Everything must go

Suddenly realized I need a huge amount of money in May, to pay off the builder and the interiors guy. Am selling everything, including my soul. All my mutual funds, the SBI and ONGC nest eggs - everything.

Even then, am still a few lakhs short. How much are kidneys trading for these days?

The credit card saga is getting curiouser and cur...

The credit card saga is getting curiouser and curiouser. Called up the good folks at Citibank twice today (Sandeep had called them up twice yesterday too, from Bangalore). They claim - "101%, sir" - that my card is perfectly fine and has a healthy credit limit. Yes, they do see the 6 rejections but thats due to network errors from Visa. Its a Visa problem, not a Citibank problem. Do they have a Visa number for me to use and scream at someone ? No, they don't. So what do I do next ? Imitate King Bruce and keep trying till I succeed. *sigh*

Have a couple of meetings and an interview tomorrow. Plan to meet up with Sudha and Bhaskar in the evening. I'll probably check out of the hotel tomorrow morning and stay at Sudha's place in the night.

Went out for lunch with a few of the ex-team members. It felt a bit bizarre. The last time I was here, I was the odd man out. I was the guy from out in the boondocks, trying to learn the product and transition work to some place called Bangalore in India. Right now I own the product, the entire team is over in Bangalore and the folks who were originally part of the team and have not been let go are scattered around working on different things, uncertain of their future. Sad, really. I'm sure this is happening at a lot of American companies who are moving stuff to India.


The stock market seems to have picked up. Managed to offload my IOB stock at a small profit. Hero Honda and Aventis Pharma have both shot up the charts, boosting my net worth. Ditto Canara Bank and SBI. I just need to get rid of my SAIL and Infy stock for my portfolio to look healthy.

The Matrix Reloaded appears to be all sound and fury, signifying nothing. At least thats the impression I got from the Rediff review and from 's post. Fantastic action sequences, huh ? I can't wait.

My travel bag overfloweth with dirty laundry. How do I get space for stuffing in chocolates ? Thats all I intend to buy, really. I would have liked to get a digital camera, a palm pilot, some shoes and stuff for Sindha, etc. But maybe next time.

Mainly about money

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*.

Nair the Great

I'm doing so well at the stock market now, its scary. There has to be a downturn - the next stock I pick has to be a loser.

I'm postponing investing till I get over this feeling. Brrr...

Buffet Redux

I managed to sneak in half of my BPCL stock (20, to be precise) just before Arun Shourie made his announcement on divestment. Sold them at Rs 230, at a fat profit of 40 bucks a share. They are currently trading at Rs 200. I think I will keep the other half for a while and wait for it to go up again. I will also hold on to my 50 HLL shares for at least 6 months, maybe a year. Getting HLL at Rs 159 a share is a real good deal, IMHO.

I had also speculated on IDBI Bank. Made another good deal there, sold off 100 shares at a profit of Rs 4.5 each. Nice, no ?

On the flip side, my Reliance purchase (15 shares at Rs 297) will take a while to become profit worthy. My Franklin Templeton equity mutual fund is also in the red - invested Rs 20,000 at an NAV of Rs 31, the current price is in the Rs 29 range. Oh, well. I can wait


By the way, does anyone have an invite code to spare ? My long time friend from college, Mathew Kuruvilla, would like to open an l-j account.

My stock is up

Sold my Zee Telefilms stock today, at a healthy 10 buck profit per share. Feels nice to have made money on my first online stock deal. Good people, you can now switch to other channels.

My portfolio (ahem !) includes some BPCL and HLL stock. BPCL is risky as the government has yet to make its stand on disinvestment clear. HLL appears to be a good buy for the long term.

Just call me Buffet.

Yesterday

I hadnt used icq in ages, so downloaded the lite version yesterday and started playing around with it. Was surprised to find I could send sms messages through it. Of course, the supported networks for India is limited, but thankfully Airtel is on the list. I could also receive replies on my icq chat window, which I found quite cool.

I also downloaded Netscape 7.0 and the latest version of Yahoo messenger (yeah, !!). Netscape sucks as expected (flame bait) and I couldnt see any major improvements to the messenger (flame bait #2). Oh, well.

I made my first online purchase of stock yesterday. Bought Zee Telefilms on a whim after seeing their recent ads which show a long list of over-hyped movies appearing soon on a boob-tube near me. Felt accomplished till I saw the market wrapup at the end of the day where Zee was the biggest loser of the day. How very surprising.

But hey, mark my words. Zee will do well in a couple of months and I shall rake in the moolah. Muhahahahaha....!!!

Hey everyone, go and watch all the Zee channels ! Now ! Hurry ! They are showing The Legend of Bhagat Singh tonight !!!!!!