The two sequences of numbers start flying off the spreadsheet, like two fighting snakes, out of the screen into my throat, choking me. I woke up. This was not the first time I had nightmares about my clunky spreadsheet, but the dual sequences dancing together, was a first. My brain was engaged with a special price spread called Basis, which indicated the cost the market was willing to pay for today’s Index value in the future. The problem was that unlike the textbook which suggested positive time value of money, the Index Futures of India were always quoted below the Nifty 50 Index, the leading Index of India, suggesting that borrowing in the Future was cheaper than buying in the present. The markets were doing exactly the opposite of what was prescribed in the textbook, causing me nightmares. Under these weird markets, I started my Capital Market Research Journey with an Indian spread, Basis, as India’s first derivatives analyst on the 9th of June 2000.
Basis, the difference between the futures price of an index and its current spot price was also expressed with a metrica called "cost of carry" was a jargon that stuck because of the use of futures in the physical commodities, from the time they were really carried and delivered. But in Financial futures, since there was no carry and settlement was in cash, the carry cost was the additional cost the market was willing to pay for expectations in the time ahead.
The sweltering heat of June 2000 in Delhi was no different than any other June that I had lived for almost a quarter century in Delhi. The last summer in Mysore, the two I had spent in Mumbai, and maybe the ones I had lived as a toddler without much memory were all excruciating. When you live enough Delhi summers, you either love them or you hate them, but you never get used to them. They come with a vengeance, making sure you feel a trickle of that sweat, which sucks every ounce of comfort that you think you have. Though I was born in the January winter month, my dad made sure I felt the heat the way he did, living in poverty and coming out as the only child out of 9 siblings to get higher studies. He made sure, we knew what discomfort was. We grilled in the heat without a water cooler or an Air Conditioner. We just grew up under a fan with a room facing south with the sun heating it all day like a furnace and threw wet blankets on the rusted rot iron windows, which never closed properly, to pass through the summer months. So, though I hated summers, I had learned how to operate despite the discomfort, handle pain, and complete the ultra-marathon.
Delhi's summer temperatures, from April to July, can soar above 45°C (113°F), making it an intensely hot period with high humidity that exacerbates discomfort. Heatwaves pose severe health risks, especially to the vulnerable, leading to fatalities from dehydration and heatstroke.
Born to a mathematics teacher and an architect, numbers and structures came naturally to me. No wonder, I took fancy to derivatives at the Business school in 1996. I decided I had to be a derivatives analyst, but there were no derivatives in India. So, I decided to teach the subject at another B School in Mysore, a serene quiet city, near Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India. When I read in the papers, that equity derivatives were being launched in India, I rushed back from Mysore to Delhi. I sent my resume from the contact page of the website of IB, India’s first electronic brokerage house, and prayed earnestly. I was called for a short interview by Aseem, a short, agile, nerd from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, the famous fabrication unit for technical brains for the West. Many of them had chosen to stay back and even come back from America. He showed me a desk and asked me to weave my magic, and after a few days, in a brief ceremonial announcement in the aisle, welcomed me to the team.
The evolution of derivatives from simple hedging tools for Japanese rice farmers to complex financial instruments that have both fascinated and foiled Nobel laureates and hedge funds alike is a testament to their transformative power in global finance. My foray into this world was punctuated by the shift from traditional phone-based brokerage to the advent of electronic brokerage systems. This revolution not only democratized access to financial markets but also introduced a new layer of speed and complexity, fundamentally altering market dynamics and the analytical landscape.
