now a well talked about topic on Business news channel like CNBC & NDTV Profit...

 

My basic survey suggest that Options is being used mainly by Institutions and Professional Trading houses.

I have not seen any news and activity related to F&O in Individual & Small Trading community. This means that

the eduction about F&O is limited and people are not very enthuistic about it.

 

In USA and developed markets there is lot enthuisism about Options, Many individuals and small traders are regularly trading in Options.

Actually many Online Trading platforms now promote Options more then general trading. Many of them expect their customers to actively trade Options.

There are lot of websites and Tradining material available for options traders abroad.

 

I found Options very interesting and useful for short terms trading.

 

 

Options Trading in India

Options is a Mode of Trading in Stocks, Commodities & Indices under F&O (Futures & options) segment.

 

F&O Trading is now a well talked about topic on Business news channel like CNBC & NDTV Profit...

 

My basic survey suggest that Options is being used mainly by Institutions and Professional Trading houses.

I have not seen any news and activity related to F&O in Individual & Small Trading community. This means that

the eduction about F&O is limited and people are not very enthuistic about it.

 

In USA and developed markets there is lot enthuisism about Options, Many individuals and small traders are regularly trading in Options.

Actually many Online Trading platforms now promote Options more then general trading. Many of them expect their customers to actively trade Options.

There are lot of websites and Tradining material available for options traders abroad.

 

I found Options very interesting and useful for short terms trading.

 

 

Options Trading in India

Options is a Mode of Trading in Stocks, Commodities & Indices under F&O (Futures & options) segment.

 

F&O Trading is now a well talked about topic on Business news channel like CNBC & NDTV Profit...

 

My basic survey suggest that Options is being used mainly by Institutions and Professional Trading houses.

I have not seen any news and activity related to F&O in Individual & Small Trading community. This means that

the eduction about F&O is limited and people are not very enthuistic about it.

 

In USA and developed markets there is lot enthuisism about Options, Many individuals and small traders are regularly trading in Options.

Actually many Online Trading platforms now promote Options more then general trading. Many of them expect their customers to actively trade Options.

There are lot of websites and Tradining material available for options traders abroad.

 

I found Options very interesting and useful for short terms trading.

 

 

Pune Real Estate Pricing Status - September 2008

Correction in the prices of the properties is in full swing in Pune Real Estate market.

 

Initially some builders artificially tried to create a Price of 2BHK flat to under 30 lakh in new emerging residenticla areas like Wakad and Hadapsar.

But this was done by reducing the area and not including hidden membersip/club charges... But buyers are smart and did not show much interest...

 

Many builders carried large advertising campaigns with this price point in expectations that a large number of waiting buyers will jump in and take their projects thru. 90% of the hoardings in the city carry Builder Ads... Newspaper advertisements continued.

 

But I did not see any sign of Buyers yet jumping in. This has lead to some builders to realistically drop the prices now and Price competition is now visible. Small builders want to sell their inventory at minimal profits and get out of their projects whereas large builders are focusing on advertising and offers.

 

But overall the market prices are falling rapidly. Some developers have changes thier new schemes from 2/3 BHK to 1/2 BHK. Small developers are launching new prices in the market like 16Lakh for 1BHK and 21Lakh for 2BHK. Prices like 24Lakh to 26Lakh for 2BHK already exist in the market due to fall out of 29lakh price initially offered by some builders.

 

Overall I think soon the larger builders will have to set their 2BHK prices to below 25lakh level.

 

Builders have stopped work at most of their projects and are just spending on Advertising to get buyers. It seems that most people who booke din lst 1 year will get delayed pocessions ... If you flat is in new building with you being first few to book, it can take very long for you to get pocession. Builders are not borrowing from Banks due to high interest rates.

 

Most of the SHopping mall projects that were not yet leased have been completely halted. Builders plan to restart them only when they get customers for lease or buyers as office.

 

 

 

 

Country Club India ltd Membership Scam Fraud costly price

I WOULD LIKE TO WARN EVERYONE TO BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT MUCH ADVERTISED
COUNTRY CLUB INDIA LTD MEMBERSHIP OFFERS.

