Transcript

Why Quant funds underperformed in 2025?

Ms. Akshara Menon: Hi all, this is Akshara Menon from PMS Bazaar. I am welcoming you to our fundamental interview series. For today's episode, we have Mr. Vivek Sharma, the VP and Head of Investments at Estee Advisors. Vivek Sharma brings over 18 years of professional experience in investment management. A graduate of IIT Kharagpur, Vivek specializes in leveraging quantitative models and systematic approaches for portfolio management. At Estee Advisors, he plays a pivotal role in designing and implementing advanced investment strategies. These include the firm's flagship offerings, Long Alpha and I-Alpha, which have established a strong track record in the Indian capital markets. His expertise spans quantitative analysis, algorithmic trading, and delivering superior risk-adjusted returns for clients. Vivek's commitment to innovation and data-driven decision-making significantly contributes to the quant investment space. Welcome, sir.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Hi.

Ms. Akshara Menon: You know, when I spoke to one of your colleagues to learn more about you, he said you are a very calm person. He said you are a very calm and composed individual. So, I just want to understand more about you and also about the quant space. Yes. And one thing I learned from him, or one thing I understood about you, is that you love educating people in mass numbers. This is something you want to do today with us.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Definitely.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So, you will really spill your secrets here?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Sure. Yes.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So I can get the unfiltered version here.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Definitely. Let's go for it.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Thank you, sir. The first question I want to pose to you is about Quant. Yes. Quant is a buzzword in today's financial landscape. That was not the case 10 or 12 years back. Right. Yes. And Estee was one of the pioneers to enter this field much earlier.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Exactly.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So what is the difference you see now? Ten to 12 years ago, what was the response you had from investors, and where do we stand today?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: I think it has changed dramatically over the last 10 years. The situation 10 years back was that there were very few quant funds. Even they were just getting started. We were also getting started in the quant long-only space. We had been doing quant for our HNI customers and other in-house strategies, but to roll out a long-only fund was new for us about 10 years ago. When we launched, we had mostly back-tests to show, right? Others also had some back-tests. Everyone was just getting started. There was a lot of apprehension in investors' minds at that point. Compare that to today, where we see so many quant funds in every space. Be it the PMS, AIFs, or even mutual funds. You see many mutual fund AMCs are now planning to launch different kinds of quant funds. The situation has changed dramatically. One year ago, investor interest was also very high. When I say one year back, I mean because over the last year, the markets have been flattish and have not given returns. So, overall investor interest has come down a bit. That is not specifically speaking about quant; across the markets, it has come down. But regarding quant, I think we don't need to convince anyone right now that quant is a very good way of investing. We see a very positive change in the overall investor mindset over recent years.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So investors are now able to understand what it is?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Yes.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So going back to basics and explaining "what is quant" is not required, from what I gather.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Yes. There are many investors still entering the markets who obviously do not understand quant. There are still many myths around it. But by and large, the people who have been investing are now much more comfortable. Like us, there are other quant managers who have shown good performance over the past couple of years. We have a very good example in the quant mutual fund, which has done well. In terms of different kinds of quant funds, it has done pretty well. So we don't need to prove ourselves to people. But then, I do not think you can say you never need to explain it to people. There are still millions of investors just entering the markets. For them, even equity investing or investing in mutual funds or PMS is very new. So, I think we still have a lot of education to do on that front.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Okay. And it is said that quant always correlates with emotionless investing from a fund manager's point of view. Yes. But being a human being without emotions is very difficult.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: It is very difficult.

Ms. Akshara Menon: And you cannot expect an investor to be emotionless when the portfolio comes down. Yes. If it drops by 5% or 10%, their emotions come out. Yes. So how do you handle that part?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: It is very difficult in this day and age. With so much noise and so much information, keeping your head straight and focused on what you really want to do with your investments is a tough job for a fund manager. What we try to do is educate people on how to manage their investments. This is not necessarily just talking about quant. I think this is about your investments in general. If you are able to keep a straight head and keep your emotions aside, those are the investors who create wealth over the long run. From our perspective, what we try and do is talk to many investors and try to educate them. We show them how markets evolve, how markets behave over the years, and what your mindset should be while investing. So we do talk a lot to our investors, whether they are our clients or the investor community in general. I think that is one way we try and educate people so they are able to manage their investments well.

