http://rapidshare.com/files/228114256/TECHNICALS-OF-STOCKS_BOOKS.zip

FOR ALL MAINTAINING A HEALTHY HEART

For all maintaining a healthy heart:



A chat with Dr.Devi Shetty, Narayana Hrudayalaya
(Heart Specialist) Bangalore was arranged by WIPRO for its employees . The transcript of the chat is given below. Useful for everyone.


Qn: What are the thumb rules for a layman to take care of his heart?
Ans:
1. Diet - Less of carbohydrate, more of protein, less oil
2. Exercise - Half an hour's walk, at least five days a week; avoid lifts and avoid sitting for a longtime
3. Quit smoking
4. Control weight
5. Control blood pressure and sugar

Qn: Is eating non-veg food (fish) good for the heart?
Ans: No

Qn: It's still a grave shock to hear that some apparently healthy person gets a cardiac arrest. How do we understand it in perspective?
Ans: This is called silent attack; that is why we recommend everyone past the age of 30 to undergo routine health checkups.

Qn: Are heart diseases hereditary?
Ans: Yes

Qn: What are the ways in which the heart is stressed? What practices do you suggest to de-stress?
Ans: Change your attitude towards life. Do not look for perfection in everything in life.

Qn: Is walking better than jogging or is more intensive exercise required to keep a healthy heart?
Ans: Walking is better than jogging since jogging leads to early fatigue and injury to joints

Qn: You have done so much for the poor and needy. What has inspired you to do so?
Ans: Mother Theresa , who was my patient

Qn: Can people with low blood pressure suffer heart diseases?
Ans: Extremely rare

Qn: Does cholesterol accumulates right from an early age
(I'm currently only 22) or do you have to worry about it only after you are above 30 years of age?
Ans:! Cholesterol accumulates from childhood.

Qn: How do irregular eating habits affect the heart ?
Ans: You tend to eat junk food when the habits are irregular and your body's enzyme release for digestion gets confused.

Qn: How can I control cholesterol content without using medicines?
Ans: Control diet, walk and eat walnut.

Qn: Can yoga prevent heart ailments?
Ans: Yoga helps.

Qn: Which is the best and worst food for the heart?
Ans: Fruits and vegetables are ! the best and the worst is oil.

Qn: Which oil is better - groundnut, sunflower, olive?
Ans: All oils are bad .

Qn: What is the routine checkup one should go through? Is there any specific test?
Ans: Routine blood test to ensure sugar, cholesterol is ok. Check BP, Treadmill test after an echo.

Qn: What are the first aid steps to be taken on a heart attack?
Ans: Help the person into a sleeping position , place an aspirin tablet under the tongue with a sorbitrate tablet if available, and rush him to a coronary care unit since the maximum casualty takes place within the first hour.

Qn: How do ! you differentiate between pain caused by a heart attack and that caused due to gastric trouble?
Ans: Extremely difficult without ECG.

Qn: What is the main cause of a steep increase in heart problems amongst youngsters? I see people of about 30-40 yrs of age having heart attacks and serious heart problems.
Ans: Increased awareness has increased incidents. Also, sedentary lifestyles, smoking, junk food, lack of exercise in a country where people are genetically three times more vulnerable for heart attacks than Europeans and Americans.

Qn: Is it possible for a person to have BP outside the normal range of 120/80 and yet be perfectly healthy?
Ans: Yes.

Qn: Marriages within close relatives can lead to heart problems for the child. Is it true?
Ans : Yes, co-sanguinity leads to congenital abnormalities and you may not have a software engineer as a child

Qn: Many of us have an irregular daily routine and many a times we have to stay late nights in office. Does this affect our heart ? What precautions would you recommend?
Ans : When you are young, nature protects you against all these
irregularities. However, as you grow older, respect the biological clock.

Qn: Will taking anti-hypertensive drugs cause some other complications (short / long term)?
Ans : Yes, most drugs have some side effects. However, moder! n
anti-hypertensive drugs are extremely safe.

Qn: Will consuming more coffee/tea lead to heart attacks?
Ans : No.

Qn: Are asthma patients more prone to heart disease?
Ans : No.

Qn: How would you define junk food?
Ans : Fried food like Kentucky , McDonalds , samosas, and even masala dosas.

Qn: You mentioned that Indians are three times more vulnerable. What is the reason for this, as Europeans and Americans also eat a lot of junk food?
Ans: Every race is! vulnerable to some disease and unfortunately, Indians are vulnerable for the most expensive disease.

Qn: Does consuming bananas help reduce hypertension?
Ans : No.

Qn: Can a person help himself during a heart attack (Because we see a lot of forwarded emails on this)?
Ans : Yes. Lie down comfortably and put an aspirin tablet of any description under the tongue and ask someone to take you to the nearest coronary care unit without any delay and do not wait for the ambulance since most of the time, the ambulance does not turn up.

Qn: Do, in any way, low white blood cells and low hemoglobin count lead to heart problems?
Ans : No. But it is ideal to have norma! l hemoglobin level to increase your exercise capacity.

Qn: Sometimes, due to the hectic schedule we are not able to exercise. So, does walking while doing daily chores at home or climbing the stairs in the house, work as a substitute for exercise?
Ans : Certainly. Avoid sitting continuously for more than half an hour and even the act of getting out of the chair and going to another chair and sitting helps a lot.

Qn: Is there a relation between heart problems and blood sugar?
Ans: Yes. A strong relationship since diabetics are more vulnerable to heart attacks than non-diabetics.

Qn: What are the things one needs to take care of after a heart operati! on?
Ans : Diet, exercise, drugs on time , Control cholesterol, BP, weight.

Qn: Are people working on night shifts more vulnerable to heart disease when compared to day shift workers?
Ans : No.

Qn: What are the modern anti-hypertensive drugs?
Ans : There are hundreds of drugs and your doctor will chose the right combination for your problem, but my suggestion is to avoid the drugs and go for natural ways of controlling blood pressure by walk, diet to reduce weight and changing attitudes towards lifestyles.

Qn: Does dispirin or similar headache pills increase the risk of heart attacks?
Ans : No! .

Qn: Why is the rate of heart attacks more in men than in women?
Ans : Nature protects women till the age of 45.

