The Indian Stock Market has giving spectacular returns in the past 12 months.[Its doubled in the past 24 months.]

Unfortunately, people who live in America or Canadia aren’t allowed to invest directly in Indian Stocks. However there are a few Mutual Funds that are allowed to invest and through them we can join in the fun.

Morgan Stanley’s India Investment Fund has doubled in the past year and pays a dividend of 7.30%.

The India Fund similarly doubled in the past year but had a dividend of 9.90%.

Since we’re looking at foreign markets we might as well go the extra mile and look at Morgan Stanley’s Eastern Europe Fund, which almost doubled but gave a dividend of 20%!!!!! Now thats a return I can live with.

Both of the India Funds have expense ratios of approx 1.5% and have Morning Star Ratings of 5 stars. Eastern Europe Fund has a higher expense ratio of 2.1% and a 4 star rating by Morning Star.

I’ve been out of the country for the past few weeks which is why I haven’t been posting as much as I usually do. I’ll be back in about another week.

Haven’t been following much of anything lately except prices of Oil, Gold and Silver, all of which seem to be making new highs. When will it end?

Even the Indian Stock market has been making new highs and defying all expectations, thanks to foreign investors pouring money in. A recent IPO in Reliance Petroleum was oversubscribed by about 60 times!!!!!
S&P just upgraded India’s stocks. Its still not investment grade but its probably time to get in. I’ll have to take my friend Kevin’s advice and start investing in it.

Met a really interesting guy yesterday. He owns several coffee shops, a restaurant and 3 clubs in Dubai.

One of my friends is actively looking to start a coffee shop so I asked him if he had any advice for someone starting in the business.

He said copy a popular coffee shop’s theme. Just take a few snaps and show it to your designer.
He doesn’t believe in buying franchises because of the upfront fees and ongoing royalties. He believes that with the proper marketing you can drive tons of traffic to any business.

He likes to buy distressed businesses that are already setup so there’s no capital expenditure. They’re not doing well so he can get them cheaply. He then launches a huge marketing campaign to hype it up. This includes press releases, getting famous people[through his large network of friends] to show up, having special theme nights and other stuff.

He also suggests that you always try and get the seller to finance any portion you can’t get from the bank. Never invest your own money. Instead use that for the next investment!

The Telegraph reports that Japanese investors are bailing on US treasuries to invest in the Japanese stock market. This has resulted the increase in the 10 yr Tbill to over 5%.

Michael Taylor, senior economist at Lombard Street Research thinks this year’s sudden rise in 10-year yields risks tipping the US economy into a downturn. He says,”This could be the catalyst for a sharp correction in property prices and wean consumers off their credit binge”.

JP Morgan Chase is forecasting a 13% fall in America’s S&P 500 stock index, and 12% fall in the FTSE 100. “Our big concern is the combination of rising bond yields, sustained high energy prices and weakness in US housing,” said Abhijit Chakrabortti, the global equity chief.

GFMS is the world’s foremost precious metals consultancy, specialising in research into the global gold, silver, platinum and palladium markets. They claim to be independant, informed and trustworthy.

CEO Philip Klapwijk recently commented, “levels safely over $600 are now in our sights and further hefty gains over the next year or two are quite possible – in the right circumstances, the 1980 high of $850 could even be taken out”.

You can read the reasons why he thinks that in the recently released 38th annual Gold Survey for 2006.

Was helping a not-so-technical friend build a new computer system recently. It used to be that the hardware was 90% of the cost of the system with software being 10%. Those days have long gone and now the equation is inverted.

I already had a copy of Windows 2000 lying around so we just used that instead of shelling out money for Windows XP. Couldn’t find my MS Office CD so instead of shelling at around $300 on Amazon.com for it, I instead went to OpenOffice.org and downloaded a FREE version of OpenOffice.

Its a free office suite that is MS Office compatible and works for all the uses I have. Maybe if you have some funky macros in Excel, they may not all work, but for the average user it should be good enough.

Also downloaded a free copy of TextPad from textpad.com to use instead of the lousy Notepad!

I had booked 2 view lots in St George, Utah.[actually they were in Hurricane, but its close by St George] last year for $70k. Apparently they’re worth around $130k right now. However the developer still hasn’t gotten them ready to build on despite messing around for nearly a year.

I’m really pissed and apart from the loss of opportunity, I’ve tied up 10k in that project. I asked the builder to refund my money. About the same time I heard the builder was refunding everyone’s money anyway. Being the nice guy that I am, I got quite a few of my friends in on the deal. Somehow everyone got their money back earlier than I did. Anyway, I finally got my check in the mail this week.

I was considering sending a threatening letter from my lawyer, but I thought against it. For one, I don’t have the time to waste on bad investments. Secondly [and more importantly], the St George market has become saturated. The standing inventory has gone up about 400% in 12 months. So if the builder did get me my lot and the builder built on it, it would be ready in October which is a bad time of year to be selling a house!

Anyway its the same builder I metioned in this post and I’m just happy I no longer need to work with them anymore.

Spent the weekend at a friend’s place in Los Angeles. We usually talk about 4 topics.Investing, Gadgets, Cars and Human Stupidity. This time was no different.

I’d long been eyeing his Nikon D70 DSLR but at over $1500, there was no way I was going to spend that kind of money. For my trip to Europe last, size won over functionality and I purchased the Canon SD300.

However, taking great photographs is a very enjoyable hobby and the ownership of an SLR or DSLR is a must. He mentioned that Nikon had just come out with the new D50. The approximate $800 price-tag includes 2 lens 18mm-55mm and 55mm-200mm. You can read a great indepth review of the difference between the D50 and the D70 here. The D50 seems like a great buy. Of course, the D70 has now dropped in value too, but the D50 kit is still about $400 cheaper than a comparable D70. Thats nearly 50% cheaper! Now all that remains is too convince the wife!

He also recommended the following books:

• National Geographic Photography Field Guide: Secrets to Making Great Pictures
• National Geographic Photography Field Guide: People and Portraits
• National Geographic Photography Field Guides: Landscapes

I got an envelope from the Jesus Christ Church Of The Latter Day Saints in the mail today. In it was a check for 1 month’s rent for a property in Utah. Apparently, the tenants were so scared I was going to evict them, that they somehow convinced the Bishop of the local ward to make the payment for them! I knew these Mormons were a tight-knit bunch of religious zealots but this really took me by surprize.

I’ve been trying to evict these tenants for quite a while now. Everytime they manage to make a payment, even if it is late. This time I guess God’s representative foiled my plans!!!

Well maybe they’re not fleeing yet, but they’ve started to leave. According to an article in the Union Tribune, there was a net exodus of 43,126 people from San Diego county last year.

County demographers have forecast a long-term flattening in growth, although not a population decline. Housing analyst John Karevoll said he doubts the population loss is a long-term trend, nor does he believe it will have an impact on housing sales.

What is surprizing that John Karevoll predicts it will not affect housing sales. This is despite the fact that prices are dropping, inventory has more than doubled, time on market has increased 4 fold and interest rates are increasing. New home builders have started advertising on the radio, offering 10% worth of incentives and a new brand new Xterra or Beatle Bug. Is this guy smoking crack or is he just stupid? Or maybe he’s just trying to annoy me!