Bullish about ilish
As dark clouds gather overhead with the promise of respite from what has been a sweltering Kolkata summer, the heart breaks into a song louder than the Jacobin cuckoo’s mellifluous call, a bird I’ve come to associate with the monsoon in this city, now my home for over two decades. The season also takes me back to those early days of my marriage, when I observed another monsoon ritual extremely close to the Bengali’s heart, or should I say — stomach.
Ilish! Many of us are familiar with this fish-loving community’s obsession with this variety of herring. But beyond West Bengal, ilish better known as hilsa, doesn’t have as wide a fan base which is why coming from McCluskiegunj, in Jharkhand, my first introduction to ilish happened when I moved to Kolkata for my further education. As a paying guest with a Bengali family, the landlady had served me a sliver of fish, with so fine bones, it was impossible for me to pick. Blissfully oblivious of its royal stature, when I requested her never to give me that fish again, the aghast expression on her face I only understood years later, after I married into a Bengali family.
The boneless alternative served these days at restaurants is meant for non-Bengalis like us, who aren’t adept at picking bones, but, in the early days of my marriage, when the city was still Calcutta, and everything was authentic, ilish too had all its bones. I remember one monsoon morning I found my in-laws gathered in the kitchen, excitedly prodding a large silver-coloured fish displayed on the kitchen counter. Listening to them rave about all the effort it had taken to ascertain the perfect, fresh ilish came home; I imagined it would have been easier to take a trip to the Padma river in Bangladesh, the chief source of ilish, and catch one personally.
Needless to say, the rest of the day was devoted to the ilish. Being the newest member in the family, I was given a complete low-down on its cultural significance, from a pair of ilish offered to goddess Lakshmi during Lakshmi and Sarswati puja, to it being the star of the menu on most auspicious occasions like Jamai Shoshti or Pohela Boishakh. Then, the happening hilsa festivals now held across the state, hadn’t been conceived. After noting down the tricky procedure of ilish macher paturi (steamed fish with spices wrapped in tender banana leaf), I felt quite confident of my success at the lunchtime challenge.
But the moment mom-in-law served me two succulent pieces of bhapa shorshe bata ilish, I could feel my face turn a shade of the pale-yellow mustard paste the fish had been steamed in. Noticing my discomfort, she’d placed a hand on my shoulder and rather nonchalantly assured me that there was Silicea in the house, a homeopathic medicine used to dissolve fish bones, if one happened to get lodged in the throat. I’m not sure whether it was mom-in-law’s gentle touch or the medicine tactic that put me at ease.
After a laborious hour or more, when I proudly displayed the bones on the side of my dish, the family burst out laughing and I realised their plates had not a trace left of the fish.
And despite the years that I’ve lived in this city, imbibing its many ways, from waking up with a smile on my face to the rhythm of the dhak during Durga puja, to relishing shukto, the traditional bitter dish served as a starter at lunchtime, I still have a bone to pick with the incredible ilish.
Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Market is on a Bullish Streak. Here’s Why!
Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Market is on a Bullish Streak. Here’s Why!
Here are 5 reasons for the current cryptocurrency market growth.
Amidst all the volatility, the cryptocurrency market is recovering well despite COVID-19 disrupting major world economies. When companies were facing the heat of the pandemic with their businesses taking a hit, several crypto and blockchain startups launched themselves to support the roaring demand of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. While many crypto exchanges and trading platforms surfaced from across the globe, they also managed to raise significant funding from investors to grow their market position, like CoinSwitch Kuber that recently raised a funding of INR 109 crore (US$15million – Series A funding) from big fintech players like Ribbit Capital, CRED, and Paradigm.
Bitcoin, the largest crypto coin in the world, fueled the cryptocurrency market by raising its market capital beyond US$1 trillion. Bitcoin has been bullish for the past few weeks now which contributed to 69% of the total market value. Bitcoin investors are cheering for this rally as Bitcoin plummeted during the crypto market crash and is now finally getting back to its pace. This is the same Bitcoin that reached its all-time high of US$60,000 in early 2021.
But how did the market undergo this successful correction? Here are five reasons that can sum up the growth.
- Green signal from institutions
What was once looked at with speculation, Bitcoin is now being accepted by major institutions from around the world. Despite its volatility, the crypto coin is being considered a safe asset, making way for cryptocurrencies to earn a similar reputation. Recently, many public companies, like Square, an American payments company, and Microstrategy, a publicly listed US company, are converting their cash treasuries into cryptocurrencies by buying Bitcoins.
