Indian Stock Market

The most unpredictable thing even for a well trained mathematician with statistical background!
It is exciting for a new person to be a part of the game where the rules are easy to break and the institution which enforces these rules takes years to punish the guilty.
The first thing many of us see in a stock market is the quick gains. We try our best to time the market initially. Ofcourse at first it appears easy to do but as the time progresses and with the accumulated losse, we seek the help of so called fundamental and technical analysis to time the market. Again, the failure to time the market foces us to look for the luck factors.
But I feel we should understand one thing that we are investing our money in an attempt to make our money work for us and give good returns. But, in reality we are again working on it by carrying tension at every second. Even if a person does all this, he can't avoid losses completely. I am not denying the fact that a stock market should run based on the finacial strength of the listed companies. But, as we know from childhood, things doesn't go as they are described in our text books. There are many extraneous factors which do influence the price movement like the political stablity, geographical unrest, terrorist activities, Big accidents at mining places and so on. But still one may feel that these events can well be related the financial strength of a company and the price movement can be predicted.

Fianlly, what we can't predict is the psyche of the investors. For our estimation based on above facts to be true, others also should follow more or less the same thing. But, here in our country people are not matured enough to take rational decisions, at least in the stock markets. Further, the percentage of retail participation in our stock markets is quite low, which makes it vulnerable to any action by the foreign investors.
Hence I feel, rather than wasting your time and taking the tension, invest your money in a safe bet like housing or gold. May be part of the funds you can invest in mutual funds but do have the long term perspective.
However, if you are not greedy enoguh and have rationality in your thought, you can be in the bourse and make gains.