As the year 2010 is coming to an end I would like to reflect some of the main highlights of this year. This has been a tremendous year and I am sure many more important things have had happened this year, but these are some of the things which got my attention and hopefully yours as well.
Movies (I watched & liked):
Inception
The Social Network
Ironman 2
Toy Story 3
The Town
Gadgets & Electronics:
Dawn of the tablet.
Apple draw the first blood in the business of tablet by introducing - iPad. The new iPhone 4 was introduced as well.
Smart phones - iOS Vs Android: The battle continues.
Science & Technology:
Facebook become more widely used, linking up most of the planet (approx 500 million users & growing). Zukerberg became the Time magazine person of the year. Donated 100 million for the NJ education system.
Craig J Venter announced the first self-replicating synthetic cell
Politics, Economics & Finance:
Unemployment rate – 9.3%
Gold touches new high - 29.7% up ($1420+)
GM back to business. IPO raises around $20.1 Billion.
Wikileaks gain momentum and adversaries.
US Indices performance:
DOW Jones - 11% up
S & P 500 - 12.7% up
NASDAQ - 17% up
Personal Front:
I decided to write this blog
Inception of the idea to pursue an MBA
Become more aggressive on learning and reading front
Wishing everybody a wonderful and prosperous 2011.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
The Code
We always have this notion this thought that all the stories related to Wall Street are about who makes how much, the ongoing financial saga and the everlasting insiders trading. We always consider Wall Street to be very personal and conservative about what goes on inside its 4 walls. How about something new and refreshing? How about knowing something which is not exactly but somewhat resembles to the Mission Impossible series or to one of those sequences of 24?
The Fact:
I’ve been following this story over the web for quite some time and every time I read something about it I feel as if I am reading the script from one of the high adrenaline thrillers or one of the cyber crime movies from the Hollywood. There is this person (highly skilled computer programmer) smart enough to steal this very important software code from one of the World’s biggest financial organizations and then try to run away with it. The organization turns out to be smart enough (smarter than the person who steals it) to trace the digital footprint of this hacker and reports this incident of the code theft to the police. This hacker is on the run. In this act of cat & mouse chase, the hacker was smart enough to hide the copy of this code on one of the backup server’s overseas. The Police officials ultimately get hold of this person and now he is waiting for the trial. We actually don’t know what will happen after the trial as it is scheduled to be held sometime next year.
Prologue:
In July 2009, the first news started was out that there has been a security breach at one of the finest Wall Street organizations. That one of the high frequency trading (HFT) code has been compromised. The HFT software code is nothing but a combination of complex algorithms which is used to incorporate high frequency trading. The code is very sophisticated and is capable of doing millions of transactions with a blink of an eye. Codes like these has been always dealt with skepticism by the common man as these codes are known to be lighting fast for complicated transaction and can be notorious as well to bring down the whole system (for more information see Flash Crash that happened in May 2010). Someone who is in possession of this code and know how to use it can change the face of the market before anybody knows. The breach was nothing but an act of theft which was done successfully by one of the chief programmers of this organization. This fine act came just 3 days before the programmer was about to leave this organization for another lucrative offer.
Each & every word after this is purely an assumption. May be this is the result of me watching too many movies and my mind started to think like that.
Epilogue:
March 2011, after the final trial all the evidences points against that the hacker and he is guilty as charged. As a result he hands over the code to the cops and they hands it down to the financial organization. Hacker goes to prison. The code is safe again and no damage done. In this scenario everybody is happy: the financial firm, the cops and the common people like me who read such stories and try to analyze. As normally as it happened in the movies, good guys won bad guys lost and you & me gets our well deserved entertainment. Problem resolved & case closed. Problem resolved? I don’t think so. We all just forget about that copy of the code which is still out there on one of the backup server’s overseas. I have doing some interesting analysis of what might happen to that code which is still out in the open. I am sure there are number of other things which one can decide but this is what I come up with:
Scenario 1: Someone might get his hand on the code. Finds it useless and deletes it.
