Story of Google's Logo - How Google Logo was created

Everyone using internet is familiar with Google's logo. When you get around 100 Billion visits per month, its not hard to remember this colorful logo.

This logo reflects the ideology that Google is a fun company. Its founders have make sure that it remains so. Though the logo looks simple it has traveled a long way since its inception. It was all started with the following logo 

It appears that some kindergarten student has designed this logo, simple block letters in primary colors. But its not so. 

Its developed by a math whiz from Stanford. Any guesses??? Let me give you a hint. The math whiz is also a co founder of this company. Yes, you are right! The creator of this logo is none other that - Sergey Brin.  

Like Google's name, this logo has a interesting story behind this. During that time a free, open software was available to create images called GIMP. Now this software was tricky to employ. Sergey was naturally very curious about things. He was trying to learn this software and when he was finally able to learn it, he created this. The look mattered least to him. He was happy that finally he was able to learn GIMP.

Best Places to Donate a Car in the bay Area

• Many public/community radio stations across the country have programs in place for you to donate a car.  They use a professional middleman and it's generally a seamless experience.
• 4satruck.com take donations in form of car. One quick phone call and they will pick your car. 
• You can also sell the car and donate the cash.Its work best if your car is valued above $20,000.  

How to choose a divorce lawyer???

Marriages are not made in heaven and yes everyone can mistakes. So if you are considering for taking divorce, these points might come in handy for you while choosing a divorce lawyer. 

• If lawyer empathizes too much with your pain then you should avoid it. When you see a doctor for a headache it gives you medicine to stop that. Not identify with your pain. Keep this in mind. 
• Your lawyer should be a good listener. A good lawyer knows your personality, desires, weaknesses. This knowledge can be gained only by carefully listening. 
• Laws are set up to help both divorcing parties establish themselves after a divorce. There is no place in a divorce courtroom for vengeance. Your lawyer should tell you this.
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• Calls your spouse names. It is common – although not recommended – for divorcing couples to call each other names. It is unacceptable, however, for a lawyer to engage in this kind of conduct. Your lawyer should be seeking to help you view your situation objectively. Name-calling is never objective.
• Uses inflammatory language. Over the top language does not help resolve conflict. It won’t help you reach a fair outcome in your case. It only makes things worse. When used by a lawyer, inflammatory language also shows a lack of professionalism.
• Excessively criticizes other lawyers. In ideal divorces there is a lot of collaboration and trust between the opposing lawyers. A lawyer who cannot get along with other lawyers could wreak havoc on this balance. Also, these things are usually reciprocal – why don’t other lawyers like your lawyer?
• Tells you he’ll “take care” of the divorce for you. There is no divorce lawyer who can “take care” of your case while you sip a martini. Divorce is hard work for everyone involved. There are documents to produce, depositions to attend and court documents to review. Anyone who claims otherwise is not being honest.
• Predicts the future. Some parts of a case can be somewhat accurately predicted (child support, for example). Most outcomes are not so clear. In truth, outcomes are often a gamble. A lawyer who tells you they have all the answers may be full of hot air.
• Buys your blatant lies. Nobody likes a liar or a cheater. If your divorce lawyer overlooks your bad behavior it is not because they like you. They’ll drop you like a hot potato when you run out of cash.
• Does not express his views. It is a lawyer’s job to encourage clients to make the best decisions for their case. This is often in conflict with the path a client feels is best. A lawyer who does not make his views known might be doing you a great disservice.

What is Sensex : Read full explanation of working of Indian Stock markets.

SENSEX  is index for  Bombay Stock Exchange of India. In broader term it represents how well/bad Bombay Stock Exchange is doing. 

Suppose someone asks you what is the condition of market today. Are prices rising or falling? Now in order to answer that you will need current prices of stocks and prices that were a day before. Now you will simply calculate that how much a stock has risen/fell. Now you will do this for all the stocks and after some calculations you can tell that majority of stocks are at higher/lower prices than yesterday. You can even tell by how much % the stocks have risen/fell. But this method is cumbersome and there is smart way by which we calculate the conditions of market (i.e. its performance relative to yesterday or a month before.) 

