Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Friday, August 3, 2007
Man United sign 9-year-old wonder kid(see the video in My Favourite Links)
Manchester United have signed a gifted nine-year-old after his grandfather sent the Premier League champions a DVD showcasing the boy's talents which has become a YouTube sensation.
Rhain Davis, who was born in England but has lived in Australia since the age of four, was hailed by the British press on Thursday as the next Wayne Rooney after the United striker.
The boy's dribbling and goalscoring prowess for an Under-10 side in Brisbane, Australia, feature in a four-minute YouTube clip, already viewed more than 800,000 times.
United confirmed the signing but played down the hype around Davis, who has moved back to Cheshire in northern England with his father, near the club's training ground.
"He's a member of our academy and we don't comment on individual members," a United spokesman told Reuters.
He added that the club sign about 40 players of Davis's age every year and, as is standard, will decide annually whether to renew his contract or release him.
What was so unusual in Davis's case was that his skills were brought to the attention of United's youth scouts by the DVD submission, which could inspire other hopefuls, the spokesman said.
"We're bracing ourselves for a whole series of DVDs," he added.
Davis has been thrilled at the chance to rub shoulders with some of his idols.
"The best part has been meeting lots of players like Wayne Rooney," he told British newspapers.
Rhain Davis, who was born in England but has lived in Australia since the age of four, was hailed by the British press on Thursday as the next Wayne Rooney after the United striker.
The boy's dribbling and goalscoring prowess for an Under-10 side in Brisbane, Australia, feature in a four-minute YouTube clip, already viewed more than 800,000 times.
United confirmed the signing but played down the hype around Davis, who has moved back to Cheshire in northern England with his father, near the club's training ground.
"He's a member of our academy and we don't comment on individual members," a United spokesman told Reuters.
He added that the club sign about 40 players of Davis's age every year and, as is standard, will decide annually whether to renew his contract or release him.
What was so unusual in Davis's case was that his skills were brought to the attention of United's youth scouts by the DVD submission, which could inspire other hopefuls, the spokesman said.
"We're bracing ourselves for a whole series of DVDs," he added.
Davis has been thrilled at the chance to rub shoulders with some of his idols.
"The best part has been meeting lots of players like Wayne Rooney," he told British newspapers.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
The math behind the Rupee's strength
July 31, 2007 16:40 IST
Another week, another landmark for the Indian Rupee. It touched Rs 40.20 early this week - a level last seen nine years ago. As it goes from strength to strength, the Rupee has shaken up the complacency inherent in the Reserve Bank of India-supported-exchange rate regime.
As the Indian economy gradually meshes in with its peers globally, newer and alternative avenues of funds, and their uses, are opening up for the Indian investor. This has seen a flurry of activity on a whole host of fronts.
With the lowering of tax and quantitative barriers, imports surged ahead of exports as the growing Indian economy demanded more than what was produced indigenously. Software and financial service exports bridged this negative trade balance very effectively and helped this account of current transfers.
These 'invisible' inflows helped shore up the FY07 current account deficit. It was a mere $423 m more than what it was for the earlier year while its share in GDP shrank from -1.3% to -1.2% in FY07.
Going forward we expect the export performance to suffer as competitiveness of Indian goods and services, sold in a buyers market, reduces with the Rupee appreciating 13% YoY. But India's ever-increasing appetite for crude oil and capital goods imports will enlarge the current account deficit, gradually increasing the demand for dollars.
Source: RBI
Indians look for other funds
Despite the common perception of the sharp Rupee appreciation in April 2007 being due to foreign investment into India, the net inflows under this head for FY07 were actually lower by $1.7 billion than what they were in FY06.
Regardless of foreign capital pouring into India (up $12 billion over earlier year), Indians with deep pockets seized the opportunity to integrate vertically through global buyouts thus pushing all those dollars out of the country yet again.
Thus due to Indian corporates buying overseas assets, incremental investment into India has actually reduced from $17bn in FY06 to $15 billion in FY07.
What actually happened was a doubling of external commercial borrowings in the last quarter of FY07. With hindsight, the RBI's raising of interest rates by 5% in as many months seems to have backfired. Expensive domestic funds made Indian corporates access dollar-denominated loans to the extent of $21 billion in FY07 as compared to $6 billion in FY06.
This undermined the efficacy of monetary policy in the country. So now we have a situation where the Indian corporates are bypassing the banking sector for funds (incremental bank credit over March 2007 has been negative), and are either raising it through equity (IPOs and private placements) or through overseas debt.
So the good news is that the higher interest rates have not affected domestic capital formation yet. This is also evident from the robust growth of the capital goods industry.
Problems of plenty
All through the upheaval of the economic reforms process, RBI has ably maneuvered India. It has managed to steer clear of the 1997 Asian crisis despite the IMF, there has been unprecedented growth without excess inflation, public finances are in better shape, and enough funds are available for the right investor.
RBI's marriage of an appropriate exchange rate policy to support the domestic growth phenomenon was successful until November 2006 when the Rupee started to gradually appreciate against the US Dollar. However, it was the sudden inflows of the greenback since January 2007 that tested the RBI resolve to keep Indian exports competitive.
