Desicritics Author: Rajiv Renganathan

Tech Review: Vysr - A Lookup Bar, Not A Toolbar

Rajiv Renganathan — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:14:57 EDT

I found Vysr from FastCompay.TV's demo-cum-interview of Guda Venkatesh (Alumnus of IIT, Kanpur). Vysr is a new toolbar released in beta for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. It aims to enhance the browsing experience by giving easy access to popular services like Google News, Wikipedia, YouTube, MapQuest and others (called Apps) within the current view of the Webpage. Even better, it adds a context of the selected text to these apps. What this means is that you can select "abc" on a webpage and click on the Wikipedia app on Vysr. An in-page display shows the Wikipedia page on "abc". I like that! This acts like a lookup within the scope of my current webpage rather than opening another window or tab. Hence, I call it a Lookup bar, rather than a Tool bar.

The positioning of Vysr is different too. Vysr does not take away valuable real estate in your browser. It is well positioned in the bottom right corner. It is also easier to enable or disable with just a click, without having to search through the browser menus.

For developers, they plan to release a set of APIs. I'm looking forward to designing a Vysr app to search for shopping deals in India with DealSearchMaadi.com and stock analysis with Stockoogle.in.

Apart from the developer API, here is my wish list:

1. Google Web search app. (How could they forget this in the first place?)

2. The bar gets longer as I choose more apps. I would like to have a Windows quick launch bar's double-arrow styled option that on clicking, pops up the other apps.

3. Geo-focused apps, especially for India for local weather, maps, stocks, news, search etc.

I would ve interested to see if Vysr is capable of replacing my Google toolbar over a period of time, also considering the possibility of Google using its toolbar to sketch Google Trends!

UB Group Acquires 26% Stake in Air Deccan - More Consolidation in the Skies

Rajiv Renganathan — Thu, 31 May 2007 21:49:03 EDT

From Kingfisher v/s Air Deccan to Kingfisher + Air Deccan- This seems like a story of two good friends who could not be rivals at business! Captain G.R. Gopinath and Vijay Mallya have joined hands. Vijay Mallya's UB Group is buying 26% stake in Air Deccan. The sale is termed as a "strategic financial investment”. What that means for now is that Vijay Mallya does not gain management control of Air Deccan. It would however gain a management role in the low-cost airline. G.R Gopinath will be the executive chairman and Vijay Mallya, the vice chairman of Air Deccan. The future will be interesting to watch the changing face of the pioneer of low-cost airlines in India and the role the man who described his airline's business to be "transport people between 2 places at the lowest cost and nothing more."

Launched in August 2003, Air Deccan has come a long way. Air Deccan has made flying affordable to the common man. To a business man, it has opened up a new business arena of low cost airlines. Air Deccan exploited an unexplored potential and on the back of it a host of low-cost airlines have mushroomed in recent years. In terms of numbers, Air Deccan hast the largest route network covering over 55 cities with a fleet size of 43. It has a market share of 20% making it the second largest airline in India. All this in a short span of about 4 years is highly commendable. However, the answer to one key question in any business- "Are you making profit?" turns the numbers topsy -turvy. Air Deccan reported losses of Rs. 356 crores in the last financial year. With 22% of the airline owned by the promoters and rest among public- VC funds, FIIs, Individuals including 11% by Lachmandas Ladhani, it seems it became difficult to keep flying without a co-pilot!

On the personal front, I have liked Air Deccan for the prices. My liking ends there. I have had bad memories with flight delays and reschedules. I have failed to understand the concept of "free seating" which only creates confusion and discomfort. When a simple software can churn out seat numbers, why not! I have had to wait for 30 minutes on call to speak to a customer service representative. When I made an attempt to cancel tickets in March, I was told that they have lost data in a system upgrade that included the price of my tickets! It is June and I am yet to get my money. Personal experiences aside, Air Deccan continues to provide the opportunity for many, who never expected to fly once in their life time.

The stage is set for the next phase- Kingfisher-Deccan versus Jet-Sahara combine. On the sidelines is the Air India-Indian merger. All this is immaterial for the common man- this is no end to the party. He can continue to watch for the "Fly at Rs 0" ads on daily newspaper.

Microsoft PowerPoint - Tips & Tools to Add Power to Your Point

Rajiv Renganathan — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:05:18 EDT

A change in job brings with it a lot of interesting challenges. Challenges drive one to explore ways to do things better and fast. Here is a result of my exploration with Microsoft PowerPoint. Hope it helps you add power to your point in your presentations and saves you from Death by PowerPoint

� File > Send To > Microsoft Office Word - Ever wondered how those handouts with slides and space for notes made? Use this and its as simple as that.

