Training as a CA has many advantages (and a few disadvantages perhaps). One of the advantages is you get skeptical about numbers, and you get to question conclusions/views drawn from numbers. I remember one life insurance company giving me their settled claims to received claims ratio. Smartly it included maturity claims, investment products, pension plans….suddenly […]
When we do a class on debt markets one important class is that of Debt Rating. There we say the highest and the best borrower is rated AAA. However we do not even ask – the Sovereign debt is not rated. It is supposed to be above default. When the Japenese companies were running huge […]
Leveraging (like derivatives) is neither good nor bad. Huge wealth has been created by leveraging (Reliance, Tata, Uday Kotak (net worth Rs. 30 lakhs to market cap Rs. 26,000 crores in 25 years) – and also ALL bankruptcies have been caused by bad management of debt. There are many advantages of gearing or borrowing: a. […]
For the true blue speculator one more product is available – the Currency Derivatives. All brokerage houses now provide you with this new product – and is available with just a few clicks. So if you do not know anything about $, Euro, Pound, Jap Yen, ….you are still welcome to deal in EURINR (Euro […]
Ask any person what is their biggest asset? Well it sets them thinking….and then the facts… Most people do not know what is their biggest asset. They then say – it is ‘ my house’ , ‘my equity portfolio’, my car, etc. However then I lead them to the next question: Have you borrowed for […]
This Diwali a lot of people are going to make a demand on your money! One of them seems to be builders who have all lined up schemes to sell property to you. However you must have seen and experienced – a very small portion of the cost of the house is paid by the […]
Banks lending in rural India is a great thing to have happened. Most people who borrow are genuine -but there are some politically supported borrowers too. The main reason why a person in India (or in any part of the world too!) repays the loan is ‘because it is the right thing to do’. This […]