China's Stock xchange for SME sector

China will have a stock exchange dedicated only to SME sector from October 23rd 2009. This speaks of China's dedication to provide boost to the infrastructure and growth of its economy and government's support to industries. We always try to compare India with China or India taking over China, but are we anywhere near to it ? If India is to compete with China in terms of growth, our SME sector will necessarily have to become more robust and competitive.

Source: Doing Business Report 2010

Where China is doing everything to boost the industries, we have not done anything as evident from the stats.

 Though India is only next to China in tems of FDI Confidence but it is way behind in terms of 'Ease of Doing Business'. 

So for India to grow and compete with China, it has to overcome these bottlenecks and think ahead of China and provide boost to its industries by providing quick accesibility to funds and reducing clearnace time.

Careers in banking- A lot has changed after the financial turmoil of 2008, the careers that were highly venerated until the behemoth banks collapsed, have in today’s world lost their sheen. Careers related to investment banking, especially in the western world are looked at with mistrust. Asset managers, merchant bankers and investment bankers have the onerous task of rebuilding the lost confidence. They shall steer the world out of the gloom. A career opportunity fraught with nerve racking and number crunching hurdles and one with plenty of scope for learning and displaying your financial prowess.

New business opportunities

Labeled as the fuel for the growth of the world economy India forges ahead with a determined resolve to entrench itself as a super power in the world. This is made possible as India’s growth is underpinned by strong financial growth. As we expand and burgeon, so does the basket of opportunities in different sectors. Each business that flourishes opens up a lot more options and opportunities for other businesses. It is just that we need to tap these new growth potentials to open up more gates of opportunities and prosperity. The entrepreneurial skills of Indians have been appreciated the world over, in fact, to quote Mr. Jeff Immelt “The CEOs in India are as good as or better than any in the world”. Mr Immelt also placed the Indian ceos and entrepreneurs ahead of the Japanese.
What opportunities exist in India? How can we tap them? Is there a systematic approach that can be adopted to bolster entrepreneurial skills?

No surprise No shock

 As I had previously predicted and conjectured in one of the blogs, the Bharti-MTN deal collapsed. This does not come as a surprise at all. In fact if you ask me, this was something that was imminent. The Indian telecom czar had got his hopes high and had exercised all his strength to make the deal a success. Mr. Mittal’s meeting the prime minister thrice that week, prior to the deal was certainly not over anything modest. But as it is often said, not all is under one’s control and as destiny would have it the deal failed. The dilly dallying by MTN portended the doom and the shelving was a signal from the South African entities to say “Naah we are not interested anymore”. Whatever it involved, it sure is a lost growth opportunity at least for some time for the telecom major. Mr. Mittal had tried all that was possible to establish a transnational telecom company and to entrench AIRTEL as a world class company straddling different continents. Leading newspapers seemed to console Mr. Mittal with quotes from head honchos of different industries.

However there are a few things that Mr. Mittal can make best use of out of the failed deal. In the first place Airtel can focus all its energy on the expansion onto 3G space in India without stretching its finances. Airtel is economically and functionally empowered for bigger battles and can even look out for other deals that are not as demanding. Bharti is free to explore the nook and crannies that were unexplored till date, it can certainly ensconce its position in India by meeting domestic demands. As we say, every cloud has a silver lining; this failed deal has quite a few. Unlike other sympathizers, we won’t sing sweet and consoling rhymes for Mr. Mittal but would rather expect Mr. Mittal to marshal his formidable clout and forge ahead taking india’s telecom sector to new heights in a new direction.

Market Watch Sep 21 - Sep 25

Market Analysis

After stellar gains for the last two consecutive weeks (of 3.7% and 2.9%), the Indian markets lost some steam this week, logging in a loss of 0.3% for the week. But this comes in the backdrop of much higher declines in almost all other major indices around the world. The benchmark BSE Sensex hit a 16 month high on Tuesday, but subsequently lost the momentum to finally close the week on a marginally negative note. The Indian markets were under pressure from the weak cues emanating from the global markets. The markets closed at 16693 on Friday down by 48 compared to the last week. The broad based Nifty also closed lower compared to the last week at 4959 points.

