My 4 year old daughter says this: "Bad!"
She says it for anything she doesnt like or appreciate. It could be me sitting on the sofa, me holding her right hand instead of her left, her chonda coming slightly loose, her 1 year old sister walking away...
I say 'Bad!' to 2 things nowadays:
1. The frenzy in the market
ZIRP ended, Ukraine got attacked (and has now invaded Russian territory - :|), Gaza has been attacked, China's 12 year Real estate and GDP pumping bubble has burst, some crytos and SPACs have been declared frauds, there are zombie CRE loans in the US market, Bangladesh's PM has fled the country, US 30 yr mortgage at 6.7% v/s 8.6% floating in India
And yet, we have Bitcoin at highs, Gold at USD 2700, Nvidia at $3T, Mazgaon at 90000 Cr, Suzy at 1 L Cr, Tent at 2.5 L Cr, Tomato for 2.2 L Cr, Dixy for 75k Cr, RE projects in India getting sold out in hours and days;
Of 900 Indian companies of more than 100 Cr mcap within 10% of alltime highs ,
550 are above 30 PE, 400 above 40 PE, and 264 above 60 PE and 119 above 100 PE!
There is a flurry of IPOs, QIPs, OFS with a lot of dodgy entities buying in, a lot of big funds and promoters selling, and weird small investors getting QIPs and Pre-IPO allotments.
After 2 years of being cautious, I guess I will say it again: Somebody's gonna get a hurt real bad.
And this time, it looks like a lot of retail investors have already gotten clobbered in the F&O mania, but many are still holding onto 120 PE good companies, and 30 PE rubbish companies... I see a lot of companies falling 80-100 %.
Of course, my portfolio is pristine!
2. We are forever elsewhere.
An episode in Seinfeld, where Elaine goes to a store to rent a video cassette of a movie recommended by ' Vincent '. She plans a trip to the store, browses through the wares, speaks to a friend, rents a cassette and puts it in her bag. At the end of the day, she plans to curl up in bed, and watch the movie - not knowing if it is bad or good - and surprise, its a good movie! The only disturbance through the movie was a phone call on a landline - she picks up the call and it is always a surprise as to who the mystery caller might be.
The paradox of choice and leisure means that we are often at rest - so, browsing in a store is no more leisurely than munching on chips at our bigger homes with big TVs and a choice of 500 movies and 200 TV shows to choose from. We know what we want to watch, because we already know the good reviews from the bad.
We are not disappointed anymore... We know the best dish from the best restaurant comes to us within 30 minutes. If you want a coca cola, it is at your doorstep in 9 minutes flat.
We can send a toothy guffaw smiley to a friend on whatsapp to convey that we are smiling even though we might not want to really meet this person.
When was the last time that someone was surprised to see you? Or you were surprised to hear from a friend? Or you pick up a book and oh! it turns out to be amazing!
And all of the above is without mentioning the horror that is social media.
Why am I looking at a 25 second video of 2 random people dancing? Am I not supposed to hold my baby by her arms? Microplastics in my salt? They/ Them - who is this person who is offended in a small town in the US... wait, do I care? Oh, so this is how my glutes are supposed to look...
Bad!
We were looking for leisure, comfort and entertainment.
We got it - and with that we got poor mental health, attention deficit, restlessness and dissatisfaction (because this was rated 97% on Rotten Tomatoes but it wasnt that good), alone-ness, distance from real connections and real conversations.
So, did we win?
Bad!!
