INVESTOR INTEREST


Sometime at the end of August 2006, I used my Bobcard for the first time to make a $19 payment for my yahoo plus account. I had not used the card for almost a year since it was issued to me; a debit card served my needs except for on-line payments. During that period, I had zero...

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Capital protection fund is a new gimmick by mutual funds to attract money from you. Stay away from them In the 1990s, there were mutual funds that offered guaranteed returns. Every single one of these funds lost a substantial part of their capital. Amazingly, the regulator, Securities and...

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Looking for some thrill? A roller-coaster ride in an amusement park would be a cheaper and better alternative than this fund Mutual funds are getting more daring, coming out with schemes that defy all logic. ING Vysya has launched a three-year close-ended fund that will churn its portfolio,...

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Compulsory IPO grading will become a useful tool to evaluate investment New offerings are the biggest draw in the stock markets for retail investors. In the old days, dilutions by foreign companies created wealth for investors, albeit through a system akin to a lucky draw. With the advent of...

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The world’s second largest hedge fund is run on an interesting philosophy Bridgewater Associates is probably the world’s second largest hedge fund group. Its single-manager fund had assets of $20.9 billion on June 30, 2006 according the magazine Alpha beaten narrowly by Goldman Sachs which had...

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This book is all about the nuts and bolts of investing science - if it can be called a science at all. The cornerstone of that science is modern portfolio theory (MPT), which is used by financial institutions worldwide, from the giant Wall Street firms to small financial advisors, to plan and...

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Analysis by ML Research Desk 26 October 2006
Monthly Income Plans have disappointed over three months, six months and one year. Are MIPs worth buying at all? Has the possibility of excess returns gone out of this asset class? Analysis by ML Research Desk Mutual funds are known to capitalise on market fads and fancies to garner money...

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DSP-Merrill Lynch has just filed an offer document to launch a mutual scheme that would invest in gold-based exchange traded funds. It becomes the third fund house after UTI and Benchmark to seek permission to launch gold funds. The fund idea is novel but would it make sense to go for it as and...

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ML Research Desk 12 October 2006
How about stocks whose earnings are growing fast but their valuations are still reasonable? Call them bargain growth stocks. Our stock screen picked up some of these stocks and looked at them closely. Are these worth buying? ML Research Desk Analyses It is rare to find fast-growing...

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Not so fast. But with global growth expected to be muted, commodity prices will go sideways The commodities markets underwent one of their huge periodic selloffs in mid-September which has badly hit oil and precious metals. Crude futures prices, which was $27 in July 2001, had hit $78 in...

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The market is fully valued and Japanese money may be contracting again. The risks have gone up. But then, we have entered the six best months for stocks As we had predicted two months ago, a situation of benign interest rates and inflation have lifted stocks worldwide. The only speck on the...

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Online brokerages are claiming to charge really low commssions. But these are useful only for big traders as a market insider found out, looking at the fine print After a flat launch of Kotak Flat, it was the turn of ICICI direct.Com, supposed to be the largest online broking company, to take...

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In the rat race to garner size, mutual funds pamper distributors at the expense of investors. Here is how to beat them at their game Recently, a mutual fund distributor approached me with a pitch to subscribe for a New Fund Offering. It was vaguely labelled and no different from any open-ended...

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Orient Paper has three businesses. All are doing very well Orient Paper, a CK Birla Group company, has popped up on our stock screen for its robust price rise. What makes it interesting? Orient is a diversified company, which is into cement, paper & pulp and electric fans. Around 50% of its...

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Index funds should be cheaper. But they are getting more expensive, while the regulator remains unconcerned Index funds are among the best options for investors who do not have the time to research stocks and monitor their portfolio. But fund companies do not promote index funds because they...

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India is headed for a severe manpower shortage. Here is how to turn that into your advantage, says Shreedhar Kanetkar When TV Mohandas Pai does his numbers, it’s good to pay attention. As a director at Infosys, Pai now devotes his energy to human resources, but till recently he was known as the...

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Amid weak US economic data, the markets are making all-time highs. Is the market telling us something or it is too euphoric for its own good? Central bankers all around the world keep a hawk-like watch on inflation. Inflation can destroy an economy. The US has gone through harrowing inflation...

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Even though there is a huge amount of investment information available on the Internet, in hundreds of books, newspapers, and magazines, as well as on TV, investors are often confused. This book aims to simplify it and empower you with all the knowledge you need to be a successful investor....

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Debashis Basu sketches how a mathematician runs the word’s most successful hedge fund In our last issue we profiled Jim Simons, one of the most successful traders of the world, who remains virtually unknown even in his own country. His firm, Renaissance Technologies, is intensely secretive even...

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Terrific I am writing to let you know that the pieces on my two friends, Keki Dadiseth and R A Mashelkar, in MoneyLIFE, were both terrific. You were lucky to have excellent subjects, of course, but you both added your great skills to make two fine pieces. R Gopalakrishnan,...

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