For a minute forget what the various parts of the financial services industry is telling you. The profitability of this industry seems to be fantastic. Let us take 4 parts of the industry: a. Banking: Over the years the biggest and the richest fortunes have been made by bankers. No doubt about it. Goldman Sachs, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]