- Paypal crypto exchange
Paypal has approximately 350 million users. In 2020, Paypal launched a new feature that would allow its millions of users to buy and sell cryptocurrency on the platform. This feature included the trading of crypto coins like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin. This is a significant move for the crypto industry as Paypal was one of the sternest critics of cryptocurrency. Following Paypal’s suite, Venmo also launched a similar feature that allows its users to make crypto payments.
- The scarcity factor
Cryptocurrencies are made available in a limited quantity, even Bitcoin. But Bitcoin’s practice of halving its quantity adds a major boost to its value. It’s a basic economics principle, a scarce commodity is valued more than others because of its exclusivity. The Bitcoin network works because it introduces new coins through mining. In this process, Bitcoin miners verify Bitcoin blocks. Every 10 minutes, a miner verifies one block of transactions and adds it to the Bitcoin network to earn rewards. At present, the reward is 6.25 BTC per block, and this reward reduces by half every four years or after 210000 blocks mined. This slashing of Bitcoin rewards to half is known as Bitcoin halving.
Since only 21 million Bitcoins are made available in the market, when the reward decreases there is less circulation in the market which increases the demand for the coin due to the scarcity factor. This, in turn, affects the value of other cryptocurrencies.
- Easy Accessibility
Initially, cryptocurrency was supposed to become a mode of payment. But now, it has also become a store of value. Even if users are unwilling to use cryptocurrency to make payments, they are ready to invest in it like an asset. In countries like India where RBI is against cryptocurrency, investors are holding them for their value. Many platforms have also come up to make crypto as an asset easily available.
- Acceptance from countries
As many private investors and institutions are adopting cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, many governments are also coming on board to form crypto regulations. Countries like Japan, the USA, Germany, and El Salvador have taken a positive approach towards cryptocurrency. As a first, El Salvador decided to use Bitcoin as legal tender.
Bullish Harami Definition
What Is a Bullish Harami?
A bullish harami is a basic candlestick chart pattern indicating that a bearish trend in an asset or market may be reversing.
Key Takeaways A bullish harami is a candlestick chart indicator used for spotting reversals in a bear trend.
It is generally indicated by a small increase in price (signified by a white candle) that can be contained within the given equity’s downward price movement (signified by black candles) from the past couple of days.
Understanding a Bullish Harami
A bullish harami is a candlestick chart indicator suggesting that a bearish trend may be coming to end. Some investors may look at a bullish harami as a good sign that they should enter a long position on an asset.
A candlestick chart is a type of chart used to track the performance of a security, named for the rectangular shape depicted in the chart, with lines protruding from the top and bottom, which resembles a candle and wicks. A candlestick chart typically represents the price data of stock on a single day, including opening price, closing price, high price and low price.
Investors looking to identify harami patterns must first look for daily market performance reported in candlestick charts. Harami patterns emerge over two or more days of trading, and a bullish harami relies on initial candles to indicate that a downward price trend is continuing, and that a bearish market looks to be pushing the price lower.
The bullish harami indicator is charted as a long candlestick followed by a smaller body, referred to as a doji, that is completely contained within the vertical range of the previous body. To some, a line is drawn around this pattern resembles a pregnant woman. The word harami comes from an old Japanese word meaning pregnant.
For a bullish harami to appear, a smaller body on the subsequent doji will close higher within the body of the previous day’s candle, signaling a greater likelihood that a reversal will occur.
Image by Sabrina Jiang © Investopedia 2020
The chart above depicts a bullish harami. The first two black candles indicate a two-day downward trend in the asset, and the white candle represents a slightly upward trend on the third day, which is completely contained by the body of the previous candle. Investors seeing this bullish harami may be encouraged by this diagram, as it can signal a reversal in the market.
Bullish Harami, Bearish Harami and Advanced Candlestick Patterns
Analysts looking for fast ways to analyze daily market performance data will rely on patterns in candlestick charts to expedite understanding and decision-making.
While the bullish harami and its counterpart, the bearish harami, serve to predict upcoming reversals in the trending direction of prices, candlestick chart analysis offers a wide range of patterns to predict future trends. Bullish and bearish harami are among a handful of basic candlestick patterns, including bullish and bearish crosses, evening stars, rising threes and engulfing patterns. Deeper analysis provides insight using more advanced candlestick patterns, including island reversal, hook reversal, and san-ku or three gaps patterns.