History has repeated itself and as usual, this time too it the items on the takeaway menu remains the same. So will take it at least this time around? Time alone can answer that. So whats the takeaway?

Oops i forgot to mention the subject, its the recent crisis in the Financial Markets.

Investing is all about controlling the two demons "Greed" n "Fear" and unfortunately the "Expert Investment Bankers" never controlled the former and forgot about the latter, In the quest for hefty pay packets, Investor care was forgotten and the market became a place where the "Bigger Fool Theory" was played out. And when it ended the Investors became the biggest fools.

The Investors(?) too need to be blamed (not to that extent though) for not really understanding the underlying business and getting allured by higher Returns that were promised by these "EXPERTS".

The Investing public clearly needs to understand an important point "There is no such thing called as Short Term Safe n High Return. Returns and Risks are Directly Proportional and the more the return the greater the risk. And coming to time frame Risks are far greater if one takes a short term view as Emotions play an important role in the short term"

Now moving on to the other aspect called Leveraging: It is a tight rope walk. Not only the firms but the Investing Public were also guilty of Over Leveraging.Now Leveraging during a Bull Market looks to be a fantastic strategy, but as soon as the market turns bad the Excessively Leveraged will be the worst hit. So Make sure when Leveraging that you are adequately covered with cash to handle any crash.

Now all the aforementioned lessons are not something new. They are as old as the Rocks. Every crash has thrown up the same lessons, but yet we tend to forget them which reminds me of Bernard Shah's saying "If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience."