SENSEX all time high; Rohit's success; Apple sells and charge against 70 year old MP...........

Deepavali the festival of lights, brought in cheer and joy for all…. It was great time, it did rain but allowed fair share for people to burst crackers and celebrate grandly….  In a debate [patti mandram] a speaker was heard saying ‘Deepavali is festival of the masses but every celebration becomes festival for the traders ~~~ he went on to say that ‘traders are capable of creating festivals where none exist’ – and thus you ‘aadi discount sale’ on a time when the popular belief that nothing would be bought during the month …. Also the Valentines Day, Akshaya Trithay and the like were all created to ensure a boom for themselves……….

For those with financial acumen, there was cheers too as Samvat year 2070 commenced with a big bang at the ‘Muhurat’ trading session and the benchmark BSE S&P Sensex hit a fresh lifetime high of 21,321.53. The Bombay Stock Exchange 30-share index resumed better at 21,278.08 and firmed up further to a high of 21,321.53, before closing at 21,239.36, at 07.30 pm, showing a gain of 42.55 points from its last close. After hitting a high of 6,328 at open, the NSE 50-share Nifty closed at 6,317.35, higher by 10.15 points. The rally has puffed up the valuations of some shares, but a larger number have lagged behind. Skewed stock indices do not give a correct picture of the stock markets, leave alone the broader economy ~ so, this may not mean realtime good news for those of us who have invested heavily in the market [by your own standards] and having a portfolio which has never been performing too well………

On a day when you had no newspaper, there was news of a 71 year old MP in Kerala being booked on a complaint of molestation by a Kerala actress – that too in a public function.  There was news that Police charged 71-year-old Congress MP N Peethambara Kurup  with IPC sections 354 and 354 (A) for assault or criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty. Kurup, who represents Kollam in the Lok Sabha, was booked within hours of a police team recording the statement of the actress in which she stood firm by her charge against the politician. Shweta Menon …………. Day later, the  snowballing controversy over Malayalam film actor Swetha Menon’s allegation that Congress MP N. Peethambara Kurup had physically misbehaved with her here on Friday has lost its momentum somewhat with the actor withdrawing her complaint late Sunday evening. In a message e-mailed to media institutions, Ms. Menon said she was withdrawing her complaint, taking also into account the apologies tendered by Mr. Kurup. She had no complaint that she was humiliated, Ms. Menon said.

Sure you would have seen pandals erected in EA Mall for the sale of Apple’s i-phones.  According to a report in ET, some 30,000 units of iPhone 5s and 5c models were distributed in India in the launch phase, which includes some 6,000 units of iPhone5s. New stock of iPhone 5s will available again from Wednesday. It seems Apple got it right this time by launching the two new phones during Dhanteras.  It is reported that  Apple has completely sold out its premium iPhone 5s in India in less than 24 hours of its retail launch, while the iPhone 5c model has become the fastest-moving model in stores and is expected to be sold-out during the weekend, the country's top multibrand cellphone retail chains said.  The Cupertino-based giant launched its two new iPhone models in India at 5pm on Friday in a series of events in the top six cities of India and commenced retail sales in select Apple premium resellers and multi-brand stores from 7 pm onwards. The Apple iPhone 5s is priced between Rs 53,500 and Rs 71,500, depending on the size of the internal memory, while iPhone 5c is priced at Rs 41,900 (16 GB) and Rs 53,500 (32 GB).

It is stated that the gold colour model was the most sought after one….. may be it still is the colour and not the features behind the success of the premium product too.  Globally, Apple's CEO Tim Cook last week acknowledged in an analyst conference call that the company has a significant supply backlog for its iPhone 5s model due to high demand.

For those of you who are not as interested in cricket – there is some learning – with persistence………. Long back a comment by Sunil Gavaskar that ‘you are seeing the future of India’ when Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma were on screen, outraged me… Rohit had just returned making less than 15 runs in 5 innings in Lanka and followed up with a 4 at Chepuak against Pakistan.  He was a great success in IPL and now his  mind-numbing innings of 209 against Australia in the 7th ODI at Bangalore had distinctly separable phases……… first 50 runs – 71 balls (SR 70.42) Next 50 runs – 43 balls (SR 116.28) Next 109 runs- 44 balls (SR 247.72) ~ so it was not speed all the time and there was a time when he was farming much of strike, but Dhawan was scoring freely.  This 209 runs (the second highest ODI score ever) placed him in a new sphere  16 sixes (a world record), 12 fours (he hit more sixes than fours), 9 twos, 47 singles, 74 dot balls. His 491 runs in this series are a world record in a bilateral series. Rohit Sharma’s average when not opening the batting was a middling 31.43 ~ perhaps not good enough to justify his continued existence ahead of many others now as an opener in  26 matches, he is averaging 50.34.

So is it Dhoni’s mastermind, selector’s persistence, or the real talent ~ which one has catapulted him to success ~ and would this continue in the same vein ?

For the uninformed, the SENSEX -  the S&P BSE SENSEX (S&P Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index),  is a free-float market capitalization-weighted stock market index of 30 well-established and financially sound companies listed on BSE Ltd. The 30 component companies which are some of the largest and most actively traded stocks, are representative of various industrial sectors of the Indian economy. Published since 1 January 1986, the S&P BSE SENSEX is regarded as the pulse of the domestic stock markets in India. The base value of the S&P BSE SENSEX is taken as 100 on 1 April 1979, and its base year as 1978–79.

To understand how the market is buoyant, see this chart [courtesy : moneycontrol.com] ….. it might still be a paradox that your shares are not doing well – Financial analysts would jump to say that it shows that your investment was not on sound bluechips …… still – for a common man, when things go up, everything should rise………

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

4^th Nov. 2013 - @ 07.00 am..