See following links

http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Country_Club_-_Bangalore-133302-1.html

http://shashiclub.rediffiland.com/blogs/2007/05/01/Country-Club.html

http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/country-club-india-ltd-c4665
9.html

http://www.indiamike.com/india/property-in-india-f105/country-club-membe
rship-get-free-land-scam-t46229/

http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Choosing_a_Tour_Groups-143958-1.html

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/country-club-india-c5978.html

Country Club India ltd is a Fraud company
Country Club India ltd is operating a scam
Country Club India ltd is a Cheater

It has been very surprising that a business called Country Club India
Limited is advertising in unexpected fashion in Leading Newspaper
frontpages and now also on TV channels.

Total advertising campaign looks to be very large and it has all
characteristics of a fraud Scam.

I have seen significant increase in the advertising by this company and
observed several components of Fraud/Scam:

Some important points to consider:

Advertisement expense - Overall advertising is too much and probably
highest in recent months. A luxury club market in India is very limited
and such a larg eamount of advertisign for it is questionable. Front
pages, TV ads are questionable.

Country Club India ltd is a Fraud company
Country Club India ltd is operating a scam
Country Club India ltd is a Cheater

Content - Content of these ads are also questionable.. There are tall
claims, Lucrative looking sentences and little or nothing strong to
substantiate it. Also showing photograph of some Mr. Reddy (mentioned as
CEO) is also questionable. All ads including TV/Print ads have these
photos.. Such photos of CEOs are used only by companies who like to
create extreme trust.. ... i.e. if their product do not have intrensic
value and questionable points.. Then they may like to put across the
confidence of their team/leader to create confusion.. E.g. some people
trust people more then products..

Land offers: Lucrative land offers made actually will alert all
intelligent investors except greedy individuals.. They are basically
trying to take your focus out of their services to Lucrative investment
opportunities.. This means they are not selling services but capturing
you into a scam. Theya re showing you a carrot to sign for membership..

Friends Reference - You will get offers that if you get to sign 2 of
your friends you get additional land or offers.. This is common tricks
of all Scams..

Country Club India ltd is a Fraud company
Country Club India ltd is operating a scam
Country Club India ltd is a Cheater

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USA Stock Trading for Indians

Recently I read a report in RBI that shows the outward remittances by Indians against the RBI policy that allow individuals to send upto USD20000 per annum out of india. This libralized policy has opened International investment options for Indians.

 

Though report talks more about Indian Investors buying Real Estate in UAE & Malaysia but careful analysis show that more then 50% of the investment was in Equity/Debt instruments (while only 20% in Real Estate). But it seemed that reporters were clueless as what is Equity/Debt Investment and hence did not write much about it.

 

It matched my conclusions and I am happy to know that there are several individuals like me who are investing in foreign equity & debt instruments.. Following points will help you understand it.

 

- Many people believe that India is one of the worlds best investment opportunity and Indian mutual funds, real estate and stocks are good enough for their investment planning. This is wrong and not a long term solution to intelligent investing.

 

- Though India is growing fast and there are lot of investment opportunities but still an international investment plan can give higher and better returns in long term compared to Indian invesment options.

 

- Indians can easily open a Trading account in USA (online Trading companies like ETrade, Zecco, Tradeking, Scottrade etc) and Transfer their money to this account and invest online. USA trading accounts give you worldwide investment opportunities ..you can invest in USA as well as international stocks and funds. e.g. I can have a account in USA and can still invest in Major Indian stocks like Reliance, Infosys... etc.. many good Indian companies are listed in US exchanges. Similarly several thousands of companies form Chains, Russia, Europe and almsot all investment friendly countries are listed in US exchanges..

 

- Such a wide basket of international investment options make the US markets best place to invest and manage your financial assets. Amount of content, analysis, help and tools available for US exchanges is much better then Indian. Actually a person experienced with Indian Trading will find USA Trading more user Friendly , easier and quicker.

 

- I recently opened my US trading account with Zecco Trading (Zecco.com) .. this is not a big player but offer some astonishing features. It allow 10 Trades/orders free (no brokrage) per month. This is enough for a investor like me. So it means absolutely Zero Brokerage Trading in US exchanges... There is nothing comparable to this in India. Secondly Account opening fee is also Zero and documentation is negligable. I just has to courier the application form. in india it normally cost Rs.1000/- , lot of followups, documentation and headaces to open an account.

 

- Next it took me just 2 days to send money to their my trading account from my indian acocunt and can withdraw any time quickly. Normally it take mor etime to clear checks in india. SO tiem to transfer and receive money from USA is faster then check clearance time in India.

