a new addition to TheVIP's kitchen

lassi made with Italian gelato mango ice cream .. really !

IJC 2M, CJC 25M

although IJC have come down to 2M, as expected but CJC are around 25M, which is a staggering number

2nd qtr GDP estimates -5.0%

market is stuck at 3000 & Trump is upset with China because he is screwed from the back, even though he got is tariff deal.

being human ...

Mind is God given; is the cause of all your problems and also the source of all solutions & creations.

Emotions are natural; its part of being human.

Behavior is given, hasn't changed much over millions of years of evolution.

Your actions are the only choices you have; & disappointments will come, when you set expectations, which don't become reality.

So be happy, as it all begins and ends with zero ..!

funny it took me a decade to write these lines as an almost conclusion to my thesis, but as i looked back, its nothing but what's already written in Bhag.vad.geeta five thousand years ago ... but isn't that proves the last point .. that the damn thing is a cycle .. so keep re-discovering ..!

Bull is getting tired at 3000 ...

needs some rest .!

are you banking on this banks rally ..!

a new addition to TheVIP's kitchen ...

broccoli & cauli pasta

AMZN making an all-time high ..

past the pre-corona high on Feb 20th ...

love or arranged marriage ..?

recently i saw a video where they asked the current generation in India if they would prefer a love or arranged marriage ..?

& the response from both boys and girls was equally divided .. but just about everything else, i always question the question, first ..?

do people really understand the question ..?

shouldn't the question be, "whether you prefer to find your life partner yourself, or with the help of a third-party, including your parents ..?"

because to me, love & marriage are not mutually exclusive, if there is no love, there is no marriage - a love-less marriage or a dead relationship -  first the two people need to enjoy each others company, & they end up loving each other to what the other person does, and then only there is a possibility of a marriage & not in reverse ...

maybe that's what they mean when they define an arranged marriage in India - a love less marriage ..!

corona must be a smart one ...

among many things that i find funny, the most amusing is using political ideology as a solution to a problem ... in that regard, dealing with corona or opening of states is turning out as blue vs red states issue ..

so i concluded that corona must be a smart one to distinguish & how to deal with folks having different ideology ..!

IJC: 2.48M, CJC: 25+M

we are past our peak but still quite high ...

NASDAQ within 5% of its Feb High ..

as if nothing has happened in last 3 months ..

really ?

predicting the future is impossible ... although its a big business, especially in financial world

another strong statement by TheVIP .. well, if i don't make strong statements, then who will ..!

to make the statement stronger, in Hinduism, even Gods are not allowed to make predictions .. wow ..!

what's possible is to study behaviors of humans as well as physical objects, & most behaviors are cyclic .. okay, that's a relief ..!

let me explain by sharing a few simple examples:

1. if you are born, you will die .. it's a not a prediction, simply a nature's life cycle - also known as jeevan chakra or immortality.
2. Sun will show up tomorrow - again, not a prediction - but its due to the fact that earth rotates on its axis & will be at the same point tomorrow after covering 360 deg
3. looking at the waves in the ocean you may project when will it arrive at the shore - its a projection, not prediction 
4. whatever goes up must come down - & in physical world, Newton named it gravity, again its not a prediction
5. happy days will be here again, its based on human emotions cycles - during days when the world is dealing with corona, not everyone is enjoying life, but imagine WWII ran for 6 years .. really .. but happy days will return because its part of human emotions cycle - but NOT a prediction.

on the contrary, at the beginning of the year, most market experts were "predicted" that S&P will hit 3500 by the end of the year, which may or may not happen ... but then corona hit us that took market to 2175 ... & you would say, how can anyone predict corona ? .. & i would say, that's exactly my point ... rather, "predicting" that market will hit 3500 by the end of year when you knew that Trump will not be impeached, economy is doing fine, even if the earnings have been flat; so, slapping a 10% market rise by the end of the year, with an assumption that current state of optimism (as of Jan) will raise market pe, is NOT a prediction rather a back of the envelope calculation, although i think that it must be a really cheap envelope; because, to me, it looks like a simple 6th grade math, not suited for people who are paid millions of dollars to make such statements ..!

crude turnaround from $-35 to + $32 in a month ...

what a difference ?

stress management

i wonder why would one came up with a word "stress management" ..?

why would one put the two words together .. stress & management; i.e. why stress needs to be managed .. shouldn't people just get rid of the stress altogether ..!

got you..? well, to get rid of something, you need to separate its company ..!

so, here is mine - a contrarian's opinion ...

1) people carry stress because they enjoy it .. as it gives them status ..something to talk about at cocktail parties - higher the stress level, the senior post, you must be at .. managing lots and lots of idiots, i mean people [at work or home or around] .. i call it local universe on my site (humans tab)

2) stress and management are two sides of the same coin; where there is management, there is stress because you want someone to behave in your way; not in his own way; hence requires management and results in stress.

so how do you get rid of stress ..? simply give up management ..

