I came across an article on Gold wherein Nilesh Shah ‘CEO of ICICI MF’ has given his views and it is worth sharing.

Every Indian household collects gold over several years for use in the marriage of their children – particularly their daughters. What better way of collecting gold over 10-15 years than starting the equivalent of a SIP in a Gold ETF for your daughter. There is no dispute with people who say that when an asset class has reached an all time high level, you need to be far more careful investing into it. Which is why if you are investing in gold today, we need to be more careful than ever before. Gold has given almost equity kind of returns over last couple of years. There are a couple of reasons for this performance.

1. Uncertainty and volatility
The world has seen a lot of uncertainty and volatility in the last couple of years – and has risen substantially as a result of a lot of money going into gold in uncertain times. But, at the same time we should also remember that gold even in 80’s was trading at 800$ an ounce those days. If we compare on a long term picture, gold has not really delivered a great return. If we divide the basic structure of gold, gold is store of value. It is said that a piece of gold what it would have got in 15, or 16th or 17th or 18th century, even in 20th and 21st century we are able to buy the same thing. So it has not appreciated or depreciated against inflation – it has delivered inflation return by way of storing value.

So gold needs to be looked at as that part of your wealth which will not depreciate or appreciate against inflation, it will maintain itself against inflation. So that is the positioning of gold in a portfolio, it helps you to manage your purchasing power.

2. Demand-supply situation
In 80″s gold traded at 800$ an ounce, because of the supply shock of oil. Thereafter Paul Volcker pushed up US interest rates to 14% level on a ten year US treasury to break the back of inflation – but in the process it also broke the back of gold, because people said that if US treasury gives 14% return and US is going to control inflation, I will put all my money there rather than in gold. And that process forced investors and central bankers around the world, to keep on selling gold. The only buyer of gold was essentially the consumer of gold, which was generally for jewellery or industrial purpose. This cycle kept on going on and on for next 25 years and somewhere when US treasury yields came down to near zero levels a few years ago, the reverse happened. People started selling the US treasury and buying into gold. So this is the second phase that has occurred in gold’s life cycle in the last 25 to 30 years. So, the demand side appears strong right now. If you look at the supply side, whatever gold which was easily extractable in the mines, has been extracted and one has to go deeper and deeper and dig for gold. Kolar gold mines were producing gold in India sometime back. Today they are not producing any gold, or the quantum of gold
The second source of supply was the continuous selling by Central Banks over the years – which has come down dramatically now because now they are favoring gold vis-à-vis other assets like treasury bonds and their ability to liquidate gold has also come down dramatically, because they have already
sold fair amount of gold. So supply of gold from central bankers has come to an end. And infact some of the central bankers like India and Russia have actually started buying gold. If China which is sitting on 200 trillion dollars of reserve, decides to allocate a small portion to gold, that will make a significant impact on gold prices. So Central Banks activity is also supportive of gold prices going
higher rather than lower.

The third thing that is coming is purely from the consumption demand of gold. Wealthy Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Middle East investors and consumers are buying gold. In China, the Government really tracks everything and the deposit rates are really subdued. Now if you buy gold, one you get exchange protection, and two, you also get some sort of privacy from Government and their all pervasive eyes. So, these factors are making more Chinese investors buy gold.
So, you have a situation where demand is increasing and supply is contracting. So all those thing put together, we believe that gold is something which will give you storage of value, the demand-supply balance is still in favour of demand, central bankers activities are also supporting gold prices on the higher side and keeping all these things in view, gold provides an attractive opportunity for investment.
Now we also have to take a future call on gold. The future call on gold is essentially coming from the fact that the world is printing lot of currency, lot of money, in order to come out of financial crisis -and all these printing of money will make the environment inflationary in nature and one product that always does well during inflationary environment is gold. Fixed income will not do well in inflationary environment; equities could for a while underperform in an inflationary environment. But gold is something which will always do well in an inflationary environment. So even from a futuristic point of view, keeping in mind the higher money supply and the expected inflation, gold provides good storage of value, so all these three things points towards the fact that yes one can be bullish on gold
notwithstanding the fact that we are at or close to an all time high for gold.

