Ted Talk: Where interesting ideas come from

Oil Prices Historically

History of Oil Prices:

Since 1860 on to 1974 the price of oil was very stable at around $2.00 a barrel.
Then the OAPEC oil embargo increased oil prices from around $2.00 to $12.00 a barrel.
From 1974 to 1979 was around $14.00 a barrel.
From 1979 to 1981 the price per barrel increased sharply from $14.00 to $39.00 a barrel.
From 1981 to 1985 price decreases from $39.00 to $28.00 a barrel as world supply goes up.
From 1985 to 1986 the price plunges from $28.00 to $11.00 a barrel..
From 1986 to 1999 the price fluctuates between $11.00 to $18.00 to $14.00 to $20.00
From $20.00 to peak in 1991 of $33.00 with first Gulf War
From 1991 to $18.00 to $20.00 to $16.00 in 1992...
From 1992 at $20.00 to 1994 at $13.00..a barrel
From 1994 at $13.00 to 1997 at $24.00...a barrel.
From 1997 at $24.00 to under $10.00 in 1999 for a barrel..
From 1999 at $10.00 to 2001 at $30.00 a barrel..
From 2001 at $30.00 to 2002 at $16.00 a barrel..
From 2002 at $16.00 to 2003 at $33.00 a barrel..
From 2003 at $33.00 down to $25.00 in 6 months..
From 2004 at $28.00 to 2005 at $60.00 a barrel..a back down to $33.00 a barrel end of 2005.
From 2005 at $33.00 to 2006 at $68.00 a barrel
And in July of 2008 a peak of $147.30 a barrel

(more elaborate post soon)

Paul Tudor Jones on Failure.

A couple of years ago, über-trader Paul Tudor Jones gave a talk to high school-aged young men at the Buckley School about the importance of failure. The entire thing is brilliant and worth a read. His story about being literally left at the altar as a 26-year-old "knucklehead" carries with it an extremely important message: Sometimes failure is merely chasing you off of the wrong road and onto the right one.
Complete speech @ scribd.com - link shown below.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16588637/Paul-Tudor-Jones-Failure-Speech-June-2009

Investing should be a leisurely activity

Investing is not easy neither it needs to be difficult. How do you invest wisely? An interesting interview by Steve Forbes with Monish Pabrai gives a point of view on how investing should be done. Monish Pabrai is a leading investment manager and a managing partner at Pabrai Investment Funds, based in Irvine, CA. An interesting interview - watch the fulll interview at

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/09/pabrai-buffett-munger-intelligent-investing-video.html

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India's incoming urban population explosion

An interesting report from McKinsey on India's Urbanization explosion. Some of the figures it mentions in the report are amazing. But my point is, with realty in cities becoming out of reach for all but the rich and the poor paying heavy for high food prices, I wonder if crime will not catch up. The mixing of zhoparpattis (local Marathi language slang for small make-shift huts) by the urban poor with expensive towers, will it not make some of our cities crime prone.

Here is an excerpt from EquityMaster.com's "5 minute update" newsletter -

"Here's a quiz: By 2030, Mumbai's GDP is expected to exceed that of Thailand and Hong Kong. Is that a good thing or bad? Bad, in our view. It indicates that India's economic growth is going to be extremely urban centric. In fact, as per a recent McKinsey report, Indian cities will expand massively. Urban population will surge by 74%. India will have 68 cities with a population of more than 1 m, 13 cities with more than 4 m people and 6 mega cities with populations of 10 m.

Cities will also create 70% of the new jobs. All this will put huge pressure on the infrastructure of cities. And India spends just US$ 17 per head on infrastructure in its cities. That's about 15% of what China spends. The report says we need US$ 2.24 trillion to build the city infrastructure. That's an incredible figure. Our track record at focused and sustained spending on infrastructure is rather weak. Hence, in our view, we must also find ways of spreading economic progress beyond the cities."

McKinsey Global Institute report titled, 'India's urban awakening: Building inclusive cities, sustaining economic growth', can be downloaded from here.

Air space over Europe after the Volcano Cloud restrictions were lifted.

Airspace Rebooted from ItoWorld on Vimeo.

Quants: the Alchemists of Wallstreet