2016 the year in review

If I could, I would love to remember 2016 second by second, but with a limited memory capacity I can afford only the highlights. A very important year with some very valuable lessons. Let's go through some of them

There never will be a perfect world

Forget perfect, the world is only getting more & more volatile and unpredictable ... more imperfect. So stop waiting for that perfect day. Do what you want to do .. do it today. If you want to go somewhere, learn something, do something .. do it today. If you want to invest in stock markets (many friends keep asking me when is the right time to start), start today.

Bulls make money, bears make money but pigs always get slaughtered

Many people who were left out of the stock market were extremely burnt up about people making easy money in stock market. They were really happy when the stock market crashed and jumped in to catch the missed bus. What happened after that is what is called "pigs always get slaughtered". Stock market suffered major crashes throughout the year causing great pain and suffering to loyal stock market investors & traders but what happened with the pigs is that when they got the opportunity to enter the stock market, they had no clue where to put their money. Most ended up with wrong investments at wrong prices. The bulls & bears knew exactly where to put the money, but had little left. Still they recovered with the market. What we learn? Be with the market, not outside hoping for it to crash one day. Don't celebrate misery of others or try to take advantage of it. Never run out of cash reserves.

life goes on

People of Syria must have thought that the war is never going to end, but it did after almost 6 years it did. People thought that Brexit would shake the world out of order, but practically nothing happened. demonetisation came out of nowhere in India. What followed was several days, weeks and months of chaos & confusion and yet life goes on.

truth triumphs eventually

the obama's & clinton's of the world learnt it the hard way. Their fake speeches on values & integrity didn't work with public this time as they were shown the middle finger and thrown out of power for their criminal, corrupt and mentally insane actions and mindless abuse of power.& position. The world instantly became a much better place when hillary lost the presidential election to Trump this year not once but thrice (count, recount, electoral)!

don't ignore the small one's

Julian Assange changed the direction of US presidential elections. Zika virus from mosquitoes shook Brazil. Syria won the Aleppo battle against half the world's most advanced armies. 100 & 10 Rs note survived while the 500 & 1000 Rs notes perished. Small IPO's created spectacular wealth while the Reliance, HDFC, L&T struggled to close the year in green.

change volatility is the only constant
yes the markets fell, but before you could catch the fall they spiked back up. yes the markets spiked but before you could book out, they fell again. This is the new normal and you will have to adopt to it to survive & thrive. Learn to live in the now .. don't plan your year in advance, you have no clue what's coming. The only thing you can bank upon is that nothing will be permanent so always keep your next moves ready.

In short

Believe everything, trust no one.  (Agent Mulder, X files)

making money in disruptive times

Most fundamental investors are against active portfolio management and rightfully so. Conventional wisdom says that we must reject 99% of stock ideas, build a concentrated portfolio, more decisions we take, more mistakes we will make, etc etc. These rules are ok for mature and developed economies where things are largely stable at the macro and micro level, but does it apply to a market like India? I don't think so.
India went through a long phase of stagnation but recent political change at the center has brought in a progressive and reformist government that is changing things in this country on a daily basis and for good. While most good businesses are capable of surviving policy changes, they will not necessarily be the best ones to put your money to work. We are talking about disruption and not just changes here. While good businesses will survive disruption we need to choose investments that will thrive and prosper in this disruptive environment and not just survive. Many companies will disappear and many will rise in this environment and some of them will become the good & stable businesses of tomorrow rewarding early investors and stock pickers multi-fold in the process. Stable businesses will on the other hand give you stable returns. But stable returns in a disruptive environment is at best under-performance .. hardly any fun.

How to make money in disruptive times?
Simple. Break the rules. Experiment. One such recent event in India was demonetization. One announcement and a country of 1.2 Billion changed in a day. With such a disruptive change can the investment themes pre and post demonetization remain the same? The stock market went into a tailspin post the announcement. Several so called stable businesses that were once long time favorites of investment gurus came crumbling down. At the same time several new investment ideas have emerged that are rising straight up non-stop in this market. Off-course many of them are new businesses, have untested management and little history to rely on. But this is a brave new country, change will not happen if we stick with the old. Change will happen if we embrace the new. Some will fail but many will also make it big. The big one's will continue to be big but real money will be made by investing in small companies that will make it big.