In most families especially the middle income group and the trader community – the better halves are already running gold schemes with the local jewellers. Every month they give money and even without the husband realizing that money keeps on getting accumulated in a road side jewelers shop. 1. You don’t know either he will be there or not after one year. 2. You don’t know whether he will give you 24 carat gold or not, 3. And even if he remains and if he is going to give you 24 carat gold, you still end up losing one year’s interest. So somewhere that allocation towards gold which is happening out of the wife’s or the better halves part of the kitty should be brought into the mainstream through gold ETFs. To them this is a much better investment because here the existence is not in doubt, quality is not in doubt and you don’t lose out on interest.

To summarise, Gold investment in India is a tradition and people will always invest in Gold irrespective of the price. It is at this hour of the decade that we realise the importance of gold investment and want to do a planned investment in this asset class. Invest in GOLD- you will feel safe than sorry.

There is always confusion on how to set off capital gains/losses against each other and against other heads of income. The given below article provides a guidance on the same

The Income Tax Act provides for a specific way for adjustment of losses arising from sale/transfer of capital assets. But to start with the  process for set off, one has to first separate the capital losses into short term and long term.

A short term capital gain/loss arises when an asset is sold after holding for a period of less than three years. Conversely, a long-term capital gain/loss arises when an asset is sold after more than three years.

However, in the case of securities such as equity or preference shares, debentures, government issuings, and units of mutual funds and the Unit Trust of India (UTI), the assets are deemed short-term if they are held for less than a year.

Conversely, these assets are deemed long-term if they are held for more than a year.

The Act lays down following guidelines which have to be strictly adhered :

1. Losses under the head “Capital gains” cannot be set off against income under other heads of income.

2. Short-term capital loss can be set off against any capital gain (whether long-term or short-term)

3. Long-term capital loss can be set off only against long-term capital gain.

4. A long-term capital loss for a case where the long-term capital gain is exempt from tax will have no value. For example, if a share is held for a year or more and then sold at a loss, there will be no tax benefit. So this loss cannot be set off against any other income.

5. If the capital loss cannot be set off against the capital gain of that particular year then it can be carried forward for the next eight years.

6. Such loss can be carried forward only when the return is filed within time.

Illustration 2:

During the previous year 2006-07, X has long-term capital gains of Rs. 1,00,000. He has brought forward capital loss – short-term: Rs. 10,000 and long-term: Rs. 50,000. In this case, both short-term capital loss of Rs. 10,000 and long-term capital loss of Rs. 50,000 can be set off against the long-term capital gain of Rs. 1,00,000.

Get your Name Acronym along with your photo.

P- Passion Fruit
R- Rambutan
A- Acerola
T- Tomato
I- Indian Jujube
K- Keule

www.NameAcronym.com

There are various offers provided by airline industries as apex fares, early bird discounts, etc but the Tickets on EMI offer from Jet airways is really unique. It has partnered with SBI to provide tickets on 6 months EMI at 0% Interest cost. Cool isn’t it.

Now whenever you need to fly, money should be the last thing on your mind. You can simply purchase your ticket on jetairways.com with your SBI Credit Card and pay back the amount over six months in six easy installments, and that too at 0 % interest. Your EMI would be calculated as 1/6th of the total ticket value.
For example, if a ticket costs INR 3000 then your EMI would be 3000/6 which is INR 500. So simple, it’s child’s play. Go ahead, fly easy and pay easy.

Offer is valid from May 14, 2010 till November 05, 2010.

Other airlines should follow suit. The EMI concept works well for India and especially if it is 0%. It should increase ticket sales considerably as the hit on the end consumers pocket is deferred in 6 installments without any extra cost. Jet Airways! Way to go

This is one of the best forwards I have received. It must be really intelligent of the person to unscramble this stuff. Take a look. Do reply if you have any more anagrams.

PRESBYTERIAN:
When you rearrange the letters:
BEST IN PRAYER

ASTRONOMER:
When you rearrange the letters:
MOON STARER

DESPERATION:
When you rearrange the letters:
A ROPE ENDS IT

THE EYES:
When you rearrange the letters:
THEY SEE

GEORGE BUSH:
When you rearrange the letters:
HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE:
When you rearrange the letters:
HERE COME DOTS

