Showing posts with label market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label market. Show all posts

Monday, August 31, 2009

Asset Valuation - Fine Example

A young and pretty lady posted this on a popular forum:Title: What should I do to marry a rich guy?I'm going to be honest of what I'm going to say here. I'm 25 this year. I'm very pretty, have style and good taste. I wish to marry a guy with $500k annual salary or above. You might say that I'm greedy, but an annual salary of $1M is considered only as middle class in New York . My requirement is not high. Is there anyone in this forum who has an income of $500k annual salary? Are you all married? I wanted to ask: what should I do to marry rich persons like you? Among those I've dated, the richest is $250k annual income, and it seems that this is my upper limit. If someone is going to move into high cost residential area on the west of New York City Garden ( ? ) , $250k annual income is not enough.I'm here humbly to ask a few questions:1) Where do most rich bachelors hang out? (Please list down the names and addresses of bars, restaurant, gym)2) Which age group should I target?3) Why most wives of the riches is only average-looking? I've met a few girls who doesn't have looks and are not interesting, but they are able to marry rich guys4) How do you decide who can be your wife, and who can only be your girlfriend? (my target now is to get married)Ms. PrettyAwesome Reply:Dear Ms.. Pretty,I have read your post with great interest. Guess there are lots of girls out there who have similar questions like yours. Please allow me to analyse your situation as a professional investor. My annual income is more than $500k, which meets your requirement, so I hope everyone believes that I'm not wasting time here. From the standpoint of a business person, it is a bad decision to marry you.. The answer is very simple, so let me explain.Put the details aside, what you're trying to do is an exchange of 'beauty' and 'money': Person A provides beauty, and Person B pays for it, fair and square. However, there's a deadly problem here, your beauty will fade, but my money will not be gone without any good reason. The fact is, my income might increase from year to year, but you can't be prettier year after year. Hence from the viewpoint of economics, I am an appreciation asset, and you are a depreciation asset. It's not just normal depreciation, but exponential depreciation. If that is your only asset, your value will be much worried 10 years later.By the terms we use in Wall Street, every trading has a position, dating with you is also a 'trading position'. If the trade value dropped we will sell it and it is not a good idea to keep it for long term - same goes with the marriage that you wanted. It might be cruel to say this, but in order to make a wiser decision any assets with great depreciation value will be sold or 'leased'. Anyone with over $500k annual income is not a fool; we would only date you, but will not marry you. I would advice that you forget looking for any clues to marry a rich guy. And by the way, you could make yourself to become a rich person with $500k annual income. This has better chance than finding a rich fool.Hope this reply helps. If you are interested in 'leasing' services, do contact me...signed, CEO J.P.. Morgan :-)

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Market Dynamics: is it the right time to buy

This information has been sourced from economictimes article,
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Markets/Analysis/Equity_-_Is_It_The_Right_Time_to_buy/articleshow/msid-3845314,curpg-2.cms

There are several metrics which can be observed to get a fair guesstimate about the direction market is heading towards. They are:

Earnings Approach

The current level of Sensex implies 10.0 x – 9.4 x P/E of FY09 earnings and probably around 12.5x – 11.3x of FY10 earnings.
Historically, since 1991, Sensex has traded in the range of 10-30 times one year forward earnings. So, currently the Sensex is certainly at the lower range of the historical P/E band.
Even if things are likely to be different this time due to a worldwide recession, we do not expect more than 20% downside from these levels.

Book Value Approach

The current P/BV (Price to Book Value) of Sensex is hovering around 2.3 which is in the range of historic lows of 2-2.4.
In last 18 years, whenever the P/BV ratio had drifted to around 2, it has been followed by a smart pull back. For example, in November 1998 when Sensex fell to around 2800 levels (P/BV of 2), the next six months witnessed a strong pullback rally of more than 40% pushing the index to 4000 levels.

Conversely during last 15 years, markets have fallen sharply every time the P/BV ratio has crossed 6.5. January 2008 was no exception to this rule.

Falling Yield in Equity

Historically, it has been observed that whenever Equity yield has crossed the G-Sec yield, it makes sense to invest in equities.
On the other hand, whenever G-Sec yield has reached higher than equity by 4% or more, it has been a good opportunity to sell out of equities.
In January 2008, the G-Sec yield was higher than equity by this threshold margin. Since this indicator was very accurate in predicting the peak of the bull market, it may be used as a good sign to determine the trough of this bear market. Since Equity yield has already crossed the G-Sec yield, we may conclude that we are near the bottom of the cycle as far as equity markets are concerned.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Stop Loss Trigger ??

I started trading today on the BSE. Here is something I need to know.

