BSE close to 19k!

The BSE is flirting with 19k levels. Just last month it had dipped to 13k levels following the subprime debacle ripples. I missed the boat then since I did not have a DMAT account at the time which in turn was due to the fact that I did not have a PAN card.

I immediately applied for a PAN card then and now am the proud owner of one. Its real nice and shiny. But I still don't have a DMAT account. I researched a bit online and came across quite a few frustrated ICICI dmat customers so have decided not to go ahead with that. (I have an ICICI savings as well as a NRE account). I have narrowed down on Reliance and Kotak, leaning a bit towards reliance though.

Might not invest right away after opening the account, since the market is perched so high. But its impossible to tell if it will have a major correction before continuing its climb to newer heights. The correction, when and if it happens, might be in value or it time. That is it might lie low at a level (say 18k) for a long while before restoring its upwards momentum, in that case it will be foolish to wait for it to fall down to say 16k before investing in it, since that will lead to missing out on another short bull run. So I will probably enter the market but with strict trailing loss orders so as not to get caught unawares during a free fall.

Apart from the market the Indian economy is rocking. While in the US, it was hard to take the media on its word, but I am now witnessing it first hand. The market may be overpriced in some experts view but over the long term there is tremendous growth potential in India. Much of the India development story has been touted aplenty already so let me note just one important phenomenon I noticed here:

The parallel economy (read: black market) in India is HUGE. My brush with the real estate market in Indore opened my eyes to the fact that most RE deals have a larger component in black then in white. People are rich here more that one would gather from available data. That black component means thousands of crores of INRs in a II tier city like Indore! The impact of that will be very significant in the years to come.

Anyway, for now, I will run to the nearest Reliance money outlet and get myself a DMAT account, nice and shiny.