Distributed the salary revision letters yesterday. Was tough going. While most of the folks were ok with the raise (mainly because their expectations were not high), a few others were quite disappointed. The next few weeks should show the impact. Its tough being a manager in these times.
I remember an old post of mine where I talked about my stock predictions and how each one was a winner. Well, I'm lucky I didn't move on to manage a mutual fund, or I would have been lynched by investors. The only stock doing ok on my portfolio is BPCL. And they are down today because of the opposition to divestment. My list of errors:
- Infy at 3,350 was too good to let go. Grabbed it. The stock moved to 2400 the next day
- Steel was looking up, or so I thought. Bought TISCO and SAIL at fairly high levels (SAIL was on a whim, really). Both tanked and are at close to their year end lows right now
- HLL at 159 was money for jam, or so I thought. Stock plummetted to 145. Cleverly placed a buy at 140, looking to recoup some of my losses. Stock touched 140, moved up to 143 and then promptly went down to 135 the next day.
- IOB...sheesh, why bother.
I've now started thinking of myself as a long term player, not concerned about these lil movements in the market. I'll be counting my savings two years from now. Yeah, right.
And oh, my visa came through, valid till Oct 03. So I guess the trip is on. Not too kicked about it, really. Sindha could use some TLC right now and leaving her in mid May is not something I'm looking forward to. Then again, I don't think she is getting enough TLC even now, with me reaching home at 9pm every day. *sigh*.
Money must have been flowing from India back to the US. SIFY is trading at near 5 bucks in the US. It had dropped to 3 bucks just a few months ago or so.
ReplyDeleteIf this SARS scare continues in the US stock market from yesterday, things will not be too good . . .
The SARS scare is pretty significant here, in Canada. The media's going nuts about people dying in Toronto, whereas my buddy's girlfriend there says its hogwash. Apparently "only" 16 have died so far, and its not quite as "big" as the media makes it sound. Here, in montreal, it really does feel like Toronto's struck by some epidemic and about to be wiped off the face of the planet. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteBonjour Monsieur, Je suis dans Ottawa :-)
ReplyDeleteIn case you're planning to go to India, here's a heads up on what's awaiting us travellers from Canada or for any place that is cited as having a SARS case:
http://www.thehindu.com/stories/2003042505990100.htm
Either we have to lie on the Immigration form saying that we have not visited or transited any of the countries listed, and maybe face prosecution, or we go through whatever they have in store for us.
And I'm planning to go in June.
I couldn't help laughing- you just wrote part of my anthology. Infy, BPCL, IOCL, RCF, RIL... and the list goes on. Why bother?
ReplyDeleteYour French seems to be a lot better than mine, since I know exceedingly little.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that I'll be able to meet up at the Gliding Club, but I'll definitely look you up if I am coming over to Montreal. But that's also not very likely since I will be returning to India for a loooooooong time because I see more Java programming job opportunities over there, (and none over here :D).