Qn: How can one keep the heart in a good condition?
Ans : Eat a healthy diet, avoid junk food, exercise everyday, do not smoke and, go for health checkup s if you are past the age of 30 ( once in six months recommended) ....

Polling for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections is going on 124 constituencies spread over 24 States and Union Territories. PLEASE Dun't Spare your valuable vote, please Vote - Do it for yourself- for your own needs

Polling for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections is going on 124 constituencies spread over 24 States and Union Territories. PLEASE Dun't Spare your valuable vote, please Vote - Do it for yourself- for your own needs

TRY TO CLICK ®ISTER GET TRESURE

TRY TO CLICK & register and get

SCRIPS WEIGHTAGE &BETA VALUES

LIST OF COMPANIES HAVING MARKET CAP LOWER THAN THE CASH ON BOOKS & LIC PORTFOLIO TOP 40 STOCKS

YOU CAN SAVE INDIAN ECONOMY….

U CAN MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE

TO THE

INDIAN

ECONOMY

BY FOLLOWING

FEW SIMPLE STEPS.

Please spare a couple of minutes here

........for the sake of India

... our country..

I got this article from one of my friend,

but it's true,

I can see this from day to day life,

Small example,
Before 5 months

1 CAN $ = IND Rs 32

(CANADIAN DOLLAR)
After 5 months

Now it is 1 CAN $ = IND Rs 37

Do you think Canadian Economy is booming?

No, but Indian Economy is Going Down.

Our Economy is in u'r hands

INDIAN economy is in a crisis.

Our country like many other ASIAN

countries is undergoing a severe economic crunch.

Many INDIAN industries are closing down.

The INDIAN economy is in a crisis

and if we do not take proper steps to control those,

we will be in a critical situation.

More than 30000 crore rupees of foreign exchange

are being siphoned

out of our country

on products such as

cosmetics,

snacks,

tea,

beverages...etc

which are grown,

produced and consumed here .

A cold drink that costs

only 70 / 80 paisa

to produce is sold

for NINE rupees,

and a major chunk

of profits

from these are sent abroad.

This is a serious drain on INDIAN economy.

"COCA COLA "

and

" SPRITE"

belong

to the same multinational company,

"COCA COLA"?

Coke advertisements says

' JO CHAHO HOJAYE,

COCACOLA ENJOY'

(Whatever the hell, let it happen, you drink coke)

What can you do?

You can consider some of the better

alternatives to aerated drinks.
You can drink

LEMON JUICE,

FRESH FRUIT JUICES,

CHILLED LASSI

(SWEET OR SOUR),

BUTTER MILK,

COCONUT WATER,

JALJEERA,

ENERJEE,

MASALA MILK..........

Everyone deserves a healthy drink, including you!
Over and above all this,

economic sanctions have been imposed on us.

We have nothing against Multinational companies,

but to protect our own interests

we request everybody to use

INDIAN products only for next two years.

With the rise in petrol prices,

if we do not do this,

the rupee will devalue further and

we will end up paying much more for

the same products in the near future.

What you can do about it?

1. Buy only products manufactured by

WHOLLY INDIAN COMPANIES.


2. ENROLL as many people as possible for this cause.



Each individual should become a leader for this awareness.

This is the only way to save our country
from severe economic crisis.

You don't need to give-up your lifestyle.

You just need to choose an alternate product.

All categories of products are available from

WHOLLY INDIAN COMPANIES.

LIST OF PRODUCTS

BATHING SOAP:

USE -

CINTHOL

&

OTHER GODREJ BRANDS,

SANTOOR,

WIPRO SHIKAKAI,

MYSORE SANDAL,

MARGO,

NEEM,

EVITA,

MEDIMIX,

GANGA ,

NIRMA BATH & CHANDRIKA

INSTEAD OF -

LUX,

LIFEBOY,

REXONA,

LIRIL,

DOVE,

PEARS,

HAMAM,

LESANCY,

CAMAY,

PALMOLIVE

TOOTH PASTE:

USE -

NEEM,

BABOOL,

PROMISE,

VICO VAJRADANTI,

PRUDENT,

DABUR PRODUCTS,

MISWAK

INSTEAD OF -

COLGATE,

CLOSE UP,

PEPSODENT,

CIBACA,

FORHANS,

MENTADENT.

TOOTH BRUSH: USE -

PRUDENT, AJANTA , PROMISE

INSTEAD OF -

COLGATE, CLOSE UP,

PEPSODENT, FORHANS, ORAL-B

SHAVING CREAM: USE - GODREJ, EMANI

INSTEAD OF - PALMOLIVE, OLD SPICE, GILLETE

BLADE: USE -

SUPERMAX, TOPAZ,

LAZER, ASHOKA

INSTEAD OF -

SEVEN-O -CLOCK, 365, GILLETTE

TALCUM POWDER: USE

- SANTOOR, GOKUL,

CINTHOL,

WIPRO BABY POWDER,

BOROPLUS

INSTEAD OF -

PONDS, OLD SPICE,

JOHNSON BABY POWDER,

SHOWER TO SHOWER

MILK POWDER: USE -

INDIANA, AMUL, AMULYA

INSTEAD OF -

ANIKSPRAY, MILKANA,

EVERYDAY MILK, MILKMAID.

SHAMPOO: USE -

LAKME, NIRMA, VELVET



INSTEAD OF -

HALO, ALL CLEAR,

NYLE, SUNSILK,

HEAD AND SHOULDERS,

PANTENE

MOBILE CONNECTIONS USE -

RELIANCE , BSNL, AIRTEL



INSTEAD OF - VODAFONE

Every INDIAN product you buy makes a big difference.

It saves INDIA .

Let us take a firm decision today.

BUY INDIAN TO BE INDIAN

we are not against of foreign products.

WE ARE NOT ANTI-MULTINATIONAL.

WE ARE TRYING TO SAVE OUR NATION.

EVERY DAY IS A STRUGGLE FOR A REAL FREEDOM.

WE ACHIEVED OUR INDEPENDENCE

AFTER LOSING MANY LIVES.

THEY DIED PAINFULLY TO ENSURE

THAT WE LIVE PEACEFULLY.

THE CURRENT TREND IS VERY THREATENING.

MULTINATIONALS CALL IT GLOBALISATION

OF INDIAN ECONOMY.