DORMITORY:
When you rearrange the letters:
DIRTY ROOM

SLOT MACHINES:
When you rearrange the letters:
CASH LOST IN ME

ANIMOSITY:
When you rearrange the letters:
IS NO AMITY

ELECTION RESULTS:
When you rearrange the letters:
LIES – LET’S RECOUNT

SNOOZE ALARMS:
When you rearrange the letters:
ALAS ! NO MORE Z’S

A DECIMAL POINT:
When you rearrange the letters:
I’M A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES:
When you rearrange the letters:
THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO:
When you rearrange the letters:
TWELVE PLUS ONE

AND FOR THE GRAND FINALE:

MOTHER-IN-LAW:
When you rearrange the letters:
WOMAN HITLER

I found this interesting piece in one of the email forwards and it is worth posting it

_________________

The only thing any of us can know for certain is that life will continue to change at a rapid pace. For most of us, this uncertainty isn’t fun. Therefore, the best thing—perhaps the only thing—we can do to prepare ourselves for life in the future is to learn how to change.

Ability to adapt is the key [to] success in these turbulent times. It’s the capacity to be flexible and resourceful in the face of ever-changing conditions. To respond in a resilient and productive manner when change is required. Another name for it is agility which is ranked in a recent McKinsey survey as extremely important to business success—more now than ever before.

To be successful in life, three kinds of mastery are required:

-Mastery with self, which means understanding our feelings and thoughts and how to regulate and direct them,
-Mastery with others, which means being able to create shared understanding and shared action, and
-Mastery with change, which means having the capacity to adapt easily without losing our center—our values, talents, and sense of purpose.
Here we are talking here about the third kind. But do you know how to change easily? It’s a very rare capacity, because most of us don’t understand the science of it or how to work with the way our brains are structured, to make it as painless as possible.

The Top-Ten change sinkholes are:

-Getting stuck in denial
-Becoming paralyzed by fear and/or shame
-Spending a lot of time and energy on blame and/or regret
-Believing there is nothing you can do
-Focusing on the problem, rather than the solution
-Using only solutions that have worked in the past to solve new problems
-“Yes, but”-ing all options
-Not getting in touch with what gives you meaning and purpose
-Going it alone
-Resisting or refusing to learn new things because it takes extra effort
-Developing the ability to adapt keeps us out of detrimental habits of the brain and in touch with all our mind’s resources.

In order to not only merely survive, but to thrive during the greatest period of transformation humans have ever experienced, we are all being called on to stretch mentally, emotionally, and spiritually into the future … and master the art of AdaptAbility.

My friend recommended me an application on Blackberry called ‘Gwabbit’. It’s a free application and is amazing. It scans your incoming emails and if it contains signature of the sender, converts it into a contact form including Name, Company, Phone No, email ID, etc. Just wonder how it works!! It saves me lot of time in creating contacts. I am pretty lazy in creating contacts with complete details and as such do not have all the information of my contact. Gwabbit helped me a lot. It resides in your Email menu option and is self activated whenever you open your email on Blackberry. It always prompts the user to create a contact. Its sensors are so good that if the contact already exists, it will not prompt the user; otherwise it would be an irritant.

Given below is how Gwabbit works-

The award-winning gwabbit for BlackBerry® makes email contact capture fast, easy, and fun! gwabbit automatically scans incoming BlackBerry emails, finds contacts, and instantly transforms them into contact records within your BlackBerry address book!. This service is invaluable particularly for sales and business development.

How does gwabbit work? The gwabbit for BlackBerry service is a combination of a client and a server. The client monitors opened emails, and if they seem to include the signature of the sender, it sends the information to the server for processing, and the server returns the results to the client. If a signature is found, the client prompts the user, and asks if the user wants to save it. It also searches the local address book to see if an address entry exists for that sender, and if so, asks the user whether he wants the information merged into the existing contact, or a new contact be created.

If the information found is the same as the existing information, no prompt will appear. This architecture takes the load of the processing off the device, and enables gwabbit to constantly improve the recognition, without frequent client upgrades. It does, however, involve a processing server, and information is submitted to that server. The user can change the settings of gwabbit so that only emails manually sent by him to gwabbit will be processed (manual mode, rather than automatic).

Enjoy!