Ms. Akshara Menon: When you talk about investors now, you also said that markets were flat for the past year. Of course, yes. So do you think alpha generation has been narrowed in this current market situation?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: See, the last year has been tough for almost everyone. I think the quant space has particularly struggled because many quant managers are still new. They have lost quite a bit in the corrections they have seen. Markets corrected, depending on the index you discuss, between 10%, 20%, and 25%. But some quant funds had deeper corrections. I think quant managers have learned a lot from this. Also, the last year and a half has kind of separated the men from the boys. Some quant managers have been able to ride this wave well without losing many customers. Their drawdowns have been pretty much in control. Frankly, for us, even though we have underperformed, most of our investors have stuck with us because our corrections have not been very deep. That brings us to the mindset we have at Estee about diversification of methodology, diversification of portfolio, and all of those things. Having said that, from time to time, active fund managers will always underperform the market. Okay, that is part and parcel of active investing. Be it quant or the traditional discretionary style of investing, they will always underperform from time to time. And the second fact is that very few managers—maybe 20%, 30%, or 40%—would be able to outperform the market. Most managers will not be able to outperform the market over the long run.

Ms. Akshara Menon: But as you said, investors are mature enough. So, in terms of PMS, is looking into one-year returns feasible, or do you need to look into five-to-ten-year returns?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: No, PMS investors are definitely much more mature. They have obviously invested in other mutual funds and other PMS providers. So, PMS investors by and large are much more mature. That is why I said we have been fortunate that our performance has not gone down a lot, and investors have stuck with us. I find that is definitely the case; investors in the PMS are much more mature and need much less hand-holding. But you definitely need to talk to them just to reassure them that everything is fine. There is a great difference between a PMS investor versus somebody who is just getting started with mutual funds.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Yes. But even in active fund management—the traditional discretionary PMS—they follow fundamentals and quantitative parts too. They have now started following it. So how is that different from quant? Of course, quant is fully model-based, but these fund managers are also using fundamental and quant parts. How do you see them?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: I think some of them might be able to pick it up, but it will be really hard for them to learn because this is a totally new thing for them, right? Even in my previous job at Futures First, we used to do discretionary manual trading and were pretty good at it. But when we tried to move from our core competence of manual discretionary trading to quant trading, we really struggled as a firm. The mindset was definitely not there to succeed in quant. I think something similar is going to happen in the traditional investing space. Many of them are going to try to do it. Not everyone is going to be successful. I feel not everyone should try it either, because they have their core strength in which they have done well. So I do not really think that is the way to go for most of them. But there is always going to be a healthy competition between the quants and the traditional discretionary style. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages and its own place in investing. Everyone will be in the race. But obviously, because quant is just getting started and has some inherent advantages—I might be biased—it is going to take market share from the traditional style of investing. I think that is definitely going to happen. In the US, you see already most of the money is managed by these systems, computers, and quants.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Quant is big in the global market, actually.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Exactly. So that is the same thing we are going to see. Increasingly, market share is going to be captured by quant.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So quant is going to disrupt the traditional discretionary PMS? That is what you are saying?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Definitely. That is why you see most of the mutual funds are now planning to launch some other schemes. Even AIFs; most of these are going to be quant, definitely.