The start-up was set up in the basement of a bungalow in Safdarjung Enclave, a residential neighborhood in South Delhi named after Safdar Jang, a major figure at the Mughal court in the declining period of the Mughal empire in India in the early 18th century. Delhi was never about garages, but about basements. The house belonged to a founder's in-laws. The street was crammed with cars, and a few Maruti Zen’s clogged the front veranda. The stairs entered from the street level and abruptly gave way to cubicles on the left, a room in the center, and more cubicles adjacent to the room. Around 30 people worked in that basement. Many of them poached from the top institutions of India. Sameer, the CEO used to work for an Energy major before he joined his two friends Rajiv, and Saurabh, and started IB. Barring the conference room where I saw him sitting a few times taking lessons from Rajiv, Sameer was always on his legs. Rajiv, champs as we used to call him, was a prolific stock market analyst who previously worked at ET, India’s leading newspaper. He knew how to write stock market stories. He walked with a slow elegant gait, was muscular from his cricket days, silent like a butterfly but had a writing style that stung like a bee. He was there in that basement creating content, so that Indian investors, could inform themselves and trade, and transform themselves into Indian Bulls.
Unlike Sameer, Rajiv liked to be in an office. I never saw him step out. He was a calm troubleshooter, quieter of the lot but effective. He was all about saying less and doing more. I did not see Saurabh around. He seemed like the behind-the-scenes guy. The man who pulled the threads. Then there was TP, the smart Sikh, who made people fly in their pants. He had a temper and a reputation. Even Sameer was scared of him. I sat across TP. We used to share some occasional thoughts. TP was the CTO, and the tech of the start-up rested on TP’s shoulder, he was a one-man army, who had decided to be the general, and review code of young IIT boys, who those days fancied coding in Java. Vivek was one of them. He confessed his fears, regarding his review meeting with TP. There was a lot of coding happening. Marketing, sales, accounting, software development, research, every department operated from that hole underground. I was probably one of the youngest in the half a dozen strong research team.
The transition from traditional phone brokerage to electronic brokerage marked a significant evolution in global financial markets, revolutionizing the way securities were traded. Initially, traders and investors relied on phone brokers, who executed buy or sell orders over the telephone. This method, while personal, was time-consuming and prone to errors. The advent of electronic brokerage systems transformed this landscape, offering a faster, more efficient, and transparent trading environment. Through online platforms, traders could execute trades instantly, access real-time market data, and utilize advanced tools for analysis and risk management. This shift not only democratized access to financial markets, making it possible for a wider range of individuals to participate but also increased market liquidity and reduced the cost of trading.
So, I sat there, in my cubicle, with my tube screen, preparing my XL sheet, calculating the end-of-day Basis, the difference between futures and spot price. Index Futures was the new derivatives market in India. The Nifty 50 India’s blue-chip Index was now available to be traded on margin as a separate instrument. Derivatives as they were called, derived their value from the spot, also known as the underlying, 50 stocks Index, which told everyone in the world, whether India grew or fell that day, feeding the TV channels as they got into frantic action from pre-opening till the end of the day at 1630 hours, stock markets was a full-time job for millions of Indians. My job was to feed that frenzy with my research. Since there was not much history that I could analyze of the futures market, I relied on the Basis, of a spread between the two prices of the same asset, one was perpetually priced with an average of 50 components, while the other was a mirror running in a parallel market, where the only thing different was Time. The secondary futures market has an expiration. Time series used to be born at the start of the month and expire after three months. In these three months, their destiny was to diverge against the Nifty 50 and merge with it at expiration. During these three months, the Basis, the spread, jumped, stagnated, slept, gapped with excitement, and had the emotion of a young child. I was the observer, who wanted to study it and do what any stock market greenhorn would do, use any piece of information, and use it to hammer to drive the forecasting nail
The concept of Badla, deeply rooted in Indian financial history, provided a traditional method for carry-forward trading, allowing investors to hold onto their positions by paying a fee, rather than settling them at the end of each trading session. This practice, which had long facilitated the speculative and financing needs of traders, found a parallel in the modern derivatives market, albeit in a transformed landscape.
Backwardation, a condition where futures prices fall below spot prices, became a focal point of my analysis. This phenomenon, somewhat counterintuitive to the usual market expectations of futures trading at a premium to account for the cost of carry, suggested an underlying layer of uncertainty and speculative behavior. The occurrence of backwardation in the context of new futures contracts indicated investors' expectations of declining prices, or perhaps a reflection of immediate liquidity needs outweighing long-term cost considerations.
