Finally I met up with my hero from Profit Planet. The country's leading financial expert — he has  made millionaires out of mendicants on the stock market.

"Tell me, Vigyan," I said, “how do you select  the equities  you recommend to your clients. Do you go by gut feel?"
"Would you ask a Nasa scientist if he measures the distance to the moon by gut feel?" he asked affronted.

"I didn't mean to upset you. Just wanted to find out the kind of study that goes into your selections".
"Tell me, "he said,  "Do you know that Sensex, Hangsen and Full moon indices influence each other?"
"They do?"  I asked incredulously.

"We study the fluctuations on global markets for the day and then we correlate this to the latest ECG of the  Finance Minister".

"ECG? As in cardiogram?" He nodded.

"Suppose you want to know about  a particular stock. After we examine the  fitness levels of all the top executives,   we juxtapose it with the  growth rate of the waistline  of the CEO for the final reading."

"Waistline as in girth?" I asked stunned at the kind of work that is done. But naturally. Immense fortunes are made and lost in this space everyday.

"The study would also include the spending pattern of the Chairman's wife - what she fritters away on her beauty parlour bills. That is why you find that we recommend stocks where the Chairman' s wife is too old for vanity."

"Makes sense" I said awed. "And to think I used to buy shares because I liked the name of the company."
"Did you ever try to find out  what the CFO of the company has had  for his breakfast. No? I thought not. My company does indepth study of breakfasts CFOs eat because this has a direct correlation the growth patterns. An idli  breakfast seldom gives the aggression needed."

"I would never have thought to connect the two! Tell me does it finally come down to the past performance of the company?"

"Of course. But a real  professional would correlate the past performance with the Company Secretary's horoscope  ascendants"

"I knew it! There is astrology involved. See, I bought DLF when my Jupiter was on the ascendant. "

"We don't believe in astrology.  We simply take the chart of the ascendants align it against the mating habits of the  American bear and compare it to the Indian bull and work out what happens when you mate a female bear with a male bull "

"This getting too complex for me, Vigyan, Isn't  there a simple way to determine which small cap will become big cap in the shortest time?"

"Alright," he sighed. " Here is a simple  method… but only if you promise never to buy Kingfisher shares."

"Cross my heart "

"Just take  the collective weight of the Board of Directors, multiply by the coefficent of the schizophrenia tests done on Japanese FIIs. Think of a number from one to nine.  Deduct this  from your birthdate. If this is positive, buy."

"Thank you Vigyan its so simple! But tell me why you insisted on my not  buying Kingfisher shares?."
"I  just can't stand Dr Mallya's  beard" he said.