
Hedge funds and professional investors are always looking for countries with lower interest rates where borrowing is cheaper and then invest the same in countries with higher interest rates. Earlier, it was the Japanese yen that gave them this opportunity. After the Lehman crash, the dollar became the funding currency of choice. Investors sold dollars where interest rates were low and purchased currencies like the Indian rupee where the interest...

11:42 AM, Feb 22, 2012

Every April, all money roads lead to the Woodstock of capitalists - Berkshire Hathaway's annual conference. Thousands across the world - scores from India - listen to the sermon of the Sage of Omaha: Warren Buffett. The gospel, they hope, will change their lives. Yet, living according to the gospel has been tough for most. Why? Following the form not the function: Buffett looks for companies that grow consistently and...

09:45 AM, Jan 21, 2012

It is said that Chambal is the valley where the lions breed. This is the opening line from The Red Brick House, the first 'Bahadur' comic which was released by Indrajal comics on December 1, 1976. The comic was an instant hit during those days because it was a realistic portrayal of the situation in India. The presence of dacoits, the absence of individuality and the general atmosphere of the...

03:01 PM, Dec 12, 2011

This is more like a book of history and quotations. How much of it is first hand reporting? Satyajit Das: I started this book in 2005. During the past six years, the entire financial crisis played out. A chunk of the book is first hand reporting. I did not want to write about the global financial crisis and preferred going back 40 years. Finance has become a different beat during...

11:02 AM, Dec 09, 2011

Just inside the office of Pashmina Realty in Worli, there's an entire wall covered by a poster of LIFE, an NGO (non-governmental organisation) whose Mumbai chapter focusses mainly on health, education and low-cost housing under the Asit Kotecha Foundation. The poster is full of slogans written by Pashmina employees who participate actively in the NGO. Behind the poster wall is the office of Asit Kotecha, who owns Pashmina Realty and...

12:25 PM, Nov 23, 2011

After a lacklustre performance in the last three years in the equity category, HSBC Mutual Fund is gearing up for some serious changes. Tushar Pradhan, the chief investment officer (CIO) of HSBC Mutual Fund, has been given the responsibility to manage the HSBC Equity Fund along with three other equity funds. His task is to make HSBC Equity one of the best performing funds in the country. In 2003, HSBC...

02:12 PM, Nov 01, 2011

A sudden wave of volatility in the Indian rupee has increased the degree of risk for companies and the financial system as a whole. Over the past three months, the rupee has fallen 12 per cent against the dollar and could even slip to the 52 mark if European debt worries persist. Though many analysts foresee the currency clawing back to around 46, they believe that will take a while....

11:00 AM, Oct 11, 2011

The past three months have been tough for Indian banking. High interest rates and threats of a global recession have taken their toll on bank stocks. The NSE banking index fell 15 per cent compared with the Niftys 11 per cent slide in the past three months. Indian banks, ironically, have never been in a better state of health in the past 10 years. A recent study by Boston Consulting...

11:42 AM, Oct 05, 2011

It was the end of November 1991. Michael Jacksons eight studio album 'Dangerous' debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 charts. But within four weeks, it was replaced by 'Nevermind', an album by a Seattle-based band called Nirvana that released two months before 'Dangerous'. Everybody knew that Nirvana was making alternative music mainstream, but removing the King of Pop from his number one position was something else. Especially by...

11:26 AM, Sep 19, 2011

Mumbai is all set to host its first Comic Convention in October. And going by the fact that 15,000 fans attended the first of these annual meets in Delhi last year, expectations are high. Although Comic Con, the main event, will always remain in Delhi, Comic Con Express will travel to a new city every year in India to bring new fans within the comics culture. The second Comic Con...

11:41 AM, Sep 15, 2011

Other conditions being equal, if one force is hurled against another 10 times its size, the result will be the flight of the former, says the ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu in his classic military treatise The Art of War. This is as true on the battlefield as it is in the stock market, as many Indian brokers facing the brunt of bigger and technologically advanced rivals will likely agree....

10:53 AM, Aug 10, 2011

The floodgates might just have opened for the Indian mutual fund industry. Indian markets have always been considered to be very attractive for investors in developed markets, but mutual funds in India were never allowed to tap retail investors from abroad. Hence, mutual funds used the Mauritius route to attract international investors into their portfolio management schemes (PMS) or offshore funds. This has often been considered cumbersome and the target...

02:41 PM, Mar 19, 2011

Science fiction author Philip K Dick (PKD) can be held responsible for implanting some of the craziest ideas in the finest minds of Hollywood. These, in turn, have created their versions of Dick-sian fantasy. The recently released,
Inception, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, explores the concepts of reality and dreams, which is entirely PKD territory. The movie has extensively explored memories, alternate worlds and paranoia, and has still maintained...

03:21 PM, Aug 10, 2010

Any investments in the stock market may not yield above-average returns in the next one year. ...

03:17 PM, Jul 07, 2010

The NSE and MCX-SX are on opposite corners, and their fight will change the way we invest. ...

01:25 PM, May 14, 2010