These market dynamics, influenced by the interplay of Badla and backwardation, offered a unique lens through which the speculative nature and inherent uncertainties of new futures contracts could be understood. The discounted pricing of futures, in this light, was not merely a function of market anomalies but a manifestation of deeper, underlying economic and psychological factors at play, including investor sentiment, liquidity constraints, and the evolving landscape of financial innovation in India.
While I was living time series, which were born and died after a few months, I was also learning about the entity called market. I used to stick next to the champs. I was in awe of the man who wrote and traded and came out with a daily wager without a sweat. He was a good teacher. We struck a friendship. One day, I asked him, what was the use of anything else, but sitting on the screen and creating wealth. With a warm chuckle, he embraced my naivety and told me, “Mukul, creating an enterprise, giving jobs to people is the real underlying of what happens on the screen”. And this is how he took away a part of the shine of the aura of trading. But I still had to deal with a few more demons of my own.
Years later I would read about the great minds like James Maxwell and Boltzmann, who acknowledged the mysteries of nature as insurmountable demons, and Heisenberg, who on his deathbed mused that the enigmas of turbulence remained beyond even divine comprehension. Mandelbrot then saw nature as mere geometry, devoid of underlying principles. These reflections set the stage for my own exploration—a 25-year quest to unravel the intricate dance between chaos and order, from the delicate flutter of butterfly wings to the ferocious spirals of tornadoes.
By this time, my XL sheet had populated with enough data and I had started putting my teaching knowledge, my writing, and my B school training, to reason with the Basis. Why it was doing what it was doing, where was it planning to go tomorrow, and what the changing spread, discounts, and premiums, would indicate about the market opening tomorrow. Nobody told me what to do. I was spread bound, living between boundaries, and stretches, a macrocosm inside a microcosm.
Later, I came to understand how the laws of nature were scale-free, functioning seamlessly across time frames and domains, embodying a form of universality within them. I realized that convergence and divergence were fundamental laws of nature, manifesting at every conceivable scale, from the subatomic to the vast expanse of space. It didn't matter the dimension or complexity; these patterns of order and disorder were omnipresent, acting like a universal spread that, by its very nature, was deterministically disordered.
This concept of being scale-free revealed to me that certain patterns or principles remained consistent and applicable, no matter the scale at which I observed them. Whether I was delving into the microscopic world of subatomic particles or gazing at the celestial bodies dotting the night sky, the same fundamental rules applied. It was a profound realization that, despite the diversity and vastness of the universe, there existed a kind of inherent self-similarity in nature's patterns.
The mention of convergence and divergence across all time frames helped me grasp the universal nature of growth, decay, and transformation. This was true whether I considered physical systems, biological evolution, or even the ebb and flow of financial markets. It dawned on me that this scale-free nature of laws wasn't just an abstract concept; it was a method to decipher the interconnectedness and universality of the natural order, bridging disparate scientific domains and observational scales with a singular, unifying principle.
Safdarjung enclave was not just about the e-broker IB but it was also for the old guards, the phone brokers, who took orders and executed on behalf of the clients. What fun was it I did not try my hand at executing the futures in real-time. That of course was essential learning. I was in for the works. So, before the day started and I headed to the office, I religiously visited the old phone broker. Bright minds were everywhere. This shop called Pace Stock Broking was run by two brothers from IIM Ahmedabad, another top notch educational institution. The brainiest, the brightest went there. But these were no ordinary brothers, they were generational brokers and took over their family business to run the shop. They new their numbers. They knew their fees better. These were still times when brokerage fees were material, a few dollars for a round trip.
A broker generally was from a school that was neither about investing nor about speculation, they were about getting “Satta”, betting done, not about speculating themselves. Their job was to make sure, the “Sattoria”, the betters could do their job, bet. Be it their shirt or their house was really not their concern. For them every day was good, down market, upmarket, only the sleepy market was not good. So, with the futures now, it was an exciting time for them. There were multiple markets, a spot, a derivative, and a market between the two, called arbitrage. It was a great time to be a broker. So, there I was, huddled around the screen before it started flickering. On days, I was the only one sitting next to the trading screen and the only one sitting with a bid, waiting for an ask, following what my models had suggested the previous evening. I was betting on my own forecasts.
Bid-ask prices represent the core mechanism through which financial markets operate, facilitating the process of price discovery for securities. The "bid" is the highest price a buyer is willing to pay for a security, while the "ask" (or offer) is the lowest price at which a seller is willing to sell. The difference between these two prices is known as the spread, which can indicate the liquidity and volatility of the asset; narrower bid-ask spreads often suggest high liquidity and lower volatility.
Price discovery occurs as buyers and sellers place orders based on their valuation of the security. Orders at the market are matched by the exchange's trading system, prioritizing the highest bid and lowest ask prices. When a bid matches an ask, a trade is executed, and the price at which the trade occurs becomes the latest market price for the security. This dynamic process, influenced by various factors including market news, economic indicators, and trader sentiment, ensures that the security's price reflects its current value as determined by the collective information and actions of market participants. Through continuous matching of bids and asks, the market efficiently aggregates information and establishes the price of securities, enabling both liquidity and informed trading decisions.
The margins were about 25 percent and the contract sizes were designed for retail participation. It was more than sandwich money, but not so much, to make experimentation needing a bank loan. These were my early trading days, and I was learning about risk, leverage, and also about my risk appetite. And since I was one of the few early adopters, I was taking a significant risk of capital loss. I used to manage my own books because the brokers were still implementing the margining system. After running a few trades, confident that I had made a decent profit, and surer about my ability to read the Basis and hence the market trend, I went back to the broker to close my trade and have a profit booking day. However, I was in shock, when I was told, I had lost all my margin and there was no profit. My paperbooks were not of help, because the broker was confident about the systematic calculation done by their back office. I told the broker that there was something wrong and insisted on seeing the reports to reconcile the aberration. I was told to come back the next day. The next day, I saw a reversal of fortunes as the broker admitted, that they made a mistake and that indeed my position was in profit.
Mark-to-market is a method of measuring the fair value of accounts that can fluctuate over time, such as assets and liabilities, by valuing them at their current market prices. In the context of trading, it ensures that positions reflect their actual market value daily. The margin system, closely related, requires traders to deposit collateral to cover potential losses, ensuring they have skin in the game and can fulfill their obligations.
The Indian stock market landscape evolved significantly with the introduction of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in the 1990s, challenging the monopoly of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and heralding an era of electronic trading. This competition not only enhanced market efficiency and accessibility but also spurred innovations in financial instruments and trading technologies. However, the rapid evolution and increased complexity of the market also exposed regulatory gaps, leading to high-profile scams such as the Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh cases. These incidents highlighted the exploitation of loopholes in the banking and regulatory systems, underscoring the need for stringent oversight.
In response, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) introduced major reforms aimed at improving market transparency, corporate governance, and investor protection. Measures such as the dematerialization of securities, establishment of clearing corporations, and enhanced disclosure norms were implemented.
Things were going well. Sameer had venture capital teams coming to the office. On one occasion he called me into TP’s room and presented me to the VC, saying I was a top-notch analyst whose work was featured on Yahoo Finance, and Home Trade. I was covering a new market and I was marketed as a new skill. Those days people read emails, people subscribed to email lists and the spam feature was not so strong. My mailing list had a few celebrities themselves. I had Nachiket, executive director at one of the biggest financial institutions in India, reading my writings. He flew me once to Mumbai talk to his trading team head Ranjan. Ajay was another celebrity advisor for the government who occasionally communicated with me about his own articles on derivatives. When a man stuck out his neck, his reputation, credibility, to make a forecast, popularity was normal. My star was rising.
