Red Box

He opened the box. The red box. He has been pondering for quite long. Unsure of the contents inside. Unsure if it was a practical joke played by one of his friends.

Past few days have been really tough on him. He was trying his best to do the right things. But it doesn't matter. Whatever he tried, boomranged on him. To others he was living a perfect happy life. He had a nice paying job in one of the best firms in town. He had a beautiful wife and a very darling daughter. What else one needs in life. But there was discomfort and discontentment. And especially for past few days it was getting worse. His boss was throwing all kind of unwanted work at him and was expecting faster results. As if he had a magical wand to do it. He was supposed to go to onsite project, but that seemed far from happening. Long hours at work were affecting his health and family life too.

Yesterday he was going through all the humdrums of his daily routine. It was approaching lunch time and although he was feeling hungry, he didn't want to go to the crowded cafeteria. He didn't want to sit with the large crowd, where everyone was constantly taking to other and making all kind of noises. By GOD, today he can't tolerate them. On the other hand eating on his desk was even more disgusting. Invariably one or the other colleague will pop up in his cube and will say "Wow eating alone !!!". Who gave them the right to enter in his solitude. So he decided to wait. He couldn't concentrate on his work, so he decided to take a stroll in the nearby park. This park was a haven for him. Whenever he felt stressed, he came here and spent some quiet time. The fresh air, the rustling sound of leaves and occasionally a bird flying nearby energized him. So he came to the park and was taking his usual walk around the small lake. He was still thinking of his problems and how to solve them. Suddenly a thing caught his eye. It was a bright red box. It was lying under a tree. He looked around to see if someone has left it there by mistake. But there was no one there. Curiosity took hold of him. He decided to have a look at it.

The box looked like a lunch box. It was almost brand new, as if someone has just opened the cover. But there was no cover box near by. The lid seemed to be firmly put on it. He cried out loud "Who has left this box?". But there was no one there to answer him. He was hesitant to touch it. Who knows who has left it there? But he picked it any ways. It was little heavy. Then he noticed a small colorful card on the ground. As soon as he picked up the card, he was scared. It was written "To Ankush, It will solve all your problems." He almost dropped the box and card. It was for him. How in world someone will leave this for him. Who is there playing tricks? Soon he was angry. He shouted and hurled some abuses towards that person. But there was no one there. He thought "To hell with them". He left the box and card as it is and started leaving the place. He didn't go very far then the idea struck him lets find out who is doing this trick. So he hid behind another tree and started waiting. He was also keeping an eye on the tree where the box was. But no body came there. He was hiding there for almost couple of hours but nothing happened. Then he realized that he has been away from office for quite some time and his stupid boss must be looking out for him and thus decided to return to office thinking that whoever is playing this trick will get tired of it.

On returning to office he was caught up in work and forgot all about it. He even forgot that he hadn't taken his lunch. As usual it got very late and it was near 9 PM. Almost every one was gone. He too decided to leave and then he again recalled the incident of afternoon. He almost laughed that he had given a suitable reply to whoever was playing game with him. However just to check, he drove near the park and decided to have one more look at that tree. See if the box is still there or gone. It was dark and no human soul was in the park. With a hurried pace, he went near the tree and to his horror he saw the box as he had left in the afternoon. He picked up the box and card and returned to his car. He decided to inspect it at home. But soon decided that it was better that he do it alone. His wife will ask so many questions and he didn't had that kind of energy and patience. He thought he will check it later in the night.

His morning alarm at 5:30 woke him up. He couldn't sleep well last night and was dreaming all sorts of thing. Both his wife and daughter were fast asleep. Quietly he got down and went to the garage to get the box. He brought it in his living room and put it on the center table. He was still not sure if it is a wise idea to open the box. Who knows what is in it. Maybe some drugs. He kept on staring at it. Clock was approaching 7. Very soon his wife and kid will wake up. So he decided to open it. With trembling hands he opened the lid. A very nice smell came out of it. He looked inside. He was relieved and couldn't stop smiling. Soon tears started flowing and he felt sleepy and had simply dozed off on the sofa. Later doctors pronounced him dead at around 7.

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© 2010 Anup Mayank

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Quotes From Book: The little book that beats the market

• Saving : It takes a great amount of discipline to save any money. After all, no matter how much money you earn or recieve from others, it's simply much easier and more immediately rewarding to find something to spend it on.
  


• On Academic theories behind irrational behavior of stock market: In fact it is such a good question that professors have developed whole fields of economic, mathematical, and social study to try to explain it. Even more incredible, most of this academic work has involved coming up with theories as to why something that cleary makes no sense, actually makes sense. You have to be really smart to do that.


• Individual stock picking: Choosing individual stocks without any idea of what you are looking for is like running through a dynamite factory with a burning match. You may live, but you're still an idiot.

