I Struck it Rich!

At least in India I have. It's Saturday morning and I have nothing to do, so I decide to search for all the ATM locations on the Infosys campus. I may have mentioned this before, but I've been low on cash for the past week because all the ATMs here accept only Visa cards and I have a debit card and a credit card, both with Mastercard. I have been trying to live off 1000 Rs. for the past 6-7 days (that's $20). As of this morning I was down to 30 Rs. with 3 USD left and the prospect of not being paid until at least Wednesday when either my parent's package arrives in India, or the ACH transfer completes. So that would be 3 days without money. I was feeling pretty desperate.

I go to Mastercard's ATM locator and I find that there is an ATM on the Infosys campus that accepts Mastercard, but where? All the one's I've seen are Visa. I knew there was one by the food court that I hadn't tested out yet, but that one also said Visa. Plus, the address listed was different from the one on my badge, so it was in someplace specific that no one knew about. I asked the reception desk and they had no idea either. Then I went to the ICICI bank branch near the ECC and asked if there were any ATMs on campus that accept Mastercard. The teller said no, and pointed me to one outside of campus. That would cost at least 80 Rs. for the ride in a rickshaw. I wasn't sure about spending the last of my money on a risky rickshaw adventure. So, feeling a little defeated, I decided to exchange the last of my $3 into 122 Rs. So I head up to the food court to get some pastries from the bakery when. I pass by the ATM and I decide, What the heck, just give it a try. I shove my debit card in and... weird, there was no sad face! It asked me to enter my PIN. The stupid thing actually accepted my card! But still feeling suspicious, I withdrew only 1000 Rs. ($23) and I got my receipt which showed me my balance. By that time I was a little stunned because I just went from being broke to feeling rich in the span of seconds.

But there was still $300 missing. Later I found out that the ACH transfer was deducted from my bank account already. But if the debit card works, I shouldn't need the ACH transfer anymore. Well, tough luck, I couldn't cancel it and now I have money moving into my Indian bank account. The only problem with this is the exchange rate mentioned earlier and the difficulty with moving money from India to the United States. That's a different story and a different problem which will be addressed at the end of the year. I just gotta hope the Rupee strengthens to make the ACH transfer justifiable.

I did the conversion on the ATM transfer and it turned out to be 43.35 Rs. per Dollar. Looking at Yahoo Finance, the current rate is 43.475 Rs/dollar, so the conversion was really good. The Rupee has weakened from 42.25 to 43.475 against the dollar in August alone. That's good for transfers from the US to India, but bad the other way around. But whatever, it's great to have money again!

Solar Stocks

Solar stocks have shown signs of recovery lately and I have been fortunate enough to hold two stocks that have benefited from this rise. I will probably hold until the middle of next week up until Solar Fun's earnings announcement. Hopefully the share prices continue the rally.