Scenario 2: This someone turned out be another hacker who fine tunes the code, fix the bugs if any, makes it more powerful and sell it to the another financial organization and make millions.
Scenario 3 (my favorite): The hacker (who is unaware about the owner of the code) invested these millions dollars (which he earned in scenario2) in the same bank who owns the code. The bank crashes and he lost everything.
Scenario 4: In these times of open source, one of the open source evangelist gets this code and made the code public.
Scenario 5: The code is in the hands of Wikileaks and they try to expose it.
Scenario 6: The bank anonymously helped the hacker (who steals the code) by bailing him out. Give him couple of million dollars for pulling off this show of stealing the fake code and distracting people from the wrong doings of the bank.
Conclusion:
We live in this World which is now very well connected, thanks to the internet revolution. We cannot imagine how someone can use unrecognized holes in the web to their advantage. How vulnerable is the information out there in open and how someone can twist and turn that information to cause untenable damage. Moreover this is just a heads up for the information security that anything can happen and more stringent processes needs to be in place to put an end to this.
Puzzle:
I usually give out the names of the concerning parties in my blog. This time I won’t give out any information upfront. There is this very small puzzle which you all need to resolve to find out the reality behind this. The name of the bank who owns the code consists of 2 words and one of these words rhymes with 33.33% of the letters in the word saxophone. I hope you get the name of the bank. Once you get the name of the bank and willing to read the articles on the subject & to know the name of the programmer who compromised the code plus more interesting details, you need to choose smart key words from the blog above and try to make use of this site - 1 followed by 100 zeroes (this should not be tough, thanks to the internet age).
The Fact:
I’ve been following this story over the web for quite some time and every time I read something about it I feel as if I am reading the script from one of the high adrenaline thrillers or one of the cyber crime movies from the Hollywood. There is this person (highly skilled computer programmer) smart enough to steal this very important software code from one of the World’s biggest financial organizations and then try to run away with it. The organization turns out to be smart enough (smarter than the person who steals it) to trace the digital footprint of this hacker and reports this incident of the code theft to the police. This hacker is on the run. In this act of cat & mouse chase, the hacker was smart enough to hide the copy of this code on one of the backup server’s overseas. The Police officials ultimately get hold of this person and now he is waiting for the trial. We actually don’t know what will happen after the trial as it is scheduled to be held sometime next year.
Prologue:
In July 2009, the first news started was out that there has been a security breach at one of the finest Wall Street organizations. That one of the high frequency trading (HFT) code has been compromised. The HFT software code is nothing but a combination of complex algorithms which is used to incorporate high frequency trading. The code is very sophisticated and is capable of doing millions of transactions with a blink of an eye. Codes like these has been always dealt with skepticism by the common man as these codes are known to be lighting fast for complicated transaction and can be notorious as well to bring down the whole system (for more information see Flash Crash that happened in May 2010). Someone who is in possession of this code and know how to use it can change the face of the market before anybody knows. The breach was nothing but an act of theft which was done successfully by one of the chief programmers of this organization. This fine act came just 3 days before the programmer was about to leave this organization for another lucrative offer.
Each & every word after this is purely an assumption. May be this is the result of me watching too many movies and my mind started to think like that.
Epilogue:
March 2011, after the final trial all the evidences points against that the hacker and he is guilty as charged. As a result he hands over the code to the cops and they hands it down to the financial organization. Hacker goes to prison. The code is safe again and no damage done. In this scenario everybody is happy: the financial firm, the cops and the common people like me who read such stories and try to analyze. As normally as it happened in the movies, good guys won bad guys lost and you & me gets our well deserved entertainment. Problem resolved & case closed. Problem resolved? I don’t think so. We all just forget about that copy of the code which is still out there on one of the backup server’s overseas. I have doing some interesting analysis of what might happen to that code which is still out in the open. I am sure there are number of other things which one can decide but this is what I come up with:
Scenario 1: Someone might get his hand on the code. Finds it useless and deletes it.