& you get two for one; i.e.by giving up management, you get rid of stress as well as management ..!

& now you have a choice ..!

really bad retail numbers today ...

but the question is does this change from here ?

Feds bought $305M corporate bonds ETF yesterday.

another week & new 3M fresh claims

teenies at 0.6

a new addition to TheVIP's kitchen ...

    aloo chat masale dar .. special corona edition ..!

lowest rates for teenies auctioned ever ..

@0.69% & still the demand was at the top ..

think about it ..!

as America returns to work ...

people ask me how corona has affected me..?

& my reply to them is "not much .." as i have been working from home for better part of last decade; so the most corona has affected me is that my weekly hikes have been replaced by a walks in local park ... of course, no more traveling .. but it give more time to research .. cooking at home % has gone much higher .. watching content on youtube, including cooking new items, has gone higher

my hours remain the same - no external motivation required here ... 4AM - till i am dead [for the day] ..!

i think some will appreciate this different way of living & working, life without many interruptions, giving much needed focus to a single task, which is not time bound, results in different outcome ..

hope, people used this as an opportunity to discover themselves .. as i said earlier, i have been doing this for a decade now ..!

in search of truth ...

both Gandhi & Osho have worked and written about "in search of truth" ... and as a born contrarian, i think about everything differently & i wonder ...

how do you know that something is a truth, when you are still searching .. or
how do you know about something that you in search, is/will be a truth ..?

taking an example and inverting the original statement, if you are searching for gold, you have to know what gold looks like, isn't it? or giving a stupid example, if no one has seen gold before, & you find silver, and call it gold, i assume everyone will believe you, if you have a charisma/marketing skills like Gandhi

which means that both of these frauds had their own "local truth or beliefs" and they used other people to experiment on them to prove those beliefs, & in parallel they would say, they were in search for, rather, they wanted the world to believe their shitty crap .. & yes, you are not going to get better words than these, especially on Gandhi from me.

to me, "what's in front of you is the truth ..!" now what's in front of you may or may not be is real .. or whether you accept it or not as real .. or whether general population accepts it or not, is immaterial .. it's only what you see is the truth; or precisely, what you can perceive within you .. as what you are seeing is nothing but a perception within you.

& as a side effect of this, i try hard to see the world "just the way it is .." .. with no judgements or aim to fix, .. well, to fix something, you have to believe that its broken first ...

e.g. people steal or cheat all the time .. some chose to live that way, while others don't ... that's the way it is .. there have been thieves & cheaters since the history is written, & there have been people who steal/cheat occasionally, not sure if anyone has never done it ..

& by not accepting that it is a fact, it wouldn't change .. rather, it is the truth ..!

NFP: 20.5M jobs lost in April

bringing unemployment to 14.7% .. imagine it was in 3s in Jan - pre-corona

& for those who are wondering why the stock market is not going down .. well, where do you think all that free money that govt. is sending is going ..! 

once in a century opportunity for India

to grab a share of manufacturing from China as G20 is sided one way ..

someone is accountable for 250,000 deaths world-wide, intentional or not .. its not a joke ... costing multi-trillions of dollars to all the countries in the world-wide

we know the source is either the market or the lab - both in Wuhan - or do we have a third choice .. i guess not .. & this is not the first time a virus has escaped from these places ..!

so, the world must unite and this madness must stop.

J Crew & Neiman Marcus ready for bankruptcy ..

side effects of  LBOs, which are a side effect of easy money,

will result into huge layoffs

today marks the 10 year anniv. of flash crash

and some of stocks moved from double digits to pennies for no reasons .. well there is always a reason ..!

separately, its one- year anniversary of CME e-Mini micro contracts.

ADP 20M job loss in Apr

close to sum of IJC in last 4 weeks.

principle of Karma

Lord Krishna, who i believe was the first & ultimate guru in human behavior described the whole thing in Bhag.vad.geeta, which many people know as principle of Karma; and here is my understanding of it, that 

man is responsible for his actions (or in-actions), which follow a reaction & have consequences; the reaction to an action is not symmetric, as it depends on the context (unlike Newtons' 3rd law of motion, which says that action and reaction are equal and opposite, but only applicable for physical objects); so do not expect a specific or immediate outcome (chapter 2), and keep in mind that i (God) control the reset button (as described in chapter 11)" 
 

applying the above in the human world, think in terms of cause & effect, & the context; & not in absolute terms.

what if this is the whole secret to understand stock market behavior ..!

travel industry shooting to reduce workforce by 30%

which include airlines, airbnb & Uber & lyft will follow

can't see the normalcy in near future.

Buffett decided to stay put in this cycle ..

sitting in $134B ... plus, sold his airlines positions ... he never seemed so sad until now ..
maybe like all of us, he also needs a haircut ..!