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Monday 9 June 2014

#India Few Mid and Small Cap Bargains

FEW QUALITY MIDCAP & SMALL CAP STOCK

 Indian Capital market has closed at a all time high on back of strong performance from Banking, Capital Goods. We feel that market will continue to gain , but , feel that larger gain will now come from Midcap & small cap stocks. One should now focus on quality midcap stocks & with strong fundamental. 

One should not ,now, gets carried away by return & should focus on quality midcaps.  We feel that Most of the midcaps stocks has supporting technical the valuation gap between large cap and Mid cap stocks has gone up. So we are presenting few idea generated by Axis Capital, CLSA and India Infoline. 


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Bull on Run, Or Bear in Woods



Platinim Advice:

India like all global markets is over-heated and headed for a correction. Small caps generally offer huge rewards on the way up, but offer  greater opportunities when it slides to the savy short-player. Our bets would be on the short side for those good at homework.

BIG BUCKS - for good students!

Platinum Wealth Partners
June 9, 2014

Tuesday 3 June 2014

Head for the Hills - Cash Flow #Valuations Now Absurd

Gentlemen! Can you believe these charts?

Investing 

Using 


Price-to

-Cashflow 

Ratio and

 Cashflow 

Yield



 (Backtests 1951 to 2013)




VW PCF Returns 1999 to 2013The price-to-cashflow ratio (PCF) is a popular metric among value investors. Many believe that using cashflow, rather than accounting earnings, delivers a truer picture of a company’s business performance, which in turn leads to better investment performance.


Set out below are the results of two Fama and French backtests of the cashflow yield (the inverse of the PCF ratio) data from 1951 to 2013. As at December 2013, there were 2,526 firms in the sample. The value decile contained the 269 stocks with the highest earnings yield, and the glamour decile contained the 311 stocks with the lowest earnings yield. The average size of the glamour stocks is $4.74 billion and the value stocks $4.80 billion. (Note that the average is heavily skewed up by the biggest companies. For context, the 2,526th company has a market capitalization today of $272 million, which is much smaller than the average, but still investable for most investors). Stocks with negative cashflow were excluded. Portfolios are formed on June 30 and rebalanced annually.


Annual and Compound Returns (Portfolio Constituents Weighted by Market Capitalization)


In this backtest, the two portfolios are weighted by market capitalization, which means that bigger firms contribute more to the performance of the portfolio, and smaller firms contribute less. Here we can see that the value decile has comprehensively outperformed the glamour decile, returning 16.7 percent compound (18.6 percent in the average year) over the full period versus 9.3 percent for the glamour decile (11.5 percent in the average year). - 



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VW PCF Returns 1951 to 2013 v2



Remember an Old Lesson 




Platinum Advice:

The secret of successful investing - then the rest is up to you. Oh yeah, and never marry the markets.

"Cash Flow, Cash Flow, Cash Flow"

That stated, these markets are way over priced as the cash flow values make no sense. Looks like 2000 all over again if we run out of those bigger fools.

Platinum Wealth Partners
June 3,  2014

Monday 2 June 2014

*EXCLUSIVE* PWP's Power Ideas Forum: "Of Cycles for Wealth and Humanity"

Odum and the VICIOUS CIRCLE PRINCIPLE

Exclusive authorised premier release




By Craig Dilworth





31 May 2014

The work of the systems-ecologist Howard Odum presages the vicious circle principle (VCP) presented in Too Smart for Our Own Good(2009).[*] As presented in Too Smart, the VCP is as follows:

Humankind’s development consists in an accelerating movement from situations of scarcity/need, to technological innovation, to increased resource availability, to increased consumption, to population growth, to resource depletion, to scarcity once again, and so on. (p. 110)

     Applying Odum’s thinking to the VCP’s interpretation of changes in the actual development/evol­ution of humankind suggests that with each technological revolution there has resulted an increase in the usable energy available to our species, which has in turn resulted in population growth and a subsequent demand for increasing quantities of energy. On the VCP this demand has to date generally been met (particularly since the industrial revolution and the near-exponential increase in our burning of fossil fuels), with the result that the vicious circle of humankind’s development has grown in both size and environmental impact.

     A second point of contact between Odum and the VCP – related to the first – is Odum’s emphasis on system-development’s involving pulses. He applies this notion to both living and non-living systems. Among the living are ecosystems, individual human civilizations, and human civilization as a whole. In Too Smart pulsing is emphasized with regard to the human species as a whole, each turn of the circle constituting a pulse.