Scenario 2: This someone turned out be another hacker who fine tunes the code, fix the bugs if any, makes it more powerful and sell it to the another financial organization and make millions.
Scenario 3 (my favorite): The hacker (who is unaware about the owner of the code) invested these millions dollars (which he earned in scenario2) in the same bank who owns the code. The bank crashes and he lost everything.
Scenario 4: In these times of open source, one of the open source evangelist gets this code and made the code public.
Scenario 5: The code is in the hands of Wikileaks and they try to expose it.
Scenario 6: The bank anonymously helped the hacker (who steals the code) by bailing him out. Give him couple of million dollars for pulling off this show of stealing the fake code and distracting people from the wrong doings of the bank.
Conclusion:
We live in this World which is now very well connected, thanks to the internet revolution. We cannot imagine how someone can use unrecognized holes in the web to their advantage. How vulnerable is the information out there in open and how someone can twist and turn that information to cause untenable damage. Moreover this is just a heads up for the information security that anything can happen and more stringent processes needs to be in place to put an end to this.
Puzzle:
I usually give out the names of the concerning parties in my blog. This time I won’t give out any information upfront. There is this very small puzzle which you all need to resolve to find out the reality behind this. The name of the bank who owns the code consists of 2 words and one of these words rhymes with 33.33% of the letters in the word saxophone. I hope you get the name of the bank. Once you get the name of the bank and willing to read the articles on the subject & to know the name of the programmer who compromised the code plus more interesting details, you need to choose smart key words from the blog above and try to make use of this site - 1 followed by 100 zeroes (this should not be tough, thanks to the internet age).
Thursday, December 9, 2010
The Blame Game
I believe everyone impacted by the current economic situation is eager to know what caused this event. I am no different and still searching to find out the reasons what made the most stable economies of the world kneel down on their knees? What factors triggered this collapse? There is a plethora of information on the web, hundreds of books and articles are published on this sensitive subject. Different people have different views. Some are knowledgeable enough to predict what is going to happen next while others are a mere charlatan. In a sense they all are busy playing the game which the situation demands. Confuse the people on the main street, bring new theories and discard the old ones, and most importantly never keep the ball in your court. In short and popular term – The Blame Game.
I read one such article (sometime last year) which is interesting enough to be mentioned on this blog. Let me start with a brief description and we will see how one class of professionals are held responsible and getting most of the blame for triggering one of the worst financial crisis ever known. Quants or quantitative analysts are the professionals who are pretty good with mathematics and related fields, like physics and statistics. Nearly about 2 decades back these quants were invited by the wall street to make sophisticated and efficient financial models based on their ostentatious knowledge of mathematics, probability, statistics, physics and computer science. Various investment banks, insurance agencies and other financial institutions hired these so called geniuses. Things were going pretty good, markets were booming, banks were making tons of profit, Wall Street executives were making millions. All in all the financial models which most of the people were not able to understand, including some of the smart Wall Street managers & CEOs were mesmerizing the world. We all finally found some really good and profitable use of mathematics and physics.
David X Li was one such quantitative analyst who entered Walls Street with the hope of making things even better. Chinese by origin and academician by record, Li achieved double masters, one in business and another one in actuarial science. Actuarial science is the field of mathematics & stats which is used to assess risk in insurance and finance sectors. Li obtained his PhD (Stats) as well. He earned all the 3 degrees from one of the famous Canadian universities. While working on the Wall Street Li came up with this amazing mathematical formula – Gaussian Copula function which makes use of the mathematical copula. Li derived this formula while working on one of the problems of actuarial science known as “the broken hearts” – which states that life expectancy of an individual decreases after the death of their spouse. What a interesting theory? The formula initially used on Wall Street to assess risk of various security derivatives, CDS (credit default swaps) and creeping from all those financial intricacies reached the final destination to assess the risk and set the price for mortgage based CDOs (Collateralized debt obligations is a kind of asset based security). CDOs played an important part in the current financial crisis and most of the damage done was somewhat related to CDOs. According to many, Li’s formula served as one of the primary reasons why the CDO market was not able to calculate the risk properly and hence failed. Li’s formula was one of the very hot topics as now people got this one name this one person and this one formula to blame. Did Li’s formula jumpstart the financial crisis? I will not comment on that. What I know is that there are many smart people who are sitting in those financial institutions who just used this formula without even validating its impact. What they loved about the formula till it got broke is the simplicity associated with it and its capability to earn trillions of dollars. CDO market grew from $275 billion in 2000 to the staggering $4.7 trillion till 2006. Amazing, isn’t it? Tax payers & home owners are you listening?
