Corona virus (covid 19)
27 Friday Mar 2020
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in27 Friday Mar 2020
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in26 Thursday Mar 2020
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inThere is a story that is familiar to almost every resident in Chadayamangalam village in Kollam district, Kerala. Legend has it that it was on a rocky peak near the village that the mythological giant eagle of the Ramayana fell while fighting Ravana. Thereafter, the place came to be known as ‘Jatayumangalam’. Over the years, it became Chadayamangalam and the peak became Jatayupara (Jatayu rock).
Sculptor/filmmaker Rajiv Anchal heard the story over a thousand times. “It is a powerful story with a fascinating character and has driven my imagination all these years,” says the master sculptor, who spent the last 10 years bringing the legend to life.
Imagination and creativity take flight on this bleak mountain and a giant bird is beginning to spread its wings. Lying flat on its back with wings spread across 150ft, while stretching 200ft from tail feathers to head, and talons rising 70ft into the air, the Jatayu sculpture — built on top of the 1,000ft-high Jatayupara — towers above the green expanses of Chadayamangalam.
With the inauguration of his life’s work just months away, Anchal is on a high. The Jatayu Adventure Centre, which offers an assortment of rock-based adventure activities, has already been opened for thrill-seekers.
The sculpture, along with the adventure centre and a Siddha healing centre, all of 65 acres, form the Jatayu Earth’s Centre. The construction took just a few years, but the idea is decades old. “I had presented a model for this sculpture to the Department of Tourism during my Fine Arts College days in the 1980s. Although they were impressed, it didn’t take shape back then,” Anchal says. Later, when a proposal for an eco-tourism project came up, he was approached to work on it.
Bygone era
For Anchal, it’s not just another tourism project. There was a time when man and wildlife lived in harmony, and Jatayu is a symbol of that time. “The aim is to protect the rock and preserve Nature around it. Nothing dominates the rock — as all the construction, including the sculpture — is designed and textured to seem like a part of the landscape,” he says. Most of the area was barren when the project kicked off. Trees were planted well ahead, and today, the fallen Jatayu lies in a green haven, something straight out of Treta Yuga!
Explore the innards of the sculpture through an entrance that opens beneath one of its wings. The sculpture is, in fact, a spacious five-storied building, housing a museum and a multi-dimensional theatre that will screen an animated movie, featuring the epic battle between Jatayu and Ravana.
The virtual reality museum inside the sculpture is designed to promote the idea of harmony. With animated visuals, sounds and sculptures, the wildlife of Treta Yuga will be brought alive here. But how do you create a mythological world that no one alive knows about? Anchal explains, “Just like the planet in Avatar was a product of director James Cameron’s imagination, the Treta Yuga I am building — everything from sky and landscapes to plants and animals — will be a representation of my creative mind.”
The perspective
It may be inspired by Hindu mythology, but the project is envisaged as a monument on the lines of The Statue of Liberty. Anchal is wary of how important perspective is to a project like this. A misstep can easily turn the sculpture from a cultural symbol to a religious one. “Jatayu died protecting a woman’s honour and that is what the sculpture stands for. People of all faiths have invested in the project and people of all faiths will be coming to see it. My work is for all of them. For those looking for religion, there is the old temple just outside the compound,” he adds.
For the award-winning art director turned filmmaker, the Jatayu Earth’s Centre is a movie set that will never be taken down. The biggest challenge was getting the building materials to a height of 1,000ft. Once that was solved using a winch specially made for the purpose, the sculpting kicked off in full swing. Anchal adds, “The workers were all regular construction workers. They realised it was a bird only after a couple of years. But now many of them have become skilled enough to sculpt on their own.”
When finished, the Jatayu will be the biggest bird sculpture in the world. “You shouldn’t be afraid to dream big. I learned that from my experience in movies,” he quips.
Speaking of movies, Anchal says he can’t wait to get back behind the camera. It will be a project as big and as mythical as the one he is about to finish.
