George Mathew & Swarup Chakraborty of Indian Express Mumbai have done the following story: At a time when banks are slashing home loan and other lending rates, they are quietly hiking the interest rates on credit card outstandings. Since October 2008 banks have raised interest rates on credit cards, some by over 4 per cent […]
The cheer leaders are screaming once again – welcoming the 10,000 index. Whether it is television, print, or the internet – all of them have headlined the great reclaiming of the 10k index. The typical middle class guy is happy, but of course skeptical. The questions he is asking are the following: Will this market […]
March is the month that insurance companies, mutual funds, their agents, banks, relationship managers, etc. love! Throughout the year sales of all these products have been taking a hit. All life insurance companies are funded by the strong and rich parent – SBI, Hdfc, Icici or the foreign counterparts. One branch of one life insurance […]
If you have been following my blog, you may have seen more articles about ‘renting vs. buying’ here is the next instalment. “If I buy a house, I get a tax break.” Business men also get tax breaks when they make losses or incur expenses! As do share buyers, – all are bad deals! The […]
I have a friend who has worked in a bank for many years – from a rookie sales person to almost the top job in sales and marketing. She has (to me surprisingly) acquired a lot of knowledge about banking, mutual fund and life insurance. Not knowing much of her background (she now works for […]
this article on budgeting appeared in www.moneycontrol.com long back. INCOME: Rs 100, expenses Rs 99, life is fine. Income: Rs 99, expenses Rs 100, life is in despair. (Due apologies to Charles Dickens!) There used to be a time when it was advisable to have regular health checkups when you 45. Now, it’s closer to […]
Understanding mean, median, mode, standard deviation, regression, reversion to the mean – is a pre-requisite to understand financial markets. Let us see some simple examples: It rained 90mm in Mumbai on 22nd July. If it rains like this for 6 months continuously, Mumbai will be drowned. It was 43* C in Lucknow on 23rd May. […]