SENSEX & WIFEX – AND THEIR MANY MOODS!

SENSEX & WIFEX – AND THEIR MANY MOODS!

The standard mood of the investor these days has been high, claim acclaimed analysts. What with sensex continuing to do a gravity defying act! The ‘moody’ nature of the investor needs to be read cautiously, lest it is rated ‘poor’. Playing in the market can be very addictive and equally seductive. The boom in the market can suddenly turn nasty and boomerang on the gullible investors. ‘Make hay while the sensex shines’ is par for the time. But it makes eminent sense to reminisce the melancholic meltdown in 2008. The prospect of making a quick buck is very seductive, so much so, there is need for a dose of sedative. Can there ever be a more effective sedative than the ‘recount of 2008 meltdown’! The best way to administer the sedative is to reminisce the meltdown by running through a fascinating narrative of ‘sensex & wifex – and their many moods’. So, here goes:

While Funny trusted his uncanny ability to sense the Sensex, Punny equated the essence of making sense of Sensex with that of his wife – or ‘wifex’. Punny’s reasoning was that just as sensex fell and rose, the smile on the face of wifex appeared and disappeared. You can scratch your head until you turn bald and yet not figure out the reasons for the behavior of both – sensex and wifex. The graph of the sensex can be easily mistaken for the cardiograph of a person needing immediate heart surgery. To Punny, it was painfully funny. And suddenly Punny felt confused about how a pain can be fun and fun can be pain. And then his mind began to experience a series of ‘fun-filled’ pain and ‘painful’ fun. Punny’s mind alternated between having to tackle fun-filled pain and painful fun. And Punny began to sense that this exercise of tackling the two simultaneously was in fact not so funny as he originally thought. The more Punny thought about it, the funnier it became. All this time, Funny was thinking hard and was barely able to bear the bear-run of sensex and was keen to bare and share his thoughts with Punny. ‘What do you make of sensex? Can you explain how a company’s share price can plummet 250% when in fact it is doing well? Did you check its ‘past performance’, asked Punny. ‘Yes, I ‘REL’ied on its ‘POWER’, blurted Funny. A wry smile wrinkled Punny’s face – the result of the fact that Funny’s reading of the market had all gone wrong! Punny likened the reading of the market to that of reading the mind of wifex – you can never be sure. All you can be sure is about being unsure! The market soared high as did the expectations of retail investors like F and P. They found the market so attractive and addictive. Little did they realize that it can be destructive too. The walls and streets of the market cracked, ‘washing’ tons of funds, leaving investors ‘mu’ted in ‘shock n awe’, eroding the savings of ‘brothers and sisters’ of ‘lay men’. ‘Sub-prime’ crisis turned out to be a terrible misnomer as it was labeled the ‘primary’ cause for the bubble to burst! The analysts reeled off statistics with high sounding jargons which left the Funnys and Punnys even more confused – which any way they were! From breakfast market analysis to live market updates, F and P watched them with screwed eyes, creased foreheads, chewing and munching whatever their wifex fed them for breakfast, lunch and dinner! So Funny and Punny struggled to make sense of the sensex, hoping against hope that one day the index will take a bullish turn and kept their (index) fingers crossed!

Back to the future. Having learnt the lessons the hard way, F and P made up their mind to be not too greedy. Banking on getting their ‘bearings’ right, they braced themselves up for the difficult task of managing and squaring off the sometimes ‘long’ and sometimes ‘short’ position. Taking the ‘bull’ by the horn, they are ready to face the ‘bear’, which they reckon must be lurking somewhere, out of sight. But not out of mind!