If Mr. Li’s formula is responsible for killing the wall street, our stocks, our home values, our 401ks and our dreams, then I guess Mr. Alfred Noble is responsible for all the modern wars as Noble was the inventor of dynamite and somewhat today’s weaponry is the derivative of that. We cannot point fingers and held the inventors responsible for things they came up with. Us being the end user, it is our job to validate what he/she has introduced and depending on that we need to make a decision to use that stuff or not (keeping our greed out of the equation). We all need to put greed in the backseat or throw it out of our lives (even better) and start thinking about the human value. This has happened in the past and as the things are proceeding, it will again happen in the future. There are many more Gaussian copulas or similar formulas making rounds in the world and other places of significant importance. How many of them has actually been validated, how many of them are something else apart from being the gas for the greed machine? If things did not fall into place I am pretty sure we will have this conversation again. God Bless the mankind, at least we all can hope for that.
I read one such article (sometime last year) which is interesting enough to be mentioned on this blog. Let me start with a brief description and we will see how one class of professionals are held responsible and getting most of the blame for triggering one of the worst financial crisis ever known. Quants or quantitative analysts are the professionals who are pretty good with mathematics and related fields, like physics and statistics. Nearly about 2 decades back these quants were invited by the wall street to make sophisticated and efficient financial models based on their ostentatious knowledge of mathematics, probability, statistics, physics and computer science. Various investment banks, insurance agencies and other financial institutions hired these so called geniuses. Things were going pretty good, markets were booming, banks were making tons of profit, Wall Street executives were making millions. All in all the financial models which most of the people were not able to understand, including some of the smart Wall Street managers & CEOs were mesmerizing the world. We all finally found some really good and profitable use of mathematics and physics.
David X Li was one such quantitative analyst who entered Walls Street with the hope of making things even better. Chinese by origin and academician by record, Li achieved double masters, one in business and another one in actuarial science. Actuarial science is the field of mathematics & stats which is used to assess risk in insurance and finance sectors. Li obtained his PhD (Stats) as well. He earned all the 3 degrees from one of the famous Canadian universities. While working on the Wall Street Li came up with this amazing mathematical formula – Gaussian Copula function which makes use of the mathematical copula. Li derived this formula while working on one of the problems of actuarial science known as “the broken hearts” – which states that life expectancy of an individual decreases after the death of their spouse. What a interesting theory? The formula initially used on Wall Street to assess risk of various security derivatives, CDS (credit default swaps) and creeping from all those financial intricacies reached the final destination to assess the risk and set the price for mortgage based CDOs (Collateralized debt obligations is a kind of asset based security). CDOs played an important part in the current financial crisis and most of the damage done was somewhat related to CDOs. According to many, Li’s formula served as one of the primary reasons why the CDO market was not able to calculate the risk properly and hence failed. Li’s formula was one of the very hot topics as now people got this one name this one person and this one formula to blame. Did Li’s formula jumpstart the financial crisis? I will not comment on that. What I know is that there are many smart people who are sitting in those financial institutions who just used this formula without even validating its impact. What they loved about the formula till it got broke is the simplicity associated with it and its capability to earn trillions of dollars. CDO market grew from $275 billion in 2000 to the staggering $4.7 trillion till 2006. Amazing, isn’t it? Tax payers & home owners are you listening?
