Harvard MBA Index

Recently was reading about an index designed by a Harvard Business School alumnus which gives a "Sell", "Buy" or "Neutral" signal on the financial market. Its called the Harvard MBA Index!!

To think of it its quite rational. It basically measures the percentage of people who take up jobs in market sensitive positions in the financial sector. These include investment banking, investment management, private equity, venture capital and hedge funds. Interestingly if the percentage exceeds 30, then its a sell signal and anything below 10 is a long term buy signal!!

Surprisingly in 2008, a record 41% of the passouts went for the so called "market sensitive" jobs and we know what followed thereafter in 2008 and 2009. In 2009, accordingly around 28% went to these jobs and in 2010 the figure stands at 31%. So to think of it from 2008 onwards right through 2009 and 2010 we have been mostly in the SELL TO NEUTRAL PHASE of the market. But financial market data shows otherwise. Year 2010 saw a sharp recovery in the global indices from the Abyss of 2008 and 2009.

Currently as things stand, the jobs data shows increased traction in the financial services "market sensitive" jobs. So probably we would see a much higher percentage of Harvard MBAs taking up these "dangerous" jobs.... hope its not the beginning of the next fall. Though am quite convinced that just like too many cooks spoil the broth, so does too much analysis of any given data destroy the significance of the data point!!

Beyond the Big Bang - Evolution of the Universe

Man is an eternal seeker of answers to his different questions. But there has been one question to which have not been able to find any answer. Have been reading since childhood that Big Bang theory was the answer to the eternal question – how the universe came into existence. A google search also pops up these results. Almost every other search result gives you the big bang somewhere in its explanation. Thanks to some human geniuses like Prof. Stephen Hawkings who have proposed the big bang theory and evolution of time and energy.

But I guess one question which most scientific section don’t discuss because they have no answer to it or probably don’t know how to get logic right for it is this – What happened before the big bang?

All current theories suggest that before the big bang happened, the mass of matter of infinite density came from nowhere. How can we rest on such a lame answer to arrive at the origins of our existence? My curiosity is a very basic one – from where did matter arise. We know that there was a dense mass of matter and the forces where so intense that it exploded and the universe came into being. But then where did the matter come from which made this dense mass. What’s the source of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen etc. These and the other elements of the Mendeleev’s Periodic table (remember your high school chemistry) are composed of different configurations of protons, electrons, neutrons, positrons, etc. But then there is no explanation from where these atomic and subatomic particles have come into being.

Life on earth took billions of years to come into its present form. Starting from microbes and then trees and then advanced creatures like humans and other mammals, we have come a long way. Is there ultimate goal towards which all this evolution is happening. One natural calamity shifts the earth’s plates and axis by a few degrees. Are all these changes part of a larger evolvement of the Universe towards some goal. Considering the expanse of the universe, it is very much likely that we are not the only living creatures in the universe. All creatures need not be human like and breathing oxygen. Maybe we are an exception to all other creatures in this universe. No one has any concrete answers to these questions and at the best we try to provide some logical and hypothetical explanation.

Another question which can’t escape the mind – WHAT IS SPACE? Space as we know it means vacuum and occurs where there is nothing. But how can there be some boundaries of space if there is nothing? The entire universe with its galaxies and particles are held within the space through gravitational forces. Then how can we say space is vacuum? There are invisible forces present within the space.

All these questions drives the mind to some crazy answers. Are we some part of someone’s laboratory experiments? Could it be that there are really heavenly creatures like God and the universe is just a small part of their playfield?