It was a long weekend with Friday being ‘Mahashivratri’ and a public holiday. Wife and kiddo had gone to see her parents. I decided to see some long due English movies and for the first time I saw six movies all in a weekend. (thanks to my Big Flix membership). It was too much of asking rate for me. I have penned down the reviews of all the movies I saw in the weekend. Hope the reader finds it useful-

1. Terminator Salvation

Genre- Fiction/ Thriller

Recommendation- Watch it

It is an excellent action & fiction movie. I had seen the lead protagonist ‘Sam Worthington’ in Avatar before watching him in Terminator. The protagonist of the film ‘Sam’ is really a big star in the making. His onscreen charisma is ecstatic. He was nominated for the fresh face of the year 2009 in Teen Awards. The movie (4th in Terminator series) is about the war between humanity and Skynet. Terminator Salvation, set in 2018, focuses on the war between humanity and artificial intelligence. Skynet is the primary antagonist — an artificially intelligent system which became self-aware and revolted against its creators. Skynet was originally installed into the U.S. military mainframe to control their arsenal. Shortly afterward it gained control and the panicking operators, realizing the extent of its abilities, attempted to shut it down. Skynet perceived the attempt to deactivate it as an attack on it and came to the conclusion that all of humanity would attempt to destroy it. To defend itself, it came to one conclusion: Humanity must be terminated. The film is about saving the human race.

John Connor (characterised by Christian Bale) is the human leader fighting for resistance. He is supported by Marcus Wright (characterised by Sam Worthington), a machine in himself and both of them jointly fight and destroy the Skynet before it destroys the rest of the mankind.

The screenplay and action sequences are good. However, one needs to see all the Terminator series to know the background of all events happening. For fiction lovers it is a Paisa Vasool movie

2. Hangover

Genre- Comedy

Recommendation- Watch it

Personally I did not find it that much comical as it has been advocated to be. A good concept but certain things really do not fit in place. One needs to keep their mind aside and should not try to find logic in everything. Two days before his wedding, Doug and his three buddies drive to Vegas for a blow-out night they’ll never forget. But when the three groomsmen wake up the next morning with pounding headaches, they can’t remember a thing.

It is a story about four friends, one of whom (Doug) is getting married. The four decide to go for a bachelor’s party at Las Vegas. At Vegas they book a villa in a five star hotel and from there on the blunder starts. The three friends being drugged at night fall trap into number of events which they do not recall in the morning because of the ‘Hangover’.

With no clue of what happened and little time to spare, the trio attempts to retrace their bad decisions from the night before in order to figure out where things went wrong and hopefully get Doug back to L.A. in time for his wedding. However, the more they begin to uncover, the more they realize just how much trouble they’re really in

The casting has been good and they are befitting the story line. Bradley Cooper and Heather Graham are exceptional

3. Shawshank Redemption

Genre- Drama

Recommendation- Must Watch

A long and slow paced movie with hard hitting content. It is a 1994 classic. Too late for me to see the movie. One should not miss the discourses to catch the ‘catch’ in the storyline. It is a simple story told with poignancy. Tim Robbins, the protagonist, has marveled in his character as ‘Andy’. I have not seen such planning for freedom which began from Day 1 in the Shawshank prison and successfully ended after nineteen years.

The main theme is hope, not despair, and the violence serves only as a backdrop to that message. Unashamedly a feel good movie, by the end one is wishing only that it would continue for a few more moments.

Tim Robbins stars as Andy Dufresne, a successful young banker who is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife and her lover. Andy is sent to Shawshank prison, a dour and depressing place where brutality from both guards and other prisoners is commonplace. Andy makes friends with Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman), a lifer who has already spent many years inside. Red specialises in smuggling items into the prison for the other prisoners. Andy improves the prison’s tiny library, and helps those prisoners who want to study. He also handles the guards’ tax returns, and even helps the swindling Warden (Bob Gunton) cook the books. His Banking knowledge and acumen helped him to win over the prison warden and guards. Over the years, he gains the respect of most of the other prisoners and guards

This was all part of his plan to escape from Shawshank prison. The real thrill is in knowing the master plan of how he over the years mastered the escape plan and put in effort towards suceeding it. He had hope and he did not lose it. He never stops believing in life’s possibilities, but to make the most of them he needs to be free

It is not a movie for action buffs. It is a slow movie. You might feel it is getting stretched in between. Also sometimes it is difficult to catch the dialogue sequences of Tim Robbins. Morgan freeman is clear as always. A must see movie

The film is a patiently-told, allegorical of friendship, patience, hope, survival, emancipation, and ultimate redemption and salvation by the time of the film’s climax.