FOR INDIANS LIKE YOU AND

ME IT IS RECOLONISATION OF INDIA ...

THE COLONIST'S LEFT INDIA THEN.

BUT THIS TIME THEY WILL MAKE SURE

THEY DON'T MAKE ANY MISTAKES.

WHO WOULD LIKE TO LET A

" GOOSE THAT LAYS GOLDEN EGGS"

SLIP AWAY.

PLEASE REMEMBER:

POLITICAL FREEDOM IS USELESS

WITHOUT ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE .

RUSSIA , S.KOREA , MEXICO .........

THE LIST IS VERY LONG!!




LET US LEARN FROM THEIR EXPERIENCE
AND FROM OUR HISTORY.

LET US DO THE DUTY OF EVERY TRUE INDIAN.

FINALLY:

IT'S OBVIOUS THAT U CAN'T

GIVE UP ALL OF THE ITEMS

MENTIONED ABOVE,

SO GIVE UP ATLEAST

ONE ITEM

TO

FOR THE SAKE OF

OUR COUNTRY.










We would be sending useless forwards to our friends daily.
Instead please forward this mail to all your friends to create awareness.

"LITTLE DROPS MAKE A GREAT OCEAN ."



Jai Hind...............

Citigroup’s holding in India

Citigroup’s holding in India’s listed companies (Above 5% of equity).
HDFC 11.7%,
Educomp 5.5%,
KS Oils 12.4%,
Polaris 22.7%,
Bombay Rayon 6.9,
Rain Commodities 8.4%,
Himadri Chem 14.9%,
JBF Ind 21%,
Opto Circuits 6.5%,
Voltamp 6.6%,
Karuturi 6.9%,
Tata Coffee 5.9%,
Spentex 26.9%,
Donear 6.3%,
Energy Dev 6%,
Fedders Lloyd 9.5%,
McMillan 6.8%,
Prajay Engineers 5.4%,
Ansal Hsg 5%,
Zenith Computers 9.3%,
Kinetic Motors 7.1%,
Elder Pharma 9.2%,
BL Kashyap 6%,
S Kumar 5.5%,
Sadbhav Engg 7.4%,
Aptech 5.1%,
Ganesh Housing 5.3%,
India Infoline 6.3%
Tanla Solutions 8.8%.

source-Nifty Trade

Make Your Own Judgment, Don't Panic

As forwarded by a financial consultant.

Recession is coming... make your own judgment, don't panic! Do what is wise.

The recession looks very eminent. It is really time to take pro active steps to avoid a painful time in the next two years which is how long the recession is expected to last.

Suggestions:

1. Don't take any loans; buy homes, properties with loans, or even cash. Keep as much cash as possible.

2. Pay off as much of personal loans, private loans, as debt collection will be hastened.

3. Sell any stocks you can even at lower prices.

4. Take money off from Trust Funds.

5. Don't believe in huge sales forecast from customers, be extremely prudent, lowest inventories, reduce liabilities.

6. Don't invest in new capital.

7. If you are selling homes/ properties/ cars, do it now, when you can get good prices, they are going to fall.

8. Don't invest in new business proposals.

9. Cancel holiday plans using credit cards.

10. Don't change jobs, as companies will retrench based on 'last in first out '.

Stay cool, wait, and if you took all of the above actions and more, you probably will be better off then many. This is not a rumor.

Bear Stearns is the first of many banking and financial institutions that will start falling in the not too future. If Bear Stearns can fall, so can JP Morgan, Citibank, HSBC, and the whole world. US economy falls, the rest will crumble.

India and all those self economies will be the most protected, but not gullible.

Europe may be a little stronger, but not China, another giant place!
Malaysia will see significant impact.


Be alert and pass this to your friends!!!

Remember these 9 points as we navigate the financial crisis

What To Do Now

Remember these 9 points as we navigate the financial crisis says Debashis Basu

Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, the richest man in the world, says that it is time to buy stocks now. Another great value investor, Jeremy Grantham (of Grantham, Mayo and Van Otterloo), who astutely side-stepped the dotcom bubble, says that things will get much worse. Both are wily investors with diametrically opposite views. Ace trader and investor, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, was bullish when the Sensex was well above 12,000 and has turned out to be wrong. He now tells you self-deprecatingly that his opinions should be taken with a pinch of salt. If he can be so wrong, ordinary investors can be excused for feeling totally lost and confused.
Investors are suffering from a classic dilemma. There is no denying that stocks have gotten very cheap suddenly. But who can say they won’t get cheaper still? Many investment gurus foresee economies all over the world remaining sluggish for years together. India cannot buck the global trend. According to some pundits, we are in a dark tunnel and, since we see no light at the other end, we don’t even know whether we are halfway through it. Meanwhile, the market is regularly swooning 8% a day! There is no end to bad news. Nobody can confidently claim that there would be no more pain – from another failed US bank or near-bankruptcy of some real-estate company back home. Stock prices are so severely battered that now may be a time to hope for a turnaround. But for how many is this a time of conviction? What should be your investment approach in these uncertain times? Here are 9 points to remember as we navigate through the threat of a financial apocalypse.

1. Focus on income, not capital gains
The market, economy and the financial sector have all shifted gear. Risk-taking and capital gains are out and fixed income is in. Put a substantial amount of money into fixed-income instruments. This really means fixed deposits of banks – and only of the well-capitalised banks, certainly not cooperative banks. Companies are strapped for cash and are coming out with fixed deposit schemes. Be wary of them. The worst ones will offer you the highest rates. The best ones are offering rates as good as those offered by banks. So, there is no additional attraction there. Avoid income funds.

During the October meltdown, even liquid funds were stressed. Fixed maturity plans, which we have consistently asked you to avoid because of the unspecified nature of the risk, have given heart attacks to investors because of their lack of transparency and diminishing quality of paper. While on the issue of income, an important form of income pops up in a bear market. It is called dividend yield. Hundreds of companies today are sporting high dividend yields -- of 8% and above. Since dividends are tax-free, this can mean a substantial difference in income. Of course, the danger is that companies can cut dividends and the share price can drop further. Read our companion piece on dividend yields on page 38.

