Happy Makar Sankranti!
We celebrated Makar Sankranti this Friday, as much as we could do anyway in these pandemic times. My septuagenarian mother is big on “ellu beerodu” - the custom of exchanging a plate of betel leaf & nut, turmeric, bananas, a piece of sugar cane, a sachet of ellu bella and sakkare achchu (sugar mold). Something that she has been asked to pause until the pandemic is over. But will it ever be over?
Meanwhile, markets are open and life goes on…
This week, the NSE announced that they will be launching Futures and Options on their Midcap Select Index. I hope this one succeeds where FINNIFTY didn’t. Do read our writeup: Midcap Select Index Futures.
Markets this Week
Indian indices had an overall decent week but US markets were getting jawboned by Fed officials.
With more than 3 hikes priced in and some Fed officials predicting more, some of the speculative names continued to bleed out.
Links
Strong cashflow vs. account payables, a Tesla story (TRA)
Rare outliers have a massive impact on returns. However, these outliers tend to cluster and the majority of both good and bad outliers occur once markets have already been declining. Where the Black Swans Hide & the 10 Best Days Myth (SSRN). If you miss the biggest up days, you probably also miss the biggest down, since they cluster. For eg., some of the biggest up days happened in March of 2020. Also the biggest down days (twitter).
AWS is Not a Dumb Pipe (blog)