Aha moment!

Classes can hardly ever be refreshing. 9 AM ones even less so. This one was just another such early morning class when I had dragged myself to the classroom.What more, it was a Sunday morning - a time when the majority of the sane world is hours away from getting off the bed. And then if you have taken an elective which only a few others have, then all of you put together are just too few in number to take the liberty to doze off in class.

Nevertheless, amidst strings of naps that lasted a few seconds (usually the times when the Professor is busy writing on the board), what struck me sometime in the middle of the lecture was this amazing concept that the Professor talked about. It was an "Options and Futures" class (scary stuff - isn't it! Nice way to brag on one's own blog!)- and the Professor was talking about the various ways one can use Stock Index Futures (I can easily imagine a big chunk of readers who have got until this point stopping right here! However, if you have ever invested in stocks / plan to do so in future, its worth continuing reading - trust me!)

Most of the times, when we are investing in the stock of a company, we are betting on the company to do well. What we tend to forget is that as we bought the stock, we not only took up the risk that the company may or may not do well, but also the risk that the market-in-general may or may not do well. Even if we do have that in mind, we usually do nothing about it. (Frankly, the "we" here means novice investors - which includes me!).

So, for example, if you invest in Company A purely because you think it will do well, and say some event occurs which brings the whole market down (Government toppled - War with Pakistan - etc), pulling down our dear Company A with it, then you make a loss even when your view on the company was probably correct. (The market-in-general say went down by 20%, while Company A went down by 5%. Hence the Company A has outperformed the market - but you still make a loss - you would have been much better off parking that money in a Savings Bank account!)

One way to ensure that your money is precisely where you want it to be is to go long on the stock and short on the index futures.(For the benefit of those who could not get head or tail of the last sentence - it simply means that you bet on the stock to do well and so you buy it now, and at the same time you also bet on the market-in-general to not do well and so you get into a contract saying - "I will make money if the market does not do well after 3 months, and lose if it does").

What this ensures is that the gains (or losses) you make in the stock purely because of the market 's performance in general are cancelled out by the losses (or gains) you make in the the contract. Thus you are left with the gains (or losses) which can be purely attributed to the stock! So, the investment is as good as your view on the company (and the company alone - not the market-in-general) with which you wanted to invest in the first place.

And I was awake for the rest of the class!

Tie Un-Tie

The absolute disgust of having to wear a tie everyday (okay, except Fridays and working Saturdays – Thank God for small mercies) to office during the last two months has made the rebel inside me wake up and give this serious issue some even more serious thought.

So this is how it works – you wrap a long piece of cloth around your neck, making loops and knots and finally push one end down and the knot up so that it is looks the way it should look.

In the evening you remove the damn thing off.

And in between, the thing hangs down your neck.

This is the thing which makes you look formal – the thing which symbolises that you really mean business – that you are very serious about your work and not taking it casually.

Well, I am somehow not too convinced. If that indeed is the case – then why is a tie not a part of the formal dress code for women. Do they not need to look like they mean business? (Disclaimer: I hope it is understood that this is a rhetoric question – I am not to be blamed if some highly proactive organization introduces ties as a formal dress code for women)

So, I put on my thinking cap and tried to imagine the various ways in which the useless looking piece of fabric can be put to some use for the good of this world. So here goes the list.

· For wiping sweat off your face – the positioning of a tie is really strategic (oh, physical positioning that is – just in case you thought I am taking this opportunity to give some marketing gyan). I mean how cumbersome it is to get your hand inside your pockets, take out your handkerchief, do the needful, and put it back in the pocket. The tie saves a lot of time and serves the same purpose.
o Counter-argument – Offices are usually Air Conditioned. So no sweat!


· For ensuring a clean nose when suffering from cold – this point actually stems from the counterargument mentioned above. Sometimes “hot and cold areas in the same office” (no, this blog is not sponsored by Blue Star) can lead to a running nose. The convenience of using a tie in this case is similar to that mentioned earlier.
o Counter-argument – A tie can prove to be inadequate if the severity of the running nose is very high – the much larger surface area of the handkerchief scores over the long but thin tie.


· For wiping off tears when you get bashed by your boss – this particular use just fits so well in the “formal” office scenario.
o Counter-argument – similar to one mentioned for running-nose. A tie may just not be adequate enough.


· To be used as a leash by your boss – this again fits well in the office scenario.
o Counter-argument - Why should the biggest boss in the office wear a tie? Agreed he would be meeting clients/ partners etc who would want to have a leash around him, but that does not happen every day.


The strong counter arguments for each possible use that I could think of lead me to believe that we are just following some silly norm which does not make even a little bit of sense. It is high time we un-tie ourselves from the unnecessary knots we have got ourselves into !