Later in my life, I would see the futility of forecasting. Ajay would get embroiled in a co-location scam. Nachiket would end up focussing on his non-profit organization for the poor girls in India called CARE and would later lead the Bill and Melinda’s Foundation in India. I would go through my own learning about risk management and reading about the poor statistical record of breaking news in the famous work of Victor Niederhoffer.
The Basis had started to give me a ride. It had started to unravel its gifts to me and had transformed me into a hero. Armed with a passion, a dream, and little knowledge, in a few months, I was India’s first self-proclaimed Guru, a derivatives expert and forecaster. Now the IIT guys were taking tips from me regarding trading and stock picking. I had made friends with the Indian brains. I had started taking jaunts to Mumbai to attend conferences in Mumbai, carrying my own brag machine with me. On more than a few occasions, I stayed with Sameer at the IB's apartment in south Mumbai. Sameer kept his space and distance. It was because of Derivatives, that I visited Mumbai again and the stock exchange in Mumbai. The destiny of my path was clear to me, but I did not know, how I would move from the basement in Safdarjung to bring my star to Mumbai.
My first visit to the Fort Bombay Stock Exchange building was like climbing an actual fort. The area got its name from the defensive fort, Fort George, built by the East India Company around Bombay Castle. But being surrounded by the Arabian Sea on three sides, which you could see from the Canteen on the 19th floor of the exchange building while eating bada pav and drinking chai in the small corrugated glass cups game a glimpse of Indian diversity of colors. I visited the first broker who traded in the derivatives market, well aware that my counterparty from the Delhi trading terminal could well have been the Kaji & Maulik brokers sitting on the 5th Floor of the building
As I walked into their open office, I realized how in Mumbai everything was a fraction of the space in Delhi. The stairs of the building had more working space than the offices cramped on the edges, and the architecture emphasized the climb more than the offices, hanging on the edges like leaflets of a palm tree. My basement cubicles back in Delhi were larger than the space shared by the real stars of the derivatives market. There was a small glass room adjacent to another room with windows looking outside to the sky. The light of the sky mixed with the humid air created a different azure shine inside their office. I passionately introduced myself as the hero from Delhi who had come to meet the Derivatives gods from Mumbai.
Himanshu also came from ICICI, another famous incubation ground for next-generation financial expertise. He acknowledged my greeting, listened to my little mentee pitch, did a small information-seeking chat about this great basement start-up, and asked his team member, Deepak to talk to me. Deepak was an observer, a true market expert, a man who could crack a joke and be extremely serious in the same breath with incisive precision. But that time, he observed me, wary about this Delhi boy. Mumbai and Delhi were different cultures. Mumbai was always more business-like, and Delhi belonged to the romantics, the braggers, and the Punjabis, the boisterous, loud, farmers from Punjab, with a lot of unbridled energy. So, caution was warranted when interacting with strangers from Delhi.
Deepak asked me to follow him into the glass chamber conference room and pulled out a book from a glass door shelf. It was John Murphy’s Technical Analysis of the Financial Market, but it was not a book, it was a photocopy. “You should read this book” he said as he ruffled the pages. A bibliophile does not differentiate between Xerox-copied books and hardbound cover books. My love for books had moved me up the profession because a book collector wanting to live in a library was eventually going to open some pages and read a few books. There is a quantum effect with books, you keep them next to your pillow and you can wake up smarter. I was walking proof. Now, I wanted to have a copy of a revered master's work. “Where can I buy?”, I stupidly asked Deepak. “You can make a copy down on the street”, he said, as he handed me the book. And this is how I took my fest levy flight from the basement cubicle to the hall of fame at the Bombay Stock Exchange.
In the narrative of my transition from Delhi to Mumbai to engage with Kaji and Maulick, the concept of a Levy flight fascinatingly mirrors the trajectory of my own professional journey. Levy flights, a pattern of movement that combines a series of short, local steps with sudden, long-distance leaps, find relevance not just in natural phenomena but intriguingly in human endeavors as well ranging from the foraging paths of animals to the seemingly chaotic movements of financial markets.