2. There is value - and there are value traps
Investing is about buying at the right price, not taking a blind risk and hoping that the worst is over, after listening to TV pundits. To buy at the right price, you have to spend some time on understanding value. There is real value and there is perceived value. The most popular ideas of value are based on the shorthand of price to earnings ratio (PE). The danger lies in relying on fixed relationships between price and earnings. There is nothing sacrosanct about a fixed PE number, especially when applied to individual stocks. Stocks can get beaten down in price, even though nothing is fundamentally wrong with them. And they can become available at a very low price to book value (an important measure of value) – and remain there for a very long time. In investment parlance, it is called a value trap. Most shockingly, for many people, companies can report much higher earnings and yet their stock price can collapse. Here is an example. For the September quarter, Tata Steel’s net profit was 50% higher than that of the September quarter last year. Over the June quarter, the net profit was up 22%. Yet, between mid-July and mid-October, the stock went down by 74%.

3. A bear market ‘overcorrects’ just as a bull market ‘overshoots’
John Maynard Keynes, the famous British economist, had said: “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” That was a point about bull market overvaluation. The same applies to bear markets, when investors can overreact to the downside. This is due to what behavioural finance experts call the ‘recency’ effect. Just as investors overreact to good news and under-react to bad news in a bull market, they do just the opposite when the market has crashed and a bear market has set in. Experience of the recent past dominates the mind and it takes a lot of time to change that perception. In the US, markets have gone from high valuations to low valuations and back to high over very long bull and bear market cycles lasting anywhere from 13-20 years. The average has been 17 years. Indian cycles have been shorter. We had bull markets in 1992, 1994, 1999 and then a big one for five years between 2003 and 2008. Even within this, the Sensex was significantly down between the peak of 1992 (4,546) and the trough of 2003 (2,904). For 11 years, the best of Indian companies gave you no returns.

4. Don’t confuse sharp countertrend rallies for a new bull market
A bear market does not mean a continuous decline in prices. It is punctuated by sharp rallies. Between 1992 and 2003, there were plenty of sharp rallies of hope. The point is not to get sucked into these rallies believing that the worst is over and to keep your head cool. If you are a nimble trader, this will be a golden period for you, provided you work with strict stop-losses. For most others, however, capital preservation is the paramount need now. Don’t throw good money after bad. Ignore your brokers’ urgent pitch and the bullish assessment of the experts on TV. Who says you have to buy today? There is no hurry. Between 1974 and 1982, US companies consistently reported higher earnings but the market hardly moved. A repeated retest of recent lows would be perfectly normal. In the bear market of 2000-01, there have been repeated rallies of 15% or more.

5. Ignore false prophets, especially those on TV
The so-called experts, research analysts, fund managers and financial advisers – the market soothsayers – have called a bottom many times during this collapse. The usual suspects are all on TV. Watch out for the supposedly cerebral ones. Consider Ajit Dayal who runs a mutual fund company called Quantum. Dayal writes an e-letter called The Honest Truth where, apart from plugging his own funds including a gold fund, he routinely runs down every other fund manager, hedge funds, regulators and most Indian companies. While he was busy doing that, he was blind to the coming market tsunami, despite frequent trips between the US and India. At the beginning of the year, when the Sensex was above 20,000, he had suggested that you put 80% in equities, 15% in gold and 5% in liquid funds. He ‘felt‘ that the Sensex would not go below 15,000 (no basis for this feeling) but, by late October, the index was hitting 7,700. Writing in September, he was blissfully unaware of what the bankruptcy of Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers and the takeover of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG would mean for the world financial system! He wrote, “Announcements of losses of hundreds of millions of dollars and rescue packages of tens of billions of dollars seem like daily occurrences. But should you be worried? ... Do you work for any of these genius companies? Or did you get a big salary or bonus for doing very little except some financial engineering while you were employed with these genius financial companies? If the response to any of these questions is ‘Yes’ then you need to be worried… If you answered ‘no’ to both the above, you are in good shape.” That was a fine piece of soothsaying. And wrong. Dayal now says stocks are cheap: “But, what worries me is the overall financial mess we are in. ‘We’ means anyone in the world. Even in economically-sheltered India.”

If financial experts can be so wrong, the finance minister, the chiefs of SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) and RBI (Reserve Bank of India), who simply don’t know enough about the markets, can hardly be expected to be right. The experts are at least managing money and, if they get it wrong on more occasions than their peers, investors would hopefully start ignoring them. But wrong-headed policy prescriptions come easier to officials and politicians because they do not pay a price for being wrong.

6. Beware of false investment beliefs
False prophets propagate false beliefs, which MoneyLIFE routinely identifies and exposes. A popular one is that GDP growth will automatically mean higher stock prices. It is wrong, as evident from the Indian market movement between 1992 and 2003. What your stock does for you depends on what you paid for it and its earnings growth, not what the economy does. Another false belief is replacement cost or book value. Blue-chip companies like Tata Motors and Hindalco have built great assets. It will be very difficult and costly to build another Tata Steel or Reliance Communications. So what? There is no guarantee that stock prices of good companies must go up. Here is one more example. Tata Motors made Indians very proud. It launched a new passenger car platform and became a force to reckon with in the world. Nano will be another feather in its cap. The long-term shareholders of Tata Motors, however, would be mourning now. When you look for stocks, in the current environment, look for cheap valuations of companies that are throwing off a lot of cash, have solid balance sheets, no debt (at least no short-term debt) and have excellent competitive positions. Stocks like Bharti and Nestle.

7. Take promoters’ views with a pinch of salt
Businessmen, like fund managers, are always overoptimistic. They ought to anticipate the drastic changes in the business scenario much earlier than others because they are insiders. But they often live in denial. Therefore, what they say to the media is not of great value. Indeed, even if they see the reality, they may act quite differently. Here is an example. As far back as in February 2007, Sanjay Chandra, managing director of Unitech, warned about the absurd valuations in smaller towns. “It doesn’t make sense to pay Rs450 crore for a hotel site in Dwarka. You can make a Ritz Carlton in Singapore for the amount,” Chandra told a business paper. But what Unitech actually did was no different. It continued to invest rather than pull back from an overheated market. Like fund managers, businessmen too find it hard to keep a cool head. Worse, many of them seem to think that they understand the stock valuation or at least what ought to be the right value of their scrips. This presumptuousness is reflected in their frequent opinion about stock prices, and actions, such as buyback of shares. DLF is the industry leader in realty. It is supposed to understand real estate cycles better than others by keeping a close tab on demand and supply of property, the liquidity situation and the speculative froth. However, it failed to see any of these issues. Or like Chandra of Unitech, it saw them but remained captive to its own grand plans even as smart stock investors sensed that the best days of real estate are over and unlikely to return for many years. All real estate stocks crashed. The writing on the wall was clear. And what did DLF do? Instead of conserving cash in difficult times, the management announced a share buyback – that too when the promoters’ holding was already at 88.16%! The stock collapsed even further. This breathtaking folly reflects not just poor business judgement in throwing good money after a bad idea but the amazing vanity of promoters who want to see stocks prices and their personal net worth remain at a certain level.