So what changes with demonetization?
Recently I have added 25 new companies in my portfolio and within a month my portfolio is back to near peak level pre-demonetization. A substantial part of these gains come from my new investments in a really short time. Compare this to passive investment portfolios which are down anywhere between 8-30%. So what are the changes? I have listed them down at a high level in terms of investment themes. These also take into account few more major events like Trump victory, GST & rise in oil prices post more collaborative approach between OPEC members, etc

Inclusions:

• Digital Payment/Fin Tech/e-gov
• Banks (new age banks with no NPA problems)
• Organized retail/e-commerce
• GST & Mkt consolidation
• Budget'17 & Housing for all/Smart City
• Rural development & inclusion
• Specialty Chemical Manufacturing
• 24 hours power & electrification
• Defense modernization/FDI
• Road, Infra, in-land water transport development

Exclusions: 

• Real Estate 
• Oil price dependent industries (paints, plastic, airline, etc)
• Jewelry & Luxury items
• Discretionary consumer goods
• Media
• Telecom
• Old technology/cash dependent/land bank companies 
• Tata group
• Gold/Cash/Fixed Deposits/Hard Assets/Black Money

What will be the next change?
Next is FED rate hike. Lot of changes are going to come from Europe in 2017. Besides we have budget 2017 and the biggest change will come from Middle East & African countries like Syria & Libya in 2017. Fortunately many of them are not directly related to India but there will be impact on India too. So be ready ..

** not interested in theory ... want some stock names ... i tweet them regularly @vikiitd .. usual disclaimers apply .. primarily do your own research :)

Indian vs Indian

There are two types of Indians .. some who support demonetization and others who don't. However there is only one fact, demonetization is done. The other type of Indians who don't support demonetization are continuously cribbing about it. Not sure if they believe that if they crib enough about it on facebook & twitter, possibly demonetization will be rolled back? :) Let's see what we can learn from stock markets in such situations.

bulls vs bears vs looser
In stock markets, there are two types of people on any trading day bulls & bears. By the time market closes, it closes up or down and depending upon how it closes either the bulls win the day or the bears. The wise one's accept their defeat and start fresh. The fools stick to their side even after they have lost and what happens to them? they loose more. They loose more everyday until they accept that market is always right.

what's done is done
I am not saying one is correct or the other. It could be short term thinking vs long term thinking. It could be well informed vs ill informed. But guys put the guns down and have a beer or something. It's done. Yes, if you are still hopeful of anything different, let me tell you once again, DEMONETIZATION IS DONE. Whether you like it or not is of little significance now. I believe it will be great for our country but let's not fight about it. Time will prove one of us wrong and one of us right. Till then, let's not kill each other. BTW same goes for Clinton supporters vs Trump supporters... but that blog would be called .. American vs American :)

yes no worries

So some big changes have happened in India with the demonetisation drive and in US with Donald Trump winning the presidential election. Indian markets have fallen from 4% at the index level to 10% at the small cap index level leaving everyone wondering what is going to happen now? Here are few concerns and my opinion regarding the same.

• The black money cleanup will lead to lot of pain in the short term. Yes, no worries.
• People will find loopholes and exploit the black money crackdown. Yes, no worries.
• There could be a prolonged correction in the stock markets. Yes, no worries.
• Real estate sector will be impacted severely, construction of many projects will freeze and many small builders will default. Yes, no worries.
• Small business that rely heavily on cash transactions will suffer. Yes, no worries.
• Consumption will slow down leading to de-acceleration of growth cycle. Yes, no worries.
•  Many small borrowers like farmers, laborers will default leading to increased NPA's in the system affecting MFI's, small banks, NBFC's,  small lenders. Yes, no worries.
• Discretionary spending will take a huge hit. Yes, no worries.
• Luxury goods market will slow down for a really long time. Yes, no worries.
• Black money will regenerate again in the system once new notes are available. Yes, no worries.
• FII's are exiting Indian & other emerging markets. Yes, no worries.
• Anything and everything else. Yes, no worries.

