Nobody believes that tech stocks can do well in 2010, correct? This comes from 2 fears – US recovery will not be too great and that the dollar may weaken.
Let us look at the dollar – it looks like the dotcom boom – when we were all sure that the tech stocks can only go [...]
Are you a little surprised at the title when the government is proudly talking of inflation at -1.56%? Well you should be! But look at the ground reality. Monsoon is not great – this is bound to put a lot of pressure on dal and vegetables. Luckily for us oil is not rearing its ugly [...]
The average American saves/ invests much lesser than his Chinese or Indian counterpart. Why does this happen? Simply because the American is sure of his ‘Social Security’ – and that his ‘rich’ country will take care of him. Whereas the average Indian or Chinese provides for his own retirement.
A good environment, stability, growing income etc. [...]
George Mathew & Swarup Chakraborty of Indian Express Mumbai have done the following story:
At a time when banks are slashing home loan and other lending rates, they are quietly hiking the interest rates on credit card outstandings.
Since October 2008 banks have raised interest rates on credit cards, some by over 4 per cent per [...]
Why is it that in the case of Satyam and in the world wide mess it is largely the equity shareholder who is losing? Welcome to the world of moral hazard.
When you lend money to a bank (which may be insolvent even as you are lending) or to a country (which technically cannot become insolvent [...]
I must consider my self very, very lucky. During the Harshad Mehta Boom, I bought an office space for personal usage. When the index reached 21000 I had no reason to sell. However just luckily I decided to get out of some very high price earning stocks like Tata Power, L&T, Hdfc, and invest in [...]
When I was talking to a regulator, he asked me “How come ULIPs (Unit linked insurance plans) charge such a high “entry” load? I told him as a distributor I can actually make more money from a customer selling mutual funds than selling ULIPs because of churn and a trail commission that is based on [...]
So at last the world is telling America a simple thing. You cannot live beyond your means for too long. When they had a huge deficit, they went to war at Afghanistan. Then at Iraq. It does not matter how much money you have – if you burn it fast enough, it will be over! [...]
Governments have two major advantages. One they have an unlimited scope for income – agricultural tax, excise duty, service tax, income tax, estate duty, etc. The more worrisome advantage is their ability to print currency notes. Ask Ben Bernanke – he converts coniferous trees into billions of dollars!
The worry is for people who lend to [...]
In a country like USA where there is a decent press, democracy and a vigilant SEC, the financial fraud culprits are brought to book quite slowly, if at all. What will happen to Indian customers who have been had? How does one react to the CEO of a foreign bank saying “we will make up [...]