� Tools > Compare & Merge presentations - Compare slide-by-slide multiple presentations. Excellent feature to compare (and merge) original with multiple reviewed presentations.

� Slide Show > Custom Shows > New... - Add selected slides from your presentation and this is your custom show. Click the "Show" button to play the custom set of slides. Useful when you have a deck of slides used for different situations. Saves you of maintaining multiple files of same presentation for different occasions and audiences. When a presentation is a study material, I use this is create sub-set of slides which I might want go through later.

� Slide Show > Rehearse Timings - Keep this ON when you rehearse your presentations to get an idea of how long it takes. Also, you can save the timings as slide transition timings for auto runs.

� Slide Show > Set Up Show > Loop continuously until 'Esc' - Useful in situations where the presentation is to infinitely run in a kiosk or road show stall.

� File > Properties - This is the identity of the file, especially the Author & Company. We don't care most of the times, but this is good-to-know where your identity is embedded.

� Tools > Options > General > Recently used file list - Keeping it high is useful at times when one is unsure where a document was saved.

� Format > Replace Fonts - Changes font across the presentation.

External Tools:
� FlashSpring Lite - Converts Microsoft PowerPoint documents to Macromedia Flash (*.swf)

� Thermometer: Adds progress bar in the bottom of all slides indicating the progress and how much is remaining. This is extremely useful when going through study materials when I am waiting for it to complete :)

� PDF Creator - Converts Microsoft Office documents to PDF. (Use the "Read Out Loud" feature in acrobat reader to then listen to the presentations.) Link...

� Autorun Presenter - Lets you run PowerPoint presentation right from the memory stick. No need to copy the presentation to the system nor does the system needs to have PowerPoint installed.

� Templates:
o Microsoft Template Packs
o Free-PPT :

� CartoonStock.com - Library of cartoons. Useful to add a zing to your presentations.

Feel free to share other tips and tools that have helped you to make the most of PowerPoint, a software which Microsoft says is being used to make 30 million presentations a day!

WebSite Review: StockHive.com- Invest Rationally

Rajiv Renganathan — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 09:18:47 EDT

Web 2.0 is not only about social networking, video or music. It is about money & investing too. Introducing StockHive.com. StockHive gives investors access to information about companies listed in the Indian stock markets- Price chart, financial numbers, annual results, news, history. This just sounds like any other finance portal such as EquityMaster, MoneyControl or MyIris. However, it scores in its content presentation and sheer simplicity. Most Indian free financial portals are clumsy. This is not.

To begin, its a simple & free registration process. You are not asked for date of birth, your nationality, your address and the works. Email id as your username and password is all it takes to begin. Once logged in, search for the company of choice & pick from the search results. All the information is well laid out in a tabbed structure. StockHive realises that P/E & EPS are two of most sought-after information and hence it bold and big right at the top. This is impressive. The stock can be added to your watch list with a single AJAX click. Investors have always scrambled to find record dates of bonuses and dividends. For whatever reason, there is no consistent way to find these in the others financial portals. StockHive consolidates them all in the news section. There is also an industry-wise listing of companies though there is no feature to browse by industries.

StockHive offers limited features but then, it is still at its infancy. What is significant is the fact that it does a very good job in delivering these limited features. The principle of keeping it simple and user-friendly as it adds features is going to be the key to its success.

Lastly, the "About Us" page is not to be missed in the Web 2.0 world. Yogi Kulkarni is the brain behind StockHive and is supported by Ajey Gore, Ayatana Holdings & ThoughtWorks.

Indian Stock Markets This Week: The Cloud of Confusion

Rajiv Renganathan — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 01:47:59 EDT

What is common to sports and stock markets? They never fail to surprise! Be it the ongoing World Cup or the Indian stock markets, if you like surprises there are plenty. Just when investors were getting used to seeing markets and portfolios in red, the last 2 days of the week saw an up move of 1000 closing the week little less then 10,000! Truly and surely, the size of the up-move has added to my confusion on the mid-term direction!

Though I do see large caps now at mouth-watering levels, this feeling is relative to a large extent. Satyam Computers for example. At Rs 670, it is at a good price to buy when you compare it with the fact that it was Rs 850 in April. However, compare it with the 52-week low (Rs 475). It may not seem as cheap as it seemed in the previous comparison. This is not a discussion on fundamentals but a point to prove that it is extremely difficult and almost impossible (unless you are bestowed with a lot of luck by the heavenly bodies) to buy and feel safe to have bought at a "good" price.

