Fascination with Economics

I have always been fascinated by Economics particularly Financial Economics.

1. I had the opportunity to teach  Indian Economy to students preparing for  IAS at SriChaitanya IAS academy.
2. Dr Ajay Shah on the Macroeconomics reading list.
3. Very good list of understanding real world economics.
4. I had followed for MBA students Managerial Economics by G S Gupta

Observations on IITJEE

There are some interesting observations on IITJEE by Dr Ajay Shah

1. Diluting the role of IITJEE
2. My favorite physics books atr HC Verma and  GC Agarwal
3. Hita(my daughter) studying  8 th class is also very much fascinated by physics.
4. Trivial plug in problems make the students dull in Physics.
5. My friend MURALI is the no 1 in Hyderabad for solving physics problems who cracked IIT JEE in the previous format and studied at IIT Chennai.

Statistical Methods by SNEDCOR

Today I have purchased an Indian edition of Statistical Methods for Rs 270/-.

1. I couldn't resist buying after reading the recommendation by Victor.
2. Books Victor Niederhoffer would like to read.Of course I would like to acquire them for my home library if I have some money.
3. Good Statistics books from DailySpec.
4. Victor's favorite and Other books on Stats.
5. A statistical tool kit from Berkeley.
6. Interesing discussion of Range and Standard Deviation.
7. Correlation & Regression the most useful and foundation for all extensions .
8. Sequential statistics - A new framework

Intersting readings

I found the following posts interesting

1. Ten steps to become a successful speculator
2. The language of the successful trader  .
3. J R Verma on Informationally insensitive assets
4. Education in India at the crossroads

TAME program @ Hyderabad on Feb 25-26,2012

Technical analysis made easy  is scheduled during FEB 25-26,2012.

1. This is a unique program combining Global best practices with Indian Market Insights.
2. The syllabus is exhaustive and focuses on the critical points in TA.
3. I have drawn inspiration from  giants in the fiels of trading & speculation such as Victor Niederhoffer, Brett Steenbarger.
4. Technical analysis as an addon tool is being recognised by academics also.
5. ICHARTS and TAME Charting tools will be used in my course.
6. This is a rigorous program which is intended to add value to participants.
7. Interesting post on SMB Training. I have always encountered  traders who use negative language to describe their interaction with the markets. This will further accelerate their demise as market participants.
8. The program aims to build more confidence and consistency in the Trading approach.
9. A timeless article on buiding Market Intution.

FDP on SAPM @ Coimbatore

I am delighted to be invited as a resource person for FDP on SAPM.

1. The FDP is on 10th Mar 2012 at  Srivenkateswara Group of Institutions.
2. Topics I am going to cover include   Security analysis & Portfolio management and Psychology of Investing.
3. I will use   Bodie, Kane, Marcus & Mohanty for the Forenoon session
4. For psychology of investing   text by  Mark Hirschey & Nofsinger
5. It will be great to use NCFM materials to understand Market design.

MRCET GUEST LECTURE on Indian Financial Markets

Today, I had the opportunity to give a lecture on Basics of stockmarkets at  MRCET, Maisammaguda,Secbad.

1. I have found their hospitality very warm.
2. It was mostly an interactive session
3. Students cleared their doubts and very interesting questions came up.
4. I am planning to attend and present a paper in their conference.

Security Analysis & Portfolio Management

SAPM or IAPM or Investments is a popular course among students of MBA Colleges and  B-Schools.
I would like to muse over the SAPM subject as it is close to my heart.

1. Syllabus of  SAPM in JNTU and Investments in OU are well designed and it will glow in the hands of an experienced teacher.
2. The teacher needs practical understanding of Risk and Speculation. Otherwise he will not have faith in the Speculative price discovery as the soul of a market.
3. I found excellent empirical examples from NISM's EERF program. Dr K Kiran  of NISM is really fascinating in his energetic presentations of Finance and econometrics.
4. SAPM can be enriched substantially with data from BSE, NSE, MCX and SEBI

Interesting Readings

The following articles are interesting and cover wide range of issues.

1. PISA results for India. A cursory glance at mushrooming engineering & MBA colleges surrounding Hyderabad and interaction with the students  during my activities is a grim reminder of the many things in the report.
2. Accountability in Education posted in Ajay Shah's Blog.
3. Article on Valuation Metrics.
4. Dr Pitabas Mohanty of XLRI on valuation and lot of interesting posts.
5. Another good postings by Sanjay Bakshi on Valuation

SEBI's controls on IPO Listing day Volatility

 SEBI released trading controls  for Listing day IPO price fluctuations.

1.  I have earlier commented on IPO Listing day volatility.
2. SEBI has responded with lot of sensible measures to tame down the Volatility .
3. The detailed  sebi circulars relating to this.
4. A good paper on Call auctions by a respected financial economist Dr Susan Thomas
5. Whether this affects price discovery, liquidity and Broker funding for IPOs remains to be seen.
6. Research paper on IPO Volatility. The abstract seems interesting at Indian Journal of Finance

Aiming for NSE Certified Market Professional Level 5

I have taken 4 NCFM new modules on 18th,19th Jan 2012.

1. I have succesfully completed all the four modules ie IAPM, Securities Market ( Advanced) Module, Macroeconomics for Financial Markets Module, Fundamental Analysis Module.
2. This gives great satisfaction for me for getting eligibility for NCMP Level 5.
3. NCFM material is very free flowing and highly relevant for all MBA students. I would recommend to freely down load and improve the knowledge base of Finance students.

