Markets, Markets!

Taking into account the preparation for the college academics, the college exams seem at a stake. Time's come when everyone needs to mug up the theory part because the semester exams start around 11th October. The CAT preparation has now stagnated - I'm only able to give one sectional test daily. That's all I can do now, semester exams are so close :( Also, the dates for our Final year Project's formal presentation are announced. Last day we had to work up hard for the data collection and parsing data part of the project - to read the CSV (Comma Separated Values) from the stock data we had.

The project we're working on is a research based project under 'Computational Finance'. People in the stock market make predictions on two basis i.e. there exist two views on which they predict the future trend - one being the fundamental analysis, and the other being technical analysis. Fundamental analysis uses the assets of the company, its profits, new deals, contracts, the fiscal data of the recent quarters and other such fundamental data as the basis of the prediction of the future trend for that company's stock. Technical analysis on the other hand uses the historical data, charts, graphs, peaks, patterns and data representation methods to come to a conclusion about how's that particular stock is going to perform in the coming time. Our project deals with the latter analysis method - the technical one. Our aim is to aid the investors, brokers and people associated with stock markets using technical analysis. That would involve the recognition of different patterns that form in the charts when the stock value is plotted against time, using other details such as volume to identify what path is the stock going to follow in the future.

What we've finished is the feasibility analysis of the project. Last day we worked out to read the CSV values of a company's stock, and tried making a graph from the same. What now remains is the application of the basic principle of technical analysis - identifying the ‘uptrends’, the ‘downtrends’ and the points to sell or buy a particular security. After this part is over, we'll have to work out for identification of numerous other patterns that exist in charting of stocks. This part may extend to the next semester we have. We need to submit the SRS(Software Requirements and Specifications) in few days that has the use case analysis and the sequence diagrams along with the problem domain, requirements, feasibility, the system domain and other stuff. The technical analysis will be available to the user through a web interface. And hence the application makes use of JSP, servlets, beans (as of now), A.I. later for the predictions from the patterns identifies, so that we can provide inferences to the users that use it.

What's so special about this project is the topic under which it falls - 'Computational Finance'. And what’s even more interesting is the topic of Stock Market - something that's fascinating me since last few months I've started to follow it. With the sensex now breaking 8500 mark, on an all time high the market is still volatile. But Indian companies listed on BSE are on a 'high!' (Not considering the petty stocks). What most people get befooled by during this time are the petty stocks which have their values increased with the overall bull run of the market. There have been fewer corrections as of now. But how long can one stay in when everyone's been warning about the volatility of the market? The day the profit booking (people selling their shares for profits) starts, the sensex is bound to fall. But on the other hand, the FII's are keeping the spirit of the Bull Run alive. And this impact has been massive considering the fact that even the 7/7 London Bombings news and the Mumbai's rain deluge couldn't dispirit the bullish trend (uptrend).

But what's going to follow is still a big question for all. You don't have to wait or worry much; I'll have the software ready in few months to help all those who follow stock markets. :D

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Here's the Delhi trip update. Everything's cancelled. I've cancelled the reservation tickets for the trip. The plans have been ruined because we have the Final Year Project presentation clashing with the days we chose to visit Delhi, and also there's so much to submit in the coming days. Seems like everything is conspiring against rock. Rather, everything is conspiring against my life. Talk about my preparation for semester exams, my not so good results of mock CATs, the abating CAT prep when no other college has exams scheduled in November and we're the only scapegoats, the cancellation of the Delhi trip, and my personal life - nothing seems to work the good way.

And something I've learnt today: Never deprive anyone of hope, it may be all they have. Also, never have too much expectations about or from anything/anybody, never day dream too much because it hurts the most when the plans collapse.

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Word/Term of the Day:

Break-Even Point:
The break-even point in any business is that point at which the volume of sales or revenues exactly equals total expenses -- the point at which there is neither a profit nor loss -- under varying levels of activity.

Usage: A salary of around 16000 per month in Delhi or Mumbai is just break-even.