Book Summary: The Dhandho Investor

This is a book on investments by Mohnish Pabrai, the founder of "Pabrai Investment Funds". I have read this book over a weekend and found it to be quite interesting, knowledgeful and entertaining at the same time. This is a 200 page book with examples from various successful enterpreneurs and quotations from investors like Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger. In nutshell the book talks about how you can get good return on your investment(bet) without taking unnecessary risk. The recurring theme is "Heads I win, Tails I don't loose much".
Initial few chapters talk about the investment strategy taken by successful people. It is a very interesting read about how Patels in US own more than 50% of the motel business. How Richard Branson and Laxmi Mittal have made their fortune.
Then he goes on to describe the "Dhandho Framework" (Investment Strategy). I am jotting down the 9 investment principles outlined in the book.

1. Focus on buying an existing business
2. Buy simple business in Industry with ultra low rate of change
3. Buy distressed businesses in distressed industries
4. Buy businesses with a durable competitive advantage
5. Bet heavily when odds are overwhelmingly in your favor
6. Focus on arbitrage
7. Buy businesses at big discounts to their underlying intrinsic value
8. Look for low risk high uncertainty business
9. It is better to be a copycat than to be an innovator

All these points are explained with examples and doing mathematical modeling DCF (Discount Cash Flow, Kelly Analysis etc.). I will admit that i haven't done the mathematical part on my own. That is an exercise for later.

In summary, the author urges you to find out simple businesses which you can understand. Do your due reading, find out what are the factors in that business. If you don't understand, don't invest. Then within that industry find out businesses which are fundamentally strong but for some reason their stocks are trading significantly below the intrinsic value. Of course it means more study and analysis. You should do a rough odds estimate of what are the chances of getting good return and what are the chances of break even , and what are the chances of being complete failure. If the odds are heavily in your favor, then put good amount of money on such bets. You should be patient for a duration of around 3 years. As businesses take time to solve their issues and uncertainties to disappear. This is the strategy taken by author and his 2 idols Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger. Hope it works for you too.

Cool Advertising

While browsing on a website, i stumbled upon this. First time for me and i was wowed. The interesting fact is that the clothes worn by the actor (Salman Khan) was pre decided. What do you say??

Drawing with SDEdit

Today I had been assigned the task of creating sequence diagram for one of the project I am working on. As with most of the things this was first time for me.

A sequence diagram helps you in understanding flow of control from one component to another component of your software when a particular action (ex. User presses a button, or your web service receives a request, or a scheduler wakes up and starts some action) is triggered. It is the intermediate step between writing problem on a document to converting solution in a programming language (Java, C/C++ etc)

Anyways since I was new to doing this, my first thought was lets do it in Microsoft word or Powerpoint. But very soon I realized the futility of this approach. I will have spent whole day on drawing lines and blocks. Then someone suggested to use Microsoft Visio. I installed it too, but only to realize that it doesn't have capability to draw sequence diagrams.

Then I searched for tools. There are many tools available on internet but most of them are commercial. Finally I stumbled upon SDEdit. This is a java based tool and available as open source. Perfect for my needs. However understanding the working of this tool required reading the help text for 30 minutes or so. It uses commands to draw and is not as intuitive as MS Word or powerpoint. Reminds me of latex. But the end result was very beautiful. With just 10-12 commands I had drawn the sequence diagrams and created pdf out of it. It even allowed me to create pdf in landscape mode (better for viewing). Overall a very useful tool. Please share your experience and let me know if you have used other similar good open source tools for UML etc.

Auto ride and wait

These days auto rickshaw is my main mode of commute. So far it has been going smoothly for my daily commute from home to work and back. But today was different.

After leaving from home, I prefer to walk little bit. First reason is to settle the heavy breakfast I had. Another is to avoid the rickshaw-wallahs near my home. They typically charge more. For a Rs 30 fare, they will ask around 50-60. So I walk till the McDonald’s nearby. McDonald’s being the hot spot; it is easy to get a ride from here.

However today as it turned out, either all the autos were full or those who weren’t didn’t want to go to Bhau Patil Road (my office location). I had talked to almost 15 drivers but with no luck. One was going in the same direction but had another female passenger. So the auto-wallah asked the girl if I could share the auto. Maybe out of apprehension or maybe she thought she had the exclusive rights, she didn’t budge. “Main doosra auto le loongi. Mujhe nahin jana”. To end this discussion I had to tell the auto-wallah to let go. I waited for another 5 minutes and then suddenly an auto stopped in front of me.

The driver was an old fellow. All the white hairs and must be above 70. He agreed to take me and turned on the meter. No haggling. And thus ended my almost 20 minute wait. This ride was very joyous and I didn’t mind leaving some tip for the gentleman.