Willpower: Merged [Introduction & Chapter 1: Is Willpower More than a Metaphor?] [Chapter 2: Where Does The Power in the Willpower Come From] [Chapter 3: A Brief History of the To-Do list, from God to Drew Carey] [Chapter 4: Decision Fatigue] [Chapter 5: Where Have All the Dollars Gone?] [Chapter 6: Can Willpower Be Strengthened?] [Chapter 7: Outsmarting Yourself in the Hour of Darkness] [Chapter 8: Did a Higher Power Help Eric Clapton and Mary Karr Stop Drinking] [Chapter 9: […]

This is a cliff notes version of the book written by Brent Donnelly Table of Contents Part One: Why Do Some Traders Succeed, But Most Fail   Chapter 1: Know Yourself Chapter 2: If it was easy, it wouldn’t Pay So Well Chapter 3: Understanding Success Chapter 4: So You’re Saying There’s a Chance? Part Two: The Alpha Trader Mindset   Chapter 5: Level Up Chapter 6: Kryptonite Chapter 7: Smart People Do Stupid Things   Part Three: Methodology And […]

There has been a marked improvement in ‘breadth’ of the market over the last few trading sessions. The improvement in breadth comes after a long period of time and is a welcome change and has to be construed as bullish. It would mean that ‘buy the dip’ mentality has now set in; that in and of itself is a huge sentiment shift in favour of the bulls.

Media attention is currently focused on the two food delivery start ups, Swiggy and Zomato. Both have raised billions of dollars via venture capital funding. The valuations seem to be vaulting higher almost once a quarter, at the very least. What’s the catch? The short answer is there isn’t any. Consumers love food delivery and the restaurants hate it. I have serious doubts of how profitable the food delivery business is, the odds are that it is a ‘cash burn’ […]

One doesn’t read of India’s economy having transformed from a traditional one to a ‘Gig Economy’. The mainstream media seems unable to overcome its obsession with periodic economic data releases comprising of inflation, manufacturing data etc. For the uninitiated, the words ‘Gig Economy’ refer to temporary jobs that are offered to independent contractors (freelancers), that replace the erstwhile ‘full-time’ jobs. A ‘Gig Economy’ undermines and is many ways contrary to the traditional economy wherein there are full-time jobs involving a […]

Nifty OHLC The Nifty OHLC (Open, High, Low, Close) chart for the current calendar year is shown above. The intra-day and closing basis high / low has also been highlighted. Year-to-Date (YTD) and on a closing basis, the Nifty 50 is up by just 0.19 percent. In other words, we are back where we began the year. On any trading day, what matters is the close. The closing price of the Nifty 50 on any trading day is the ‘verdict’, […]

The calendar year 2018 has begun with a bang. It’s off to the races, almost immediately. I’ll start with the returns for the year 2017. (Readers can click on any of the images for a magnified view) During the year 2017, how many of the benchmark components clocked returns that beat the benchmark and how does it compare with earlier years? That is shown below for both, the Nifty 50 and the Nifty 500. It shows the breadth of the returns kaleidoscope. The […]

Cartoonist: Schwadron, Harley – cartoonstock.com; Sunday, 10 December 2017 Are we are investing in a loose collection of individual stock names or a monolithic stock market? What would happen to the different stock prices that are not part of the benchmark composition if the benchmark indices were to correct? To answer this question, one needs to understand the difference between the terms ‘a market of stocks’ and ‘a stock market.’ There is a school of thought that says that since it […]

Cartoonist: Schwadron, Harley, cartoonstock.com; Sunday, 12 November 2017 John Maynard Keynes is known as an excellent economist for his work titled “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.” Many renowned economists do not agree with what Keynes has said. Regardless of his economic theories, unbeknownst to most is the fact that Keynes was one of the greatest investors of his time (1883 – 1946). Keynes was one of the first to recognize that investing is an exercise in mass […]

Cartoonist: Veley, Bradford – cartoonstock.com; Sunday, 15 October 2017 The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) uses the colour Red to indicate a downward tick in the Last Traded Price (LTP) and the colour Blue to show an uptick in the LTP of a given stock symbol. Bloomberg terminals all over the world also use colours to highlight changes in the LTP. Three types of shades are ubiquitous; Red, Blue and Green. Whereas the tone Red is ALWAYS used to indicate […]