 

- Their Trading platform use Ajax and i found it much more easier to use then ICICIdirect.. Order placement and processing is quick. portfolio management, watchlists make it very easy to use. Their Stock analysis tools are something I have never seen in India. they are quite advanced and give very good information.. they also have some more advanced tools but at a fee.

 

- Tax: There is almost no Tax on your Earnings thru US stock trading.. In India you have short term and long term capital gains ttax other then STT and what not... You pay No tax at all or transactions and capital gains. (you ahve to fill a IRA form that declate you as a foreign investor and hence not eligible for USA taxes). There might be minor yearly charges like $30 to $50 mentioned for US citizens as IRA fees but I am not sure if it will apply to me..

 

- Hence overall i do absolutely free online Trading in USA , No Account opening fee, No Brokerage, No Capital Gains Tax, No Income tax ( i think foreign earnings are free form tax in india also)

 

- I prefer to trade in ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) .. Many websites like MSN, yahoo provide detailed comparison of ETFs and many other sites provide investment guidelines.. If you just take Top 10 ETFs in each category and then find your investment targets its simple and easy.. Its just liek investment in Mutual funds but with lower transaction charges and higher liquidity.

 

 

 

Do Not Call Registry, India is a Success

Recently I heard a news related to some court case where some people claimed that Do Not Call Registry promoted by TRAI (Telecom Regularatory Authority of India)

is a flop and not working.

 

I and few of my friends have been using DO not call registery and we are very happy that the number of calls have significantly dropped. Its not like 100% effective but in India if any new initiative is even 50% effective it shall be considered successful specially to encourage it.

 

Do not Call Registry is 95% success in my case and I think that overall it should be 80% success. henc eit a Huge success and I would like to congratulate TRAI and people who helped it make a success.

 

When it started everyone though that it would be a failure in India where even basic Road traffic rules are not follow, who will be bothered about voice traffic. But I think most of the Tele marketing was happening thru organized Large banks who are folloing the DO Not Call Registry Norms and have asked their Marketing agencies to do so.

 

But I think that as the market grow.. small businesses wills tart using Tele marketing and they may not follow the DO Not call guidelines unless there is strict action on the ground.

 

How to APply for DO not call registery:

 

1- Goto your Mobilephone/landling telecom company website..

2 - Login to your account (or create your account automatically) .. cellphone companeis allow instant creation of the account and linking it with your cellphone..using SMS verification

3 -  Search for Do not call registry form.. fill it up

 

If you do not want to use it online then you can call the service center and check if they allow telephonic registration for the Do not call registry...Else if you visit their service center you can find the forms available...

 

 

 

 

 

SilverStripe CMS Review

Hi

 

I recently downloaded and installed SilverStrip version 2.2 Content Management System

 

After downlaod and uncompressing into my www folder

 

- I when to isntallation script and had to do few changes like editing PHP.ini and changing permissions of some files and folders

- Then it installed and started quite well and i could edit my home page

 

Problem 1:

 

Website Name in Header: "Your Site name Here"  ... & tagline that appear on the top header... was not editable form the CMS admin interface ..

Very Surprising !!! this is the prime and first think that most CMS allow you to do. There wa sno mention of it in their training material.

In forums i could find some people breaking head like me... then some developer of Silverstripe gave long description as how to add functions in many

files to achieve this... oops I tried and CMS crashed... later i could see a simple comment by other developer to edit one theme file and i could change this.

 

This is big problem it clearly show that its immature CMS

 

Problem 2: i installed blog and forum addons...

The blog crashed... with error.. then again in forums found that some PHP file need editing and has a mistake...I edited and corrected it

THe mistake was very surprising.. it indicated that they only have developers and probbly need some commone CMS users to give them some feedback and test their systems..

 

Problem 3 : Youtube library module i installed nevery worked and i could not even find anything in forums..

 

 

 

Overall though they have used some innovative designs and Layouts to show how to edit file and create list of documents.. its far far from beign a mature CMS.

 

Probably wait for atleast 2-3 major release with atleast few thousand customers using ti for day to day work..

 

Thanks

 

Search Engine Optimizations

 

How to do website Optimizations >

 

- Submit your website to Polular search engines using http://submitshop.com/ 

- Use software like Addweb, WebSEO or iBusinessPromoter...They will help you complete most basic steps..