If Mr. Li’s formula is responsible for killing the wall street, our stocks, our home values, our 401ks and our dreams, then I guess Mr. Alfred Noble is responsible for all the modern wars as Noble was the inventor of dynamite and somewhat today’s weaponry is the derivative of that. We cannot point fingers and held the inventors responsible for things they came up with. Us being the end user, it is our job to validate what he/she has introduced and depending on that we need to make a decision to use that stuff or not (keeping our greed out of the equation). We all need to put greed in the backseat or throw it out of our lives (even better) and start thinking about the human value. This has happened in the past and as the things are proceeding, it will again happen in the future. There are many more Gaussian copulas or similar formulas making rounds in the world and other places of significant importance. How many of them has actually been validated, how many of them are something else apart from being the gas for the greed machine? If things did not fall into place I am pretty sure we will have this conversation again. God Bless the mankind, at least we all can hope for that.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The Landmark
The story I am about to narrate is very close to my heart. One of the reasons to write this blog is directly or indirectly related to this fateful and eventful tale. I mentioned this story as eventful as dates are important in this narration and we’ll come to know as the blog unfolds.
Some people believe that things that goes up fast comes down fast, especially those things that are big & heavy. The protagonist of this story is a person of the scientific background and does not believe in this statement. According to him, things without proper explanation and relevant proof are not worthy to turn your attention to. We live in this world full of uncertainties, where anything could happen with a blink of an eye and most of those things happen without any proof or explanation. At that point science & mathematical proofs sounds meaningless, all the books & articles that you’ve read and all the knowledge that you’ve acquired over a period of time does not make any sense. Is that possible ever, when nothing matters and reality sucks?
In the spring of 2007 (March to be precise) after a long day of work the man drove back to his house. While he was driving many thoughts cross his mind. I definitely need a break and it’s been a while when I took one. How about a visit to Florida or shall I go for Las Vegas or someplace else in the west coast? Hard to decide the location where he would like to spend the quality time with his wife and son he reaches his home. He discussed the plan for his well deserved vacation with his wife and told himself he will make a small travel project and plan everything well in advance. The man told his wife that the weekend of Memorial Day will be perfect for this. The wife agreed. After much discussion both of them decided a common destination - BIG APPLE. Let’s do it, NYC is the most happening city in the world the man exclaimed with a sparkle of joy in his eyes. With a destination in place we now need to find a good hotel and the plan for the sightseeing the man told his wife and she nodded. How about a vacation package from Expedia, Travelocity or Hotwire the man asked his wife? The wife said whatever we have to do we have to do fast as that being a long weekend all the good hotels will be booked well in advanced. You are right, the man responded and without wasting any minute he was wandering the web with all the good deals for this trip. The results from those travel sites started to pop up - hotel for 2 adults & 1 child in downtown Manhattan for 3 nights and the return flight tickets, all for this amazing price, we’ll take it. This is an excellent deal, the hotel is awesome, right in the heart of Manhattan, the man told himself.
The flight was on time and the weather in the NYC looks good. They checked into this massive & classic hotel which stood on the Madison Avenue & 45th street in the heart of midtown Manhattan. After taking the tour of the Empire State Building they took the cab for Times Square. This was too much fun they told each other. How about a walk from Times Square back to our hotel, the man asked his wife? Sure, but are you completely aware of the route back to the hotel, the wife asked? That’s not a problem the man replied we can ask someone. One of the NYC street vendor were kind enough to show them the way back to their hotel and the vendor told them that if they ever wanted to walk from the Times Square to their hotel they just need to keep this landmark in mind. The landmark, the man questioned. Yes, the landmark, the vendor replied. You see that big building, the one which stands in the dark night with the white crown, this is your landmark. Just follow this building and this will take you to your destination. This building is indeed our landmark, the man said. What a grandiose structure and conspicuous architecture, he thought. The walk that night was fun. For the next two nights they followed the building as their landmark, and every time they take the stroll they always discussed about that building. There are lots of amazing buildings in NYC but this one in particular building caught their attention. This landmark, this building watched them every night as they walked towards it. With lots of good memories the trip was over. I am all charged up after this vacation and ready to go back to work, the man told his wife on the way back home.