Suzlon Energy is another of the many possible instances. With acquisitions and strong results, I believe that this is a good investment for long term. However, over Rs 1200 I did not invest. When the market fall/correction started by mid-may, Suzlon came down to Rs 1000 and it looked like a extremely good price. The price looked unbeatable only until it dropped sub-900! I emphasize again that my fundamental beliefs have not changed. I am trying to bring out how the cloud of confusion gets formed over me and many of us.

So what did I do this week? Nothing this week. Just like I watched football matches, I am just watching the markets too! Though I am enthused into one of favourite sectors- Large-cap IT, I still want to wait and watch.

This article does not recommend any investment decisions. Readers are strongly urged to do independent research and make their own conclusions. Desicritics does not review or verify any of the information presented by our authors. The article is presented for your reading pleasure only.

Indian Stock Markets This Week: Renounce Sensex, Get High On Soccer

Rajiv Renganathan — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 14:55:20 EDT

Economic Times, Bangalore of today, 9th June carried this headline, "Renounce Sensex, Get High On Soccer". Whoever coined the headline, captured the sentiment among the retail investors since the last 3 weeks. Though every analyst cautioned of a correction from the time the market started its bull run, as every time this fall came as a huge surprise and shock for investors especially the retail. Since the downfall which became evident from the day 3 weeks back when the sensex hit a 10% lower circuit, every pull back was thought of the restart of the bull run. As the fall continues everybody seem to have accepted this fact this is indeed the long long awaited correction. This week, the sensex closed 640 points down at 9810. Today's recovery of over 500 points had made the week's fall look "ok" which otherwise would have been worse.

I heard a analyst a while back say,"We will see the good mid & large cap stocks graduate to the next level". Do I own the "good" ones is the question of the situation. Time will answer but I want to ensure I get the whole thing right now to be in a profitable portfolio in the long run. I have no magic answer. However, my thought process: "Do you believe in the India story?" is the larger question to ask oneself. If the answer is "No", then I don't know what can be done other than pulling out of the market. If "Yes", the next question- "Which are those companies that one believes will participate and contribute to the emerging India?". I feel this list is going to be the guide of one's current portfolio and future investments. This list is also the one which has decided what I have sold in the last couple of weeks. Small investment in Adani Export, helped me balance the losses in Subhash Projects. Similiarly, sell of Hind Zinc at the apt time is helping me balance some of the losses in Piramyd Retail & Binani Industries. Overall, my portfolio is the red but I am making an attempt to clean it up for a better future. Am I buying the ones which are in the list I mentioned before? Though I did add on in the initial fall, 0 buys this week. I would love to but unfortunately resources are limited since I was full invested during the bull run. I am open for rapelling-rafting kind off real extreme adventure, but not so with my finance & investments.

To conclude, here is nice-yet-tough-to-adhere quote by Warren Buffet:
"Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can't buy what is popular and do well."

So, is this that time to get interested? :) Tough call..hah?

Rugby in Bangalore: Day 1

Rajiv Renganathan — Sun, 21 May 2006 14:25:04 EDT

Until a week back, all I knew about Rugby was that its a rough game, India has a rugby team and Rahul Bose plays for India. One day last week I happened to read an interview of Mr. Phil Woodward, Secretary of Karnataka Rugby Football Union. I was glad to discover that Bangalore had become the Number 1 rugby in India. This is on the back of Bangalore winning the Premier Hockey League a few months back. The interview also lead me to BangaloreRugby.com. As I was looking around in the website, I found an open invite from the team to join them for a light hearted and fun session of rugby every Saturday at a army ground in the heart of the city. I shot a mail to my gang of college friends. We have always sought to do something interesting & different on weekends. We were quite apprehensive with the thought of rugby which is considered tough and even dangerous. Nevertheless, we decided to give it a try. Though unsure what to expect, I was pretty excited to learn and play a new sport especially one which could help me stretch and workout my muscles and bones! Being in the always-sit-and-code industry makes every software engineer think of ways to stay fit sooner or later and this looked like a good opportunity.

