FedEx truck never bothered me before. Now every time I see a FedEx truck or plan it reminds me that they charged me hopping $48 for International Priority delivery to India.
I’ve been using USPS’s Global Priority Mail to send the documents to India, for which they charge me reasonable $10. But this time due to the non-delivery of documents I had to use FedEx. They claim to be "World On Time" and thats important in Shipping Industry and as they say "Time is Money".
Here we go again, Home loan rates set to rise further.
In the last two years or so, banks have increased home loan rates from 6.5% to 11%, resulting in equated monthly installments (EMI) rising by 43%.
As These measures are likely to hit economic growth, For RBI the growth had now become a secondary concern; Controlling inflation is the central bank’s top priority.
Just few years ago, I would have never cared about the Interest Rate, but things are different now specially with the sinking of Dollar value against Rupees.
There were years when hardly few could make in the list of Forbes Billionaire Club from India. This has been changed drastically in the last 2/3 years. Now, India has the largest number of billionaires among the top 20 after the United States. Also, India became home to the most billionaires in Asia, pushing Japan back to the No. 2 spot.
What a contrast having most billionaires and poorer in the same country !
A colleague of mine pointed out this very helpful Stock Simulator from Investopedia. Basically it simulates the experience of trading in the stock market by connecting to a real-life data feed and allowing you to invest $100,000 of virtual cash in your choice of stocks.
This is how sample portfolio looks like:
I found it is very useful for everybody from beginners who have never placed a trade to sophisticated investors who are looking to test out advanced investing strategies.
Certainly, It can educate a person in more detail about market terminology like Limit/Stop orders,Day Order, Good Till Canceled. It also provides hands-on experience for beginners & students without getting their hands burned in stock market.
Scorpio has been my favourite SUV in the Indian Automobile market ever since the day I rented it for my wedding. It was love at first sight due to its comfort factor and smoothness on Indian Road. It got the same ruggedness style with performance which had in good ole Yamaha Rx-100.
Soon M&M's Scorpio will be seen on the North America road, The exact date of the US launch will be announced in April ’07. M&M will be the first Indian automaker to enter the highly-competitive American passenger vehicle market , an uphill battle for M&M. I wish them all the best and I hope to be proud owner of Scorpio one day in future.
Its been happening quite sometime now, That whenever I transfer money to India, I see the rise in India's forex reserves. So coincidental ! Here is The News.
India's forex reserves went up by $1.168 billion to stand at $168.284 billion during the week ended November 10 as against $167.116 billion during the week ended November 3.
Personally, I didn’t like the Starbucks coffee. The French toast flavor available at office pantry is enough stronger for me. Today’s news is that Starbucks is planning to open its store in India by end of 2007. It’s their long term international expansion plan. I am doubtful about their success in Indian market as compare to the phenomenal success they achieved here in the US.
India is traditionally a tea drinking nation; thou Coffee culture has been getting bigger due to the students and working professionals. For that market we have already local brands like Café Coffee Day & Barista, which have their own aggressive expansion plan. Surely Starbucks will face competition from Café Coffee Day & Barista in India. They will have to customize its drinks for the Indian market, the way McD’ has Aloo tiki in their Menu. Most importantly, they will not be able to enjoy expensive pricing strategy with huge margin, which has been a factor in their success story.
On personal note I do remember my first date with my wife, which happened in Café Coffee Day, where we ordered one cup of International Coffee and spend most of the time without drinking even one sip. So these coffee shops are most of the time used as hangout place or as meeting place rather than for their drinks. I would certainly like to see Starbucks store in Himalayas.
On positive side, Being a global brand Starbucks has advantage of attracting elite customers. Here in the corporate world, we have fashion to hold Starbucks cup in our hand during those weekly meetings. It doesn’t matter even if it’s empty.
Oh did you notice that SRK was holding Starbucks cup in his hand quite a few times in KANK.
Sometime in business you get a unique opportunity to over come your competitor. A Smart management is a management which utilizes this opportunity for life time.
Recently, that’s what happening in Auto Industry. Toyota is surpassing the GM in all way. The Management is taking advantage of high gasoline prizes, shift in consumer mindset and drawbacks of opponent to increase their market presence and ultimately resulting into number One Position.
They are coming up with many new models (Yaris) with innovative styling and new Hybrid technologies (Prius/Camry/Highlander)
Their recent aggressive advertising like “What happens when The Best car in America, is the Best car for America” is helping them to achieve their goal.
In 1927 GM surpassed Ford as the largest auto company in the World; The day is not far when Toyota will hold that title. The Only matter is When and How long they can hold it.
In Today's Rediff Business Section had few encouraging news.
These were the business News, I saw today in Dow Jones flashing news Headlines in Times Square.
Coinsidently...Just scrolling one after another.
I just thought , Why not maintain a list of Google's acquisitions;
I am sure, this list is gonna go bigger and bigger in near future,
as I nead this new
"Google expects to collect $4.04 billion by selling 14,159,265"
Since, I’ve been working in the Banking Industry from last 5 yrs,
especially on Data Warehousing Projects.
I thought I-Flex would be interesting company to work for to suit my background skills.
And today I read this news "Oracle to buy majority stake in i-flex"
According to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison
"I-flex is the hottest software company in the banking industry, signing more new customers
than any other banking software company in each of the last three years"
I guess I've been waiting to hear this news from long time.
and here it is "Wal-Mart set to enter India".
Interesting thing is
The fact that foreign retailers can't set up wholly owned subsidiaries here in india raises an important question. Who will Wal-Mart tie up with? An existing retailer or a non-retailer? The company is being courted intensively.
Either way, when Wal-Mart comes in, it will profoundly impact the retail markets of India. The former employee expects the company to open at least 10 stores in its first phase here.
"Anything less than that will not be viable for them," he says.