Why no worries?
I don't want to spend too many words on the long term benefits of the black money crackdown like reduced money in terrorism, movement toward cashless economy, reduced corruption, political consensus for the ruling party, higher tax collection & widening of the tax base, huge investments in high priority sectors like defense, infrastructure, healthcare, stronger banking system, improved rankings for the country, stable currency, better credit ratings for the country, redistribution of wealth, upliftment of the rural & poor section of the society, all inclusive growth, effective implementation of progressive schemes by the government like GST, new growth cycle for the country based on solid fundamentals and lot's and lot's of infinite positives that is nearly impossible to list down in a single blog.

India is on its way to becoming one of the greatest economic superpowers in the world irrespective of all the concerns raised. Remember for a complex & massive country like India, we must never do the mistake of thinking in binary terms .. all good or all bad, all black or all white. What matters is the direction and we are on the right direction, hence no worries! Just wait patiently, keep the faith and participate in the revolution, be a part of this history in the making and stop worrying ! I have no doubt in my mind that we will all be rewarded and rewarded YUGE. Hold on and stay with me on this. 

TrumpHill

Disclaimer:
I don't support Trump or Hillary, one vs another, either or both or in any other possible way. Fortunately for us we don't have to vote in this devil vs witch election. Having said that all countries go through such phases of political bankruptcy at some point or the other. Not long back India was practically ashamed by the leaders representing the country. So I am not trying to mock anyone or any country, just trying a neutral analysis on possible impact of this event on stock market and us stock market participants.

Trump Vs Hillary
This election could definitely be a market moving event, considering the two candidates represent completely opposite and extreme views on absolutely everything. To a large extent broadly speaking Hillary represents continuation and she will mostly be like female version of Obama (except maybe not as smart) who will drag the same for another 4 years. If she wins Obama fans will not miss much. Trump on the other hand represents anti-establishment. He will mostly try to change and do everything differently if not in exactly the opposite or anti current practices way.  I won't go into major "If I win I will do this" list of both candidates, because most of it is meaningless and neither will keep any of their promises which are just made to generate more and more media buzz.

Why we (stock market players) should worry?
Trump has openly made many statements in the media that he believes that stock markets are in bubble territory, he has exited most of the investments and markets will crash and people who are invested into the market will loose lot of money. refer

Bubble or not someone like Trump can certainly cause a burst. His ideas about NATO, Mexico, international trade, off-shoring, etc is all very radical. US is the mother market and a big import/export destination for the rest of the world. So any disruption in US policies can lead to huge disruption in stock markets around the world.

Hillary like I said represents continuation, she will most likely be best friends with Yellen, continue to print and distribute money to the rich, elite and advantaged class as well as throw some in charity on the working class so that she has something to say in her speeches. In short she will be a blessing for stock market and stock market participants and her winning the elections could very well trigger a huge run up everywhere in the world.

Geopolitics and Wars

This is another area where the two differ very strongly. Hillary again being a continuation of her predecessor will keep all the wars in third world countries alive and dragging for another 4 years with no solution or end to it. After all America is a major beneficiary. Hillary also has a big role in some of these like Libya and she has made her line of thinking very clear. (Something that makes me feel nauseated about her). I think Hillary will further strain America's relationship with Russia & China and also cause more chronic pain & suffering to the war & terrorism impacted countries. 

Trump again has a different view on this. Trump could very well be more co-operative in this matter with Russia which according to me is the more optimistic case for the war impacted countries. Maybe not a popular opinion but I think the middle east problem is basically just a proxy war between US & Russia and can be solved only if these two countries shake hands (which Obama is unwilling to do and same will be the case with Hillary) Trump might just go and hug Putin which can change lot of things in the world. However Trump can negatively impact US relations with NATO and EU and other allies like Japan, etc. I am not very sure about his views on the South China Sea issue though.