Life was going fine and fast and before they knew it the summer was gone. Winter started followed by spring that welcomes the month of March 2008. On March 17th 2008, the man reached the work place and started to check his emails and opened a separate window for checking the business news on CNN. The economy is not in good shape he talked to himself. News after news keeps coming and all indicate the economy is in shambles. While browsing one of the web pages he came across this article which he could not believe. It felt like the sky above his head gone missing. To most of his shock & bewilderment the landmark is gone. That building that used to guide him back to the hotel in NYC, that building does not exists, the name associated with it was just history. This is a predicament situation and we all are neck deep into this. While driving back home from work he could not stop thinking about the landmark. Whatever goes up fast comes down fast, this is just another quote, another way to express the views, everything is just fine and everything will be fine, he keeps talking to himself as moves towards his home.
For most of us, the story explained above was the official introduction to the Economic, Financial & Housing conundrum. Trillions of dollars vanished, Millions of jobs were gone, hundreds & thousands become homeless, may be more. The effect of this economic quake was so drastic that till date we are getting the shocks and jitters. The aftermath of this meltdown was just alarming. To the shock of most of us, that epicenter which triggered this economic tsunami was none other than but the landmark. The landmark that mentioned in the story helped the man reach his destination, but today this landmark is nothing but a big concrete boulder, an unavoidable hindrance in the path of millions.
The landmark (the building with the white crown) was none other than the building of Bear Stearns (one of the very first primary financial institutions to fall). The classic hotel mentioned in the story is, Hotel Roosevelt (which is right next to Bear Stearns) and the man (as mentioned in the story) who is still trying to find out what happened to his landmark and why all this is happening, why no one took responsibility for such a disaster, is the none other than but the writer of this blog – me.
I dedicate this post to all the people who lost everything to this financial meltdown, who lost their jobs, their homes, there happiness, their dreams and their hopes. My heart, my mind and my blog all goes out to them. Everybody keep on telling the same thing, one landmark is gone and the other we will be resurrected. When & how, nobody knows. Till then follow your heart as it will be your best GPS. You don't need any landmark if you follow your heart. Your heart will be your best guide and you won’t miss your destination, rest assured.
Some people believe that things that goes up fast comes down fast, especially those things that are big & heavy. The protagonist of this story is a person of the scientific background and does not believe in this statement. According to him, things without proper explanation and relevant proof are not worthy to turn your attention to. We live in this world full of uncertainties, where anything could happen with a blink of an eye and most of those things happen without any proof or explanation. At that point science & mathematical proofs sounds meaningless, all the books & articles that you’ve read and all the knowledge that you’ve acquired over a period of time does not make any sense. Is that possible ever, when nothing matters and reality sucks?
In the spring of 2007 (March to be precise) after a long day of work the man drove back to his house. While he was driving many thoughts cross his mind. I definitely need a break and it’s been a while when I took one. How about a visit to Florida or shall I go for Las Vegas or someplace else in the west coast? Hard to decide the location where he would like to spend the quality time with his wife and son he reaches his home. He discussed the plan for his well deserved vacation with his wife and told himself he will make a small travel project and plan everything well in advance. The man told his wife that the weekend of Memorial Day will be perfect for this. The wife agreed. After much discussion both of them decided a common destination - BIG APPLE. Let’s do it, NYC is the most happening city in the world the man exclaimed with a sparkle of joy in his eyes. With a destination in place we now need to find a good hotel and the plan for the sightseeing the man told his wife and she nodded. How about a vacation package from Expedia, Travelocity or Hotwire the man asked his wife? The wife said whatever we have to do we have to do fast as that being a long weekend all the good hotels will be booked well in advanced. You are right, the man responded and without wasting any minute he was wandering the web with all the good deals for this trip. The results from those travel sites started to pop up - hotel for 2 adults & 1 child in downtown Manhattan for 3 nights and the return flight tickets, all for this amazing price, we’ll take it. This is an excellent deal, the hotel is awesome, right in the heart of Manhattan, the man told himself.
