Skip to main content

GREED AND FEAR IN EQUITY MARKETS

As equity markets across the globe are melting down as fast as glaciers due to global warming, both the fundamental analysts and the high profile technical analysts have disappeared from the market. Thank God! we are not hearing any expert advice in CNBC on the investments and SENSEX reaching 25 K or 30K. Valuation experts are clueless and the people who were recommending buying at 20000 levels are not seen anymore.
In these type of situation, people should realise that it is only GREED and FEAR among human beings that is running the market sentiment. Fearfull people sell on fears of prices going down and Greedy people buy on greed of making money on the same stock. The seasoned investors like Buffet is the firm believer in the behavioral aspect of the markets. Yesterday, in a column published in the New York Times, he said that "...I've been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I'm talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds," said Chief Executive of Berkshire Hathaway Buffett. "A simple rule dictates my buying: be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors," he pointed out.

SHOULD WE ALSO LOOK FOR INVESTMENT AT THESE LEVELS AS NOW FEAR SEEMS TO BE STRETCHING TOO FAR?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

RBI PROPOSAL ON BASE RATE

The timing of recent proposal by RBI to introduce base rate mechanism for lending activities could not have been better. Taking the experience of global financial crisis in which Indian Banks remained more or less unscathed, there must be a transparency in systems followed by the Banks to lend money prudently. Banking is a business, where safety of depositors money is of utmost importance. By lending below the average cost of the Bank, the bank jeopardise the safety of depositors fund as well as start a rate war among the lending institutions, that may be beneficial for the Bank as well as immensely beneficial for the borrower in the short term, it may be harmful for the banking system as a whole. The basic question is why should banks lend money at less than the cost of the fund to the bank? If strategically lending is done to select customers at rates below cost of funds, this has to be cross subsidised by higher rates for many more borrowers. There starts a disparity among borrowers...

TIME FOR SOUL SEARCHING

The present US Financial crisis was bound to happen. Only time will tell whether we have learnt something from it or not. Today, US president Obama blasted CEO’s who are still trying to get bonuses in this crisis time. I think (may be wrong) that the present system of bonuses for making short term profits is one of the major reason for so much greed in the executives across the globe. What we have observed that people get bonuses for their annual performance and then move on. The company is normally not able to assess the long term impact of the short term performance of its employees. It is high time that HR professionals look into the whole compensation process with a holistic attitude that can be beneficial for the organization in the long term. CEO’s and executives of large companies took their bonuses (some by cheating……Madoff.) and they are the people who are responsible for the current crisis. In the War situation also many people lose their job, companies shut down, economies d...

SERIOUS LESSON LEARNT FROM THE CRISIS

Last 6 months in the market is so turbulent that I had to unlearn whatever i have learnt from ny experince as an investment management professional as well as a student in the B-School. All the theories about risk free securities, equity risk premium, efficient market hypothesis, risk management systems have not worked in these turbulent times. Even the regulators are totally confused. Only in the second quarter of 2008-09, inflation was considered to be serious threat to the economy and crude oil pricees were soaring high and expert analysts were talking about crude going to USD 200. In a bid to save the Indian economy, RBI decided to solve the problem through monetary tigtening as the textbooks on economy suggests. Banks were worried about their profit margin due to treasury losses. I as a trader in bond market was also making losses on my trading positions. But came September 2008, that will be remembered by all the people who are not even directly interested in Financial markets.In...