What is Jatayu Earth’s Centre? Jatayu Earth’s Centre is a ₹100 crore eco-tourism project designed on a BOT (build-operate-transfer) model between the Government of Kerala and Guruchandrika Builders and Property, a company owned by Rajiv Anchal. The company has leased the Government-owned land for 30 years. Although the project took flight in 2008, construction began only by 2011. The Jatayu sculpture, a building with a 15,000 sq ft floor area, is made of roller-compacted concrete (RCC), except for the talons which are stainless steel. Investors expect the project to break even within five years of opening.
Soft launch: In March, the sculpture and the cable car ride will be opened to the public. Visitors can scale the wings of the Jatayu to reach the chest and click a selfie with the bird. The entry fee will be ₹250. The official inauguration will be towards the end of 2018, after the completion of the museum, the theatre and a Siddha healing centre.
Reaching the zenith: Apart from the 500 metre cable ride, there is a 1.5-km granite stone walkway built by 70-year-old stone mason Balan Pillai, who chiselled 60,000 stones by himself. A heli-taxi service will be launched in future.
Brave the rocks: From climbing up an 82feet rock-face and rappelling down a 45feet cliff, to crossing a tricky Burma bridge and trekking up a mountain, the Jatayu Adventure Centre offers all this and more. Built onto a side of the peak, it offers a variety of activities designed around the natural rock formations. For a group of 10, the cost is ₹3,500 and includes lunch, water, juice and snacks.
thanks hindu
22 Sunday Mar 2020
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inRemember the adage “Time is money”, it seems like this adage about time is highly relevant when it comes to options trading. Forget all the Greek talk for now, we shall go back to understand one basic concept concerning time. Assume you have enrolled for a competitive exam, you are inherently a bright candidate and have the capability to clear the exam, however if you do not give it sufficient time and brush up the concepts, you are likely to flunk the exam – so given this what is the likelihood that you will pass this exam? Well, it depends on how much time you spend to prepare for the exam right? Let’s keep this in perspective and figure out the likelihood of passing the exam against the time spent preparing for the exam.
Number of days for preparation | Likelihood of passing |
---|---|
30 days | Very high |
20 days | High |
15 days | Moderate |
10 days | Low |
5 days | Very low |
1 day | Ultra low |
Quite obviously higher the number of days for preparation, the higher is the likelihood of passing the exam. Keeping the same logic in mind, think about the following situation – Nifty Spot is 8500, you buy a Nifty 8700 Call option – what is the likelihood of this call option to expire In the Money (ITM)? Let me rephrase this question in the following way –
Is there anything that we can infer from the above? Clearly, the more time for expiry the likelihood for the option to expire In the Money (ITM) is higher. Now keep this point in the back of your mind as we now shift our focus on the ‘Option Seller’. We know an option seller sells/writes an option and receives the premium for it. When he sells an option he is very well aware that he carries an unlimited risk and limited reward potential. The reward is limited to the extent of the premium he receives. He gets to keep his reward (premium) fully only if the option expires worthless. Now, think about this – if he is selling an option early in the month he very clearly knows the following –
In fact at any given point, thanks to ‘time’, there is always a chance for the option to expiry in the money (although this chance gets lower and lower as time progresses towards the expiry date). Given this, an option seller would not want to sell options at all right? After all why would you want to sell options when you very well know that simply because of time there is scope for the option you are selling to expire in the money. Clearly time in the option sellers context acts as a risk. Now, what if the option buyer in order to entice the option seller to sell options offers to compensate for the ‘time risk’ that he (option seller) assumes? In such a case it probably makes sense to evaluate the time risk versus the compensation and take a call right? In fact this is what happens in real world options trading. Whenever you pay a premium for options, you are indeed paying towards –