My leap from the comfort of my established position in Delhi to the bustling, unpredictable financial landscape of Mumbai embodies the essence of such a flight. It was a strategic, albeit unpredictable, move in my career, akin to the long jumps observed in Levy flights. This decision to venture into new territory, seeking out opportunities and forging connections with pivotal figures in the finance sector, symbolized a significant departure from the incremental steps that had defined my career until that point.
This venture, reflective of a Levy flight's characteristic long jump, opened up a realm of possibilities that were previously beyond my horizon. It was a calculated risk, a bold stride into the unknown, which ultimately catalyzed my growth and expansion in the industry. This metaphorical Levy flight in my career underscores the intricate dance between risk and opportunity, illustrating how, at times, the most transformative growth stems from the willingness to make those unexpected, strategic leaps into the unknown.
Nothing could go wrong for me then. I was on top of the world, working for the top start-up, traveling as a star analyst to Mumbai, and building bridges with the real experts. Little did I know, that the Basis I was watching was a part of another spread, a spread which operated in another realm, a realm outside of my imagination. The realm of global contagions which destroy to puny spreads I was relying on to carve out my life. My microcosm was soon to shatter with the earthquake that happened with the 2000 Y2K crash and it threw me into the work of global stock market volatility, like a big finger flip, at the abdomen of an ant, as it twists and turns in the air, separating from its colony, undoing few months of its nest buildup. Volatility had struck.
The Y2K bug, a computer flaw related to the formatting of calendar data, prompted widespread concern as the year 2000 approached. Many feared that computers would fail to recognize the year change from '99 to '00, potentially causing global infrastructural failures. In response, businesses and governments worldwide spent billions to update and secure their systems. This led to a surge in technology investments, significantly inflating the valuations of tech companies and contributing to the dot-com bubble.
As the new millennium arrived without the catastrophic failures many predicted, the immediate relief was palpable. However, the focus quickly shifted to the technology sector's overvaluation. The realization that many internet-based companies lacked viable business models, combined with excessive speculation and investment, set the stage for the dot-com crash of 2000. The bursting of this bubble resulted in a sharp decline in stock prices, particularly for tech companies, erasing trillions in market value. The Y2K scare, therefore, indirectly contributed to the inflated valuations that preceded the crash, highlighting the impact of speculative fervor on market stability. This sequence of events underscored the complex interplay between technological advancements, investor sentiment, and market dynamics, leading to a period of economic recalibration and regulatory introspection.
A CEO has a tough role. Having played the role now for 19 years, I can put myself in Sameer’s shoes, what he must be going through at that time when he had opened more than a few branch offices around the country and had a burn that he had to manage and the desire to succeed not fail could have only been done with ruthlessness. We got an unceremonious long email saying that market conditions are bad, and we have to let you go. There is no elegant way to fire people. You have to do it with a Trumpian aplomb and create TV stardom or you have to waste a lot of time worrying about what people think. Sameer wasted no time; he sacked the research team. Aseem took it personally and resigned. Though Sameer tried convincing him to stay, research was Aseem’s baby. He was sensitive and caring, the complete opposite of how the corporate world is. Champs was called to CP, the headquarters. Sameer spared the few a few courteous words, but for the rest of us rookies, it was an abrupt end to the honeymoon. My Basis had burst. I had relied on it to build a world, but it was helpless itself.
There was nothing to do. The decision was made. I backed up my files, zipped them, and emailed them. We had till the end of the month to go into oblivion. The basement where people worked with passion to build something had become an indifferent, alien place as people started to leave, some with tears, some with upsetness, some never turned up, giving an F, the place of passion had transformed back into the hot perspiring summer, whose main task was to burn everything it touched.