8. Ethics will be at a premium
Don’t assume that institutions and counterparties will behave the same way as in normal times. The Sensex has crashed by 65% in nine months without any major defaults and bankruptcies. These may still appear, as asset values remain depressed and postponed liabilities come to surface. In a stressed situation, even the best possible names, especially in the financial market, will change colours to short-change you.

9. Look out for distressed real estate
Making capital gains, especially in India, is all about buying and selling assets at the right time and price. And, for various reasons we are unlikely to see a decade-long rise in price of assets as had happened in the US. Timing is more important in real estate than in stocks because, unlike stocks, real estate is more illiquid. Interestingly, while real estate stocks have collapsed, physical real estate is still expensive. That market moves slowly with buyers hoping that prices will bounce back. But, with a severe slowdown in economic activity, it is only a matter of time before you get residential or commercial real estate at distressed prices all over in India, which you can buy and then rent out. Buying real estate at the right price and letting someone else pay down the loan is a proven formula for many millionaires from Japan to the US. It may be an opportunity soon. The economic news will remain bad for another year or more, depending on the outcome of the general elections. So, forget the wild bull market we have seen. Play defensive: preserve capital, keep a cool head and look for cheap assets buying them over time, not at one go. Investors who come out unscathed in this market will be financially sound to make big money when the time is right again.

You Knew What's Coming
For those who read the signals, the warnings were all there, in the pages of MoneyLIFE

In the less than three years that MoneyLIFE has been around, India’s economy and stock market have been on a roller-coaster ride. The economy was powering ahead backed by a lot of speculative inflows from abroad. We saw a huge meltdown in June 2006, a powerful rally thereafter, a sideways market in the first half of 2007 and a humungous rally between September 2007 and January 2008. But the music stopped in January 2008. What followed was a 65% collapse in the Sensex over nine months and 90% crash in some highflying stocks in the real-estate sector. Were the warning signals visible? Yes, they were. In early 2007, we wrote about the real estate bubble; we were the first to put the bear on our cover in February 2008; we also exposed several loopholes in market regulation and mis-selling of funds and insurance products. Here is a short rundown of what we reported, and when.

Real Estate
Our cover story of 15 March 2007 titled “Meltdown” warned that that the real estate sector was already overvalued. We started by asking whether anybody knows enough about the realty sector to make a sound assessment: “The savings and investment of millions of Indians are at stake. Billions of dollars of bets by foreigners are riding on it. Thousands of crores of bank lending involving buyers and sellers of property are at stake. A large segment of the market-cap created out of nowhere is at risk. Plus, huge linkages with other industries such as cement, building materials, steel, etc, are about to weaken. And yet, nobody seems to know what is happening and what is going to happen to the Indian real estate sector.”

We pointed out that “Broker reports are breathless in their enthusiasm for the immense possibilities of growth in the real estate sector, no matter that real estate companies are the hardest to value and look overvalued by many conventional parameters.” Interestingly, Sanjay Chandra of Unitech had said even then that “it doesn’t make sense to pay Rs450 crore for a hotel site in Dwarka, you can make a Ritz Carlton in Singapore for that amount.” In 2006, RBI had already increased the risk weightage of loans to real estate by changing the provisioning requirement from 0.4% to 1% for bank loans to commercial real estate and housing loans beyond Rs20 lakh. Seven months later, with more money driving prices even higher, RBI was forced to restrain banks even more. It again increased the provisioning requirement for commercial real estate to 2%. Banks were also asked not to give loans in excess of Rs20 lakh to NRE and FCNR (B) deposits. Our article pointed out that the valuation of realty stocks made no sense at all. For example, Anant Raj Industries had a cash flow of just Rs43 crore and a PE of 460. We warned: “If liquid, listed stocks with track records and backed by a lot of public information can suddenly swoon 30%-50%, what can happen to an incredibly illiquid investment like real estate, which is new to investors, opaque, difficult to value and fraught with dubious practices?” Then again on 26 April 2007, we quoted an Enam Securities report which said: “The biggest risk is that of the reality of demand. Developers are planning to build 10 to 15 times their total development area since inception.” We had said, “But how far the stock will be saleable is anybody’s guess.” On 28 February 2008, we quoted Pranay Vakil of Knight Frank, one of the saner voices in the realty business, as saying: “Some real estate prices are unusual, unsustainable and unreasonable.” He told us that too much money is chasing very few land banks… no calculation can justify the kind of premium being paid for the land. He said: “Between January last year and this year, volumes in some pockets are down by 60%. So a developer, who was earlier selling seven to eight flats a week, is today selling a maximum of three to four flats a week. I know of a developer who is selling just one flat a week.” Finally, on 28 April 2008, we did another cover story titled “Cracked” with the latest picture of the real estate slowdown which has subsequently turned into a big bust.

Malls/Retail
We have consistently been sceptical about the huge enthusiasm regarding malls and the retailing sector. We highlighted Pranay Vakil’s math that “Some 150 malls will come up in the next one year – one almost every alternate day. Will there be an oversupply of malls? Yes. There are 15 different types of malls – ranging from FEC (family entertainment centres) to discount-store malls. The problem today is that anyone who has a good plot of land facing the main road says ‘Mall laga do’. There will be failures and, eventually, some may shut down.” We also brought you an interview with real estate fund manager Ved Prakash Arya who said, “Many of these developers have built malls but they don’t understand the business. They are building the malls to sell them; worldwide, malls are not made to be sold. Malls are developed with a market segment in mind – whether it is the merchandise mix or the kind of customers – that decides the success and failure of malls. Another thing in India is that malls are sold even before they are built; nobody pays attention to the merchandise mix, retail dynamics, the categories of stores, etc. Many of the malls, which are ill-conceived… will become a distressed property.” What contributed to the real estate boom and bust was not just poor business judgement but also lack of regulation. The government ought to have set up a real estate regulator. It failed to do so.

