A black Monday and a green(?) Tuesday

This is something which I wanted to write when I attended my first career fair 4 months ago, but then stalled the idea as I was not exactly sure of how the system works here. Now, after attending my 4th career fair today (after a day in which US lost 71,400 jobs), I feel educated enough to write a post on career fairs and the current situation.

Coming to the point, beginning student life again after 4 years of a high paying job is not that easy. Initially you might be enjoying the feeling of being back to the student life but then when you realize that you are ‘actually’ jobless and need to get one, the pressure builds up. Career Fairs will most probably be the first opportunity for many students here to meet potential employers. In every career fair (be it engineering, retail, business, geoscience, etc, etc) you can see Indian students dressed up in suits with a folder in hand carrying bunch of resumes visiting almost every stall. By the end of the day, it hurts when many end up with lot of goodies in hand but not even one promising offer (especially International students).

In fact, I was wondering about how changed I am, for good! I never bothered about a job during my undergrad in India. I was told by one of my friends that TCS is visiting our campus in a week. I just casually prepared and some how made it (Believe me, my confidence with English was extremely low that time compared to now). But then, the competition here with a gloomy market makes you really worry about securing a job and makes you more mature and better prepared. Good thing is that, the job market is dry but still not dire, which was evident from today’s career fair (and the word green has been added to the title to denote that). So, there are opportunities out here and there and it entails lot of efforts to land in one of them. At times, it might make you regret on the decision to leave a job and do higher studies. But, if you are lucky (seriously, that is what is needed with this market), you might get good opportunities too.

I had a very tiring day today having three 1:15 hour classes (I bunked one of them) and a whole day with potential (?) employers at the career fair repeating almost the same dialogs with each of them and handing over my resume. As a resolution, I decided not to collect any goodie this time and I never did I wrote this post not to educate any one on career fairs but to advise those aspirants of Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 from India to reconsider their decisions. A couple of days back, I got a chance to talk with the CIO of AMD. The first question he asked me was ‘So, are you planning to take another course here once you are done?’. Thats the kind of confidence he has on this market. Even if there are some improvements, I don’t expect any miracles within a year. So, its better safe to play a wait and watch game rather than getting into the quagmire like us. Be happy with your current job

Bloodbath continues at Dalal Street :(

2008 has been the worst possible year for Indian equity investors. I don’t think in any other year in the history our investors would have struggled like this. There is no convincing reason for the rally towards south though there are many small reasons jointly contributing this. Those who are superstitious keep cursing the new bronze bull statue installed in Bombay Stock Exchange. But those who are somewhat knowledgeable, thrash P.C and his activities.

When the market was tumbling at its best, the free-bee budget released by P.C and Co has taken its toll on the investors. Now when market was trying to revive its lost position, inflation and imbalance nuke deal have taken it to far deeper into the grounds. With the prevailing circumstances, excavation of indices will take ages. Adding fuel to the fire, USD keeps appreciating against Rupee like never before. From 38.5 to 43 it took less than 45 days. How could this be possible? It is possible when RBI buys billions and billions of dollars from global market appreciating its value.

This inflation caused by the fuel price hike was avoidable to certain extent. As we all know, the crude oil transaction with middle east countries happen in USDs and only in USDs. Before this fuel price hike, RBI has acquired 8.14 billion USDs in 2005-2006, 26.82 billion USDs in 2006-2007 and 78.20 billion USDs in 2007-2008 respectively ensuring USD never falls. But what was the need? God Only Knows. By 31.3.2008, the USD availability with RBI was 299.23 billion. If we would have spent a portion of it to buy crude oil barrels rather than buying few more billions of dollars, it would have enabled our government to think thrice about fuel price hike. And it would have avoided INR depreciation to some extent.

Knowing all these, why did RBI and FM keep buying USDs? Because, if Rupee appreciates, all export businesses will get affected; Foreign investments will get reduced; and as an investor, you must know the aftermaths of reduction in foreign investments. In one sense, globalization, FDI and FIIs are good for a country. But in other sense, the decisions taken by RBI and FM have debilitated country’s economy with bloating inflation and suffering middle and lower class people.

Its a double toll for me. Appreciating USD is causing problem in paying my fee and related things for higher studies. Declining indices never allow me to take my money out of market.

Unlike the beginning of this year, nobody wants stock market to scale greater altitudes. They just want it to recover if not fall more. So, when will the market recover? Again, GOK…keep your fingers crossed for another few years…

PS: Thanks to Thuglak for all the statistics

Online shopping in India

This is something that I am cogitating for the past few days…why is the number of Online shoppers in India is so low when compared to other countries?

When e-Shopping was introduced in India, the number of players was very low. The penetration of Internet in the country was not great. Availability of credit/debit cards with the people was not great either. So, initially it was a tough time for e-Com companies. But over the years, all these factors have improved considerably but still online buying seems to be in its incipient stage.

If we keep away online travel and ticket booking and online broking, the number of transactions and amount transacted in e-Tailing (Retail) and other parts is not showing big jump. Though it is making constant progression, when compared with the number of new internet connections taken and number of new credit and debit cards taken, the jump in online transactions is quite discouraging.

So, my little research and discussion with people shows me that following reasons make Indians hesitate to buy online. 1) Cannot negotiate / bargain 2) Cannot get the feel of the product / try out 3) Fear about the security of the site 4) Delivery delays 5) Very less variety of options available. So, can we expect the online shopping market to grow if we bring in improvements in these areas? I don’t think so. Even if we improve, it won’t be drastic. We don’t get the sense of satisfaction if we don’t bargain and more importantly if we don’t try it out.

Having said all these, even I don’t prefer buying things online in India. When I was in UK, I bought even the most expensive things like my camera and laptop online. In fact I bought many things even from eBay. Where as, here in India, somehow I am not feeling like buying online though many good sites are available.

To avoid queues, may be we are using the online travel ticket booking facilities though they cost a bit more. But, even if it comes for a cheaper price online, we give a second thought about it. I am a perfect example of this. I bought shoes from the shop paying 300 bucks extra when it is available in www.futurebazaar.com for a cheaper price…I felt I should try the shoes before I purchase. And I am bound to think that my fella Indians are like me.

So, what’s your take on this?