VINDICA

 https://www.vifindia.org/article/2022/march/10/report-of-vif-strategic-discussions-on-the-ukraine-conflict - No winners here. - India needs to take a balanced approach due to its existing relationship with US as well as Russia. - India needs to ween itself away from Russian Military hardware - especially for airforce. - US gaze shifting from Indo-Pacific to Europe is not good for India.

One thing I like about America is that lot of people who influence foreign and domestic policies are public figures.  The debates that happen are not in closed rooms in some government building, but out in the public arena in the traditional and social media.  I refer here of course to serious policy debates, not the gaslighting that dominates social media.  Maybe this is why America still retains a certain degree of credibility in spite of a long series of mis steps since the end of the Cold War.  I wanted to write about some such public opinions from people I have come to consider as very smart.  Here it goes... I have always wondered why one would call Political Science a Science?  The scientific method involves developing a theory, making predictions that could prove or disprove the theory and then conducting experiments to validate. Well, you cannot conduct experiments on politics since only one outcome happens and the outcomes that don't happen, while...

  Background: Dividend Portfolio - Dividend Growth Stocks. Speculative Portfolio - Good companies that are richly valued high growth companies. Both portfolios were started with 10% of my liquid assets each on Jan 1st 2021. October Update: Well, the stock market seems to be able to stay irrational much longer than we can stay solvent.  In normal times, i would have sold out and waited this out.  However, in my portfolios, I have a commitment to stay fully invested all the time.  It did help.  The Speculative portfolio, which had gone underwater over the last couple of months, came back to something like even, while the dividend portfolio stayed stable.  Both underperformed S&P 500. The relentless march of the indexing continues.  The experiment was supposed to pick the winner between the dividend portfolio and the speculative portfolio.  I wonder if Indexing will end up being the real winner!  Saves a lot of time for sure, but will it als...

  Doctor who publicly defied Texas law by performing abortion has been sued | Texas | The Guardian Predictably, Dr Alan Braid has been sued.  Taking this to federal court will be a clarifying moment for this law and for the future of Roe v Wade. In related news, Mississipi has asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe. Supreme Court To Hear Mississippi Abortion Law Challenging Roe V. Wade : NPR

  Texas doctor protests abortion law by admitting he carried out procedure | Abortion | The Guardian The new abortion law in Texas takes advantage of the fact that nobody seems to have thought to ban state sponsored vigilantism.  This physician in Texas deliberately violated the law.  In the climate we are in, this occurs to me as an extremely courageous act.  I hope this is a catalyst for change and challenges to the law.

  Notwithstanding popular opinion from both Millennial themselves and from older generations as well, it does look likely that Millennial will be the wealthiest generation ever.

  Background: Dividend Portfolio - Dividend Growth Stocks. Speculative Portfolio - Good companies that are richly valued high growth companies. Both portfolios were started with 10% of my liquid assets each on Jan 1st 2021. August Update: I love to think about what it means to be rational (more in the Long Read section).  The biggest breakthrough in terms of how I think about my life came when I realized how deeply irrational I actually am.  In the face of this, rationality seems more like an ideal than a practice.  With Markets, I am reminded often that irrationality rules the day, while rationality wins in the end.  However, they also say that the markets can be irrational longer than you can be solvent.  I have accepted this as a fact.  I don't speculate too much on things like "the market is too high", or "it is due for a correction".  Both of my portfolios are meant to ride the waves (larger waves in the case of speculative portfolio).  ...

 A long but worthy read on rationality: Why Is It So Hard to Be Rational? | The New Yorker The realities of rationality are humbling. Know things; want things; use what you know to get what you want. It sounds like a simple formula. But, in truth, it maps out a series of escalating challenges. In search of facts, we must make do with probabilities. Unable to know it all for ourselves, we must rely on others who care enough to know. We must act while we are still uncertain, and we must act in time—sometimes individually, but often together. For all this to happen, rationality is necessary, but not sufficient. Thinking straight is just part of the work.