Stocks
On 14 February 2008, we put the bear on our cover. We were the first publication to do so. We titled the cover story as “Only sniffing…”. We said: “We are neither predicting a recession nor a bear market for India at this time. Buying stocks after a crash – an idea popularised by the media and brokers – may not be a great idea any more. They are not the best forecasters. Fund managers too have a mandate to remain invested at all times. They hardly have any interest in speaking their mind, even if they are actually bearish. There is a theory doing the rounds that if the US economy is in a recession, India will get more outsourcing work. As a corollary to the same logic, there is a notion that if the US markets are down, American savings will come into India. These are dangerous ideas. They are totally untested. It is time to be cautious. The bear is sniffing all around the world. The US economy has a lot of work to do to get out of its mess. Until it does that, stocks would give poor returns globally.” We now know the havoc the US situation has wreaked on the rest of the world.

source-http://moneylife.in/CMS.nsf/AL3?openform&Stocks~Cover%20Story~What%20To%20Do%20Now

We also warned that Indian fund managers and brokers have nothing but bullishness on their minds so you should be wary of their opinions. “Although their enthusiasm is somewhat dented by the recent crash, they are coming in a procession on television asking you to go out and buy stocks because they are cheap on the basis of 2009 earnings expectations. A US slowdown will lead to a sharp contraction in earnings everywhere which is not factored into Indian stock prices today. Once a slowdown scenario sets in, you will see aggressive changes to forecasts and a reduction of P/E through serious price declines.” Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened. Earnings forecasts are being rapidly ratcheted down.

On April 10th, we again put the bear on the cover calling it a growl not a sniff anymore. We advised: “Play safe with stocks, avoid ‘expert’ opinion and be ready to change your opinion quickly. Our take on the market was: “Software companies have slowed down their hiring. BPO companies are in a panic. Footfalls are not enough for malls to make money. There are no takers for expensive real estate. Company managements have been caught speculating in forex and commodity markets and borrowing their own shares to speculate. The stock market is down by 30%. A majority of investors wants to be bullish but is actually confused. A tiny minority is actually bearish. Is the bull run over? We see five solid reasons to be bearish.”

The market was in a denial mode. It was clutching at the fashionable decoupling theory. We repeatedly warned against it. In our 14 February 2008 issue, we wrote: “The assumption behind the decoupling theory is that the world cannot do us in. We will run on our own steam. This is extraordinarily delusional. In our five years of prosperity, there has hardly been any step to reduce friction and costs of doing business. We have forgotten that the Indian political-bureaucratic nexus, especially at the state level, is too self-serving to create a model of sustainable economic growth, independent of the rest of the world. The decoupling theory assumes that we have an economic growth formula, when there is none. It downplays the extraordinary confluence of lucky factors that helped create this prosperity: globalisation (that tilts the balance of trade in favour of poor countries leading to massive transfer of wealth), low interest rates caused by a huge flow of portfolio money and the historical advantage of being an English-speaking country. None of these is our planned creation. Financially, of course, we are coupled closely with the world. Indeed, that is the main cause for this market volatility. If the Sensex rose from 9,000 in four years (3,000 to 12,000) but leapt 7,000 points (13,000 to 20,000) in two months, it was entirely due to rate cuts in the US and a flood of speculative money flowing into India. And if the market collapsed by 30% in just a few days, that was also due to pervasive global gloom that affected us. Where is the decoupling in all this?”

Finally, while several experts were calling the market bottom through the carnage, we warned on 14th August: “At every stage of a bear market, there will be rallying cries from market players. When you have just come out of a six-month decline, after a monster bull market that lasted almost five years, every rally looks like the restart of a new bull phase. Unfortunately, in some bear markets, especially those caused by a combination of political and economic problems, stocks can stagnate and can keep grinding down over a prolonged period… Bear markets don’t end so quickly and not in a V-shaped rally.” The bear assault continues.

IPO
One significant aspect of the collapse in stock prices is that every IPO of the last two years is quoting below its offer price. MoneyLIFE has been constantly campaigning against the poor quality of IPOs and the blasé attitude of the market regulator about IPO disclosure and pricing. In the 30 August 2007 issue, we underlined the importance of IPO grading, to help investors put their money in companies with sound fundamentals, even if they were overpriced. We had also warned about how institutional investors were blowing the IPO bubble by sending misleading price signals to retail investors. On 27 March 2008, we wrote about how “different vested interests came together to lure investors to buy the horribly expensive offering of Reliance Power IPO.” We wrote about how “bankers and investment bankers were competing with each other to show Anil Ambani their ability to garner the highest amount of subscriptions.” Reliance Power was the turning point for the market – the one issue that encompassed every possible excess and greed, including the complicity of SEBI. We had pointed out how SEBI had tweaked the rules to permit infrastructure companies to raise money without tying up their finances. On 31 January 2008, we pointed out how CRISIL went out of its way to give a 4/5 rating to the Reliance Power IPO – despite the huge loopholes that everyone could see.

We pointed out the controversial valuation of DLF’s land bank. SEBI chose to turn a blind eye and clear its prospectus. Recently, SEBI allowed the company to hike the promoters’ holding through a buyback whose sole purpose seemed to be to shore up its stock price. After the Sensex had crashed below 10,000, KP Singh of DLF was on television saying that interest rates should be cut so that more people can avail of mortgages.

Other Facts and Warnings
Apart from these warning signals, MoneyLIFE also pointed out – as far back as 29 March 2007 – that bank fixed deposits are better than fixed maturity plans (FMPs) of mutual funds. This was on the simple, commonsensical assessment of risk in FMPs versus very low risk for bank FDs. The risk in FMPs has leapt up from nowhere. We have rarely come across a frank assessment of unit-linked insurance plans. These are bad for you, we pointed out in our very second issue (7 March 2006). Then in our 19 June 2008 issue, we did a threadbare expose of ULIPs and told you how these can destroy you financially because the terms are scandalously loaded in favour of the agents and the insurance companies. Tens of thousands of ULIP-holders are now waking up to this sad and rude reality.