4. After the Sunset

Genre- Suspense/thriller

Recommendation- Tolerable

It is for Peirce Brosnan fans. Not a well knitted movie. However at the same time Brosnan (Max) and the explosive Salma Hayek (Lola) have pulled the movie.

Max is an ace thief and plan to retire after his loot of Napoleon Diamond 2. Max and his girlfiend Lola plan to settle down in a private island. The FBI agent (Stan Lloyd- Woody Harrelson) appointed for the Diamond security  is baffled by his loss against Max. He makes a plan and lures Max to steal the Napoleon Diamond 3. With all resistance from Lola, Max still gets attracted and steals the diamond. However, this time FBI agent had the upper hand as Max got trapped in his Master plan and lost the diamond to him. Harrelson, an actor whose better roles sadly seem to be behind him, never manages to deliver his lines with anything more than a bored slur. In the end, Brosnan take control of his car and of course the diamond. I did not find this fitting in the story line. It was more like a ‘Hindi’ movie end wherein the Hero always wins.

Harrelson plays the agent as a bumbling idiot, with Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek constantly getting the upper-hand in all situations. For Salma Hayek fans, she has exposed a lot. Ideally in all scenes she is exposing or seducing Brosnan.

Salma Hayek’s wasted as Brosnan’s love interest/accomplice. A totally one-dimensional character that fleets in and out of scenes in increasingly less clothing, Hayek can do and normally does much better than this.

5. Fatal Attraction

Genre- Drama

Recommendation- Must Watch

It is a classic, nail biting and edge of the seat drama. It is a 1987 movie with Michael Douglas and Glenn Close playing the lead role. The screenplay is amazing and hats off to Douglos and Glenn Close for pulling off a high intensity drama with Douglos playing the infidel husband (because of his one night stand with Glenn) and these moment haunt his family life. It is a story about sex, sleaze, family, drama, love, etc.

Dan Gallager (Michael Douglos) is an upper class business executive living with his wife and 5 year old daughter in Manhattan. One evening, he and his wife, attend a book opening party attended by a writer named Alex Forrest (Glenn Close). Dan and Alex immediately hit it off and strike up a conversation. Later in the movie, they eventually find that they click in a sexual way, and wind up on the bed. This affair continues for a few weeks, with Dan spending the weekend at Alex’s apartment while his wife and daughter are away. Dan feels guilt for ditching his lovely wife and calls off the so called affair with Alex. However, Alex, a psychopath, begins to feel more than just sexual feelings for Dan and is not at all pleased that he had left her.

Alex stops at nothing to keep Dan all her own, including allowing herself to get Pregnant, harrassing him at work, phoning him at all hours, pretending to be an interested buyer in their Manhattan condo, kidnapping his child from school, and following his family to their new country home in Upstate New York.

The drama unfolds in the end when Dan’s wife kills Alex in a dramatic action sequence. Guys if you not seen this classic do not miss it. I am watching it after 23 years of release.

6. Unborn

Genre- Horror

Recommendation- Avoid

It is a horror movie with horrifying content. Predictable plot devices and narrative twists are part and parcel of any ghost story. The story which starts with a dog wearing a boy mask is calling for a serious trouble.

The Unborn is at its worst early on when, instead of bothering to introduce any of the protagonists it simply launches into a litany of bad horror movie clichés. The experience of sitting through the first half of the movie is much like watching the longest horror movie trailer you’ve ever seen. There are no connecting threads between any of what’s going on, the movie just flips from one supposedly scary sequence to the next.

The ghost in the movie is the dead twin brother who had died in the womb and is taking revenge. The movie sequences are not directed as desired. No doubt the cinematography is good with locations in Chicago used purposefully. I think that was the only good stuff.

The climax beats any Hindi movie. I guess ‘Ramsay brothers’ would be impressed. The Rabbi ( Gary Oldman) exorcises on the lead actress and the biggest irony is that the ghost is not inside her. Then what was the use of the exorcise. Neways, after all it is a movie.

If you have excess time and want to do nothing watch this movie for some horror show.

Happy Viewing!!

My analogy is simple. The younger you are, one is full of energy, enthusiasm, volatile and ready to take risks. Lower the markets, more is the opportunity to grow up. Invest when the market gets young. You will get more out of it

Happy Investing!