To calculate the SENSEX  we take market prices of 30 biggest companies in India(for e.g. SBI, Reliance, ONGC, BHEL,Infosys etc.). Now the weighted mean is taken of these prices. (More weightage is given to company which has largest market cap or in simple terms which make more money in its business. ) When SENSEX was started on Jan 1, 1979 the weighted mean at that time was represented by 100. So the number (like 18000) will tell you nothing, what really important is how the numbers are changing. Thus you can say that from 1979 our market has nearly grown by 180 times (currently SENSEX is at around 18000). If this number is rising it means we are good and companies are making money and if it is falling it means that something is bad either with economy or companies(This is very generalized version, in reality there are too many factors that governs the SENSEX).

Why this Index (SENSEX) is important?

Now let us see how SENSEX helps us- 

• Comparing Markets - By seeing the rise and fall in the indexes you can easily compare the different markets (like NASDAQ etc.) This is very helpful for investors who invest all over the world, they can easily select the market with potential for higher growth. You can also compare economies of the countries with indexes. A rising economy will show rise in index. But again this is very broad comparison and economy depends on other things also.
• Indicator to Economy- SEMSEX also show us how our economy is doing. If SENSEX is growing then we can say that economy will grow in future.
• As an investment tool- SENSEX comes in very handy while deciding for investment. By seeing fluctuation in SENSEX you can estimate how much market will grow etc.

Thus you can see that sensex is very important indicator to our economy and its a very handy tool when deciding for investment.

How to select an Stock for investment?

As you are a layman in terms of investing i would recommend you to go for Long-term investment instead of high risk short-term investment. Lets see the step by step process to select a stock for long term (it may look a very basic procedure but trust me it is very good way to start learning investment in stock market). 

1. Read as much as you can about stock market. Start with Finance page of your newspaper. When you start feeling comfortable go for Wall Street Journal and other International papers. Our stock markets are heavily influenced by US markets so it would be beneficial to keep an eye on their market conditions. Remember there is no substitute/shortcut for knowledge and knowledge always pay in stock market.
2. Start with high dividend paying companies -   As we are playing for long term we will seek companies that have good record of paying dividends. You can easily get this information  online. Make a list of companies that have given good dividends past 20-25 years. Below is dividend payed by SBI in past five years (source: moneycontrol[dot]com)                                                                                                                                                           
   
                                                                                                                                              
3. Shortlist companies from above list - From the list you made, shortlist companies that have shown constantly rising revenue and earnings. Again this information is freely available on internet. Companies that have good track record attract more investors and have high chance of growth in future. Remember it is not guaranteed that a company that have given good returns in past may be profitable to you but it has high chances as compared to others.
4. Check the balance sheets-  This habit should be developed in starting. The assets should be more than liabilities. If assets are capable of covering long term liabilities then it is an added advantage. Debt should be less. Check for debt equity ratio it should be less than 1. following is balance sheet of reliance as available on reddif[dot]com -                                                       
   
   
   
5. Check other indicators- Check for other indicators like Earning per share, It is a good indicator for investment. Two companies can generate same EPS but one with less equity (investment)- this company will be better. So look out for such companies. Also many times companies manipulate these earnings so you should take care of that also. For eg. if operating cash flow per share is less than reported EPS then it means company is generating less cash than EPS shown. So knowledge will always help you in deciding right stock.                                                                                         Next thing is P/E ratio. It is most common valuation tool used by analysts. It is generally in range of 20-25. It can be used to estimate earnings. Also you can use it to compare companies within the same segment. You can also compare the company's current scenario with its past using historic P/E data. 
6. Short Ratio is another important tool to get the sentiment about a share in stock market.                                                                                          
7. Growth Ratio is another term which decide valuation of a company. A higher growth ratio is always favorable. It is difficult to explain these terms here in detail but you should have basic knowledge of these terms.                          
8. Read Company reports- Companies have quarterly-annual plans. Read about them. You will get to know what company is planning. If a company talks about expansion and it has enough cash to do so then it may be a hot pick. So by reading reports you can make how company will do in future and thus you can make your decisions according to that.                                   
9. Look charts for buying indication- Selection of stock is one thing and buying it is another. You should look for buying indicators on chart. I am not telling you to go for a deep technical analysis but at least watch some resistance and support levels.  following is Microsoft chart with support and resistance levels.                                                                  
   
