Some Black Lies!

Well, I wonder. I sometimes really wonder why people speak Black Lies. My definition of Black Lies is that the black hidden at the back of grey is so BLACK that you cannot see the grey in front at all. I received a call from a friend in the morning. I was supposed to help him in finding a job in the NCR. For that, I needed his resume and he said he would be sending it to me a week back. I gave him my E-Mail id over the phone. Today, I received a call and he said he had sent it a week back. I said I had not received it. The conversation went like this:

Friend: Oh, I had sent it a week back.
Me: I did not receive it. Maybe you can send it again.
Friend: Can you give your E-Mail id once again?
Me: Its vaibhav.madan@gmail.com
Friend: Can you spell it out for me?
Me: V A I B H A V . M A
Friend (Interrupting): Oh, is there a DOT in between. I forgot lost time.
Me: Okie, its fine. Mail Id is V A I B H A V . M A D A N @ gmail.com
Friend: Okie. I will send it again.

Now wheres the lie in this conversation! Google actually has the feature where the DOT in between VAIBHAV and MADAN is redundant. So according to gmail,

vaibhav.madan@gmail.com ===== vaibhavmadan@gmail.com

So even if he had sent the resume and forgot to walk on the DOTTED line, I should still have received it. So why did he tell me a black lie when I have absolutely nothing personal in it and I would be taking someone elses help to help him out.

I WONDER WHY :)

Some stock market stuff!

I trade using ICICI Direct. I trade for having a safe future (yup with all the risks involved, still I want to believe indian stock market will help me have a safe future) and to increase my knowledge about stock market. I had tried to understand what is meant by Stop Loss Trigger Price but had been unable to do so till I burned my hand and then learnt it.

I had bought 94 stocks of OnMobile for 440. When it listed yesterday, I wanted to sell 30 stocks if the price touched 439. With this intent, I decided to put my Sell Order. At the time of placing my order, OnMobile was trading for around 455. As I did not know what Stop Loss Trigger Price is, I left the field as empty.

The intent was right, but the execution wrong. This order was interpreted an a sell immediately at whatever was the market price and my stocks were sold at 453 which was the market price when the order was accepted.

I learnt from this and this is the right way to do it.

After putting the limit price, I entered the Stop Loss Trigger Price as 445. Now the intention as well as execution were both right. The order was interpreted as "Turn this order into a market order as soon as stock price touches 445" As long as the stock price was more than 445, this order was a passive order. It was turned into an Active order only when the stock price touched 445.

All said and done, I am still unable to understand whats the use of limit price when I put a Stop Loss Trigger Price. The reason I ask this question is because in the above example even though I specify a Limit Price of 439, the stock would be sold if the value of the stock touches 445. So why enter the Limit Price! Maybe I will learn it again with another mistake. As they say, Learn from other peoples mistakes because your life is too short to make all the mistakes. So if anyone knows the answer to my question, please send me the answer before I make a mistake.

Taking Interviews - Part II

In my last blog on Taking Interviews, I had written about few parameters that I use to test out different things in the candidate. In an update, I am sharing a few more new learnings I have had in the past few days:

Stupidity Handling Quotient: Anyone and everyone in this world has been stupid at one time or the other. It becomes very important for the person I am interviewing to have a High Stupidity Handling Quotient. To test it, I act stupid. Sometimes I do not need to :) If I am acting stupid, I would be very interested in seeing the reaction of the other person. Is he / she still smiling and offering me the answers or has the lid blown off? For ex. I will ask them "Tell me the port number on which RADIUS packets are received". Of course I do not expect them to remember it, but if they tell me its easy to find it out in RFC, then they can handle stupids like me :)

Listening Skills: I came across this last week while I was doing a telephonic interview with a candidate and it happened twice in 30 minutes. After asking him a question which he did not know, I explained him the answer. In an over enthusiastic tone, he repeated what I had said, with the only difference that what he said was completely opposite to what I had told him. Now I would have given him the benefit of doubt but it happened again within a few minutes. This was enough to press home the fact that he is not listening properly to the conversation.