Who wins?

Considering the two candidates represent completely opposite point of views and both have extremely biased followers, one set of people believe that only Hillary will win and other set believe that only Trump will win. Like someone said, this time support for a particular candidate comes more from hatred for the other candidate. But many conventional news and media channels (establishment worshipers) have a very biased view that Trump has no chance in hell. I think that will not be the case. I did some quick analysis here which off-course is meaningless & useless but just for fun and might provide some good insights after the election results are declared for future. Let's start with twitter

Tweet Tweet:
At the time of writing this Trump had 11.6 million followers compared to 8.8 million followers for Hillary. It is also interesting to note that Trump only follows 42 compared to 752 for Hillary. What Hillary follows is mostly diversified interest in politics, NGO's and people whereas Trump mostly follows other Trumps and different businesses run by the Trump families

Trump is way more active on twitter with 33K plus tweet whereas Hillary is struggling to reach even 10K (not surprising since during the email scandal days many said that she was quiet challenged when handling IT which was also used as a defense in the whole episode)

Not accurate or exhaustive but just running through the tweets from both, Trump clearly generates much more engagement, likes and retweets. Below is a snapshot of the two bashing up each other. Trump getting likes in tens of thousands and Hillary in few thousands. I wish I had access to the analytics page for both the candidates, but I don't :(

Google Trends
Google Trends also show a clear victory for Trump in terms of interest. Hillary showed a minor and temporary bump after she collapsed at the 9/11 memorial ceremony (maybe the ghost of Libya wars came to haunt her that day). However Trump clearly wins here hands down and consistently throughout.

US region specific Google Trends

Polls
Polls predict a solid victory for Hillary by a good margin. refer

Betting markets
Betting market also show a good lead for Hillary which is where real money is at stake compared to polls which is just free opinion stats (just be cautious they showed a similaR lead for Breremain over Brexit)

So is it Hillary?

Not sure. Twitter shows more excitement for Trump and Poll for Hillary. I think Trump is much more well networked. He is involved in several businesses which employ several people who have several friends and families and are hence connected to Trump in some way. This explains his popularity on social media over Hillary. At one point of time I would have said that Trump generates more controversies but that is not true anymore, Hillary is probably just a step behind. So Even if the polls don't suggest so I think the election will be a close one and while Hillary win is a consensus opinion, Trump does have a fighting chance. We will know only in November. 

If heavily invested in Stock markets. do I need to be prepared for this event?

Oh hell ya

How?

I don't know :)

ax+by=c

Ax + By = C .. sometimes simple mathematics can help you earn loads of money .. here is one example :)

The Scheme of Arrangement from Birla Group

Recently Aditya Birla Nuvo and Grasim announced a mega re-structuring which was as follows

Incorrect analysis by top analysts 

This is what one of the senior analyst from CNBC had to say about the scheme of arrangement

On the day of the announcement AB Nuvo was trading at Rs 1560 and Grasim at Rs 4500. As per the announcement  for every 10 AB Nuvo shares (10*1560 = Rs 15600) you get 3 Grasim shares (3*4500= Rs 13500) so the % difference is (15600-13500)/15600*100=13.4% which is the ~14% spread mentioned above by the CNBC analyst

And here is what another senior analyst from ET Now had to say about the scheme of arrangement

Here the analyst analyzes the deal based on how much he would have to pay in terms of Grasim or AB Nuvo shares to acquire 210 shares of ABFSL. However he quickly forgets to account for the actual shares in hand of AB Nuvo or Grasim and calculates that Grasim gives him an advantage of 13% over AB Nuvo only based on the value ABFSL shares acquired through his holding in AB Nuvo or Grasim

Clearly both analysts got it totally wrong. For AB Nuvo shares you get Grasim shares but with those Grasim shares you get additional ABFSL shares. Who will account for that in these calculations?

Correct analysis based on simple mathematics ax+by=c

Let's look at the scheme of arrangement again. 

