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I have been reading about the derivative transactions that a number of companies entered into with banks. It is clear both the companies and the banks entered into these risky speculative transactions to make quick bucks. Now when the transactions resulted in huge losses, the companies are blaming the banks and vice versa.

We seem to be in the “instant” mode. We want everything done instantly. To quest our appetite for “intant you-name-it,” there are organizations which come up with scams (for lack of a better word).

My interest in the stock market arose at the time of Reliance Power IPO. That was the first time that I commented on the stock market. At that time, I started reading Udayan Mukherjee’s column in HT. I liked his writing style.

Red Bull is trying to give Coke and Pepsi a run for their money. It seems that Red Bull seems to have the right and the wrong idea. First, what’s right about the idea. It seems that Red Bull is launching a premium cola in the US at $1.49 for a 12 ounce can which is expensive than Coke or Pepsi. There is no premium price cola and they have certainly found a gap in the market. One cannot fight with Pepsi and Coke head on. They have to be attacked from the side, in other words flanked.

In an interview in Economic Times (7/3/2008), Aditya Birla stated his criteria for being involved in an industry. He said that he will only participate in an industry only if they have 1,2 or 3 position otherwise they will quit. Well this is nothing new. Actually, its a criteria borrowed from Ex GE’s chairman (I am forgetting his name. Sure sign that I am getting old) who built GE based on the same criteria. However, I do not think this makes sense.

I have been hearing a lot about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), that is, a company’s responsibility towards the society. In simple terms it means that a company must manage its role in society as a producer, employer, customer and citizen. I think most of the discussion on the subject centers around a corporations involvement in supporting social causes. Every corporation adopts some social causes and thinks that this is the best way of implementing CSR.

I don’t know about you but I am sick and tired to hearing people say we are building “world class” this or the other and that we will take over the world shortly. If you have heard about the sorry state of affair at the Gurgaon Tollway, then you can understand why I have started hating the words “world class.” How can we lead the world if we can’t organize a simple toll operation. And its not that we have discovered or invented something new. All we have to do is to just copy what others are successfully doing all over the world. I grew up listening to the Ludhiana joke which implied that we can copy anything but it seems that we are even lousy at that.

It seems to me that Kishore Biyani announces the plan to start a new retail format everyday. The questions that come to my mind are as follows:

(a) Where will he get the money to launch so many retail formats?
(b) Does he have the management capability to handle so many different formats?
(c) What about space?
(d) The number of different brands that Future Group (FG) is planning / promoting.

There is no one who has siad so far that they will be seriously affected by Tata’s Nano. I think this is the best sign that Nano will succeed as no one considers it a serious competition. What Nano is going to do is flank a number of product categories. It is going to nibble away small market share from a number of products and no one would be any wiser. By the way, the reason for the success of Nirma was that it flanked Surf. Surf didn’t feel that Nirma was a worthy competitor till it was too late. Lets see who all will Nano flank?

Even though, I had finance as one of my specialization in MBA, I have been a little confused with the how heavily the Realinace Power IPO has been oversubscribed. I do nor remember exact numbers but I remember the IPO was at around Rs. 450 and the market was expecting it to be listed at Rs. 900-1000. Hence the frenzy to take part in the IPO by everybody. This suggests that either the company is stupid to sell its shares at Rs. 500 or the market is stupid to buy it at Rs. 1000 on listing. One can think of a 5-10% variation but almost 100% variation is beyond my understanding.