Ms. Akshara Menon: You say that disruption is something common that will exist throughout. Yes. So the traditional PMS screen has been disrupted by Quant. Now, could the next thing be AI? Do you think that will disrupt the quant strategies of today?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Yes, it could be. I think anyone who is able to use AI well is going to have a clear advantage. Be it investing, trading, or any other field, right? Be it content generation or marketing, AI has its place. Anyone who is able to take advantage of these new-age AI tools is going to have an edge over others who are not using them. We at Estee have already started using it in multiple areas. Obviously, in portfolio management, it is still very early days. But we are doing quite a few things. One idea is quite unique, and I like that idea. One of the things being talked about regarding quant is that you do not get to talk to the fund managers. We do not talk to fund managers; we do not derive value out of those meetings, right? But what we are planning to do now is use fund manager interviews and annual meetings. We have recordings of all of that. By using recordings, what can you make out? If a CEO or CFO is giving details, can you find out something more apart from the regular details? By recording facial expressions and the way they are speaking, you see how confident they are. I think AI can do that very well. That is something that will come up in the near future.

Ms. Akshara Menon: You think AI will replace the fund manager, then?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Probably. Yes, quant is going in that direction. I was just watching the Google CEO's interview just a couple of days back. He was asked which job AI is going to replace. He said that his job could be the easiest one to replace. You never know. The progress we have seen in AI over the last couple of years is phenomenal. We have seen Google just releasing their new set of LLMs in the past couple of weeks. The progress has been phenomenal over the last couple of years, right?

Ms. Akshara Menon: Yes. True. But you know what investors want to ask a fund manager? They would ask what sectors they will short or what stocks they will short. But these questions are never answered by a quant manager. They say they only talk about the model. Yes. Yes. Which may not be the same for a one-to-one client. Yes. So if there is a query from an investor asking what sector Estee is into, what would be your answer?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: You know my answer, right? We have spoken about this multiple times. There is no answer, frankly. See, quant—

Ms. Akshara Menon: Probably I can ask you this way: what is the model signaling? What sector is the model signaling?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: This keeps on changing very fast in quant. If I say these are the sectors, in three months, it might be totally different. So this keeps on changing. That is the edge that quant has: we are able to make changes very fast. Now, regarding what sectors are going to work well, I really do not have an answer to that. But what I know from my trading days is that quant does a good job regarding process over prediction. Many people in trading or investing feel that prediction is the way to go. They ask what is going to happen next. I think some of the best managers, irrespective of whether they are doing quant or not, are not into prediction. Even if you hear Warren Buffett's interviews, he never tries to predict anything. If anyone asks him for a prediction, he is unable to give that answer. He is very clear that human beings are not very good at predicting the markets one, two, or three years down the line. But for predictions over a slightly longer term, you can still make those kinds of predictions. So it is process over prediction. What we are doing here is following a set process to generate sufficient alpha over the index in the long run. I think that process is very important for the investor’s point of view too. These are two different things. One is process alpha; one is product alpha. Investors are always after product alpha. Okay. They think about how much alpha this specific product can generate. But when they invest in any product, the fund returns and the investors' returns are not the same. They are different to a fairly large extent. Investors' returns are almost always lower than the fund returns. Why is that? The case is because when markets boom, fund returns also boom, and then they come in. Most of the investors we know come in at the top of the market. And when the returns are not there, they try and redeem. Effectively, what are they doing? They are coming in at the top and redeeming at the bottom, whereas the fund keeps on doing well. So, most of the time, fund returns are much better than the investor's return. That is why I say you should always think about product alpha, but also think about process alpha. That can add percentage points to your portfolio. It is better to stay invested. It is better to have a process for when you take out money or put in money. Whatever process you are following, think about that as well. That is equally or even more important than the product alpha. That is where Quant comes in; we are following a process to generate alpha irrespective of which market or sector does well. There is this very famous quote I always use when people talk about which sectors will do well. See some of the sectors like EV or green energy. It is trending these days. Yes. And most likely, they will do very well. But it is not necessary that those companies' returns would be there in terms of their share prices. Why? Because it might be the case that future growth is already built in. So even though growth will be there, it is already built into the price. You are already buying at very expensive levels. These companies might do very well, but as an investor, if you have invested at a significantly higher level, you will not be able to do well.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So where is Quant coming in here?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Quant is coming in regarding the process. It is about keeping your emotions aside and following set rules irrespective of the market conditions. As an investor, anyone can do that, but if a machine is doing it, it will obviously do a much better job. So that is where Quant comes in. It is about following a certain set of rules. Quant is nothing but a certain set of rules for when to invest and when to get out. Those rules might be slightly complex, but it is a set of rules. Quant has a very set process around it, which gives it some advantages over the traditional style of investing.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Yes. When you talk about advantages, we need to address the disadvantages as well, right? When you talk about momentum investing that is flowed by narratives; as humans or fund managers, we can stay away from the narratives, but not the system. Yes. So the system will get fluid with the narratives. If you see the last year, yes, it was not great for quant for the momentum investing stage.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Exactly. Yes. They all were underperforming the market.

