The sheer speed of the decline could help revive demand and clean up the market quickly.
In the next 12 months, most sectors are likely to suffer.
Near the bottom of bear markets, broad buy signals are generated by several rules-of-thumb. Those check out positive. The first buy signal is that the earnings yield is higher than the yield from risk-free instruments.
Keep a war chest ready to take advantage of the likely dips till the general elections.
There are of course, other ways to win elections including intimidation of voters, gerrymandering, fiddling electoral rolls, booth-capturing and other creative forms of rigging.
Look for companies whose earnings growth may not be great, but they are relatively debt-free.
When supply exceeds demand in a liquid market, prices drop until demand matches supply.
A cynical and realistic investor may be able to profit from that. You would have to read the signals carefully and time the exit perfectly.
An average investor who has stayed committed to equity thus far should now be averaging down and buying on every dip rather than selling
Serious money will only come in if there is a fall of another 5-10 per cent, or the market stays in the current price band for the next 6 to 8 months.
Pick two strongly related stocks with a constant price differential and then, trade in them when the differential changes.
The best performing industries of the past two years have included power, engineering, construction, capital goods, telecom, etc. Broadly, these are infrastructure-related industries that have seen strong, even geometric growth. These are also, by and large, not industries that receive very high discounts globally. In India however, they have been treated as growth sectors that deservedly, receive growth industry discounts.
Derivative users are likely to be much more aware of the risks, which would lead to safer investments. It seems many treasuries entered derivatives without attempting to understand the basics. CFOs have embroiled themselves in complicated scenarios of barrier options & cross-currency swaps without trying to understand the nuts-and bolts implications. Currency swaps enable users to shop for the lowest interest rates. Barrier options are cheaper than standard forward contracts.
Commodity markets have been out- of-sync and moved up as other assets depreciated. What's more, this is true for several ranges of commodities. Crude and other fuel sources have hit successive record levels.
Banking and IT are the two sectors where you can make money by reverse trades. That is, buy one, sell the other and profit from the widening differential.
In the next two years, invest in leading companies in key sectors and buy more when prices fall further.
In 1991, during the balance of payments crisis, it was an even-money bet that India would become a basket case. In hindsight, it was a great entry-point for investments because the economy made a spectacular recovery. But nobody could have been sure about the turnaround.
What do technical analysts feel about the market in 2008? Three experts share their views.
There are at least three lead players, maybe more, involved in each surrogate birth. The one who has borne the child to term may not have contributed DNA (unless she's also the egg-donor); the "parents" who rented the womb may not have contributed DNA, either!
The Nifty flirted around 4,000. Volumes high considering that most firangis are still in Mauritius, or wherever, recovering from hangovers.
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