Investing in the Indian stock markets – while on holiday.

But while the brain is lulled by vacations and the body needs to be repaired, life goes on around us. A new war is born in one corner of the world, a new natural disaster needs to be dealt with in another part of the world. Life moves on around us and markets jump around in random motion.

One day there is news that the world is running out of oil, another day we hear about the political instability in countries where much of the oil is produced. So oil spikes above USD 125.

Then we get news that the world is running out of rice, so rice jumps 50% in a few weeks.

We may be running out of oil, I guess, you cannot “grow” oil. But running out of rice? Well, farmers will grow more over time. And maybe prices will collapse in a few months. Like the price of wheat. There was a drought in Australia last year, the price wheat surged, the next crop is now being harvested and wheat is down some 40% from its peak in December 2007. It is still a 100% more than where it was in May 2007.

And May 2007 was vacation time. Just like May 2008 is vacation time. And the world has changed between these 2 vacation periods. And where will the world be by the time of the next vacation? We don’t know.

But we know that husbands will still love their wives and the wives will still love their husbands – for the most part, that is. And parents will always love their children and always wish them to have the love and care that they need. And we know that the “24×7″ media will still try to predict every sway of the market; every little jiggle that the market makes will be amplified.

So here we are, then, planning the vacation. And thinking about our investments. We have worked hard to earn a fair living and need to make sure that we don’t let our investments drift into oblivion.

No Wall Street firm is knocking on my door to pay me a USD 10 million sign-on bonus to blow them up again. No press pundits are boosting my ego and the perceived market value of my skill sets. So we need to plan our investments.

Investing in Indian stock markets – the Quantum funds.

Over the last year, an investment in the Quantum Long Term Equity Fund would have given an investor a return of +15%. Gold was up +32% over that same time period. (For those looking for a comparison, the BSE 30 Index gained +20% over the same time period – but the Reliance group companies accounted for nearly 50% of that increase; the Quantum Long Term Equity Fund does not own Reliance shares.)

The body and the mind may be in a “holiday mood” – well deserved, I am sure. But it is a good time to make decisions. And review the ones made last year.

We have not changed our view of the world: there is still a lot of irrational behaviour and the worst is not behind us in a global sense. But we believe we can identify a few investments that will make us a decent return on our investments.

Meanwhile, there is one “guarantee” that I can give you by the time your May 2009 vacation comes along. Nope, I cannot promise you that the NAV of the Quantum Long Term Equity Fund will do well. Nor can I promise you that gold will cross USD 2,000. But I can tell you this: India will have a new government by May 2009. It may be this government or a “new” government, but the election will be over.

And the rains will bring much relief from the heat and the dust.

Source: No Vacation from Decisions

According to the Washington Times, “Costco and other grocery stores in California reported a run on rice, which has forced them to set limits on how many sacks of rice each customer can buy.”

Meanwhile, reports the paper, “Filipinos in Canada are scooping up all the rice they can find and shipping it to relatives in the Philippines, which is suffering a severe shortage that is leaving many people hungry.

The reports of food rationing in California come as US rice futures hit record highs.

Many smart investors are asking: Is there a rice ETF? And the internet is hopping with questions about the existence of commodities ETFs to profit from the situation.

Soft commodities are now the best-performing sub-set of the commodity bull market,” says Eric Roseman in the Offshore A-Letter.

“It’s the perfect storm for investors — especially when just about everything else in the investment world has continued to post big declines since last July.

“Commodity service-providers have launched a blizzard of commodities ETFs over the last 12 months. These new ETFs allow both individual and institutional investors access to hot commodities like coffee, wheat, sugar and corn, to name only a few.””It’s agricultural Armageddon,” says ETF expert Mike Burnick.

“The escalating food crisis is easily the biggest problem facing Asia and other emerging markets — much more troubling than the credit crunch. After all, people in these nations can do without bank loans or new credit cards, but they can’t stop eating!”