Nice One !!

Received a forwarded funny message from one of my colleagues and thought I could share it with you !!

If you have difficulty in understanding the current world financial situation, the following should help...

Once upon a time in a village in India, a man announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10.

The villagers seeing there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10, but, as the supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts. The man further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now act as buyer, on his behalf.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: 'Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when he returns from the city, you can sell them back to him for $50.'

The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man or his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere!

"Welcome to WALL STREET"

Rain is a Pain ??

Yesterday, the 24th day of October 2008, I had a terrific experience while returning back to home in the evening. I got a call from home saying that it was still raining, the area where I reside is completely flooded with waters and no vehicle can enter the road. Though I imagined the situation, I thought I could manage.

Scene 1: Raining heavily

Scene 2: With heavy laptop on hand, I was standing inside a crowd where everyone was looking to catch an auto.

Scene 3: No auto-driver was ready to carry us because of rains, water stagnation and traffic jam.

Scene 4: I won at my tenth attempt, a driver came for rescue, but said he would charge 100 bucks (you know, normally it takes 30, but they know that when demand increases, prices also increase).

Scene 5: Thought problem solved, but not really.

Scene 6: Water peeped inside the auto and struck off at one place midway through. He did some magic and got it ready.

Scene 7: Again stopped in few minutes for lack of fuel. Long queue on the nearby petrol bunk, waited for 25 minutes to get the filling.

Scene 8: Since we couldn’t take the direct route considering the road conditions, he showed me the city for 100 bucks and finally reached North Boag Road from where my home is about few minutes drive.

Scene 9: Held up in traffic and couldn’t move a little bit….it was still raining, vehicles were completely mess-up, two staff buses were facing each other blocking the entire road…

Scene 10: After waiting for 20 minutes in auto, paid him the cash and needed to walk down.

Here comes the catch,,,

- water levels on the ground were above my knee levels,
- no space to move here or there
- grounds were already in digged condition for some piping work, hence not sure which way to walk
- Few electrical wires were hanging from transformer boxes
- Many cars were struck on the roads, and couldn’t move back

Though it looks silly, the situation made me to feel whether some thing wrong will happen.

After confirming that my insurance policies are alive currently, I walked in the middle of the road on the drainage-mixed rain waters. Finally, reached home safely though my Franco Leone shoes (worth 2k INR) have lost its life.

Fixed Maturity Plan : Favour of the Season

We have many FMPs from different Asset Management Companies from time to time. It is a very good instrument and offers few benefits which are unique if compared to other debt instruments. I’m pleased to share a detailed product note on this subject to refresh the memory of all.

About FMPs:

FMPs are closed ended funds with a fixed maturity period which could be as little as 15 days or as long as five years. Objective of this investment is to protect the investors against market volatility and generate steady returns.

Working of FMPs:

FMPs are managed as a passive scheme and the fund manager looks to invest money in instruments with maturities corresponding to the maturity of the plan. For example – a 90 day FMP will invest in instruments that mature within this period. The fund manager locks the investments at a certain yield at the time of inception itself which protects the principal and fights against volatility.

They invest primarily in fixed return investments like Government bonds and money market instruments (very short-term fixed return investments) which are almost risk-free investments.

Investment Pattern:

FMP predominantly invests in debt instruments or some high quality corporate papers with a rating, Government Securities, bonds etc.

Advantages of investment in FMP are

a) Fights interest rate risk
b) Fights market volatility
c) Capital Protection

Tax Calculation:

Returns generated by FMPs come under the purview of Capital Gains.

For Short-term: less than a year

If an investor puts money in a FMP of less than one year tenure, then the entire capital gains is combined with the income and is taxed according to the tax bracket the investor falls into. If the investor falls in the tax bracket of 30%, then the returns are taxed at 33.99% (including surcharge and education cess).

For Long-term: One year or more than one year

If an investor invests in a 12 months or more than 12 months series, then he would be taxed at :

10% without indexation
20% with indexation

Who should invest in ?

For investors who are risk-averse and do not want to play with their savings, this is the option. Even those investors who have some money and want to invest for a very short period of time then this is the best option. Investors can also avail tax benefits by investing in a one year plus FMPs which offers indexation benefits, especially in the month of March.

E-mail communications can be considered as vaild evidence:

The new company law which is being drafted by the government is likely to recognise e-mails as a valid piece of evidence. With corporates relying on e-mails for bulk of their communication, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs is planning to recognise electronic communication by corporates as evidence during company law prosecutions.

Regulatory changes in this regard would clear the air on the evidentiary value of electronic communication including emails. With the present law on the subject yet to gain clarity, it is felt that the move would tighten the noose around companies, who often bank upon regulatory loopholes to save themselves.

Officials say that the new company law, expected to be placed in Parliament soon, would provide for necessary changes to this effect. The changes are likely to provide prosecuting agencies a strong hand in their crackdown on matters of infringement of company law provisions.

Under the present law, there is no specific recognition of e-mails as evidence. Officials point out that this lack of clarity has often been exploited by companies facing prosecution. The officials also point out that the basic ground work towards the move is almost ready with the inception of the ministry's e-governance project. The project named MCA-21 has enabled computerisation of documents and records filed by companies.

The new company law has laid substantial importance to both means to check corporate frauds as well as ways to crack them. The government feels that companies should not be let off due to lack of evidence.

It is also learnt that the government at various levels is trying to harmonise related legislation's like Information Technology Act and Evidence Act on the subject, so as to avoid regulatory overlaps.

Even as the company law awaits amendments to this effect, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) feels corporate e-mails could be crucial evidence in cartel investigations. The CCI recommends enterprises to maintain a check on electronic correspondence of its marketing personnel and distributing agents to ensure that they do not engage themselves in anti-competitive activities.

Great Methods of Marketing:


1. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to

her and say: "I am very rich, Marry me!"

- That's Direct Marketing... "
________________________________________


2. You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see

a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her

and pointing at you says: "He's very rich, Marry him."

-That's Advertising. .."
________________________________________


3. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her

and get her telephone number. The next day, you call and

say: "Hi, I'm very rich, Marry me

- That's Telemarketing. .."
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4. You're at a party and see gorgeous girl. You get up

and straighten your tie, you walk up to her and pour

her a drink, you open the door (of the car)"Marry Me?"

- That's Public Relations... "
________________________________________


5. You're at a party and see gorgeous girl. She walks

up to you and says: "You are very rich!

"Can you marry ! me?"

- That's Brand Recognition. .."
________________________________________


6. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to

her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" She gives you

a nice hard slap on your face.

- "That's Customer Feedback..."
________________________________________


7. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to

her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" And she

introduces you to her husband.

- "That's demand and supply gap..."
________________________________________


8. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to

her and before you say anything, another person come

and tell her: "I'm rich. Will you marry me?" and she

goes with him

- "That's competition eating into your market share..."
________________________________________

9. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to

her and before you say: "I'm rich, Marry me!" your wife arrives.

- "That's restriction for entering new markets..."