- Social bookmarking: Atleast get 10 book marks for your home page using different accounts in these sites..

  del.icio.us, digg.com, stumbleupon.com, reedit.com, propeller.com, technorati.com ... also see socialmarker.com, socialposter.com

- Blogs - Create 10 active blogs with atleast 10 articles per blog per month with all keyword tags

- Answers - Post 100 yahoo answers per month , also try other answer websites. or open forums/groups

 

- Get atleast 20 PR3 links, 5 PR4 and 2 PR5 links to your website..

 

 

 

Pradeep Bhatia

MD, BioEnable

Pune, India

Skype: Wirelessintegrated

MSN: wirelessintegrated@hotmail.com

 

Inflation, Banking & Investment

- Online Banking, Mobile Banking, Phone Banking.. You should be able to access these services..

These services ensure that you have your money on your finger tips for best management.

 

 

- Demat Account & Online Trading... These services all your to invest money for short and long term..

  Normally keeping money in savings account or even FDs may not give sufficient returns... they should be better invested in options that can give higher returns..

They ensure that you can make quick investment decisions and invest...

 

 

- You should always try to earn interest 4-5% higher then the Inflation figure. eg. now the inflation figure at present is 12% ... hence your investments should be the ones that earn 16% interest.. FDs today give 8-9% interect almost half.. or 3-4% less then inflation figure...

This actually mens that by investing your money in FD it become 3-4% less. You are loosing money and not really saving.

 

Lets sya if inflation is 12%.. and you have Rs.10000.... Lets say you want to save it to buy a TV after 1 Year which today cost Rs.10000/- in the shop. So you decide to put it in FD with 8% interest rate. So after one year you will get Rs.10000/- + Rs.800/- a interest. Total: Rs.10800/-

Now if you go to same shop to buy the TV, then due to inflation the price of TV might have increased by 12%  to Rs.11200/-... hence You are Rs.400/- short of money.

 

This is a big problem... You could have bought the TV for Rs.10000/- but today even after investing the money you are not able to buy it.. It menas that value of your money has become less.. You are becoming poorer..even after investing in FD.

 

Hence you should always ensure that your money grow at a rate 4-5 % faster then the inflation.. Normally inflation is 4-5% but since last 1 year inflation is 8% or more..

 

 

ICICI bank = Bad banking, loosing bank, one of the worst bank

 

ICICI bank has been growing at a very fast pace since last 10 years to become largest commercial bank in India, supassing SBI in many aspects.

 

In Year 2000 onwards i saw lots of agressive growth and marketing strategies from ICICI that initially made me think that ICICI is too agressive compared to other private banks and possibly its going quite far not looking into security, customer service and prudent management norms followed by banks.

 

I as well as my company was banking with HDFC which was also among equally known banks as ICICI, but was not as agressive in launching new customer friendly services and technologies in mass scale after year 2000 onwards. While looking at ICICI expanding at brisk pace I felt that ICICI is going for the customers without really offering a great value and personalized service.

 

i always ignored ICICI, but soon after few years news start flowing in like ICICI setup largest ATM chain, ICICI surpass SBI as largest bank in India and lot of nice talk on ICICI. Even Employees in my company start demanding Salary accounts with ICICI and soon I realized that ICICI probably has done a great job and captured large part of the market ahead of the competetion.

 

I started banking with ICICI and so did my company.

 

Internet Banking: My company that now holds multiple accounts with ICICI and very good acocunt balance , applied for internet banking , this is when i got my first jolt of ICICI bank services. An eecutive came and filled the long complex internet banking forms and i signed it, over 3 months passes and we did not get anything to access net banking. we followed up and soon we got the username and password, we created the accout and much to our surprice none of our acounts show in internet banking.

 

We contacted the bank staff that filled the forms but found the staff no more exist and left the company. The new person cam refilled all the forms and sent it to the central head offic ein mumbai, still nothing working. we agian contacted the ICICI staff and they had no idea what happened. then i contacted customer service in mumbai directly. they send a just one secentenced answer that .... something called additional access permissions not filled in the form due to which the account not active.

 

This TIme i personally filled the form with all the data and asked my staff to give it to the bank people to send to mumbai. To my surprise the same reason came back again. I asked them for the exact details of the fields not filled. the mumbai office sent me a scanned pdf form filled my me and makign the page where the information required was not filled.

 

To my surprise this was the first form send over 6 months back, the 2 renewed and filled forms were never received by the mumbai office. I instantly knew that something is wrong with the local branch management. I enquiried and made direct contact with the bank manager, who came to meet me and promised that he will get all the work done with his team. To my surprise within month he was no more ther ein the branch and shifted. The new bank manager again had now idea of ourcase and issues.