I knew how to evoke confidence in adversity, the simple way was to feel the low, emphasize it, embrace it, and then make sure it was the worst bottom and there was nothing below. An important character I had built in my life, was to love thy nadir’s. I was somehow not willing to abandon my Basis. My spread was my love, it had given me joy, pleasure, and my 15 minutes of fame and I was not letting go. I mustered the courage to write a love letter. I was a romantic after all, love letters were my serenades. If I loved, I expressed it in words. So, I wrote a billet-doux in response to Sameer’s, please leave an email.
“Dear Sameer”, It went. Wordy, long, kowtowing, out of context, basically beseeching him to let me be with my amazing spreadsheet so I could continue to forecast and make the world a better place. Sameer did not answer. After a few days, I wrote another long email, but this time, I offered him to cut my petty salary to half, from 600 dollars a month to 300 dollars a month. Sameer still did not answer. I was determined and was willing to pay 100 dollars of my own money to be sitting in that basement and doing pattern work on a holy Basis. So, I made a final attempt, I told him to give me a third and begged him again to let me stay. He replied with a curt short reply, agreeing to the price cut, stating that Futures will never take off and telling me to be more useful. I was willing to broom the basement to stay back with that internet bandwidth and craft my analysis. And this is how, I saved my Basis, by standing firm on my ground, showing that I could die for an inanimate spread, which was still reeling in discount.
The aftermath of the Year 2000 crash, triggered by the burst of the dot-com bubble, had profound and lasting effects on global financial markets. The crash marked a significant shift in investor sentiment, from the exuberance of the late 1990s to a more cautious and skeptical outlook. As valuations of technology companies plummeted, the fallout spread across the broader economy, leading to a slowdown in investment, reduced consumer spending, and a contraction in the tech sector. This period of economic uncertainty was further exacerbated by the events of September 11, 2001, which not only had a devastating human cost but also sent shockwaves through already fragile markets. The terrorist attacks intensified the economic downturn, leading to heightened market volatility, tighter security and regulatory measures, and a more pronounced shift toward risk aversion among investors. The cumulative effect of these events lingered for years, contributing to a slow and challenging recovery process for economies and financial markets worldwide, fundamentally altering the landscape of global finance.
Sitting there alone, I took on me to keep updating the IB's website which by that time was one of the most visited websites in India. The ads were all over TV and the junior marketing office from Goa took over the role of a more experienced CMO and also became in charge of TV appearances. The costs went down and the show went on. I was happy I was not brooming the basement, and my dreams were still alive, and the Basis after its near-death experience had started to stabilize. I had embraced the market with such a tight clutch that it could not shake me off its back.
My research continued, the forecasts played out well, and the Mumbai jaunts continued. On one of these jaunts, I met Sanjiv, a doctor, who was the head of Derivatives at the Bombay Stock Exchange. He had read my work. He was charming, U.S. educated, and somehow too elegant for the world of Dalal Street power play. I met him at his polished red wood office on the corner of the posh, seven-star office floor of the derivatives wing on the 24th Floor, whose entrance sat a stand-alone Bridge terminal, live with futures and spot prices. He conducted himself with class and offered to come to Mumbai to join his derivatives team. I could hear my heart frantically pumping blood, making sure I did not collapse with joy. I thanked him and started my last journey to the basement. I knew my Basis was magical, I did not abandon it and it had come back to save me, showing how powerful the bounce from a real bottom is. All I needed was to feel the base, kiss it, believe it, and wave goodbye.
The Bridge terminal was a popular platform providing real-time financial data and news, essential for traders and analysts in a pre-digital era. Its use symbolized the rapid pace of information exchange and the critical importance of staying abreast of market movements.
I had to announce to Sameer that I was leaving. I did not hear back from him but once I reached Mumbai, he called me to his office in Mumbai at Nariman Point. He was with Saurabh, who was visiting from the U.S. They offered me to come back and proposed exciting plans of setting up an arbitrage desk. But then my Basis had shifted into another realm, on the 24th floor of the exchange, with a new team. Markets need character, and no amount of money and fame would have made me leave that virtue. And that is how my Safdarjung Basis catapulted me into the world of stock markets