Background: Dividend Portfolio - Dividend Growth Stocks. Speculative Portfolio - Good companies that are richly valued high growth companies. Both portfolios were started with 10% of my liquid assets each on Jan 1st 2021. June Update: Martina Navratilova was an early harbinger of change (see this month's story at the end of this post).  I feel June similarly, is an early harbinger of change in the market. My May update had the following comments: For the third straight month, the Speculative portfolio continued to bleed while the Dividend portfolio continued to push ahead of even its pre-pandemic highs.  The Speculative portfolio has now lost all its gains.  June saw what could be the beginning of a reversal and the return of a risk appetite.  The Dividend portfolio did not exactly fall, but it stagnated.  The Speculative portfolio did not jump, but it did show signs of life.  This is a market looking for direction and my bet is that a shift is imminent....

Truth Always Wins Background: Dividend Portfolio - Dividend Growth Stocks. Speculative Portfolio - Good companies that are richly valued high growth companies. Both portfolios were started with 10% of my liquid assets each on Jan 1st 2021. May Update: May continued the trend from March and April.  For the third straight month, the Speculative portfolio continued to bleed while the Dividend portfolio continued to push ahead of even its pre-pandemic highs.  The Speculative portfolio has now lost all its gains.  I am no longer playing with house money! I have so far not sold anything in my Speculative portfolio.  As discussed previously, I plan to be fully invested all the time.  If I sell any of these stocks now, then what do I buy?  Every speculative investment is falling.  Even BitCoin is falling! Stock of the month: DVN - I had purchased this stock just before the pandemic at $24 a share, only to see oil stocks plummet.  It kept going down and fi...

Background: Dividend Portfolio - Dividend Growth Stocks. Speculative Portfolio - Good companies that are richly valued high growth companies. Both portfolios were started with 10% of my liquid assets each on Jan 1st 2021. April Update: After a few months of frantic activity, April felt like a bit of a snooze.  The markets went up and down, but mostly sideways.  The shift from risky stocks to safer ones continued unabated.  My Dividend Growth portfolio duly registered a small increase, while the Speculative Portfolio went down a bit.  Both changes where milder compared to March. Earnings are starting to come and and company after company is beating estimates.  However, the market continues to be unimpressed.  The pressure, if anything seems downwards.  Given the market valuations, it may be a good thing if the market moves sideways in the face of increasing earnings.  However, it is unclear of any of this will make the appetite for risky stocks ret...

Background: Dividend Portfolio - Dividend Growth Stocks. Speculative Portfolio - Good companies that are richly valued high growth companies. Both portfolios were started with 10% of my liquid assets each on Jan 1st 2021. March Update: From the February post - I wonder if strong gains in the dividend portfolio in Feb is in fact a ill omen for the market as a whole in March. It is not really bear territory for the market as a whole, but it certainly was deep recession for the Speculative portfolio.  It lost almost 30% from its peak, losing heavily almost every trading day of the month.  The funny thing is that it is still 14% up since Jan 1st.  I would have been better off sitting out March.  But I am not better off than if I had not started investing at all in January.  In fact, in my sedate index portfolios, I would have been delighted to be up 14% in 3 months! See my notes below from March 8th, right at the beginning of the month, when the writing seemed to be...

See first post on this series for background on the Dividend Portfolio and the Speculative Portfolio.  S&P 500 moved up a gentle 1% in Feb.  Nasdaq moved down a gentle 1.5%.  But what an explosive month it was!  The speculative portfolio swung 10% up and down on some days.  It was stomach churning experience, even though as I mentioned in my introductory post, the Speculative portfolio is only 10% of my investments and the swings are largely inconsequential for my overall financial well being.  I tried my best to stick to the investment thesis and to learn. CNN Fear and Greed Index started the month at 35 (0 being extreme fear), while the market was close to all time high.  Too much fear considering how small the drop in the last couple of days of Jan have been relative to the massive 2020 bull market.  Likely GameStop was rattling everyone.   The month ended with more jitters.  However, the Fear and Greed Index has actually swung t...