Stop Loss Trigger Tool

The Stop Loss Trigger Tool is actually a bit of a misnomer.

This tool is most useful in protecting your profits on an open position. The Stop Loss order is a conditional order to either Buy or Sell.

The condition being that the order is activated only when that stock trades at a specific price defined by you. As is the case in any order, you will have to specify the quantity and the limit price (or market price) at which you want the order to be executed.

And in addition you will have to specify a Trigger Price.

Only if the Exchange records a trade at the price defined as Trigger price by you, will your order will be activated.

In case you choose to use a Limit price (as opposed to market price) for your Stop Loss order, you must remember the following guideline :

    - For a Buy order, the limit price must be greater than or equal to the trigger price.

    - For a Sell order, the limit price must be less than or equal to the trigger price.

If, for a stop loss order to buy, the trigger price is 93.00, the limit price is 95.00 and the market (last trade) price is 90.00, then this order will be released into the system once when the market price reaches or exceeds 93.00. This order will be added to the order queue at the exchange with the time of triggering as the time stamp, as a limit order to buy at Rs95.00. Till such time that the order is triggered it will stay in a separate queue at the exchange which is not visible to other market participants.

Remember even the stop loss tool is valid only for a trading day. If your stop loss order is not triggered during the trading day, it shall lapse automatically at the end of the trading session.

When do you use a Stop loss order?

The Stop Loss order is a great way for a trader to manage his exposure in the market. Lets us say that a trader wants to buy ABC company at Rs100 because he expects the price to rise to Rs120 in a short time. But he does not want to take an unnecessary risk and hence he wants to exit the trade (sell his shares) in ABC company if the price drops below Rs95.

So he first buys 100 shares at Rs100. Then to protect himself against an unexpected movement and limit his losses he would punch in a stop loss sell order for 100 shares of ABC Co. with a trigger price of Rs95. He could choose to sell with a limit price of his choice or at market price.

So if the shares of ABC drop to trade at Rs95 his order is immediately triggered and pushed into the queue for execution.

This system finds similar application in the case of short positions.

Disclosed Quantity :
The system provides a facility for entering orders with quantity conditions: DQ order allows the member to disclose only a part of the order quantity to the market. DQ (Disclosed Quantity) should not be less that 10% of the Order Quantity and at the same time should not be greater than or equal to the Order Quantity.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Technical Risk Ratios for Portfolio Planning

There are five ratios referred to while creating and maintaining efficient portfolios.
  1. Alpha,
  2. Beta,
  3. Standard deviation,
  4. R-squared, and
  5. The Sharpe ratio.
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Alpha
A measure of performance on a risk-adjusted basis. Alpha takes the volatility (price risk) of a mutual fund and compares its risk-adjusted performance to a benchmark index. The excess return of the fund relative to the return of the benchmark index is a fund's alpha.

A positive alpha of 1.0 means the fund has outperformed its benchmark index by 1%. Correspondingly, a similar negative alpha would indicate an underperformance of 1%.

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Beta

A measure of the volatility, or systematic risk, of a security or a portfolio in comparison to the market as a whole.

Beta is calculated using regression analysis, and you can think of beta as the tendency of a security's returns to respond to swings in the market. A beta of 1 indicates that the security's price will move with the market. A beta of less than 1 means that the security will be less volatile than the market. A beta of greater than 1 indicates that the security's price will be more volatile than the market. For example, if a stock's beta is 1.2, it's theoretically 20% more volatile than the market.

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Standard Deviation

Standard deviation is a statistical measurement that sheds light on historical volatility. For example, a volatile stock will have a high standard deviation while the deviation of a stable blue chip stock will be lower. A large dispersion tells us how much the return on the fund is deviating from the expected normal returns.

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R-squared

R-squared values range from 0 to 100. An R-squared of 100 means that all movements of a security are completely explained by movements in the index. A high R-squared (between 85 and 100) indicates the fund's performance patterns have been in line with the index. A fund with a low R-squared (70 or less) doesn't act much like the index.

A higher R-squared value will indicate a more useful beta figure. For example, if a fund has an R-squared value of close to 100 but has a beta below 1, it is most likely offering higher risk-adjusted returns. A low R-squared means you should ignore the beta.

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Sharpe Ratio

The Sharpe ratio tells us whether a portfolio's returns are due to smart investment decisions or a result of excess risk. This measurement is very useful because although one portfolio or fund can reap higher returns than its peers, it is only a good investment if those higher returns do not come with too much additional risk. The greater a portfolio's Sharpe ratio, the better its risk-adjusted performance has been.

A variation of the Sharpe ratio is the Sortino ratio, which removes the effects of upward price movements on standard deviation to measure only return against downward price volatility.

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