The correct equation to model this scheme mathematically actually has two parts as follows:

On the date of announcement AB Nuvo  was trading at 1560 and Grasim at 4500

Now say you have 100 shares of AB Nuvo so the value will be 100 *1560. Post the scheme of arrangement your 100 shares of AB Nuvo get cancelled and you get 30 shares of Grasim for it. Everyone got this right and included it in their calculation but they forgot to include the second part of the scheme of arrangement to calculate the return on their holding in AB Nuvo shares. Further for every Grasim share you get in return of your holding in AB Nuvo you get additional 7 shares of ABFSL.  So the correct equation is 

100*1560 (AB Nuvo) = 30 * 4500 (Grasim) + 30*7*X (ABFSL)  

c = ax + by

which is favorable for AB Nuvo shareholders depending on the value of ABFSL

However using incorrect calculation as done by the analysts above shows the scheme to be favorable for Grasin

100*1560 (AB Nuvo) = 30 * 4500 (Grasim) 

c = ax ?

This equation incorrectly implies a 14 % arbitrage discount to Grasim holders and hence favorable for Grasim holders It is incorrect because it does not consider the "by" part of the equation ax+by=c Shareholders of AB Nuvo get Grasim (ax) shares which in turn gets them shares of ABFSL(by) so we need to include both parts when calculating what we get in return for AB Nuvo shares

Panic mode on 

I tried my best to explain this on twitter, but there was way too much panic going on because of foolish analysis of 14% discount posted by some very senior members of the top business news channels in the country. 

Not everyone was foolish, some got the point and appreciated. 

Opportunity in Insanity
Sensing a complete panic about the deal from twitter, I decided to be ready with a war chest and go "all in" if markets loose their shit on this. Next day as trading started, market did go insane and AB Nuvo crashed more than 20% to 1290 per share from 1560, while Grasim went down by around 5% from 4500 but recovered the whole loss by market closing since everyone thought that the deal is favorable for Grasim. However it actually made the already better AB Nuvo even better by giving a much wider arbitrage between the two in favor of AB Nuvo. The new equation looked like this

100*1290 (AB Nuvo) = 30 * 4500 (Grasim) + 30*7*X (ABFSL) 
c = ax + by (with c revised after 20% fall in Nuvo)

So for Rs 1,29,000 in AB Nuvo you now get 1,35,000 worth of shares in Grasim and 210 shares of ABFSL! Now that's insane !!!
210 shares of ABFSL for free and 1,35,000 - 1,29,000 = 6000 in net value extra. How cool is that ?

ALL IN
I simply closed my eyes and hit the single largest buy order of my life with money pooled in from every source possible. The only money left with me after that were a few 100 Rs notes that were in my wallet (thankfully) and another 19 days to go for the month before I get my next salary credit. This was going to be a really cash strapped month for me :)

Fruits of simple mathematics & calculated risks
The markets re-opened on Tuesday after a long weekend including Independence day holiday on Monday and AB Nuvo started it's recovery from insanity. There are other aspects also. A side factor to the crashing of the AB Nuvo stock besides the panic created by foolish analysts was also the fairness opinion about the restructuring. Some experts pointed out the the deal is too complex and will make Grasim a very complex holding company attracting a hefty discount and will also dilute the stake of AB Nuvo shareholders in ABFSL considerably and is effectively a bad deal for both. Great shareholder activists like Anil Sanghvi blasted the management for this restructuring move and many institutional shareholders came up with some really tough questions for the management and so the deal is in a flux state currently. No doubt the deal is indeed one of the worst seen in recent times but the market panic reaction was way overdone and that provided a golden opportunity to vigilant and active investors.