Ms. Akshara Menon: The one question that every investor has is that Nifty is going up, but not my fund. So why is that?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: That can happen. That has nothing to do with quant; it can happen with any active fund. The markets are going up, but your fund is not because it is not conducive to your style of investing. It could be that the market is going up because of momentum and growth stocks, whereas the market is not paying heed to the value stocks. A fund manager who is following a value style of investing is not going to do well in that small period. Right? Overall, if he is a good manager, he will do well, but in certain time periods, it would happen with the momentum funds too. So it is nothing to do with quant specifically. But I think a good diversified quant provides diversification across different styles of investing. We know momentum is one style, quality is another, and value is another. A good diversified quant is not just picking stocks using momentum. If you do that, your returns might be high, but when markets correct, your corrections are also pretty deep. What we follow in Estee is pretty diversified. We have more than 130 factors. Okay. Now, these include three or four popular factors. We have identified other macroeconomic factors, factors related to specific sectors, and specific commodities. We use all of these multiple factors in constructing our portfolio. So even if momentum is not working, some other factor would be working at that point. We try and identify using market regimes which specific market regime we are in. Right? In rising markets, momentum and growth work very well. Last year they have not done very well. So you have to do some bit of factor timing wherein you build rules around which factor is likely to do well and allocate your money only to those kinds of factors. What happens, Akshara, is that all these factors do not work all the time. Just like the traditional style of investing, they also have their time when they are not able to outperform. Even factors like momentum and quality will have their periods of underperformance. What we try and do is pick which factor is likely to work well in the next couple of months or quarters. I think there we are able to add a good amount of value in terms of which factors to pick.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Okay. In terms of factor decay—or let me put it as model decay—is that one of the biggest disadvantages in quant?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Yes.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So what is that, if you could elaborate on it?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: I think model decay happens when your back-testing has worked very well. One specific signal gives very good results historically. You put it into production and start trading or investing using it, and over time, it starts decaying. The performance is not as expected. Mostly why it happens is because of overfitting. At the time when you are trying to define that specific signal and back-test it, there is something known as parameters. You can actually optimize these signals a lot, right? When you keep optimizing, you keep on adding those parameters. Because of which, it becomes very optimized to historical data. But history obviously does not exactly repeat. So there will be changes. Because it is over-optimized, it will not work as expected in the future. So we try to do not too much curve fitting. That is something you learn by experience. I think if you try to keep your factors or signals more simple in nature and more intuitive, so that you are able to understand what you are doing with fewer parameters, then those signals are much more long-lasting than the others.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Yes. And also, let us talk about what you mentioned regarding factor timing. Yes. Can you talk about factor allocation? For example, in other discretionary PMS, we have a small case that might be 60%, and others in large and mid-cap might be 40%. In such cases for quant, what is the factor allocation? Is it like momentum is given high weightage or value is given heavy weightage? In terms of historical performance, which has given most?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: I think one thing is clear—this is across the globe, not only in India—that momentum is one factor that does really well. Even in our experience of the last seven or eight years, momentum has done the best. The problem with momentum is when it stops working. If you are still invested in it, it will lead to huge losses too, right? So it becomes very hard over the long run. Obviously, if you have to pick one factor, momentum is the factor that will give you the best results. But it is very hard to stay invested in a momentum factor because it is the most volatile factor too. That is where the diversification comes in. I was talking about using multiple factors. That is what we do; otherwise, it becomes very hard. Even in the last year, I think momentum funds would have easily crashed 30% or 40%. But if you are diversified, then you are able to ride that wave. Diversified in terms of the factors that you are using.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Okay, but my question was whether all 130 factors in your model will have the equal allocation.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Exactly. No.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So it is a cyclic turn.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Exactly.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So currently, your model is in heavy weightage on which factor?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Currently, it is more around value, quality, and "low wall," which is the low-volatility stocks. Those kinds of conservative factors. What happens is you tend to select more large-cap stocks and slightly more defensive stocks. So it is around conservative. But today again, markets have broken and made new highs.

