Roller coasters do not take you anywhere

Seems it's time for symbolism. The woes of the IT industry in general and software industry in particular are being marked by some very symbolic events.

First, it was Dewang Mehta's untimely departure, which was almost like leaving the industry orphaned. And now, the news that Bill Gates has lost his position as the richest man on earth to the old economy Walmart Chief. You could not rub it in more.

Just a couple of months before, it would have been professional suicide to say that 'slow and steady wins the race'. You could have risked losing your job. How on earth could you say such a thing in this age of speed?

I am reminded of Shakespeare's play (probably Macbeth, but I can not say for sure) where the lead guy feels like a poor actor who is full of sound and is funny, but signifies nothing. Have the last two years of the new economy been something akin to this.

I really don't know what to make of this. To me it's all man's doing (how philosophical? Who else would do this!!) Despite man's intellectual properties, when it comes to the crunch, it is plain and simple herd mentality.

We see this manifestation of the herd mentality every day on the stock exchange. While everyone talks of investing in

companies with strong fundamentals, people forget that they also need to attach a limit to how much they should pay for a particular share. The problem is when you buy in the secondary market; you are not counting a dividend income. You are counting a share price appreciation over a period of time.

Nothing wrong with that. But how much is the share worth? While there are financial rations to guide us on that as well, people generally don't stop at these warning signals. It's like pushing your luck and wanting to see how far you can push it. After all if there are people out there willing to pay more for 'that' share, I should definitely hope that I too would have a buyer at a higher price. In a scenario like this, it is not fundamentals, but greed that drive the market.

But look at poor Bill Gates. What is his mistake? I am sure, Bill and other people like him, would not be left with any choice but to turn philosophical. 'He' giveth and 'He' taketh away, is all they can say. Only in this case, 'He' is mortals like us. Come to think of it, it is ordinary mortals like us who make Bill Gates the richest man on earth. And just as suddenly dethrone him from that position. How much Bill gains from this transition, only Bill knows!

But now look at this whole thing from another angle. When someone robs you, you file a complaint with the authorities entrusted to protect you. Is not losing money in the share market for a promoter like Bill akin to being robbed? (Talk of getting philosophical, this is the limit!).

And if it is not, (for reasons we understand too well), why do me in the first place, give credence to such ratings as the wealthiest man on earth, on base of such flimsy and transient considerations as stock market prices? Don't we have more solid parameters as the organizations net worth and similar other performance indicators on which to evaluate the creation of wealth?

Too much is being attributed to the stock market than it deserves. And probably with disastrous results. Where do you draw the line between gambling and trading on the stock exchange? Where do you draw the line between gambling houses that are banned and these premier institutions? May be, I am going too far. But when you play with the sentiments of a whole nation, which has been tuned to accept the stock market indices as a barometer of development and the nations well being, there is too much at stake.

You can not take the entire nation (and now the world) on a roller coaster the way the stock market does. Let us not forget that most of the organizations, which have supposedly caused these fluctuations in the market, continue to do reasonably well. It is only unreasonable expectations created by people who have nothing to do with these organizations that causes problems.

What has happened on the dotcom front is similar. Dotcoms with good business models will still do well. Others should not have been there in the first place.

It's high time we stopped playing the fool with people sentiments and their hard earned money. The stock market is any way not the domain of the common man. We cannot afford to rise aspirations one day and dash them the next day.

Because at the end of the day man hires and survives on faith. Faith in the basic goodness of nature and things around him.

Slow and steady wins the race. Even in the new economy! (Slow is a relative term anyway!!!)