19-July-2007 12:38 IST
Sensex awake 169 points; Ambuja Cements go down 2 per cent.

The Sensex is at present 169 points at 15,470. The NSE Nifty is awake 40 points at 4,540. Bajaj Auto, Grasim and L&T have soared approximately 2.5 per cent each to Rupees 2,339, Rupees 2,965 and Rupees 2,389, correspondingly.

Reliane Communications and Tata Motors rush forward 2.3 per cent each to Rupees 581 and Rupees 761, correspondingly.

Ranbaxy, Reliance and Hindalco have rallied 2 per cent every to Rupees 354, Rupees 1,858 and Rupees 188, correspondingly.

BHEL has profited 1.5 per cent at Rupees 1,657and Infosys has advanced 1.8 per cent to Rupees 1,982.

Ambuja Cements has push 2 per cent to Rupees 136. Mahindra & Mahindra has fall 1.5 per cent to Rupees 793.

Investment essentially refers to what you do with your savings in order to preserve them and make them grow or yield and income. If you keep your savings in the form of cash, they are certainly going to diminish in value because the purchasing power of money is constantly going down r a result of inflation. (The value of money is judged by the quantity of goods and services you can buy with it). The4refore if you want to maintain of increase the value of your savings, you have to keep them in forms other than cash. This is what investment is all about, deployment of your savings with the intention of preserving or increasing their value, this deployment can be done by using your savings to buy land, residential property, commercial property, gold jewellery, works of art, fixed deposits in banks and companies, shares, bonds, in fact, anything whose value is likely to either remain constant or appreciate with time.
Investment also refers to using one’s savings with the intention of earning an income. For example, if you use your saving to buy a house, it will not only appreciate in value, but it can also give you a monthly income in the form of rent. Similarly, investments in bank deposits, company deposits, debentures and shares will also give you regular income. On the other hand, investments in gold, jewelery or works of art appreciate in value but do not provide any income.
Accordingly, as an investor you have to decide whether you want your investment to appreciate in value, to give you a regular income, or a combination of both. To decide this you will have to make an assessment of what your future requirements for money are going to be like. It is only then that you will know to what extent you want your savings to appreciate in value, and to what extent you want these to provide a regular income. Having done so, you then have to decide on how and where to deploy your savings so that your future requirements for money can be best met. This, in essence, is what the art of investment is all about.

There is a common tendency to look upon the buying and selling of share as speculation. Some people even goes to the extent of calling it gambling. This is simply not true. When you buy a share after making a proper assessment of a company’s future prospects, your risk is minimal and limited. When you do so on the basis of insufficient knowledge, incomplete analysis, the risks are naturally much greater. The former is investment, the latter speculation. Gambling is only an extreme form of speculation. The difference between investment and speculation really lies in the degree of risk that you are willing to accept for attaining your goal. The investor takes calculated risks and plays safe in return for moderate profits. The speculator deliberately takes high risks in the expectation of getting disproportionately greater profits. In the stock markets, the speculator generally tries to make short-term profits out of price fluctuations and usually ignores dividends. In addition, he often plays around with borrowed money instead of using his own funds. On the other hand, an investor generally uses his own money, and buys shares with the intention of earning both long-term capital gains and dividends. These are the essential differences between investment and speculation.
In the stock markets, both investors and speculators are operating all the time. However, it is not necessary that you should speculate. In fact, we strongly advise you against it. If you buy and sell shares on the basis for sufficient knowledge and analysis, your risks remain under control and your expected gains more predictable. In fact, in the stock market, long-term investors very rarely lose any money at all, whereas speculators more often than not do. This book is written for investors. Its objective is to provide a new investor with the essential knowledge and techniques required for making a proper analysis before investing, so that risks are reduced and gains made more certain.

A concentrated peek in the past six months would recall all gleam and gloomy memories. But the targeted approach would be to celebrate the growth seen in the mutual fund industry, which has moved up by 25% from January till date.

This is done by building up assets worth over Rs4 trillion on the back of vigorous economic growth in the country and bullish sentiments in the stock market.

The assets of the 32 mutual funds in the country jumped up by 24.6% to Rs4, 00,842.12 crore in June as against Rs3, 21, 488.47 crore in December last year.

Within this period, fund houses have added Rs79, 353.65 crore to its their pool, the latest data from Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) states. Reliance MF is the largest of the lot in the country with AUMs of Rs59, 857.01 crore till June.

The Anil Ambani owned group firm added over Rs22, 929.09 crore to its prosperity. Followed by this is ICICI Prudential, which rank second with AUM of Rs43, 613.75 crore as against Rs 33, 304.57 crore in December. This clearly reflects a growth of over 30% in just six months.

Sensex rose by nearly 105 points to scale yet another high of 14,900 points in early trade on 4 July. The rising curve is due to the sustained buying by funds in heavyweight stocks.

Sensex that had gained 142.25 points on 3 July gathered another 104.57 points in the initial five minutes of trading. Nifty also maintained an all-time peak by 28.90 points or 0.57% at 4,386.45.

Stock brokers saw most of indexed stocks in the positive zone with sizeable gains. Apparently, stocks of Vishal Retail are listed at Rs 472.50 and soared to Rs 775 as against the offered price of Rs 270.