The flight was on time and the weather in the NYC looks good. They checked into this massive & classic hotel which stood on the Madison Avenue & 45th street in the heart of midtown Manhattan. After taking the tour of the Empire State Building they took the cab for Times Square. This was too much fun they told each other. How about a walk from Times Square back to our hotel, the man asked his wife? Sure, but are you completely aware of the route back to the hotel, the wife asked? That’s not a problem the man replied we can ask someone. One of the NYC street vendor were kind enough to show them the way back to their hotel and the vendor told them that if they ever wanted to walk from the Times Square to their hotel they just need to keep this landmark in mind. The landmark, the man questioned. Yes, the landmark, the vendor replied. You see that big building, the one which stands in the dark night with the white crown, this is your landmark. Just follow this building and this will take you to your destination. This building is indeed our landmark, the man said. What a grandiose structure and conspicuous architecture, he thought. The walk that night was fun. For the next two nights they followed the building as their landmark, and every time they take the stroll they always discussed about that building. There are lots of amazing buildings in NYC but this one in particular building caught their attention. This landmark, this building watched them every night as they walked towards it. With lots of good memories the trip was over. I am all charged up after this vacation and ready to go back to work, the man told his wife on the way back home.
Life was going fine and fast and before they knew it the summer was gone. Winter started followed by spring that welcomes the month of March 2008. On March 17th 2008, the man reached the work place and started to check his emails and opened a separate window for checking the business news on CNN. The economy is not in good shape he talked to himself. News after news keeps coming and all indicate the economy is in shambles. While browsing one of the web pages he came across this article which he could not believe. It felt like the sky above his head gone missing. To most of his shock & bewilderment the landmark is gone. That building that used to guide him back to the hotel in NYC, that building does not exists, the name associated with it was just history. This is a predicament situation and we all are neck deep into this. While driving back home from work he could not stop thinking about the landmark. Whatever goes up fast comes down fast, this is just another quote, another way to express the views, everything is just fine and everything will be fine, he keeps talking to himself as moves towards his home.
For most of us, the story explained above was the official introduction to the Economic, Financial & Housing conundrum. Trillions of dollars vanished, Millions of jobs were gone, hundreds & thousands become homeless, may be more. The effect of this economic quake was so drastic that till date we are getting the shocks and jitters. The aftermath of this meltdown was just alarming. To the shock of most of us, that epicenter which triggered this economic tsunami was none other than but the landmark. The landmark that mentioned in the story helped the man reach his destination, but today this landmark is nothing but a big concrete boulder, an unavoidable hindrance in the path of millions.
The landmark (the building with the white crown) was none other than the building of Bear Stearns (one of the very first primary financial institutions to fall). The classic hotel mentioned in the story is, Hotel Roosevelt (which is right next to Bear Stearns) and the man (as mentioned in the story) who is still trying to find out what happened to his landmark and why all this is happening, why no one took responsibility for such a disaster, is the none other than but the writer of this blog – me.
I dedicate this post to all the people who lost everything to this financial meltdown, who lost their jobs, their homes, there happiness, their dreams and their hopes. My heart, my mind and my blog all goes out to them. Everybody keep on telling the same thing, one landmark is gone and the other we will be resurrected. When & how, nobody knows. Till then follow your heart as it will be your best GPS. You don't need any landmark if you follow your heart. Your heart will be your best guide and you won’t miss your destination, rest assured.
Monday, December 6, 2010
GMAT Update
These days GMAT is taking most of my time. I have completed Quant and Verbal portion and now I need to revise what I did for the last 10 weeks. Time to start practicing the problems, reviewing the notes and hard coding various quant formulas and equations in the brain. SC is the one portion about which I am still not confident, so need to work on that. All in all I should say that GMAT is the very first step for getting an MBA and believe me it’s the one which will not only test your quant & verbal skills it will test your time management skills too (which is very important for a good manager). What matters on the GMAT is how effective you are in laying your study plan to the point you execute it, how you divide your time based on your comfort level for each of the quant and verbal sections and how you make use of the time wisely between work and the GMAT prep.