 

 

Some how we followed with the sales person and got our work done.

 

Cash management Services: next bad experience cam with their much published cash management service. where they pickup checks from our customers or manage faster clearance. they also give some credit based o the checks under clearance. We tried this service and found its the worst check clearance service. checks deposited thru this system takes more then 2 weeks to clear whereas regular checks get cleared in 3-4days.  We found this service ill managed and useless. This kind of service can be only offered by banks who have strenght in nation wide network. and failure of this questions their networks ability to manage new service.s

 

 

  i thought that may be it was one off problem.

 

CC limit:

Soon we applied for a CC limit with the ICICI bank. We got some ambigious offers from the bank with unexpected terms. IN need of money we thought to go ahead. all it followed with more then 500 pages of multiple agreements, over 300 signatures and repeated mistakes and corrections in the agreements that wasted over 3 months for a simple cc limit process that take just 1 month with other banks..

 

 

Overall I think that the ICICI bank has some serious problems in their management and branch management system. specially related to unmanaged proesses that are highly employee dependent and employees are leaving the organization too fast. Be aware of ICICI bank and do not bank with it for reasons for large banking network and prestiege.

 

The bank is as good as its branch office or bank manager. this was true for banks like SBI in old day but so it true for ICICI bank specially for anything more then basic banking. I suggest peopel to look at HDFC banks if you wnat happy banking,

 

 

 

Pune to Shirdi Sai baba, Holy place in Maharashtra, India

 

Shirdi Sai baba is a famous holy man, prayed on par with God in Western and Southern India.

 

Journey:

 

- Pune - Ahmednagar - Shirdi

 

- I started my Journey from Pune in my car on Saturday moorning at 9am. Within Short time I was on Nagar Road ( that goto Ahmednagar).

 

- Pune City - Wagholi strech of road is in a big shock, road widening and development is happening haphazard way. but there are some new upcoming IT parks.

 

- After Wagholi the road become good and you need to pay Rs.31 per car as a Toll. for the road built by Ashoka Infrastructure. The road is good but pass by few Villages where the traffic become very slow.

 

- Industrial VIllages like Ranjhangoan come on the way where you can see some large factories, including that of LG Electronics. This nice road continues till about 50 Kilometers. when there is a right turn towards ahmednagar. Then there is a road to ahmednagar which is under unplanned widening and you get patches of good and bad streches.

 

- After about 30Km on the left you can find a hill with lot of windmills. at this place itself you can come accross a resturant called Smile Stone, this is one of the best resturants on the way and most other are useless. here you can get good maharashra or south indian food. Here you can also see few Ostrich and Ducks being kept in a nicely designed garden. This is nice place to stop at.

 

- Ahmednagar town has nothing much to see. normally the highway skips the main market. main market area is very congested.

 

- We reached Shirdi after about 5.5 hours of car journey. Shirdi was a better then developed place due to tourism. i thought it would be just a village. but you can find more then 50-60 hotels and resorts. The Sai baba devasthan (holy place) entrance is just on the main road, this is where the traffic automatically becoms very small.. On weekends most hotels will be full. It is very strange that when i searched online i could only found 2-3 hotels for online booking. but there were nearly more then 50-60 of them.

 

 

 

 

 

Oversears Trading from India

Overseas Trading from/in india is very new.

- Indian investors are not exposed to international trading and investments.

- Most small investors in india believe that India is the best country to invest and best investment opportunities

- Most NRI (non-resident Indians) also beleive that Indian markets can give them better returns

- Most small investors prefer Indain real-estate markets as investment options

But we shall look at these facts agains

- Other then India , China, Russia & Brazil are among fastest growing markets. India is today the lowest performing market among these countries

- There are large number of better investment opportunities outside India

- RBI allow every individual to invest upto USD200000 (Rs.80lakh) outside India

- Today Indian & China markets are low performing but Brazil and Russia markets are still growing fast. Why not Indian investors should make money out of such opportunities.

New Options:

- Trading in USA stock markets provide opportunities to invest in Global markets. e.g. one can invest in prominent Chinese, Russian, Brazil and other internationa stocks (including many indian) listed in USA stock markets.

