The past few weeks have seen high and rampant double-digit inflation not seen since the mid-1990s rearing its head again. The market has, expectedly, mirrored this. At the time of writing, the Sensex stands at 13,964 having violated the long-term primary trend-lines, which we get by joining the points 6,154 (29 May 2005), 7,685 (28 October 2005) and 14,994 (19 March 2008). To control...

Ten years ago, there were fewer than 2,000 Starbucks stores around the world. Today, that number is well over 16,000. Along the way, the price of a Starbucks share went from $ five to $40. Then something happened. The number of stores kept going up, but the share price did not. In fact, it dropped below $20 and has stayed there for the first half of 2008. Howard Schultz, who led the company in...