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After using my 15″ PowerBook G4 for the past 3 years I decided it was time to upgrade. I looked at the MacBook Pro (MBP) and the MacBook Air (MBA) and after using both I decided I wanted the larger screen size of the MBP.  I got the 2.4GHz with the glossy screen and it’s awesome.  Running Windows or Ubuntu via VMware Fusion is the only way to go. Took me 10-15 minutes to install each OS and I can run them at anytime along side OS X.

A little known secret is that Apple Stores in the US offer free WiFi access. So, in my quest to buy the MBP I visited 7 Apple Stores while in the US, crazy I know: 

- Fifth Avenue, NYC
- SoHo, NYC
- W. 14th St., NYC
- Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, MD
- Manhattan Village in Manhattan Beach, Calif
- Century City in Los Angeles, Calif
- Oxmoor Mall in Louisville, KY 

I also picked up a great charger from Kensington, if you travel internationally this device is a must.

Back in December 2007, Lotus India Mutual Funds launched India’s first “quant fund” called the Agile Fund.  I use the term “quant fund” lightly when talking about Agile because it’s really an equity mutual fund dressed up.  Most people would agree that a typical “quant fund” selects securities based on quantitative analysis, in agile they do that.  However, their hands are tied because it’s a mutual fund, they can’t: go short, goto cash, derivatives or leverage.  In essence they are stuck only going long in equities, when the product was launched in Dec 2007 it seemed like a good idea.  

Their methodology is the model picks the top 11 stocks and investments are made in them on equal weighted basis. 9% of the total corpus is invested in each of these 11 stocks and the remaining 1% will be kept debt and money market instruments.  

Well 6 months later how is the strategy working?
Sensex (Jan 1, 2008 to June 30) is down -33.4%
Agile (Jan 1, 2008 to June 30) is down -42%  

I’m not saying all quant funds deliver performance but Agile is so limited in what it can do, it’s definitely not a “quant fund.” It’s just great marketing wrapped around a sub-par methodology.