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Currency warriors should consider India
At a time when all major economies are considering capital controls and protectionist trade practices, India – on the other hand – is surprisingly staying away from such measures.. It is true that India always had pretty much closed capital markets (especially the bond markets). However India’s resolve not to intervene in currency markets, and thus…
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Fool’s Gold (by Gillian Tett)
This book tracks the history of credit derivatives market from their roots in J.P.Morgan to their eventual role in Wall Street collapse in 2008. ABS and MBS have been around for sometime that allowed banks to offload credit risk to other investors. However J.P.Morgan had a peculiar problem with their corporate lending. They needed a…
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The Fed – Doing It Again
Close to 2 years after the the first quantitative easing exercise from Fed, they are forced to do it again. But this time the opposition is fierce both from within the country and from other countries running trade surplus with US. Their concern is that dollar will weaken which will make their exports costly and…
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Too big to fail (by Andrew Ross Sorkin)
This book is a definitive account of the events leading up to the crash of 2008. The narration of the events starts from March of that fateful year when Bear Stearns agreed to be sold to JPM at dirt cheap price. This was the beginning of the end of famous wall street business model. The…
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iPad prices – The Economist
Interesting chart from Economist about iPad pricing across the world. The price of iPad varies significantly – as much as $200 – between countries. Logistics, variation in personal incomes and differences in sales tax lead to significant price anomalies. A seamless global market for goods , it appears is still very far away.
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Build ’Em and They’ll Come – NYTimes.com
If you need to take a guess, about how much US plans to spend to build eight innovation centers that will pioneer research in energy security, the answer will throw you off the chair. It is about $60mn. Surely this is not the country that invented the atomic bomb or sent a man to the…
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‘Bubble’ worries in Asia intensify – Equity Master
It must be worrying the central banks in emerging countries that an economic bubble is forming in Asia. With the outlook in developed economies still uncertain, foreign investors are pouring money into Brazilian bonds, Indian Equities and Chinese Real estate. The net effect is that emerging countries are finding their currencies appreciating rapidly. Exporters in…
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Powering India’s rural revolution
From kerosene to rice husks: Powering India’s rural revolution is a glimpse into the now famous “Indian Jugaad”. Business is booming in rural India. Every company is drafting business plans to design products that are based on sophisticated high performance technology, yet affordable to the rural poor. Some examples here highlight the innovation at work.…