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, […]
A few days ago I had done a small note on Ayn Rand. She was a Economic Philosophy writer who found that US A had too much governmental interference. If you are a student of Economics you understand the word ‘rent’ in the correct sense. Rent seekers are those people who have been able to […]
Well not long ago in India there was a business group called the Ambani group. When we met as journalists or as analysts we were told that the younger brother Mr. Anil looks after finance. Then one day Mr. Anil Ambani wanted out and the elder brother said ‘let us split’ . So they split. […]
No clue whether the allegations against Goldman Sachs will stick but if you have spent even a little time in deal structuring and marketing derivatives…you can understand that THIS COULD HAVE HAPPENED. It is also easy to realise that when a brokerage firm is small and the owner is worried about his reputation, he could […]
Famous words of Mr. R Subramaniam (Subhiksha, Subiksha fame) The problem is that Indian retail was doing too much, too soon. The kind of investments and expansion that Indian retail was attempting was unprecedented. We ourselves added 1,500-plus stores in under 24 months — even for a small store format, this would surely be a […]
This article appeared in the inaugural issue of Money Mantra a new Personal Finance Magazine from New Delhi…1st Nov. 2009. Have not reproduced the table in excel. FMCG is suddenly the favorite amongst everybody! Why is this so? Well any fund which clocks 67% return in one year is bound to suddenly attract interest, is […]
Shariah Investments in my portfolio, no thanks! Benchmark Mutual fund announced a Shariah compliant fund recently. Of course many mutual funds (Reliance, UTI, to name 2) are all in the process of launching and managing a Shariah compliant fund. What is a Shariah compliant fund? And what does it do? Shariah, the religious law of […]