     The pulses of the populations of non-human species tend to fluctuate about a mean (cf. Too Smart, pp. 21–22), in the case of K-selected species their growth or shrinking depending on both internal and external population checks. But, according to the VCP, in the case of the total human population these pulses have taken the form of the constantly increasing growth of the human enterprize. In each instance of humankind’s developing technology, which has taken us through the javelin, bow-and-arrow, hoe, plow, coal, and oil and natural gas phases, the problems (scarcities) have as a matter of fact in each case led to a of technological development capable of harnessing ever-greateramounts of energy from the environment, and a consequent weakening of human population checks and a growth in the human population. Here we might also note, in keeping with Tainter, that part of the vicious circle consists in the diminishing returns that eventually hit any new technology, leading to the need for its replacement.



     According to Odum, the burst in population growth is inevitable under several ‘laws, principles and rules’ described in his books. As I understand him, these laws etc. are to apply to all living things − if not all physical systems − not just humans. I further understand Odum to be saying that humans only differ from other species in their ability to invent more ways to access more energy, a view essentially in keeping with the operation of the VCP as serving to distinguish humans from other animals. However, Odum never takes up the question, as is treated in Too Smart, of internal population checks that counter his maximum power principle.

     A precondition for the vicious circle’s being able to accelerate is that new technologies have access to sufficient energy resources to be able to reap a greater harvest. Without energy resources the circle cannot turn; and without increasing resources it cannot accelerate, as it has done till now. At the time of the introduction of the javelin, for the vicious circle to turn, the availability of meat (a particular form of energy) had to be greater to the user of the javelin − perhaps together with the lance − than to the user of the lance alone; the energy that could be sucked from the earth – first using horticulture, then agrarian agriculture – had to be greater than what immediately preceded it. And so with coal, oil and natural gas. And, in keeping with Odum, we can say that, at this point in time, these ‘fortuitous’ energy circumstances are about to change.

     This is exceedingly important with regard to the question of ecological equilibrium, and the human species’ avoiding its own demise. Such losses of equilibrium have happened to many civilizations in the past; but in today’s world, such a loss of equilibrium, rather than just entail the collapse of one human society, will entail the collapse of the whole of global industrial civilization, and the Third World with it. However, despite the centrality of systems-thinking to Odum’s work, in Energy, Power and Society and A Prosperous Way Down, he does not bring out the notion of ecological equilibrium (though he may well have been aware of it), and thus its relation to sustainability.

     And the existence of internal population checks, not only amongst humans but other higher animals, suggests that Odum’s maximum power principle does not apply to certain living systems (species), at least in the short term. But it might quite possibly apply to them in the long term. In the short term, a sophisticated non-human species (manifest as a particular populationoptimizes rather than maximizes its use of free energy. But in the long term − through the whole time of the species’ existence − it may be seen as maximizing the species’ (total) use of energy. We may see its doing so, à la Odum, as being based on the species’ self-organizing ability, as dictated by natural selection. Note however that the species’ energy originates outside the system, in the sun.

     Not only does Odum miss the role of population checks – whether internal or external – when it comes to the pulsing of human and other populations, but he conceptually includes the pulsing phenomenon of populations of species together with that of inanimate systems.

     The main thrust of Odum’s approach to human development, which says essentially that throughout our existence we humans have constantly increased our transformation of energy (in keeping with his maximum power principle), is accepted on the VCP, which accepts virtually all the findings of systems ecology. This includes the idea that power in society is constituted by the rate of flow of free energy (Odum 2007, p. 32). In this regard Odum also suggests, in keeping with Too Smart, that: “In a human society with a free economy, the mechanism of overgrowth is capitalism.” (p. 263). On the VCP, power in society is provided by the control of vital resources. When the availability of these resources grows with the turning of the vicious circle, i.e. when the rate of flow of free energy afforded by some of these resources increases, so does the power of those who control them. Another of Odum’s points that is in keeping with the VCP is that energy in systems of populations can be, and in the case of densely populated social species is, organized into hierarchies (p. 76). Odum links this to systems’ self-organization. For him, energy in the universe is divided into levels, and each level (sub-system) self-organizes to form a hierarchy,which in the case of the human species results in a maximizing of the use of energy (p. 90). According to Odum, and in keeping with the reaction and pioneering principles of Too Smart (p. 47), when a surplus of resources are available to a human population, people engage in an overgrowth frenzy that maximizes the exploitation and transformation (use) of energy, like that of colonizing ecosystems. 

(Odum’s colonizing @ pioneering in Too Smart.)

