It was a fascinating week, both from market’s standpoint as well as my travel perspective. We have closed OPN for 11.6% and now in the process of opening trades for March’08. If you would like to join OPN, click at the wait-list. Why wait-list now even though I done with initial set of subscribers:

• So you get most for your bucks by joining at the time when new portfolios are being opened.
• To limit subscribers as we have a dedicated forum where each and every portfolio is discussed and members also share thoughts and Q&A.

The whole of last week was spent in the City of Chandigarh, a Union Territory, ~350KM north west of Delhi (India). Progress is loudly visible all around and the city is bustling with economic activity. Infrastructure was way improved vs. my last visit to the town. Baddi, a tiny tax free zone adjoining to Chandigarh, must have brought additional revenues to the city. You name any multinational company and you will find its label listed somewhere in the crowd alongside the roads. Property prices have gone through roof and land is now almost out of reach of middle class.

One thing I admired on this trip was a garden, created out of Waste, yes, out of Waste! This garden, named after “Nek Chand“, creator of this beautiful monument, was something unique I had ever seen before. He used broken tiles, broken rocks, bangles, etc. to decorate artwork. Arranged rock pieces as if it’s a small township ready to talk to you when you are watching them. To appreciate more, you need to think of the context, poor resources and “government” that he had to deal with.

I pointed my P-n-S camera at several places to pick great shots, but unfortunately couldn’t with the tiny P-N-S. I needed my Canon EOS 5 SLR to use right exposure to show you fine details. Even pictures on the website, doesn’t do full justice. In reality these looks much more fascinating, a photographer in me tells that. I’ll ask for part-time work when I visit them next time. But think of it for a minute, Nek Chand (a road inspector by profession) saw creativity in the waste he saw alongside the roads. He conceptualized the idea, packaged it and executed it. What an eye opening experience! My right side of the brain was all hats-off to him, while left side kept thinking how beautifully he has packaged it that keep generating revenues for the state government.

Coming back to Markets, I didn’t trade much. I did advise OPN subscribers to close portfolio before the FOMC announcement….

Fed cut rates by 0.5% , exactly what I was expecting. Volatilities are dropping but it hasn’t dropped that significantly this time as it was las time. But it’s too early to say that. I expect Dow to pull back after touching 12.6k zone. Unless it crosses that, and 12742 lows, don’t confuse this with bullish rally.

Markets behaved exactly that way after the rate cut, but to move higher the next day. Believe it or not, DOW is precisely where I mentioned in my note to subscribers i.e Nov 26 lows. But the most interesting thing that I find in this market is that “Railways” are doing excellent. BNI is up over 17% since Jan lows, RAIL is up +30%, almost the same story on UNP. Overall Transport if up a nice +15% vs Jan lows. Now think of it for a moment, something is brewing-up. I can’t point it precisely at the moment, but it seems to me that markets are looking past the recession that we are likely to see. I would like to see some strength in DOW before I turn bullish despite bearishness in the market.

I am turning positive on financial sector (Yes, I am) but I am not going on shopping spree yet. If you were to look for quality names, I suggest you head over to my previous post, where I have been collecting all the names SWFs have been investing. These are the companies which should lose the minimum compared to rest. This is speculation, if you were to play speculation, play it safe. Always hedge for the fall, while keeping positive deltas and IV heading lower. If the economy booms, supported by cheap dollars, see rise of activities in the shipping lines as well. DRYS, EXM should see that. But before making any move, analyze Baltic Dry Index carefully. It should give you hints.

Looking forward to next week, full of fun travel and trading,

Profitable traveling, trading, OP