Omkumar's blog

This is a very interesting article on how China is becoming a rare-earth metal monopoly. "Deng Xiaoping's comment in 1997, where he said that China would be for rare earth metals what the Middle East was to oil, has become a very stark reality." I have a strong belief that China will emerge as a super power in a decade or so. I will continue to follow news articles that talk about China - both sides of the coins and collect them under the label "China".

This snippet is from The Hindu - an interview with Prabhakaran in 1986 about his movement. This is very gruelling... …Could you give us an idea of your personal heroes in revolutionary struggles or liberation movements or in any sphere of life..... people and experiences that have inspired you? And perhaps thereby give us some insight into your own political evolution from the time you were a schoolboy? From my boyhood, the struggle that attracted me most was the Indian freedom struggle. The role of Netaji attracted me very much. I was brought up in an environment of strict discipline from childhood. I was not permitted to mingle freely with outsiders. I used to feel shy of girls. Great store was laid by personal rectitude and discipline. My father set an example through his own personal conduct: He would not even chew betel leaves. I modelled my conduct on his..... he was a government officer, a district land officer. A very straightforward man. People say in our area: “When he walks,...

This Intel Ad was forwarded to me by one of my colleagues. Very funny and thoughtful. The "Ajay Bhatt" that they show is not the real inventor. See Intel's real Ajay Bhatt who was the co-inventor of USB here . According to NYTimes , Intel decided to pose actors vs. real inventors in their commercial so that there won't be any argument among employees as to who should be featured. The NYTimes article further says that, the Ad agency - Venables Bell & Partners - helped modify Intel's "we are in your everyday life and the world would stop revolving without Intel" motto to "Sponsors of Tomorrow". I think "Sponsors of tomorrow" is more pleasing than what Intel proposed. Hence the agency came up with ads like how Intel is technology oriented and promoting that. There is even going to be a billboard asking people to text msg answers for "What do you hope to see in the future?". The article is a good read as well.

BlackRock becomes the go-to firm for Divining Wall Street's Assets First of all, as a risk analyst isn't this too risky to put all eggs in one basket? The reasoning Geithner gave when asked why should we trust BlackRock, is simply, "They come with world class reputation". Well so be it. I guess, and I share Janet's (read the article) comment, that the government should come out with all the details about how the assets were valued and what measures did BlackRock take, even if it is propreitary. We are talking about billions of dollars under government custody now and people's lives and jobs are dependent on these analyses. When asked about transparency of what BlackRock does and who else it works for, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock says he has " to be opaque" about it. Don't we smell a Madoff stink here? When it comes to public tax payer's money being used, one should provide every transparent detail possible. Atleast the government should have...

Very Interesting read... The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England , and English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. T...

Wow! This is about my city. Following are some of the facts that I didn't know about Stamford. Stamford is also referred as "Wall Street North" UBS built its largest trading floor in North America (I knew this but just adding for pride). RBS did the same starting in 2006 and moved to its headquarters (as far as I can tell, RBS had not occupied this new fancy building yet). General Re (GenRe) corp , which is part of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is based here. Unemployment in March '09 is 7% (about 120,000). This is still lower than national average. There was a plan to build a Ritz-Carlton hotel. But later shelved due to economic crisis. Home of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.) and Comcast's Versus sports channel (formerly OLN, Outdoor Life Network - one of my favs). Check out www.versus.com . Movies being shot include "Rachel Getting Married", "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2". NBC is planning to move production of "Jerry Springe...

This could be received positively in the market. Apple's ability to come up with a major breakthrough in all their products have proven well in the past. Nothing to be blamed that they want to design their own chips that goes into their products. Apple is making use of the time properly. It is easier to negotiate with high quality chip-designers and other candidates in the chip market as we all know about the current job market. To quote from the article: ...In one sign of the new focus, Apple recently hired Raja Koduri, who was formerly the chief technology officer of the graphics products group at chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Mr. Koduri started at Apple this week, following in the footsteps of Bob Drebin, who had held the same title at AMD and is also now working for Apple... If successful the stocks could soar. AAPL closed today at $125.83. Lets watch.

To those who follow stock markets and trying to stay optimistic: * Consumer confidence slightly stronger than expected - This doesn't matter at all. Home purchases are only *slightly* increasing. Cyclical is catching up. Retail the same. In a broad perspective, this doesn't help revive the big economic slump we are already in. * "Bear Market Still far from bottom" - David Tice, chief Portfolio strategist for bear markets at Federated Investors Inc., talked with Bloomberg's Carol Massor yesterday about the outlook of the stock market. His view is bearish atleast upto mid 2010. The most alarming statement of his is that "We think we can get to 400 on the S&P , which is 55, 60 percent decline [from where we are now]". That is just pretty shocking. * More bailouts - Liaquat Ahamed, hedge-fund advisor and historian, says more bailouts are coming and this time Geithner won't be able to ask for taxpayers' money. Debt holders may try to safeguard the...

But why? Isn't this too much intervention of government on private sector? Clearly there is a cover-up. Can't we learn already from the Japanese in the early 90s. Some interesting quotes from the article... [BofA Chairman] Mr. Lewis has told investigators for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that in December Mr. Paulson threatened him not to cancel a deal to buy Merrill Lynch. BofA had discovered billions of dollars in undisclosed Merrill losses, and Mr. Lewis was considering invoking his rights under a material adverse condition clause to kill the merger. But Washington decided that America's financial system couldn't withstand a Merrill failure, and that BofA had to risk its own solvency to save it. So then-Treasury Secretary Paulson, who says he was acting at the direction of Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, told Mr. Lewis that the feds would fire him and his board if they didn't complete the deal And we talk about freedom!

I dont know if this is strange but I am trying to understand why a pandemic such as Swine Flu could affect the markets. Ok, I understand Livestocks getting hit because businesses dealing with porks can be affected. The import of Pork meat from Mexico may be hindered and export companies and mass-production companies may see some hindrance (still this news is to premature to react upon). However, WHO came out and said that it is safe to eat the meat as the strain of the virus cannot survive normal cooking temperature. But why Mexican Peso - that you lost confidence on holding this currency because the country could devalue its currency? What is the reasoning behind this? Why Airlines - because their revenue will be affected? how? People dont want to travel to Mexico? People who already booked tickets to Mexico are either going to travel with caution or loose their ticket (or take up on insurance ). May be you will not book tickets to Mexico, US etc. So it will affect future bookings, d...