Category: Observations

Hat Tip- Sagar Karkhanis

From National Steel Policy, 2012

Major Objective of the Steel Policy, 2012:

To attract investments in Indian steel sector from both domestic and foreign sources and facilitate speedy implementation of investment intentions on board so far so as to reach crude steel capacity level of 300 million tonnes by 2025‐26 to meet the domestic demand fully.

A full 5 years later.

From National Steel Policy, 2017

Objective of the Steel Policy, 2017:

Build a globally competitive industry with a crude steel capacity of 300 MT by 2030-31

So the objectives are the same, the dates keep changing.

The Ministry of Steel seems to be learning from Vishal Sikka, the CEO of Infosys on being asked whether Infosys will meet the stated target of $ 20 Billion by 2020 replied:

It’s an aspiration. We established something to galvanise people’s attention around. This is not a target or a goal. We are barely $10.2 billion now.

The song these fine folks seem to be inspired by is:

“Hum Honge Kamyaab,

Hum Honge Kamyaab,

Man mein hai vishwas,

Poora hai vishwas,

Hum Honge Kamyaab,

Ek Din”

Just don’t ask when that day will come.

Hat tip: Kapil Tandon

The data of the Nifty Midcap 50 below reminds me of Charles Dicken’s quote from ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ :

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

In Jan 2008

In April 2017

Hat tip: Amit

Only Indians seem to be interested in the term multibagger !!

Source: Google Trends

 

One of the open secrets of the fund management business is the desire for stocks to have high prices at the year-end as this is used for measuring fund performance and hence the bonuses of the fund managers

Gokaldas Exports, which is approximately 40% owned by Blackstone, offers an amusing lesson

Yesterday, they made an announcement to the Stock Exchanges that they have uploaded a “Management Presentation” on their website.

The deck had this very interesting slide on Q4 revenues/profits…this on the last few days of Q4

 

The net result is that the stock has hit the upper circuit today.

Mission accomplished.

Hat Tip : Amit Arora

Morningstar had an Awards Function recently where it dished out awards to Mutual Funds in various categories.

Mirae Asset Emerging Bluechip was the winner in the Equity Small & Mid-Cap categories.

Its Fund Fact Sheet for Feb 2017 makes for interesting reading:

 

How can a Mutual Fund whose top 10 holdings include 4 stocks in the Nifty be classified as “SmallCap/Midcap” ?

Or maybe the Fund has these stocks in the perverse hope they will go from large cap to small cap !

Anyways, these Awards remind me of a very memorable interview of Govinda.

Once Govinda, the once very popular Bollwood star, was asked by an interviewer:

Q:Aap Ko ab tak koi Filmfare award kyon nahi mile?

He replied: Lekin maine paise bhi toh nahi diye !