I dropped a mail to Phil expressing our interest and he made a prompt reply inviting us to join them. We went through the rules of the game on the net and tried to relate it to whatever less we had seen of rugby on television. Come Saturday, we landed at the ground a good half an hour late, thanks to Bangalore traffic! We saw a group of 10 playing rugby and a bigger group of 30 being coached by Phil and couple of others. After a quick intro with Phil, we got an overview of the sport and started with the basics of learning the technique of passing the oval shaped foot long ball. (Did you know that, American football and rugby are a "football" because the ball is foot long unlike the reference in soccer.). The instant realisation was that the game involved lot of concentration and passing was a technique which has to be mastered just like a shot in cricket or smash in lawn tennis. It was not about brute force which was my original opinion. The next one hour, Phil, Kartik and others made us run, call for the ball, catch, align & pass; run, call for the ball, catch, align & pass; run, call for the ball, catch, align & pass, correcting and motivating us all the time. It was fun and we had a good time as we tried to do the best on day 1 with rugby. Then came the much-waited water break. It was a great feeling to have worked out and shed some sweat. We spent another 15 minutes with Karthik trying to get the swing of hands right which we had learnt by now was one of the key to playing good rugby. Everybody set out to play a game. However we opted out since our stamina index was nil and we called it a day.

We drove back home with a good experience sure to return the next week to run, call for the ball, catch, align, pass and probably more. If you are around Bangalore, I would suggest you must drop in at least once. Apart from Saturday, they play matches on Sundays. If you opt to be a spectator, you could choose the matches on Sundays.

Indian Stock Markets This Week: Crack & Crash

Rajiv Renganathan — Sat, 20 May 2006 09:37:46 EDT

What is called a strike in the game of bowling is a crash in the business of stocks which fell like tenpins last week. Media and analysts lost words to describe the free fall, the mayhem, the blood bath, the bear party, the Friday fry! From 12286 on Monday to 10939 on Friday, a loss of 1,347 points. As the market soured without respite from 6000 to 12000, everybody was expecting a fall. As always the markets succeeded to surprise everybody, not with a fall but the nature of the fall and the volatility which kept everybody guessing.

In a rising market, it was seems always wrong to sell since the stock went up after you sold. On the contrary, it is looks wrong to hold since the stock price plummets everyday! These are times when traders (investors to an extent too) realise that its easier to decide when to buy and tougher to decide when to sell!

What about me? Of course, profits eroded. The ITCs & Reliances in anybody's portfolio would have proved a point that it pays to "invest in well managed large cap businesses", also referred to as "buy-and-forget-for-few-years" companies. Not that these stocks did not get a beating, its just that in such fall these companies do not add the heartaches since future of Indian economy has not changed in a week and fundamentals of these companies will surely take the portfolios to new highs in the longer term.

The short term recent speculative buys such are the ones which have lost out in my portfolio. This week, I was buyer! However, unlike previous weeks I only bought stocks which I already held and kept long term trust on the management and belief in stories. Suzlon Energy was the only new stock which I added to my portfolio. I realised the potential of the Suzlon only recently and this week's fall looked good to start an entry. I also bought Reliance Industries (<= 10) & Reliance Infocomm (<= 20 shares).

I see the retail venture as a very huge driver for this company apart from its 75% stake in Reliance Petroleum. I see the company making the right moves with testing their back end and supply chain before venturing the big way. 1500 stores by March 2007 is no fun across all formats- Hyper marts, super marts, convenience stores and specialty stores. At closer to Rs 1000, it looks very lucrative. Reliance communications, for its every growing mobile business plus the broadband venture. With their IPTV and DTH plans, I see them as a strong player in the changing TV channel distribution business.

I ended up selling Satyam Computers in the beginning of week! Though its feel good since it lost a lot this week, I must say I should not have sold it since I believe they have the potential to scale to the level of big 3. Now that I have sold, let me wait and watch before I think of buying again. On mutual funds, I invested in Pru ICICI FMCG Fund to get an exposure to the retail space (I see an affinity to Shoppers Stop, Pantaloon, Trent in this fund) & good year ahead for FMCG businesses.

Is this an end or just a beginning? Is this time to sell or an opportunity to buy? Or just wait and watch? Not many have answers but everybody has an opinion. For a different perspective for me and others, share what you read of the current proceedings in the Indian & global markets.

Indian Stock Markets This Week: Up, Up & Down

Rajiv Renganathan — Sat, 13 May 2006 09:02:12 EDT

Just as the much awaited rain in Bangalore happened, so did the awaited fall in the Sensex after going straight up eight to nine days this month. However, I hear that the bullish trend is still on. The last two days of the week saw the market going down about 350 points. Finally, markets closed the week at 12285 which is a margin loss of less than 100 points which is not a surprise for the market at these levels. The listing of Reliance Petroleum on Thrusday was the highlight of the week. At an issue price of Rs 60, the listing was inline with expectations of Rs 90-100. However, it closed lower at around 85.