How much did I invest & make?
a lot :) But goes without saying that most of the story has played out and I am already booking partial profits on this deal. In near future this looks like will get into a prolonged battle with the management trying to convince the shareholders and the shareholders acting tough on management. In recent memory a similar example was Cairn - Vedanta deal that took several years to close. No fun in that! The real fun lies in looking for such opportunities and then playing it big. It's a mega feeling..

success curve

there are many books on how to become super successful or what successful people do differently .. blah blah blah .. (maybe they are just lucky or have inherited a good start :D ) However to keep it simple, I believe that there is atleast one thing everyone can try. Just having a mindset to think differently than what has been the tradition and age old wisdom is a good start. Add to that willingness to experiment, break the rules and extend the boundaries irrespective of the outcome .. success or failure, loss or profit irrespective of what others say or believe. This should give anyone a reasonable chance at extraordinary success.

When it all comes together
Just willing to attempt something different than routine puts you above 95 percentile of the rest of the world. And then depending on all other factors (luck, hard work, timing, etc etc) you could get into the top 1 percentile or maybe even the top. "The One"

What if I fail ?
Yes, when trying something new or different, risks are very high and you need to account and plan for the worst case scenario to make sure you don't end up in an position from where no recovery is possible. At the very least; even if you loose everything in current attempt you should still have enough to be able to start working on the next attempt. Over the several iterations once luck, hard work, timing, etc etc will come together in your favor and you will zoom so far ahead of the average that there will be no looking back thereafter.

So keep in mind just dare to think and do different instead of following and being bounded by what you have been told or what you already know .. and keep doing it .. that's all you need.

gain vs loss

uff uff uff !
Once again I caught a dear friend of mine discussing how he has invested in a 10 year scheme that will give him ~8% return which is better than Fixed Deposits because now-a-days FD's give only 7-7.5% return and how it is not that risky and the money he gets after 10 years will be useful when kids grow up. uff!

For the last time, I will try to convince anyone who has such thoughts. This time using a different approach :D The right way to look at it is not how much you gain but how much you gain vs how much you loose (opportunity cost). For a nominal investment of 10 Lakh rupees over a 15 year period let's see how much you gain and how much you loose when compared to potential returns from the equity market.

• In Bank deposit you gain 0.1 Crore but you also loose 2.1 Crore Rs
• In Fixed deposit you gain 0.2 Crore but you also loose 2 Crore Rs
• In Debt you gain 0.4 Crore but you also loose 1.8 Crore Rs
• In MF you gain 0.9 Crore but you also loose 1.3 Crore Rs

So none of these give you even half of the actual potential returns that can be achieved from the equity market.

Table Summary (All CAGR % is approximate but more realistic than what ur fund manager/Investment broker tells you net of all charges)

15 Yr 10L Inv	CAGR (%) Approx	Gain (Cr)	Loss Vs Equity (Cr)
Bank Deposit	4	0.1	2.1
Fixed Deposit	8	0.2	2
Debt	12	0.4	1.8
MF	18	0.9	1.3
Equity	25	2.2	-

Detailed Yearly Calculation

Investment	Bank Deposit	Fixed Deposit	Debt	MF	Equity
CAGR	4	8	12	18	25
1	1000000	1000000	1000000	1000000	1000000
2	1040000	1080000	1120000	1180000	1250000
3	1081600	1166400	1254400	1392400	1562500
4	1124864	1259712	1404928	1643032	1953125
5	1169859	1360489	1573519	1938778	2441406
6	1216653	1469328	1762341	2287758	3051758
7	1265319	1586874	1973822	2699554	3814698
8	1315932	1713824	2210681	3185474	4768373
9	1368569	1850930	2475963	3758859	5960466
10	1423312	1999004	2773079	4435454	7450583
11	1480244	2158924	3105848	5233836	9313229
12	1539454	2331638	3478550	6175926	11641536
13	1601032	2518169	3895976	7287593	14551920
14	1665073	2719623	4363493	8599360	18189900
15	1731676	2937193	4887112	10147245	22737375
Gain on Capital	731676	1937193	3887112	9147245	21737375
Gain in Crores	0.1	0.2	0.4	0.9	2.2
Loss Vs Equity	21005699	19800182	17850263	12590130	-
Loss in Crores	2.1	2	1.8	1.3	-

Risks?