Before putting the plan for the GMAT, I faced a tough time deciding the books I should consider. There are myriad of forums and blogs suggesting the books and other prep material for the GMAT. At times this plethora of information is too much for an individual and at time this data mining is excruciating & time consuming. I guess we all know where we stand in terms of our present quant & verbal skills and this should be the foundation for consulting/buying the books for the GMAT. I knew I had pretty rusty quant skills and for the verbal I knew it would be a challenge to take up SC, RC & CR without the basics. Based on this information I short listed the books which I am using for my GMAT prep. Here goes the list:
Quant (PS – Problem Solving & DS – Data Sufficiency)
Manhattan Series - Quant:
1. Number Properties
2. Fraction, Decimal & Percentage (FDP)
3. Equations, Inequality & VICs (VICs – Variable in answer choice)
4. Word Translation
5. Geometry
Verbal (SC – Sentence Correction, CR – Critical Reasoning, RC – Reading Comprehension)
Manhattan Series - Verbal:
1. Sentence Correction - SC
2. Reading Comprehension - RC
3. The Powerscore GMAT Bible Critical Reasoning – CR
Apart from these I also bought OG11, OG Quant, OG Verbal (OG – official guide from the makers of the GMAT).
Primarily these are the books on which I am going to concentrate. I bought some more books for the additional practice exams, more on those books in a later blog.
I have read in some blogs & forums that some people started to develop this hatred somewhere during their prep period and this hatred act as their power booster for the GMAT. This feeling brings out the best in some individuals. For me I have this simple logic which I have followed most of my life, hate it or love it if you want to succeed in any point in life, if you want to conquer those unfathomable dreams then hard work is inevitable. I agree that luck will play an important part in our life and will drive some of the life’s main decisions too. To support the Luck factor in the equation, there is one of the quotes from the movies I like: “Chance favors the prepared mind”. Which movie? – Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (Watch it. One of the best from Steven Seagal)
Before putting the plan for the GMAT, I faced a tough time deciding the books I should consider. There are myriad of forums and blogs suggesting the books and other prep material for the GMAT. At times this plethora of information is too much for an individual and at time this data mining is excruciating & time consuming. I guess we all know where we stand in terms of our present quant & verbal skills and this should be the foundation for consulting/buying the books for the GMAT. I knew I had pretty rusty quant skills and for the verbal I knew it would be a challenge to take up SC, RC & CR without the basics. Based on this information I short listed the books which I am using for my GMAT prep. Here goes the list:
Quant (PS – Problem Solving & DS – Data Sufficiency)
Manhattan Series - Quant:
1. Number Properties
2. Fraction, Decimal & Percentage (FDP)
3. Equations, Inequality & VICs (VICs – Variable in answer choice)
4. Word Translation
5. Geometry
Verbal (SC – Sentence Correction, CR – Critical Reasoning, RC – Reading Comprehension)
Manhattan Series - Verbal:
1. Sentence Correction - SC
2. Reading Comprehension - RC
3. The Powerscore GMAT Bible Critical Reasoning – CR
Apart from these I also bought OG11, OG Quant, OG Verbal (OG – official guide from the makers of the GMAT).
Primarily these are the books on which I am going to concentrate. I bought some more books for the additional practice exams, more on those books in a later blog.
I have read in some blogs & forums that some people started to develop this hatred somewhere during their prep period and this hatred act as their power booster for the GMAT. This feeling brings out the best in some individuals. For me I have this simple logic which I have followed most of my life, hate it or love it if you want to succeed in any point in life, if you want to conquer those unfathomable dreams then hard work is inevitable. I agree that luck will play an important part in our life and will drive some of the life’s main decisions too. To support the Luck factor in the equation, there is one of the quotes from the movies I like: “Chance favors the prepared mind”. Which movie? – Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (Watch it. One of the best from Steven Seagal)
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