     It is through the mechanism of Darwinian natural selection that any living system – from cells to species – incapable of such self-organization would cease to exist. This self-organizing is seen in Too Smart to be possible due to living systems’ ability to acquire free energy from without. Relevant to this, Odum at one point says: “Some of the timing for pulsing is supplied by the outside energy sources. The inputs of the sun’s energy and other resources rise and fall each day, in seasons each year, and in multiyear cycles. Naturally, photosynthetic production goes up and down with these outside cadences.” (p. 156; my emphasis). He then goes on to say that a “prey-predator oscillation can serve in ecosystems as a pacemaker ... to provide an appropriate internal pulse.” (The predator-prey relationship is taken up on pp. 28–30 of Too Smart.) But he doesn’t make a clear distinction between the source of energy (e.g. the sun), which lies outside the (eco)system, and the organizing mechanism (e.g. the predator-prey symbiosis), which lies within it, in the present case taking both to function merely to determine the rate of pulsing.

Are You Sure?l     According to the VCP, it is precisely the constantly larger quantities of usable energy made available by each technological advance that have meant that humankind’s energy-pulses have constantly increased in magnitude, where those of other species tend to fluctuate about a mean. From one point of view, you could say that humans’ main difference from other species lies in our ability hitherto to constantly invent new ways to access not only more energy, but increasing quantities of energy.Perhaps most important here is the recognition on the part of both Odum and Too Smart that all this growth, dependent as it is on increases in finite-energy use, will come to an end in the near future, and the party will truly be over.

     According to Odum, self-organization occurs in all systems according to energy laws (p. 32); and for some systems at least, self-organization is transitory (pp. 38, 53). Energy is self-organized into hierarchies (p. 76). (Is this counter-entropic?) Each level in the energy hierarchy self-organizes. Self-organization maximizes empower (p. 90). All ecosystems self-organize (pp. 156, 163). Self-organization involves the recycling of materials (p. 223). Animal behavior is a mechanism for self-organizing (p. 305). The economy is self-organized (p. 332). Microcosms can self-organize (p. 340). And life organizes the biosphere for itself (Gaia; p. 357). But all this leaves one wondering what exactly self-organizing is, and how it is to be conceived in non-Darwinian terms.

     Whether the ability to self-organize should also exist in isolated systems, as Odum believes, seems more problematic due to the role played in all systems by entropy; and this question might be further investigated from a thermodynamic point of view. One might begin by asking how, in detail, Odum’s approach distinguishes between living and non-living systems, and further how it distinguishes between open and closed or isolated systems with regard to pulsing. I note only one place where he takes up the difference between living and non-living systems, and this is in an ecological flow diagram (p. 223), where the only feature distinguishing the two is the addition of an ‘information cycle’ to living systems.

Human skeleton recovered 11 months after Rana Plaza collapse     The energy available for the growth of the human economy and population presently consists mainly of fossil fuels, and the availability of these fuels is reaching or has reached its peak. Once past this peak, shrinking will necessarily set in. As I say in Too Smart, once the resources are gone – or have sufficiently dwindled – there we’ll be sitting with our useless ingenuity (read: ability to develop technology). And as the Odums together say in A Prosperous Way Down, humankind is presently going to be forced to reduce its energy use – and here we should say: whether this results in a prosperous way down or otherwise.


References

Dilworth, C. (2009) Too Smart for Our Own Good. The Ecological Predicament of HumankindCambridgeCambridge University Press, 2010.
Hall, C. A. S. (2004) The continuing importance of Maximum Power, pp. 107−113 of M. Brown and C. A. S. Hall, The H. T. Odum Primer: An Annotated Introduction to the Publications of Howard Odum, Ecological Modeling 78.
Hall, C. A. S. and K. A. Klitgaard (2012) Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical Economy, Springer.
Odum, H. T. (2007) Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-First Century, NY: Columbia University Press.
Odum, H. T. and E. C. Odum, (2001) A Prosperous Way Down,Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

Department of Philosophy
Uppsala University



Many thanks to Sam Hopkins, Charlie Hall and Elliot Campbell for comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Information on Too Smart for Our Own Good may be found at:







Sunday 25 May 2014

Humanity's Question: To be, Or not to be?

WHETHER IT IS NOBLER IN THE MIND?

(Special Report)



THAT IS THE QUESTION...




Today we are republishing a  commentary that was posted back in January 2013. The post is even more relevant today, as the critical issues we face as a species are escalating almost it seems beyond control. Reports are also being made by various LEGITIMATE groups including NASA, UN bodies and the White House and Pentagon. These reports are posted through-out our affiliated blogs and may be searched by keyword. Moreover, let's not forget too, that Stephen Hawkings sits on a committee that is actually planning "end of world events", while The Bank of England  is calling for a wholesale change in the dogmas of classical economics - as the stresses of infinite growth are self-evident in so many countries around the world. 