Yes there are risks and there are rewards. Make a good judgement. Try to choose what is better than average. Trying to be risk free throws you to the bottom of the list with huge losses (for you and your future generation) in terms of potential return on investment on a compounding basis while others who sell you this junk enjoy good bonuses, great parties and free commissions for the next 10-15-25 years from your hard earned money. Think about it !

50th blog

This is my 50th published blog and well it is about blogging :)  I would like to thank you all my dear friends for all the support, encouragement, appreciation and share some of the most heart warming experiences about what I learned through them in this golden jubilee 50th blog of mine. (I created the image below to express my emotions :) )

The idea of blogging came to me because of something really funny. After a painful wash out during the 2008 crisis and several years of experiments, I finally found the right approach to investment and wealth creation. I figured that there is way too much to learn & remember here and it is going to be a really long journey. I was learning, discovering things at a hectic pace and in huge volumes and wanted some way to keep track of all this. For me ever since my schooling days, I never had confidence on my memory, add to that as I grew up I developed this phobia that some day I am going to lose my memory maybe to alzheimer's or something like memnto .. just a phobia ...

So I wanted to persist all I am learning somewhere that is safe and I can easily refer to. At the same time I didn't want it to be just a theoretical dump of "10 Principles of Investing" because investing is so personal, subjective and contextual. It is a form of art instead of accounts.  So I wanted to save my learning with some context and personal experience embedded into it along with a crystal clear message that the experience highlights.

My goal
At the same time while interacting with my friends, relatives, colleagues I realized that there are so many people who are interested in growing their wealth and worried about shortage of money for essentials like family support, education, marriage and healthcare or what happens after retirement. One thing I saw common atleast at that time was that everyone had one common idea about retirement and that is "once I save one crore rupees, I can happily retire" According to me that was so wrong. Even more worrying was that people with "1 crore retirement planning" would realize that they are wrong only after retirement when it is already too late to fix things. The time to correct was now, not after 60.

 Another common thing I realized was that everyone correlated more wealth with more hard work. We especially in India have been brought up to believe that we need to struggle and work hard to become rich and successful and once again that is so wrong. We just need to understand the game. Money is the most abundant resource on this planet.

Through my blogs, I have also tried to encourage everyone to pursue their passion and take calculated risks in life instead of trying to always play it too safe and structured according to social expectations. Yes, accidents will happen but the victories will also be sweet. Life should not be about reaching your goals but blasting through them and setting new ones!

Some life lessons
The phase of my life post 2008, to put it very simply was very heavy for a few years in a row. For me if I could use my experience and help atleast one other person avoid  learning these life lessons in the hardest possible way, it would make everything much more meaningful. And so I published my first blog on retirement planning last year on June 17th. Way beyond my expectations, I got such a terrific response from all of you for my first blog. Close friends from childhood, college, early work days with whom I had lost touch pinged me and wished me for writing this blog.

Some friends messaged me on how reading the blog changed their perspective about money which they had developed due to scarcity & difficulty in their childhood days. That was such a satisfying outcome for me, considering I myself came from a background of unnecessary scarcity and that had impacted me so deeply for such a long time. Even after earning and saving enough with a stable and well paying job, spending even a small amount for something as basic as food used to pinch me because of my early experience.

I literally had to train myself, unlearn my fear of spending money and learn to enjoy it. It was difficult. More than that, it was unnecessary. It is now my goal to influence as many people as possible to switch from savings mindset to earnings mindset. Spend freely but focus on earning more than you need to spend. Too much focus on saving can lead to unnecessary stress on families, especially for kids who can grow up thinking that they are a burden on the family because their parents have to spend money on them. Such issues creep in slowly without we realizing it and have far reaching impact in later years for everyone. Very unnecessary & undesirable.

Even as individuals and as a country, our focus on savings, limits us whereas focus on earnings can offer unlimited growth and help us realize our dreams way beyond food, shelter & clothing. We have to make that cultural shift.