    

Once you start investing you can yourself evaluate your techniques by watching profits/loss. Nobody teaches you better than market. Before investing there are certain other small points that you should take care of like -

• Never invest all of your money at single go in a single company. It is always beneficial to diversify your portfolio and invest regularly instead of lump-sump investment. But don't include too many shares in your portfolio as it will be difficult to manage them.
• Always invest with your own money.Never invest money in stock market by taking loan from someone.
• Learn to book profits and prevent losses. You should always use stop loss to prevent losses and at same time you should also set your targets.
• Never go for hot tips etc. if they are so good then why they are not investing in market.

Popular Sayings in Stock Market: Must for every investor

Stock market attracts many people who want to earn money. But majority of them forget that its for 'investing money'. There is a fine line between two and only a successful investor knows the difference. And how be successful? Learn and educate yourself. 

There are some popular sayings in stock market that i think everybody should know - 

Trend is your friend (Until it ends) - A long term trend is always your friend. 

Compound Interest is Eighth wonder of the world - Most people don't understand the power of compounding. They want to earn quick bucks in short term which is very difficult. 

A rising tides floats many boats/Everybody's a genius in a bull market - This is my favorite saying. It means that when market is going up every stock makes money. Whatever crap stock you buy will rise in this period. People should be careful about stock selection and should not be overconfident after making some  money. Real investor is one which makes bucks in every market, no matter how small are the profits. 

Time in market is more important than timing - Most people wait for a stock  to come to certain level for taking a buy/sell call. Investment is not a short term game. People should give some time to market and should invest on long term basis. 

Never try to catch a falling knife- Many people will advice you to buy a stock just because its been down 5-10%. Keep away from stocks that have dropped fast. 

Dead Cat bounces too - As a saying goes, throw a dead cat off a high enough building and even it will rebound upwards after hitting the ground. Or just because a stock is rising again, doesn’t mean the company is on the up. Buy when there is blood in streets(even if it yours) -  or as Buffets says 'Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful'. You not not leave market in case of heavy downfall but should take it as opportunity to buy. But don't invest all of your money at once and don't invest for short term. Buffet made huge profits by following his own advice while buying in Goldman Sachs at height of financial crisis.

Stoploss is your best friend- Most people ignore this wonderful tool. 

Buy the rumour, sell the news.

How to open Demat account and online trading account in India?

For Indian stock market you need to do the following - 

• First apply for a PAN (Permanent Account Number) Card. You will need this to open a demat account.
• Now you have to apply for a Demat account. Demat stands for dematerialized.  Its like a bank account but instead of money we keep shares(in electronic form) in this account. Now to open demat account you can either go to banks like SBI, AXIS, ICICI or stock broking firms like Karvy, Bajaj Capital etc. There are 4 major fees involved in this process - account opening fees, annual maintenance fees, custodian fees and transaction fees. So read the details carefully. Now you are ready to buy and sell shares in Indian market. All you have to do is to contact your broking firm and ask them to buy/sell shares in/from your account.
• If you are an active trader then you may want to do transactions on your own. So apply for an Online Trading account. Its provided by most of the banks and stock broking firms. Some fees is also involved with this so read details carefully.
• Before opening demat or online trading  account with any bank/firm check their services. If you are an active trader then I will suggest you to open your account with some major broking firms like Karvy, AnandRathi, ShareKhan etc. If you are not an active trader and just want to try it then go for SBI. They have less fees as compared to other firms.

Please read my other posts for educating yourself about stock markets.