- We can invest in thousands of ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) which further provide opportunities to invest in any international market worldwide spciall BRIC and developed countries

- It allow investment in hundreds of commodities

- News channels as well as internet provide lot of useful information to invest in international markets.

Investments & Planning for Indian Employees

Follwing information may be useful for you.

- Tax Planning & Investments is extremely important tool for Financial Planning & Freedom.

- You should start seriously start looking into these aspects for short term as well as long term.

Overlooking them now will put you in deep trouble because of following reasons:

1 - Due to massive increase in crude oil & commodity prices the complete global environment is already changing

2 - Currency markets, Equity markets as well as Business environment is changing.

Due to inflation your Savings as well and future well being will be effected negatively and increase stress. Salary increments etc. will be of not much use.

Some of the things to look into are:

1 - Save Taxes: Tax is direct loss of income, try all ways to save tax. As mentioned by me earlier investment in ELSS Schemes & ELSS SIP (Systematic Investment Plans) is best way to save tax. You have Max. limit of 1 lakh to invest per year for this and there is no reason why you should not invest. You can subscribe to SIP that will allow you to invest certain money every month for ELSS and you will not need to run around at the end of the month. I have checked that ULIP, UTI schemes and combined Insurance+Investment schemes are not good way. Treat Insurance saperately and Investments saperately. If you ahve no time to analyze thuis, then SBI Magnum Tax Gain scheme is the most trusted ELSS scheme in India. Having a SBI Magnum Tax Gain SIP plan will allow you to not run around for investments at the end of the financial year. By visiting SBI Mutual Fund office (not the SBI bank branch office) you can invest in this by just filling the fund and no transaction charges (entry loads normally 2.25%).

2 - Demat & Trading: For most investments you need a Demat account and online trading account. I use ICICI direct Trading and demat account. It allow you to invest in Stocks, Mutual funds (like SBI Magnum ELSS), ICICI General Insurance as well as ICICI Life Insurance plus FDs etc. SO you can by all of these online without any documentations. It also allow trading in commodities and overseas trading but that require more documentation. I think that its necessary for all investors to have Demat & Trading account, without thsi you will not be able to take right decisions at right time, due to cumborsome documentation you will keep avoiding investments.

3 - Mutual Fund Investments: Investment in equities is considered risky buy investments in Mutual funds at right time (when market is low) is quite justified decision. But Mutual fund investments are mostly for long term atleast 1 year preferably 3 years. Do you know that most well known mutual funds give 30%+ returns per annum, and many have given 150% or more returns in last 3 years. This is much higher then returns on Real Estate. If you do not have enough money to buy real estate, then its very important to invest money in Mutual funds. This will allow you to increase you money rapidly in 2-3 years and then you can consider investment in real estate. Divercified Funds, ELSS and Index Funds are considered best investment options. you can find best of them in moneycontrol.com

4 - Short Term investments - ETFs: ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) , These are least known but most useful short term investment options. These are like Mutual funds but you can buy and sell them like Shares on the Exchange . They are mainly created to make investments easy, low cost and liquid. You can buy and sell them on same day with transaction costs same as equity shares. Also pverall theya re less risky compared to equity shares. Some examples of the ETFs are

Benchmark Nifty, This is index ETF, means its price is 1/10th of the Nifty (NSE) index. and if you buy 1 share of this you actually invest in All shares under Nifty index and if nifty go up and down , this also go up and down. If you are just sure that stock markets will go up (without knowledge of which sectors and companies) then you cna buy this and you will benefit equally.

Benchmark Goldex, If you think gol prices will go up, just buy one or more share of this and you can benefit from it without having to buy the gold in reality. Gold is a commodity.

Benchmark Bankex , If you think banking sector stocks will go up , then just buy this and you will benefit equally if the stocks go up.

Benchmark Liquid, You can invest in this if you want almost zero risk, buy shares of this and if interest rates go up you will benefit. you will normally get returns little higher then FD but unlike FD you can buy and sell this anytime.

http://www.benchmarkfunds.com is most known company in India for ETFs though UTI, Kotak and ICICI also have recently launched some ETFs. To buy ETF you just need a demat and online trading account like for shares.

ETFs are considered best investment method internationally. In India ETFs are very few but in last 1 year lot of new ETFs being launched.

ETFs are something between Shares and Mutual Funds. They are as easy to buy and sell like shares but they are as secure as Mutual Funds.

You should explore such investment options for personal Investment & planning.

Thanks