A long thank you note
Anyways, seeing that my writing has atleast some connect with friends, I decided to pursue it sincerely and today I am writing my 50th blog in less than 15 months from my first blog. Without naming anyone I would like to thank all of you for all the wonderful wishes and messages for my blogs. A friend's sister whom I never met commented on one of my blogs and appreciated it. It was so great to know that my blogs were reaching out of my circle of immediate friends. A few friends (also my investment buddies) with whom I regularly chat, expressed how my blogs helped them fix their misconceptions about stock market and gave them the right approach to start their investment journey. They also let me know about how they were doing pretty good and above all enjoying it. This is exactly what I wanted to achieve through these writings. It would be my greatest pleasure if one, some or all of my friends who got inspired into stock market investing because of me become millionaires and billionaires and live an abundant, worry free life.  Many people in office including my boss and managers appreciated my writing and also let me know how others far off in different geographies who didn't know me also appreciated my blogs and inquired about me. They also encouraged me to write more. Your boss encouraging you to do something other than daily office work, that's good right? Through many people, my blogs became a part of my introduction when meeting new people. Some appreciated for the humor quotient and some for the wisdom. That is all very generous of you. Thank you ! Few friends went through it in detail and helped me correct few mistakes here and there to make my blogs more readable. Cannot thank you all enough considering my language skills are very challenged. If it was not for auto-correct and spell check most of my blogs would hardly be readable :) thanks to technology ! Few friends are very expressive, few just hit like silently in the shortest possible time after I publish my blog (not sure if they read it at all) and few just let me know casually at the tea vending machine that they enjoyed reading my last blog. Thank you all, means a lot to me. Maybe there are few who don't like it .. in that case thank you for not making it very explicit or public and probably just ignoring it .. never got a nasty message about my blogs :). When you publish something in public, you always risk exposing your stupidity to everyone, but I think all my friends have been extremely kind to me. In a strange way my blogs have helped me improve my friendship & relationship with so many of you which is really great !

Hopefully I will be able to continue writing, hopefully it will be meaningful. Hopefully it will be positive for all of us. And if at all I lose my memory some day due to alzheimer's  or some memento kind of thing, I have a small request to all of you my friends. Please .. please direct me to this blog ! :)

good not good enough

Dipa Karmakar, Sakshi Malik, P.V. Sindhu who knew them before today? So what changed in the last few days? These players have been playing for several years and have been good at their respective sports for several years.

What changed in the last few days is that they graduated from being good to being "the best" by winning at the Rio Olympics. This has a very important lesson for all of us. India probably has lot of sports people who are good in different fields and yet when Rio Olympics began the country's pride was hanging in thin air for 11 days. The grim realization that although we have lot of good players, we probably have none who is the best. We cannot use the power of our billion plus population advantage everywhere. Hundred good athletes cannot join forces and come together to win one medal at olympics. It has to be only one alone, that one who is the best and not just good.

Here is how some of the global headlines looked like
"It took 11 days and more than 100 athletes, but India finally won a medal at Rio Olympics"

"By winning a bronze medal in wrestling, 23-year-old Sakshi Malik helped India avoid a potentially embarrassing Olympic blackout."

While we owe a big thanks to Dipa Karmakar (will win the medal in 2020 :) ), Sakshi Malik and P.V. Sindhu for saving a nation of 1.2 billion from a mega embarrassment on the world stage, we must learn from it.  We are all good and doing good in life, but that is not such a good thing because it makes us complacent. Being good keeps us satisfied and happy and probably stops us from trying to be the best. How many of us can claim to be the best and not just good in anything?

We will probably lead a happy life being good but will we be able to shine in that one critical moment in life that can be a make or break situation. Can we pass if put to such a test that demands us to be the best or perish? Suddenly being good doesn't look good enough. We are doing good in life just because we have not been put to a test that only the best can survive. We are probably not even good, maybe just lucky. So should we be happy being one of those millions who are good or should we try to be the best? Remember it's not just about our sports people, sports infrastructure or sports budget & policy. It's about us, all of us in every field.