Guest Lecture @ ASTRA on India's Financial Markets

Guest Lecture on India's Financial Markets @ ASTRA

1. I am planning to give a 2-hr guest lecture on India's Financial Markets at ASTRA
2. The topics I am planning to cover are Basics of StockMarkets with latest examples
3. I plan to emphasise on Data orientation from NSE, SEBI etc
4. This will be useful for their SAPM, Derivatives also
5. Project work orientation will be provided to students.

Books on Analysing Financial Data

Financial Markets always fascinated me. In my search for books about analysing financial data I came across many jewels some of which are available on the net for the motivated student of Markets.

1. Analysis of Financial Data by Gary Koop
2. Financial Market Analytics  by John Teall
3. Financial Time Series     Tsay
4. Market Models  by Carol Alexander
5. Basic Econometrics  by Gujarati
6. Financial Econometrics by Fogler and Ganapathy
7. Econometric Modelling of Financial Time series by Terence Mills
8. Elements of Forecating by Diebold
9. The Econometrics of financial Markets  Campbell, Lo, Mackinlay
10. Introductory econometrics for finance by Chris Brooks

Wishing You All a Very Happy New Year

BlackSwan FMS wishes all readers and investors and students of Financial Markets a very happy and exciting New Year 2012.

India's Financial Markets - A guest lecture

RLP Securities, a member of NSE in the interest of promoting Market awareness would like to provide a free of charge guest lecture to any MBA college or B-School.

1. It will be of 2 hr duration.
2. Covers broadly the Indian Securities Market on the lines of NCFM Securities market Advanced Module.
3. The students will have the benefit of learning from Market practitioners and live market data is used for exemplifying the concepts.
4. Interested people can contact  Gangineni Dhananjhay  9391319721  for further details

Coaching for MBA Finance Students in SAPM & DERIVATIVES

We at BlackSwan Financial Markets School have started an initiative to train MBA Finance students in the areas of Security Analysis & Portfolio Management and Derivatives.

1. This is a  40 hr program. Daily 4 hrs for 10 days. Starts from 4th Jan 2012.
2. This program would strengthen their foundation in SAPM.
3. I would like to use INVESTMENTS by BKMM and NSE's IAPM workbook.
4. This training will be of help in doing MBA Finance projects also.
5. Mr Harikrishna Karri a well known MBA Finance faculty will lead this MBA Tutions project.

India Finance Confrence 2011

I have traveled  to  Bangalore to attend IFC 2011 @ IIMB.

1. Today is the  pre conference tutorial day. There were two sessions on Stochastic Caluculus and International Finance. More than 50% gone above my head.
2. I could make friends with one person who has done his PGDM from IIMC and presently working with CBIT. We had good conversation.
3. I am very much impressed by the ambience and style of IIMB.
4. From IIMB store I purchased two T-shirts and carry bag for their brand value.
5. I spent good amount of time at their library.
6. From tomorrow the actual conference starts.

Quant Finance - Books I am reading

I am fortunate to get hold of three books on quant finance - Thanks to my friend B N Reddy who has kindly brought it from USA via his daughter. I find it very common to see people who have not read any literature on quant finance to deride it which has become a fashion.

1.  FAQs on Quantitative Finance by Paul Wilmott. A legendary name in Quant finance and creator of CQF.
2. My Life as a Quant by Emmanuel Derman. A physicist's take on Finance and markets.
3. Quants by Scott patterson. Where he sketches about colorful personalities like Aaron Brown, Paul wilmott, Ed Thorp, Jim Simons .
4. I like to think  Victor Niederhoffer of DailySpec as the original quant.

Committee Reports on Indian Markets & Financial system

There are important committee reports on Indian Financial system at various points of time. This is an effort to gather them.  Any serious finance student should be aware of their contents and be able to quote from them. I have collected here reports  which are latest and available on the net.

1. Top of mind is Dr Raghuram Rajan's   CFSR. It is a must read and contains  excellent exposition of Indian financial system.
2. Another report is MIFC by Percy Mistry.
3. Bimal Jalan's report on Stock Exchanges Ownership
4. J R Verma Committee report
5. LC Gupta committee on derivatives
6. Narayana Murthy committee on Corporate Governance.

Day 1 @ QFW 2011

I had the pleasure of being a participant at QFW 2011. Some of my observations are

1. We had a pleasant welcome by the Coordinator Dr Sastry and  interaction by Director IDRBT Dr Sambamoorthy.  Infact the Director's remarks are very relevant and interesting.
2. Inaugural address by Dr Subir Gokarn  focused on financial system design and macro perspectives and how quantitative models can be addressed to real life problems.
3. There was a fascinating overview by Dr Aparna Gupta of RPI on the  Quant Finance.
4. Dr RNS Gupta of IIT- Kanpur had given a talk on probability and statistics.
5. Very good intro on ANN by Dr Ravi of IDRBT
6. I had nice interaction with Dr Aparna Gupta of RPI, made friends with lot of participants  like Dr Prasad from IIM Indore, Crisil and Other participants from XLRI School of Business and IGIDR, MSE.
7. One faculty member from IIMB was very active and posed lot of interesting questions. She is from the area of Investments which I had later found out from interactions with her.