Should you dump Tata shares?

Accounting irregularities. Performance below par. Are the Tatas worth your money anymore, especially after the Tata Finance episode? The stock market has given its verdict by dumping Tata shares. What do you feel? Write in and share your views on the issue with others.
Gautam Chikermane
Integrity–we must conduct our business fairly, with honesty and transparency.
Everything we do must stand the test of public scrutiny.
--One of the five core values of the Tata Group
IN THIS day and age, trust is a lost cause. From business to accounting to politics, everything is malleable, manipulable. And the
Rs 41,300 crore Tata Group, that stretches across 80 companies in seven sectors, is facing all these problems all at once. The question that today haunts more than 2 million shareholders of the 35 listed Tata Group companies is this: can we trust the Tatas?
Story in Outlook Money

Two-timers will rule

In these uncertain times, the key to staying employable is to acquire new skills and work on alternative careers.
Gautam Chikermane
IT’S NO longer in the realm of idle speculation or caged in the fertile minds of futurists–the age of simultaneous careers is upon us. It’s right here, knocking at your mind’s window, urging you to get going before you’re asked to go. If that sounds alarmist, here’s an eye-opening statistic: the International Labour Organisation estimates that 24 million jobs will be lost worldwide by the end of next year. In your 40s, even if you are safely ensconced in your career, you’ve probably gone as far as you can. As Peter F. Drucker points out in his latest article in The Economist: "A growing number of highly successful knowledge workers of both sexes–business managers, university teachers, museum directors, doctors–‘plateau’ in their 40s. They know they have achieved all they will achieve. If their work is all they have, they are in trouble."
Last month, in the US, I saw the first, most obvious signs of "trouble". During the one month I was there, the big American companies handed hundreds of thousands of workers the pink slip, even as the government did all it could to protect the profits of the very same corporations through a $150 billion bailout package. The story is only slightly different here. When we launched Intelligent Investor in July 1998, industry was in the throes of a recession and pink slips were flying all over the place. When the great dotcom dream soured, we witnessed a replay of the predictable industry response to slowdowns–mass layoffs hiding behind smart euphemisms like restructuring, rationalising, rightsizing...
Column in Outlook Money

Invest in the instrument called you

There is one law you must obey so that You can continue to generate wealth: You must grow.
Gautam Chikermane
...a world in which people work with their brains instead of their hands.
Wired magazine’s definition of ‘New Economy’
Wealth creation has had a direct link with investments: the more you invest and the longer you allow those investments to compound, the more you accumulate. Saving (the money you don’t spend now in the hope that it’ll grow so you can spend more of it tomorrow), therefore, is a major part of this exercise, the others being the risk, the returns, and the duration of the investments. So, we invested in financial instruments ranging from government securities to company bonds and fixed deposits to stocks. The experts told us it was wise to diversify, so we spread our investments in instruments that gave varying returns, which took care of our short- to long-term needs. To this diversified basket of securities, I propose to add one more instrument: You.
Opinion in Outlook Money