Ms. Akshara Menon: New all-time high.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: New all-time high. So you never know. If it continues for the next couple of days and weeks, we are again going to allocate to momentum and growth.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Good. And you know there is one thing that is very common apart from the "quant" word, there is the "quantamental" word. Yes, it is moving around the market. So what is the quantamental part and what is quant? How does it differ?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: See, I think the word "quantamental" is coming from quant and fundamentals. It refers to someone who has been doing fundamentals and who is trying to use quant. That is where the word is coming from. But the way we practice quant is also quantamental. Because out of these 130 factors that I spoke about, obviously most are technical in nature. Maybe two-thirds would be technical. But then there are the other one-third which are fundamental in nature. Right. We are using fundamentals because fundamentals are just balance sheets; everything can actually be put down in numbers, right? So anything that can be put down in numbers can be used by quant. So we say it is quant, but we use a very high dosage of fundamentals in our portfolios. So even though we are purely quant, we are using many fundamentals. I think quantamental is the term being used by people who were doing only fundamental and now have started picking quant. But any diversified quant fund would definitely be doing fundamentals as well as technicals.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Okay. So when you talk about diversification, apart from equity, are you into the multi-asset part of it?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: As of now, no, we are not into it. But yes, we do have another fund by the name of Alpha which has been running now for 17-plus years. It is an arbitrage fund which does pure arbitrage. The unique track record it has is that it has never lost money on a monthly basis. Every single month since the beginning has been a profitable month. The gross returns have been 12% to 13% annualized over the last 16 or 17 years.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So if you can talk about your process and investment philosophy that Estee follows.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Yes. Estee follows data, but more it is about culture and mindset. Because at the end of the day, these quant strategies are being run by humans. Yes. Right. I was talking about I-Alpha which has never really lost money. So how is that possible? It is possible because we have defined a certain set of processes and certain set of rules that we are going to follow for that specific strategy. And even if I see a very good opportunity—because opportunity comes with its risk too—in our I-Alpha strategy, there are some very conservative investors who invest. They really do not want to take any risk with that part of the money, right? So I do not want to take any risk and try and generate higher returns on top of it. That is why we have followed that set of rules even when we have seen much bigger opportunities. We have said no, we are not going to go after those kinds of opportunities because it comes with its own set of risks. So I think it is about mindset and discipline at Estee. For a specific fund, when we decide these are the things we are going to do, we do that only and we do not try to deviate away. Having said that, it is not that we do not try and innovate, but we do not innovate regarding risk management.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Yes, that is the important part: risk management.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: We do not try to do too much innovation there. That is something we follow at all times. Multiple layers of risk management. I think that has been the success behind Estee's funds, both Long Alpha and Alpha. It is not really about how great we did when we were doing well. It is about how we were able to control our losses when we were not able to do well.

