Seeking Alpha by Adding Beta

Hope all of you had great Thanksgiving weekend. Visiting one of the Bay Area Mall on Black Friday gave a sense that economy is doing well since malls were packed with people doing bargain hunting. We are almost at end of 2018 and given recent churn in markets, I keep on going back to the year which was very much like 2018. The year of 1998! I could almost cut-n-paste my previous blog on this topic  1998, 2008 and now 2018: History Repeats! Let's look at current state of various markets: "Crude" reality is setting in oil markets with supply increasing due to waivers granted by US for Iran oil imports, OPEC pumping like there is no tomorrow and US shale producers going with mantra of "drill baby drill". At same time, demand is slowing down due to Chinese economy slowing and US GDP growth coming down from 3+ to natural rate of 2%. All of this resulting in crude crashing from $75 to $50 and more pain to come. Cryptos are crashing - This was expected since vari...

As predicted, US elections produced split congress with Democrats taking control of House of Representatives and Republicans keeping Senate (with increased margin). Pundits will analyze these results and comment on how nation is divided. I beg to defer! In my opinion, Divided congress = United America! People want their politicians (I refrain calling them leaders yet) to work together and implement policies and pass bills which both parties agree on. If divided congress produce complete gridlock, that's ok since at least nothing will happen. It also means no bad policies will be implemented. Time and again this has proven very effective. Some of the best years of 60s, 80s, 90s and recent Obama years had divided congress. Markets seem to agree that divided congress is good and hence all indices are up significantly. Now that Democrats control house, let's look at 4 "i"s of Democrats: Infrastructure, Immigration, Investigation and Impeachment. If Nancy Pelosi and ...

It's that time of year when "scary" October gets over with Halloween and November starts with holiday spirit. This time Diwali also happens to be in November (happens once in approx 3 years). So first of all, Happy Diwali to all my readers! This is the biggest and most joyous festival for "festival crazy" Indians. The festival itself goes on for 5 days but if you combine with Vijadashmi, Navratri and multiple weekends of Dandiya, it feels like we are in this for months. It's also called Festival of Lights! With lights, fireworks (where permitted), sweets, parties with family and friends wearing colorful outfits, it's fun! This time I am also looking forward to seeing Aamir/Amithabh's most awaited film "Thugs of Hindostan" which is releasing day after Diwali. it's MUST WATCH film. Go and see in theaters. November also brings election season every two years These are mid-term elections but due to unique style and substance of our Presid...