As a further result, the possibility that the EU, Japan, China and other third world nations could financially collapse is a very real danger that could be sparked by an abrupt climb in global interest rates. Many events at any moment could spark this rapid rise, that would cause the greatest and most unprecedented collapse in asset values around the world where credit and banking bubbles in real estate and market investments, exist almost everywhere - another dark age looms large on the horizon.

Economics is not the only cancer that has terminal implications. Overpopulation and unbridled industrial destruction of the biosphere are crossing over to the exponential phase. Should  average global temperature rise just a mere 2 degrees C., some experts say we risk triggering a methane bomb that yields the same consequences of the Permian Extinction's climate conditions  - over 95%  of life on the planet was wiped out in short order.


Words of Science 



More could be said, but what should be obvious from the preponderance of scientific and expert facts and conclusions - "we are on the wrong path"  and the destiny of the road is all too certain in fairly short order. A less travelled road is required. One that does not focus on the ambiguous linguistic meaning of " sustainability," but rather a turn to the path that is more concrete in nature, more measurable and absolute - " longevity!" Why? Because that goal forces us to apply hard mathematics and physical concepts to the planet's realities. Moreover, what is clear, for instance, is that a global population creating equal per capita footprints of 1 billion people lasts seven times longer than our current population's numbers, all other things also being equal. And if reduce the average per capita `footprint - we add greater value to our species' possible longevity.



Unbridled Growth Leads To One Destination  





To briefly sum up, our goals need to redirected towards the path of longevity and not the cluttered language associated with the concepts surrounding sustainability. We must be more object and absolute in our purpose or we will remain exposed to manipulation. 

To take this path, four steps are essential. The pursuit of infinite growth in a finite context must be deemed redundant and acknowledged as impossible. It must stop in all ways. Two, global populations worldwide must be dramatically reduced in the coming decades. Concurrently, the global per capita footprint must also be reduced by 75% OR MORE. These are non-negotiable actions that are imperative to the longevity goal; anything else would be foolhardy.


Why?




Lastly, and most importantly all-out WAR must be declared on climate change. For if we cannot reverse the course of the now self-evident feedback loops affecting and destroying our planet, then all preceding measures listed, and indeed any other measures conjured by noble minds, would be muted by a course of physical activity in the biosphere that has only one ill-fated conclusion. Extinction...

So this is without doubt the outrageous misfortune of the slings and arrows of our times. Now it is up to us, collectively as a species, to choose a path; perhaps one less travelled, and decide - "to be, or not to be". 


If we have the time...






First Financial Insights
May 25, 2014
(Special Report)




WHAT IS OUR GOAL?

 HUMAN LONGEVITY OR UNBRIDLED GROWTH?


Club for Growth President Chris Chocola on C-Spans Washington Journal

Now, here is something you may want to think about given; first, the hard finite constraints of the planet's resources, and second, the mathematical intersection that must ultimately occur between this finite regression and time's infinite linear regression.

What is Humanity's goal? Sustainability? Rapid Extinction? Or Longevity? Personally, I prefer the latter option, as it gives us a little more time to do things; like space travel, accelerate human evolution or perhaps determine the preconditions that define the Laws of Thermodynamics... e.g. Anti-Entropy???. You got to start somewhere.

Now, let's look at the simple math. Lets say we target to degrowth our extraction and consumption activities by seven fold using population as the proxy metric.Taking population levels from 7 billion down to 1 billion, would extend our visitation rights on terra firma by a corresponding seven fold years, in theory. Hmmm. Ponder the unborn gratitude heaped upon us by our future generations for pursuing such wisdom.

Consider also, if we optimistically have only one hundred years left under our current extraction and consumption algebra. Degrowthing,  gives us a shot at at least another seven hundred years, all other things being equal.

So you see in the end, it is not about accelerating growth in both resource "extractions" and populations in order to bring on our species premature extinction; not at all.It is all about that unselfish goal of wisely using the resources of the planet, so that future generations are not subjected to intolerable conditions and have every opportunity to live in a  civilized manner that allows them to pursue the true progresses and nature of our spirit.   

Hopefully, when the growth addicts espouse their mantra next time, you will ask these questions: What is this all about? Extinction through rapid growth?  Elusive sustainability? Or longevity of our species?

Now, what is humanity's goal, if we truly want to reach for the stars? That's your call now...


Dr. Peter G Kinesa  
January 10, 2013



"we are here, thanks to the unselfish wisdom of our ancients"







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