We exposed many loopholes in stock and fund regulations. Today, the media is rife with details of possible short-selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs). However, many people forget that SEBI had announced a policy of permitting mutual funds to short-sell, in addition to stock lending and borrowing, which we criticised in our 17 January 2008 issue. The fund industry has not bothered to take up the generous opportunity offered by SEBI, while FIIs are making money by borrowing stock and shorting it. Or maybe mutual funds were also shorting some stocks and SEBI is still to find out. The poor quality of disclosures in mutual fund prospectuses, the me-too funds, the abuse of alluring investors with “at par” price of units at Rs10, the shamefully large tracking error in index funds and many other mutual fund issues have been repeatedly highlighted in various MoneyLIFE issues. We were also the first to point to the abuse of the ‘power of attorney’ that brokers get you to sign and how arbitration is usually rigged against the investors. Meanwhile, opaque participatory notes, poor choice of scrips, especially those for the derivatives segment and many other issues continue to affect investors’ interests.

The Yield Factor
These 15 stocks combine low price and high dividend of as much as 26%! Shailendra Lotlikar spots an opportunity for the dividend-minded stock investor

The bears have their claws firmly in the market. Even as we were writing this piece, the Sensex and the Nifty closed with the worst ever percentage decline on an intra-day basis, losing over 1,000 and 300 points, respectively, in a single trading session. Talk of bottom fishing has given way to panic selling. At such times, one of the key aspects of equity investments to focus on is dividends. Talking about dividends is decidedly old-fashioned. Stocks are usually bought for capital appreciation, not for the income they yield once (or a few times) a year. Investors looking for income buy bonds, not stocks. However, if you set dividends against the stock price, up leaps an interesting metric, dividend yield, which is an important feature in the attractiveness of a stock.

Dividend yield reflects the percentage of dividend a scrip offers relative to its share price. If the market price of a company’s scrip is Rs100 and it pays a dividend of Rs5, the dividend yield is 5%. The higher the yield, the more attractive the scrip. Put another way, the lower the market price, the higher the dividend yield. When stock prices crash, dividend yields shoot up, providing an attractive buying opportunity, which we are witnessing currently. After the recent crash, we decided to search for high dividend yielding stocks, based on the dividend they had declared in the last financial year and their current market price.

Here is a list of companies, selected from among the 1,278 stocks included in our database. Many stocks have been thrashed so severely that they appear attractively cheap in terms of their dividend yield. Today, it is easy to find dividend yields of 10%+. And dividend income, mind you, is tax-free in your hands. There is no fixed-income instrument that offers 10% tax-free income. Of course, fixed income should not be strictly compared to dividend because of the risk of capital loss in shares and also the fact that companies may declare lower dividends when the profitability is lower. But high dividend yields indicate how cheap the market has become on a historical basis.

The company that tops our dividend yield list is JK Paper. At its current market price, the stock offers an amazing dividend yield of 19%. It is rarely that you see decent-sized companies with dividend yields this large. Its fundamental performance too is very good. Over the past nine quarters, it has been reporting operating profits consistently. Sales had risen at an average 23% over the past five quarters while operating profit was up 5% during the same period. JK Paper’s operating margins averaged a healthy 17% and the stock looks remarkably cheap on our yardsticks of valuation. Currently trading at Rs18 (23 October 2008), its market-cap is only a fraction (0.17 times) of the five-quarter average sales (annualised) and just one time its operating profit. JK operates two plants with an annual capacity to manufacture 180,000 tonnes of paper and is among India’s leading paper manufacturers. It is the largest producer of branded paper; JK Copier, JK Excel Bond, JK Bond enjoy a high recall among consumers. It also has a sizeable export footprint for high-value branded pr

oducts in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, SAARC region and various African countries. Another significantly strong company in terms of its dividend yield is DISA India, the Indian arm of a multinational company. DISA supplies a complete range of ferrous and aluminium castings production machines for the foundry industry together with equipment for metal surface finishing. It offers 15% yield to investors at the current market price and the stock looks fairly valued. At its current price of Rs1,291 (23 October 2008), its market-cap discounts its five-quarter average sales (annualised) by 1.99 times and its operating profit by 8.26 times. What makes DISA particularly attractive is its fundamental strength. Thanks to the recent manufacturing boom, its sales have been growing at an average 38% while operating profit was up 39% over the past five quarters. The company has a remarkably strong operating margin which averaged 24%.

Its sales have been growing by an average 30% over the past five quarters while operating profit was up by a whopping 82% over the same period. However, the operating margin is at just about 8%. Kirloskar Pneumatic Co (KPCL) is a leading name in compressed air, air conditioning & refrigeration and hydraulic power transmission. KPCL’s stock price has fallen so much that the dividend yield is an attractive 14%. Does buying into the stock at current levels make sense? The stock currently trades at Rs180 and its market-cap is 0.61 times its five-quarter average sales (annualised) and 6.85 times its operating profit. That is cheap but the problem with a company in the capital-goods segment like KPCL is that the past is certainly no guide to the future. Its earnings can decline quite dramatically. Rising crude prices may be a deterrent for most of the industry but Varun Shipping Co has been thriving by transporting crude, LPG and petroleum products. It claims to offer comprehensive shipping solutions to its customers across the entire hydrocarbon product chain with its diversified fleet of 20 vessels. The company also provides services in the offshore support sector for which it has developed a diversified and well-established base of customers including Indian public sector undertakings and international hirers. The stock is a safe bet for investors looking for a high dividend yield – a good 12% – based on the current market price. Fundamentally, it has been doing quite well; revenues have risen by an average 23% over the past five quarters while operating profit was up 25% over the same period. Operating margin is high. The average over the past five years was 56%. Currently trading at Rs48 (23 October 2008), its market-cap discounts its five-quarter average sales (annualised) by 0.81 times and its operating profit by 1.45 times. It is a combination of high margins, good growth and cheap valuation in addition to high yields.