Nothing much happened in my portfolio this week. In my quest to build a portfolio which could give me good returns over a long term, I topped over the 100 share allotment of RPL with another 100 on the day of listing (Basis of allocation). Financial year 2009-2010 (FY '10) is going be RPL's fully operational year and net profit is expected to be about Rs 5,000 crores. Above all this, Reliance has traditionally given very good returns to its investors, evident from the fact of the Reliance demerger.

For the uninformed, the Ambani brothers demergered their businesses and share holders of Reliance Industries were alloted a share each of four other demegered companies for every RIL share. Post demerger, RIL share price fell since the value of the company had reduced owing to the four other business no longer being in the RIL fold. That was a couple of months ago now. RIL now trades far over the post demerger price. This means that RIL investors got shares of four other companies (including that of the much values Reliance Infocomm) and now they are in profit with the original RIL shares!

Speak to your investor-savvy dad or uncle, they can tell you many stories of people having made a better life with the returns from investment in Reliance. After from Reliance, I sold off HTMedia (<= 50 shares) just over its offer price of Rs 530 months back. This was one of very few IPOs which underperformed last year and I was an unfortunate soul to have got an allotment.

Talking of IPOs, I believe everybody has started accumulating funds for India's largest IPO ever, DLF. Did you know that DLF was a listed entity in the Sensex and it delisted years back? India's first low cost airline, Air Deccan opens its IPO next week at the offer price of Rs 150-175. I am not a great fan of investing in the bumpy airline industry even though I love to not miss their deals! However, depending on the over-subscription levels, I might still apply for some listing gains.

Catch "Being Rakesh Jhunjhunwala" on CNN-IBN or CNBC to know more about the man who has a portfolio of crores which all began from Rs 5000 in 1985! If you miss that, here is the transcript.

Let me end this week's portfolio roundup by quoting Mr. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, "We should be greedy, but long term greedy".

Indian Stocks: Riding the Momentum This Week

Rajiv Renganathan — Sat, 6 May 2006 00:05:28 EDT

"Riding the momentum" was the theme for the week. Markets this week continued the intra-day volatility. However, the upward trend is still on. The BSE closed at 12360, up by 3% since last week. I heard a couple of FIIs signaling the over valuation of Indian markets. Though they did not talk of exit, they did mention that other emerging markets like China, Russia, Brazil, and Taiwan may get higher allocations as compared to last year. With monsoons not expected to be normal this year, is it a sign of dark clouds in the making at the horizon?

Under these circumstances, I have started to feel the need to be a net seller. Nothing is as frustrating as seeing profits on paper not making it up to the bank. Neither do I want to miss out on the momentum! Hence I have decided that I would make less of strategic long term buys (since they all seem overvalued by fundamentals) and will make buys of small quantities in sectors that are driven by momentum. It is high risk and I have not been a great fan of such an approach. Time will speak for itself.

Based on all these, I sold Hindustan Zinc. It has been riding high on soaring zinc prices (The company produces zinc at $700/tonne and zinc prices have touched $3300. Which business can get a 80% margin?) I also sold HTMT. It has been up on multiple reasons, well reported in MoneyControl. Both gave good returns in a short while. One might say I could have held on but I am happy. I also sold part of Opto Circuits, a very good company in its niche space of medical equipment manufacturing and extremely investor friendly. As I mentioned previously about buying small quantities in stocks that are driven by momentum, I bought Binani Industries (<= 15) and Adani Exports (<= 15).

Binani Industries is driven by its zinc and cement businesses. Both sectors catching the charm of the investors lately. Adani Exports is going places owing to its play in real estate. Both have been consistently hitting upper circuits. I have never played high stakes. Hence absolute returns are low though percentage returns may be high.

Speaking of high stakes and right picks, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is one the consistent successful investors in India. When I last read about him, his net worth was worth Rs 1455 crores. That was in Jan 2006 when the sensex was a couple of 1000 points below the current! A few months back I heard him on CNBC, addressing a audience of investors in Mumbai. I blogged about it and here are some points I took away from listening to him:

Opportunity: Titan industries is interesting since Tanishq is playing in a 50,000 crore Indian jewelry market.

Competitive ability: The ability to get ahead of competition.

Challenges of scalability: In days when software business became big not everybody could scale to capitalise the opportunity like Infosys.

People: Quality of management.

Price: Is the valuation fair?

"Believe in India.... Happy Investing," concluded Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.

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