How can we blame Union Carbide for what happened? Obviously the first blame is on the Indian soil – all those people who could not care about the Indian people. Let us face it Anderson had a choice of whether to come to India. He knew he could make a few calls and get away. […]
I have been inundated by brokers and issue managers alike about why the Stan C public issue of IDR (Indian Depository Receipt) is such a great product. I agree. I would love to have a big global bank with aggressive growth plans in markets like Asia, Africa, …and other parts. So inspite of the fact […]
Recently a friend of long standing (2nd standard if I am not wrong) commented that my column should be a part of a newspaper and titled ‘Malice towards one and all…” a column which only people born in the 1960s would remember I guess. When ITC (cancer), McDonalds (BP) and Pepsi foods (Diabetes) talk about […]
Nobody believes that tech stocks can do well in 2010, correct? This comes from 2 fears – US recovery will not be too great and that the dollar may weaken. Let us look at the dollar – it looks like the dotcom boom – when we were all sure that the tech stocks can only […]
Shariah Investments in my portfolio, no thanks! Benchmark Mutual fund announced a Shariah compliant fund recently. Of course many mutual funds (Reliance, UTI, to name 2) are all in the process of launching and managing a Shariah compliant fund. What is a Shariah compliant fund? And what does it do? Shariah, the religious law of […]
The second step in retirement planning is to compare the Income and Expenses. Of course there are 3 possibilities: Expenses = Income Expenses > Income Expenses < Income Without getting into any relative terms, situation 1 and 2 are close to disaster. Also remember if expenses are only slightly lesser than income, the demon called […]
If you pay taxes honestly about 50% of what you earn goes off in various taxes – income, service, securities transaction, etc. Now take away another 28% in housing EMI, then another 7% in building maintenance etc. It means your government, and your house have taken away 85% of what you earn. So the 15% […]