The next company on our list of high dividend-yielding companies is Wim Plast which manufactures a range of insulated plastic thermoware for the consumer market, under the Cello brand name. The company offers a wide range of plastic storage solutions for households with market spanning across the globe. The stock offers a dividend yield of 13%. Fundamentally, the company has been doing very well. Its revenues have been rising by an average 35% over the past five quarters while its operating profit was up 37% during the same period. Rising input costs have hit its operating margins which, nevertheless, averaged 10% over the past five quarters. With polymer prices declining, margins should improve. Currently trading at Rs40, its market-cap discounts its five-quarter average sales (annualised) by 0.33 times and its operating profit by just 3.10 times.

Shri Dinesh Mills has not been having a very good time. Its sales have been rising by an average of just 3% over the past five quarters while operating profits were down 15% over the same period. However, after a string of bad quarters, it may be looking up. It ended the June quarter (its September quarter results are yet to be declared) with a 27% rise in operating profit. Its margins remain strong; they averaged 20% over the past five quarters. The stock price has fallen so much that the dividend yield is 14%. Shri Dinesh is a composite textile mill which mainly manufacturers worsted fabrics and industrial textiles. The stock was quoting at Rs700 (23 October 2008) at which price the market-cap is 0.53 times its five-quarter average sales (annualised) and 2.70 times its operating profit. Two other companies which have been consistently profitable at the operating level and offer a high dividend-yield are Amrutanjan Health Care and Prism Cement. Amrutanjan offers a dividend yield of 18%, while that of Prism Cement is 12%. Amrutanjan is best known for its pain-relieving balm but has several other healthcare products in its portfolio such as rubs, syrups, inhalers and gels for cough and cold, water-based insect repellent sprays, skin creams, corn caps and olive oil. Its sales have been growing at an average 4% over the past five quarters but operating profitability has been a problem. Its margins averaged 12% over the past five quarters. The stock currently trades at Rs260 (23 October 2008) at which its market-cap is 1.21 times its five-quarter average sales (annualised) and 9.23 times its operating profit.

The performance of cement companies has started dipping due to overcapacity and falling demand which is reflected in the performance of Prism Cement. Its sales have been rising by an average 9% over the past five quarters but operating profit was down 4% over the same period. Of course, the operating margin was high – 34% – over the past five quarters. Is this stock cheap? Currently trading at Rs16 (23 October 2008), its market-cap is 0.61 times its five-quarter average sales (annualised) and 1.73 times its operating profit. Can the price go down further, having fallen from a high of Rs79? We doubt.

All the eight companies discussed so far have been reporting profits at the operational level, quarter after quarter, and now offer a high dividend yield, since stock prices have declined steeply. Here is another set of companies which are not so strong at the operational level; nevertheless, they offer a high dividend yield. The first among the lot, and by far the best in terms of yield, is Bright Brothers. At the current market price, it provides the highest dividend yield among the list of stocks that we track, an extraordinary 26%. The company manufactures plastic components operating three divisions catering to the automotive sector, consumer durables and branded products with an impressive client list. The stock currently trades at Rs38 (23 October 2008).

Two companies which provide a dividend yield of 16% at the current market price are Monsanto India and Rane (Madras). Monsanto is a leading producer of seeds for large-acreage crops like corn, cotton and oilseeds as well as small-acreage crops like vegetables. The company also produces leading ‘in-the-seed trait technologies’ for farmers that are aimed at improving yield and reducing costs. Additionally, the company manufactures herbicides including the world’s best-selling herbicide under the brand name Roundup.

The March quarter has not been particularly good for Monsanto for the past two financial years when it declared a loss. Excluding those, its operating profit has been growing at a solid 104% and its operating margins have averaged at 25%. Its sales have been growing at an average 38% over the past five quarters. Currently trading at Rs1,287 (23 October 2008), its market-cap is 2.33 times its five-quarter average sales (annualised) and 9.23 times its operating profit. Rane (Madras) makes steering and suspension systems for the automobile industry. Its sales have been rising by an average 8% over the past five quarters and even after excluding the December and September 2007 quarters when it reported losses, its operating profit was down by an average 22%. On the margin front too the company has not been doing well; operating margin averaged at a minuscule 3% over the past five quarters. At its current price of Rs37 (23 October 2008), its market-cap discounts its five-quarter average sales (annualised) by 0.10 times and its operating profit by 5.65 times.

Two companies from the oil & gas sector, which offer very good dividend yields, are Chennai Petroleum Corporation and Bongaigaon Refineries & Petrochemicals. Higher crude prices and no freedom in product pricing have hit oil marketing companies seriously for quite some time, although pure refineries have been doing well. Both these companies offer a dividend yield of 12% each. Chennai Petroleum’s revenues have been rising by an average 41% over the past five quarters and, excluding the September quarter of 2008 when it reported a loss, its operating profits have been growing at an average of 126%. Its margins averaged a poor 8% over the past five quarters. Bongaigaon too has reported a loss at the operational level in the September quarter but its revenues have been rising by an average 32% over the past five quarters while operating profit (excluding the September 2008 quarter) has been rising by an average 113%. Bongaigaon too looks cheap at the current market price of Rs38 (23 October 2008) with its market-cap discounting its five-quarter average sales (annualised) by 0.11 times and its operating profit by 2.98 times.

The last two stocks, in our list of top 15 in terms of a high dividend yield, are Atlas Cycles and SB&T International. These stocks offer a dividend yield of 12% each. Should you buy these stocks with high dividend yields? Well, the danger is that we are just 10 months into a global downturn. We do not know where this will stop. The stock price can come down further and dividends may be cut. However, historically, the high dividend yield that we are witnessing today signifies that a bottom is close for these stocks. Nibble at these stocks to boost your tax-free income in these trying times.

The Dividend Factor
People buy stocks expecting capital appreciation. But if you talk to old-timers, they look for something else too from stocks – dividends. It is true that capital gains are far more important than dividends. Capital appreciation represents the rewards of taking the risk of buying shares. Dividends are like income and income is the mainstay of fixed-income instruments like bonds and fixed deposits, not stocks. So, dividends are rarely the determining factor for buying equities. Focusing on dividends while buying stocks may seem like focusing on the soup, not the main course. But, over the longer term, dividends play a significant role in shareholder value. This is because when share prices fall, there are no capital gains, but capital loss. Even in such periods, dividends can be steady and add to returns. If you want long-term value from stocks, dividends reinvested and compounded over a long period would be a crucial strategy.

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