In other words – Premium = Time value + Intrinsic Value Recall earlier in this module we defined ‘Intrinsic Value’ as the money you are to receive, if you were to exercise your option today. Just to refresh your memory, let us calculate the intrinsic value for the following options assuming Nifty is at 8423 –
We know the intrinsic value is always a positive value or zero and can never be below zero. If the value turns out to be negative, then the intrinsic value is considered zero. We know for Call options the intrinsic value is “Spot Price – Strike Price” and for Put options it is “Strike Price – Spot Price”. Hence the intrinsic values for the above options are as follows –
So given that we know how to calculate the intrinsic value of an option, let us attempt to decompose the premium and extract the time value and intrinsic value. Have a look at the following snapshot –
Details to note are as follows –
Intrinsic value of a call option – Spot Price – Strike Price i.e 8531 – 8600 = 0 (since it’s a negative value) We know – Premium = Time value + Intrinsic value 99.4 = Time Value + 0 This implies Time value = 99.4! Do you see that? The market is willing to pay a premium of Rs.99.4/- for an option that has zero intrinsic value but ample time value! Recall time is money
Here is snapshot of the same contract that I took the next day i.e 7th July –
Notice the underlying value has gone up slightly (8538) but the option premium has decreased quite a bit! Let’s decompose the premium into its intrinsic value and time value – Spot Price – Strike Price i.e 8538 – 8600 = 0 (since it’s a negative value) We know – Premium = Time value + Intrinsic value 87.9 = Time Value + 0 This implies Time value = 87.9! Notice the overnight drop in premium value? We will soon understand why this happened. Note – In this example, the drop in premium value is 99.4 minus 87.9 = 11.5. This drop is attributable to drop in volatility and time. We will talk about volatility in the next chapter. For the sake of argument, if both volatility and spot were constant, the drop in premium would be completely attributable to the passage of time. I would suspect this drop would be around Rs.5 or so and not really Rs.11.5/-. Let us take another example –
Intrinsic value of call option – Spot Price – Strike Price i.e 8514.5 – 8450 = 64.5 We know – Premium = Time value + Intrinsic value 160 = Time Value + 64.5 This implies the Time value = 160 – 64.5 = 95.5 Hence out of the total premium of Rs.160, traders are paying 64.5 towards intrinsic value and 95.5 towards the time value. You can repeat the calculation for all options (both calls and puts) and decompose the premium into the Time value and intrinsic value.
Time as we know moves in one direction. Keep the expiry date as the target time and think about the movement of time. Quite obviously as time progresses, the number of days for expiry gets lesser and lesser. Given this let me ask you this question – With roughly 18 trading days to expiry, traders are willing to pay as much as Rs.100/- towards time value, will they do the same if time to expiry was just 5 days? Obviously they would not right? With lesser time to expiry, traders will pay a much lesser value towards time. In fact here is a snap shot that I took from the earlier months –
With 1 day to expiry, traders are willing to pay a time value of just 30 paisa. However, if the time to expiry was 20 days or more the time value would probably be Rs.5 or Rs.8/-. The point that I’m trying to make here is this – with every passing day, as we get closer to the expiry day, the time to expiry becomes lesser and lesser. This means the option buyers will pay lesser and lesser towards time value. So if the option buyer pays Rs.10 as the time value today, tomorrow he would probably pay Rs.9.5/- as the time value. This leads us to a very important conclusion – “All other things being equal, an option is a depreciating asset. The option’s premium erodes daily and this is attributable to the passage of time”. Now the next logical question is – by how much would the premium decrease on a daily basis owing to the passage of time? Well, Theta the 3rd Option Greek helps us answer this question.
