Seeking Alpha by Adding Beta

Finally IPL mania is over with IPL final played between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. Considering IPL is only in its 3rd season, the level of excitement it has created both due to exciting cricket and off-the-field politics, corruption and celebrity involvement, I won't be surprised if it takes similar level as Superbowl in USA. We had few friends at our place to watch IPL final - most of them from Maharashtra were supporting Mumbai Indians. So it was little dis- appointing that Mumbai lost to Chennai - but looking at today's game, Chennai deserved to win today's game. Overall it was great IPL season. By rough estimates, IPL with its 60 matches create economic activity of close to $1.5 to 2 billion per year ! Good for Indian economy. Last week of 8 th week when DOW had positive week. I was surprised at the strength and positive momentum markets had especially on Friday last week despite upcoming financial reforms and GS/SEC saga. Regional banks were v

Looks like old wall-street saying about "Sell in May and Walk Away" could be more applicable this year considering following factors: Markets have seen best rally in 7 decades with all major indexes up by over 70% in one year Major indexes have crossed key psychological levels of DOW 11000, S&P 1200 and Nasdaq 2500. Many investors must have kept these as key levels where they were thinking of selling Financials could be in trouble again with all the "sins" catching up with them - Goldman Sachs fraud case could be first of many to come. This could shatter confidence once again in wall-street and banks While corporate earnings till now have been excellent, economy is still in delicate stage. It is possible that these earnings could be one-two quarter phenomenon before comparisons with 2H2009 would start kicking in Unemployment still over 9.5% SEC case against Goldman Sachs was interesting in many ways - but most importantly it highlighted that regulators have fin

Finally I got my MINI Cooper S - check out my new car and sold my beloved Toyota Camry which I used for 12 years without any major problems. We had fun ride to Livermore Temple and now I can drive it on regular basis. Next week seems to be exciting week for markets - my prediction is that finally DOW would cross and close about 11000 tomorrow and S&P would cross 1200 sometime this week. Now that Europe has come to terms and helped set up emergency fund of $40B for Greece, markets should be assured that Greece won't default and Euro is here to stay. This is big positive for markets. Earnings should be very good with Alcoa announcing tomorrow and major banks in next 4 days. Last year was the season of write-downs - I won't be surprised if banks start announcing "write-ups" (if there is term like that). This should not only help reduce banks losses but also help improve their capital positions. Most of the big banks ( BAC , C, JPM , GS) and their regional brothers (

Mr President was on roll for second week - he made some more key moves in the game of politics for to push some of his key domestic initiatives (for good of country I must say). Now that health care is out of way, he puts his focus on Energy Policy. This is as important to America as health care . America imports nearly $500 B worth of energy from outside and any dent in this bill would help address trade imbalances. Here are key steps Obama took to start addressing energy issue America is facing: Opened up vast areas to start drilling again - by sharing revenues with states, state governments who are in desperate need of additional revenues would be more open to this Increase CAFE standards for higher mileage for cars from 2016 Additional focus on clean coal, nuclear energy Changing vast fleet of government vehicles to hybrid, Eco -fuel equipped These are small steps towards a very big policy initiative of "cap-n-trade". If congress can pass even minor version of "cap-