Ms. Akshara Menon: I think you know getting the drawdowns right is more important risk management.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Exactly. Exactly. So in quant, that is slightly easy, or it is very transparent at least. We have, because each portfolio is constructed of multiple micro-strategies, strategy-level risks and then portfolio-level risk. On top, we have the operational risk parameters. The team who is managing it—the humans who are managing it—if something were to go wrong, what is the protocol? What is to be done so that there is no discretion involved? You are very clear that if this goes wrong, I have to do this. If this goes wrong, I have to do this. Those kinds of rules obviously we have set in the computers too. But those set of rules are there for all the risk managers and the portfolio managers as to what is to be done if something were to go wrong. So, that kind of operational mindset I think is a key thing which we kind of at times forget, but that I think is the key to our long-lasting performance.

Ms. Akshara Menon: And moving on to the next point, you have been into quant for so many years. And those words, from the beginning of the interview, the number of times you used the word quant was high. Yes. So if I could ask you this: what is the one thing that you want to change in quant or about quant?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Okay. I think one thing that I do not like about quant is the amount of time it takes to prepare the data. A good set of clean data which is now available, 10 years back required huge effort that we had to put in. But the kind of time and effort it takes to prepare the data for these kinds of strategies is still very huge. So if I have to change that one thing, it is not very exotic. It is just that if I am able to create very clean, good quality data, I think that will make our job a lot easier. So that is one thing that we want to change.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Yes, definitely. So how do you see quant in the next 10 years? You have seen quant 10 years before and you are seeing quant now. Yes. So what will be the quant space in 10 years?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: I think in 10 years you will see many new kinds of strategies in the AIF space, in the PMS space, and in SIFs too. So I see people being much more aware about quant and a much bigger part of overall assets will definitely be under quant. I think they will hold the majority market share. Yes. But the traditional managers would definitely—I think some of them would do a very good job in picking up quant—but then there will be some good managers who will be doing what they are doing and they will do very well over the next 10 years. But yes, I think that is one major shift we have already spoken about. A good number of new strategies are going to come, especially through SIFs and AIFs, which allow more kinds of strategies as compared to PMS. So I think we are going to see many more kinds of strategies. I think SEBI and the overall regulators have done a very good job in creating the overall framework around which these different players can launch their products.

Ms. Akshara Menon: A few years back, you know, today we see Vivek Sharma as a fund manager. But a few years back you were also a restaurant owner. So if I go to see the unfiltered version of you, why was that and why was that the idea?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: This was actually more than a few years back. I, along with my friends, opened this South Indian restaurant in Gurgaon because all of us loved food and we loved South Indian food. So we thought we would give it a try. It was actually working well, but along with a full-time job in trading, it is very difficult to obviously manage a restaurant. Even if you are not trading, managing a restaurant full-time is still a very difficult business to be in. So as of now, I am happy doing what I am doing. But yes, that was a time where we started this restaurant and shut it down after a year or so.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So any retirement plans regarding managing a restaurant?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: No, definitely not. I do not have any plans to retire because I love markets too much. So I plan to be associated with the markets for as long as I can.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Okay, that is great. So with that, we have come to the end of this discussion. Let us move to the rapid-fire session.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Okay.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So rapid-fire, real rapid-fire now. I have four sets of questions. Okay. So first would be: execution speed or model accuracy?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: For I-Alpha it is execution speed and for Long Alpha it is model accuracy.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Okay. So the next is back-testing or live validation?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: This is an easy one. Live validation. Because with back-testing obviously you can do all sorts of testing, but unless you have that live validation in place, nobody is going to trust you. So live validation any day.

Ms. Akshara Menon: So you have to pick one: consistency or outperformance?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Again, I think an easy one: consistency here. Definitely. Because I think if there is outperformance without consistency, again for investors it is no use. They cannot really stay invested unless you have consistency. I think consistency over the long run would lead to outperformance in itself.

Ms. Akshara Menon: Wow. And if I had to ask: food or markets?

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Markets any day.

Ms. Akshara Menon: That is the real unfiltered version of how much love you have for the markets. Thank you, sir. Thank you for accepting this offer and being in this chair. Thanks a lot.

Mr. Vivek Sharma: Thank you. It is always good to speak to you