Skip to main content

Super-Pi Day: 3/14/15 9:26:53

Let's celebrate Super-pi day with 10 digits in famous "pi" aligning today with 3/14/15 @ 9:26:53. Some math and science geeks are planning to wed exactly on that time to show their love for each other and for mathematics. Today also happens to be Albert Einstein's Birthday!
So I am happy that my son Yash is going to spend his morning volunteering at Tech Museum and Isha would be spending her day participating in three events at Science Olympiad. Well done kids with your pursuit of science and math!
Now coming to my events in finance world. March always have been quite interesting (2nd to months of Sept/Oct). 15 years back Nasdaq reached its peak (above 5000) in March and it touched 5000 just few days back just to fall back. In 2009 markets reached it's bottom on Mar 9 and this year oil markets are reaching it's multi-year lows in March. Even in currency markets, Euro and Yen are reaching multi-year lows. Euro is racing towards parity with US dollar and should reach by end of March. With so many multi-year events happening in span of few days, how should we interpret these macro and micro events to make investment decisions?
Here are my simple recommendations:
  • Markets would do what normally they do - they go up and down in short term. So don't pay too much attention to these daily gyrations
  • Select industry (to invest) which you understand and could form some educated opinions
  • Invest for long-term in companies with solid fundamentals in those industries
  • Invest small amounts in some speculative stocks which could potentially return "Apple" type of returns (Apple would have considered speculative stock in late 90's)
  • If you can deal with so much complexity, just invest in index funds (S&P500, mid-cap and small-cap)
  • And above all, just enjoy life one day at a time with days like "pi" day, Cricket world-cup matches, walk on sunny day or nice movie!
Happy pi day to all!

/Shyam

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2025 = Is it going to be 1997 or 2000?

Happy Holidays... After 5 months of hibernation with no real reason than writing block, I decided to use quiet morning of Christmas day to start writing again. Lot has happened in last 5 months - in particular release of Animal Spirits with Fed starting interest rate reduction cycle and historic victory of President Trump for 2nd term. As the year turns into 2025 and stock markets at all time high, one would wonder, what's next?  To answer this, one needs to look back at 1920s and 1990s to give us some context on where markets may be headed. 1920s saw invention of televisions, radio, wider adoption of cars, vacuums, penicillin and many other which we consider household items now. These inventions created roaring 20s with markets going up by 500% eventually leading to crash of 1929. However during mid-20s, markets keep going up due to excitement of these inventions and end of World War-1 and Spanish Flu Pandemic. 1990s also saw many inventions - the key being launch of Netscape in 1...

And the Oscar goes to...

It's Oscar Sunday and time for predictions for few categories - before I digress into talking about drama in DC or markets.  First of all, I want to recognize the damage LA fires have done to the beloved areas of Los Angeles and impacted families across all spectrums. My heart goes out to them and wish them recovery and rebuilding of their lives... This year's Oscar nominees and post nomination period had been interesting to say the least. Due to this, the field is wide open in almost all categories and that's what makes prediction game so interesting. Just to set expectations, I would consider a win if I get even 50% predictions correct given the dynamics of nominees this year. So here are my predictions - "And the Oscar goes to..." Best Picture - Anora (surprise could be "The Brutalist") Best Director - Sean Baker for "Anora" (Surprise could be Brady Corbet for "The Brutalist") Best Actor - Adrien Brody for "The Brutalist"...

The Politics and Gamesmanship of TikTok!

TikTok is less than 3 hours from going dark on USA's east coast if TikTok owner Bytedance (and Chinese Government) follows thru its "bluff" to honor the law " Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" which goes into effect on Jan 19, 2025. And suddenly there is lots of politics and gamesmanship around TikTok.. Let's look at the players and their positions US Congress: The " TikTok Ban" law was passed by congress with bipartisan support and coincidently it goes into effect one day before new administration takes charge. Everyone knew the exact date and time of oath taking ceremony of new President...but maybe the congress did not think that there would be change of President and did not bother to put effective date post new government taking charge...that created a window of 36 hours of "law being in effect" unless... President Biden: Biden himself did not think that he won't be President for 2nd term. S...