All options – both Calls and Puts lose value as the expiration approaches. The Theta or time decay factor is the rate at which an option loses value as time passes. Theta is expressed in points lost per day when all other conditions remain the same. Time runs in one direction, hence theta is always a positive number, however to remind traders it’s a loss in options value it is sometimes written as a negative number. A Theta of -0.5 indicates that the option premium will lose -0.5 points for every day that passes by. For example, if an option is trading at Rs.2.75/- with theta of -0.05 then it will trade at Rs.2.70/- the following day (provided other things are kept constant). A long option (option buyer) will always have a negative theta meaning all else equal, the option buyer will lose money on a day by day basis. A short option (option seller) will have a positive theta. Theta is a friendly Greek to the option seller. Remember the objective of the option seller is to retain the premium. Given that options loses value on a daily basis, the option seller can benefit by retaining the premium to the extent it loses value owing to time. For example if an option writer has sold options at Rs.54, with theta of 0.75, all else equal, the same option is likely to trade at – =0.75 * 3 = 2.25 = 54 – 2.25 = 51.75 Hence the seller can choose to close the option position on T+ 3 day by buying it back at Rs.51.75/- and profiting Rs.2.25 …and this is attributable to theta! Have a look at the graph below –
This is the graph of how premium erodes as time to expiry approaches. This is also called the ‘Time Decay’ graph. We can observe the following from the graph –
So if you are selling options at the start of the series – you have the advantage of pocketing a large premium value (as the time value is very high) but do remember the fall in premium happens at a low rate. You can sell options closer to the expiry – you will get a lower premium but the drop in premium is high, which is advantageous to the options seller. Theta is a relatively straightforward and easy Greek to understand. We will revisit theta again when we will discuss cross dependencies of Greeks. But for now, if you have understood all that’s being discussed here you are good to go. We shall now move forward to understand the last and the most interesting Greek – Vega!
19 Thursday Mar 2020
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inOptions Open Interest
09 Monday Mar 2020
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inThe Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s premier prize and highest honor, celebrates greatness of spirit and transformative leadership in Asia. In the past five decades, the award has been bestowed on over three hundred outstanding men, women and organizations whose selfless service has offered their societies, Asia, and the world successful solutions to some of the most intractable problems of human development.
The trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation annually select the awardees. Awardees are presented with a certificate and a medallion with an embossed image of Ramon Magsaysay facing right in profile. The Award is presented to them in formal ceremonies in Manila, Philippines on August 31st, the birth anniversary of the much-esteemed Philippine President whose ideals inspired the Award’s creation in 1957.
President of the Republic of the Philippines
30 December 1953 – 17 March 1957
Ramon del Fierro Magsaysay was the third president of the Republic of the Philippines after World War II. His life had great impact not only in his country but on many people in many lands. He was one of the outstanding leaders of his time.
Ramon Magsaysay commanded the admiration, respect and affection of people because he was a simple, humble man; because he cared for all people as individuals and believed in their dignity and importance; and because he had the courage of his convictions. His objective was to improve the lot of his fellow Filipinos and he approached the task with selfless devotion. He was convinced that government, to last and to be sound, must have integrity and reflect the will of the people.
A man of greatness of spirit, he saw his fellow human beings born with the right to live in liberty and happiness. He angered at injustice and the violation of high principles. He worked to build a nation — a world — in which all people were free and lived in honor and peace with one another.
The world is richer and better because Ramon Magsaysay lived. His spirit will continue to be an inspiration. He exemplifies the highest type of leadership.
I believe that government starts at the bottom and moves upward, for government exists for the welfare of the masses of the nation.
I believe that he who has less in life should have more in law.
I believe that the little man is fundamentally entitled to a little bit more food in his stomach, a little more cloth in his back and a little more roof over his head.
I believe that this nation is endowed with a vibrant and stout heart, and possesses untapped capabilities and incredible resiliency.
I believe that a high and unwavering sense of morality should pervade all spheres of governmental activity.
I believe that the pulse of government should be strong and steady, and the men at the helm imbued with missionary zeal.
I believe in the majesty of constitutional and legal processes, in the inviolability of human rights.
I believe that the free world is collectively strong, and that there is neither need or reason to compromise the dignity of man.
I believe that communism is iniquity, as is the violence it does to the principles of Christianity.
I believe that the President should set the example of a big heart, an honest mind, sound instincts, the virtue of healthy impatience and an abiding love for the common man.