Macro Economy

The rate of inflation more than trebled in the second week of September from its previous level as prices of daily essentials and raw food items appreciated sharply from levels prevailing a year ago. Inflation stood at 0.37% for the week ended September 12, up from 0.12% a week before when it had moved into positive territory after a space of 13 weeks. Overall, prices of raw food items increased 15.64% yearon-year during the week

under review, driven mainly by a 44.85% rise in vegetable prices. Potatoes led the list of raw food items that turned costlier at 75%, followed by pulses at 21% and rice at 17%. Processed food items continued their rising trend, with prices rising 12.68% from the year-ago level. Sugar turned dearer by 43.35%. From a weekly perspective, however, the rise in prices of

essential food items does not appear sharp except for freshwater fish which became costlier by 11%. Other food items rose in the range of 1-2% or saw a decline. The rise in inflation for the week comes despite a high base of 12.42% a year ago. Though at 0.37%, inflation does not seem too high as the rate of price rise is measured only on a yearly basis in India, the inflation rate has already crossed the psychologically important 5% mark for this fiscal so far. Rupee become marginally stronger compared to dollar from last week and was trading at Rs. 48.47 per dollar. The yellow metal on the other hand shed some shine to end at Rs 15800 per 10 grams.

Sectoral Performance

Coming to the performance of sectoral indices in India, the various indices had their fair share of both losers and gainers. The pack of gainers was led by pharmacy stocks, with the BSE-Healthcare Index ending higher by about 7.6%. The pharmacy stocks were followed in their gains by stocks forming part of the realty and FMCG sectors. Amongst the losers during the week were the BSE-Metal and BSE-IT which ended lower within a range of 3% to 3.5%. This is almost the opposite of last week, when the metal and IT spaces had performed well, and the pharma and FMCG sectors had seen comparatively much lower gains.

Market watch - Sep 14 to Sep 18

Market Analysis

Recording their consecutive weekly gain, the Indian markets were one of the top gainers amongst key markets worldwide. The benchmark index BSE Sensex ended the week higher by around 2.9% to close at 16741 points. Lesser worries about the shortfall of monsoon and high FII inflows (net investment of Rs 53 bn. during the week) are believed to be the key

reasons for the same. In fact, the net FII inflow on Friday i.e. September 18 itself stood at about Rs 27 bn.

Macro Economy

India's wholesale price index (WPI) came in a tad below the zero mark in the year to September 5 at 0.08%. This was little changed from the previous week's fall of 0.12%. The general consensus is that the figure is likely to turn positive in the coming weeks. This is not very surprising considering that crude prices have rebounded from their lows and that

deficient monsoons have hampered crop production thereby inflating food prices. The food articles index rose 14.8% in the year to August 29 and the CPI over the last year has stayed stubbornly high. It may be noted that the RBI has revised its WPI forecast for the end of FY10 to 6% from 5% predicted in July. If that turns out to be true, the likelihood of RBI

putting the brakes on its expansionary monetary policy cannot be ruled out. Rupee closed at 48.93 per dollar. The yellow metal was trading at Rs. 16045 per 10 grams.

Sectoral Performance

Coming to the performance of sectoral indices in India, barring stocks from the oil & gas space, buying activity was witnessed across sectors. The pack of gainers was led by auto stocks, with the BSE-Auto Index ending higher by about 8%. It was followed by stocks forming part of the metal and IT sectors. While the BSE-Metal Index ended higher by 7%, the BSE-IT Index ended higher by 4%. Amongst the lowest gainers during the week, were

the BSE-FMCG, BSE-PSU and BSE-Healthcare indices which ended lower within a range of 1% to 2%. The BSE-Oil & Gas Index ended the week lower by 1.5%. However, during the previous week, this index ended higher by about 5%.

Global Cues

As far as global markets are concerned, most of the Asian markets ended the week lower, while the Americas and Europe recorded gains. Leading the pack of gainers was Brazil, which recorded a gain of 4%. UK, France and US followed suit recording gains of 3%, 2.5% and 2.2% respectively. Singapore, China and Japan ended the week on a negative note, down

by about 1% each.

Statistics - Type I and Type II error