Gravity’s rainbow
When should investors sell Apple shares? The group's push overseas and into the business market still holds promise, as does the steady stream of fresh gadgets such as Apple TV, unveiled by chief executive Steve Jobs last week. Apple's trajectory should continue for some time, so its stock - which has gained more than 40 percent each year for the [...]
A V Rajwade: Reality checks on growth
Continuing the last week’s argument (“The reality beyond the numbers”, September 1), can the environmental agenda as implemented by our young and energetic minister take precedence over every other objective of the democratic government of a still poor country? Consider the number of major industrial/infrastructural projects/developments [...]
Evan A Feigenbaum: Challenge of a changing Asia
It’s been a rough six months in East Asia, as tensions ratchet up in Korea, navies drill, and governments, from China to Vietnam, trade barbs, claims and counterclaims to the South China Sea. But even as anxieties grow, it is economics, not security, that still defines the essential strategic reality of Asia today: China is fast becoming the [...]
Blinkered view: Sinha Panel uninformed by crisis
Even the financial crisis had its blessings, and one was that it forced rethink on a host of market nostrums that had come close to becoming universal ‘truths’. Such a blessing, however, has completely bypassed the Report of the Working Group on Foreign Investment, which single mindedly focuses on one constituency: portfolio investors . Take, [...]
Time to put a lid on Dabba
A parallel system of futures trading in commodities, operating outside recognised commodity exchanges, better known by its colloquial epithet Dabba, has been thriving unchecked and is believed to be now generating bigger trading volumes than the regular exchanges. This is chiefly because curbing this mode of trading is proving difficult under [...]
Abheek Barua: Remembering the current account
India needs to be prepared as much for a surge of capital inflows as a shortage At the beginning of each year, members of our tiny community of market economists and forecasters take a hard look at their spreadsheets, stroke their chins purposefully and conclude that the rupee will appreciate quite considerably over the year. Since 2007, their [...]
Subir Roy: Who cares for mutual funds
It is difficult to figure out why small investors should put their money in mutual funds. But millions of them across the world, including in India, do. The logic for such investing is simple and appealing. I, the lay investor, have neither the resources nor the ability to track individual equities. So, I will put my savings in the hands of [...]
A wonderful equities rally
Indian equity prices have more than doubled in the 12 months after the main indices hit a bottom on 9 March 2009. Back then, optimism was rare. Western banks were still wobbly, trade was collapsing and output was shrinking. Most people were quick to dismiss the rally as nothing more than a dead cat bounce. “The global markets have staged [...]
Shankar Acharya: www.indiabudget 2010-11
Nearly a fortnight has passed since the presentation of the Budget. There has been plenty of intelligent commentary... and some not so intelligent. It’s hard to find something new and worthwhile to say. Indeed, the only justification for this column is the hope (delusion?) that there may be a few loyal readers out there with an interest in my [...]
K.S. Jacob: Rural health: to tinker or transform?
The recent proposal to introduce a new medical course, Bachelor of Rural Health Care, has been met with resistance from many sections of the medical fraternity. Its opponents argue that it will result in second-class health care for rural India and increase the rural-urban divide. They suggest other solutions, including using the services of [...]