Even as the RBI tries to 'smooth the impact of bunching up seasonal of dollar inflows' (buying of dollars explained in RBI-speak), it has added significantly to the money supply of the economy. Though it has sterilised some of these inflows, there still is a lot of money sloshing around in the system that is not being lent out to deserving and productive investment projects.
And this can potentially trigger another bout of inflationary tendencies or asset price bubbles within the Indian economy. Unfortunately for the RBI, this has coincided with the dollar itself weakening against the world currencies as the US economy grapples with large current account deficits and the overhang of sub-prime loans on its financial system.
So the RBI has to fight that much harder to support the progressively weaker dollar. Not surprisingly, the Rupee halted its appreciation against the Euro after the European central bank recently raised the interest rates.
Domestic interest rates � Key to the future
With expectations of global interest rates inching upwards as most countries face higher inflation, the arbitrage opportunity in the cost of funds will reduce. If this is accompanied by lower interest rates within India, business should flow back into the Indian financial system, stemming the tide of external borrowings.
Prospects of a brilliant future will continue to attract foreign investors into investing a part of their 'risky' portfolio into India. But her imperfect power supply scenario and the long gestation period required in righting its imbalance, will necessarily limit investments.
Just as any adversity is a blessing in disguise, investment into India's shoddy infrastructure itself can potentially catapult the GDP growth into double digits for years to come. At some later date, this will set up a chain of higher foreign currency inflows that would further strengthen the Rupee.
As long as India suffers from shoddy political will on these issues, progress would probably be in spurts, and that too at gunpoint, rather than a well-defined and planned exercise.
The current domestic savings of 34% of GDP and a 1.5% of GDP current account deficit will suffice for funding an annual average GDP growth of about 8% to 9%. Any surpassing of this rate can come mostly from a faster pace of growth in agriculture and/or efficiency gains across industries with extensive computerisation.
These productivity gains are deflationary and will help keep Indian interest rates down, fuelling further growth on domestic funding.
For the present, the strengthening Rupee juggernaut can halt with any move by the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to raise interest rates coupled with some easing of the domestic interest rates in India.
Another week, another landmark for the Indian Rupee. It touched Rs 40.20 early this week - a level last seen nine years ago. As it goes from strength to strength, the Rupee has shaken up the complacency inherent in the Reserve Bank of India-supported-exchange rate regime.
As the Indian economy gradually meshes in with its peers globally, newer and alternative avenues of funds, and their uses, are opening up for the Indian investor. This has seen a flurry of activity on a whole host of fronts.
With the lowering of tax and quantitative barriers, imports surged ahead of exports as the growing Indian economy demanded more than what was produced indigenously. Software and financial service exports bridged this negative trade balance very effectively and helped this account of current transfers.
These 'invisible' inflows helped shore up the FY07 current account deficit. It was a mere $423 m more than what it was for the earlier year while its share in GDP shrank from -1.3% to -1.2% in FY07.
Going forward we expect the export performance to suffer as competitiveness of Indian goods and services, sold in a buyers market, reduces with the Rupee appreciating 13% YoY. But India's ever-increasing appetite for crude oil and capital goods imports will enlarge the current account deficit, gradually increasing the demand for dollars.
Source: RBI
Indians look for other funds
Despite the common perception of the sharp Rupee appreciation in April 2007 being due to foreign investment into India, the net inflows under this head for FY07 were actually lower by $1.7 billion than what they were in FY06.
Regardless of foreign capital pouring into India (up $12 billion over earlier year), Indians with deep pockets seized the opportunity to integrate vertically through global buyouts thus pushing all those dollars out of the country yet again.
Thus due to Indian corporates buying overseas assets, incremental investment into India has actually reduced from $17bn in FY06 to $15 billion in FY07.
What actually happened was a doubling of external commercial borrowings in the last quarter of FY07. With hindsight, the RBI's raising of interest rates by 5% in as many months seems to have backfired. Expensive domestic funds made Indian corporates access dollar-denominated loans to the extent of $21 billion in FY07 as compared to $6 billion in FY06.
This undermined the efficacy of monetary policy in the country. So now we have a situation where the Indian corporates are bypassing the banking sector for funds (incremental bank credit over March 2007 has been negative), and are either raising it through equity (IPOs and private placements) or through overseas debt.
So the good news is that the higher interest rates have not affected domestic capital formation yet. This is also evident from the robust growth of the capital goods industry.
Problems of plenty
All through the upheaval of the economic reforms process, RBI has ably maneuvered India. It has managed to steer clear of the 1997 Asian crisis despite the IMF, there has been unprecedented growth without excess inflation, public finances are in better shape, and enough funds are available for the right investor.
RBI's marriage of an appropriate exchange rate policy to support the domestic growth phenomenon was successful until November 2006 when the Rupee started to gradually appreciate against the US Dollar. However, it was the sudden inflows of the greenback since January 2007 that tested the RBI resolve to keep Indian exports competitive.
Even as the RBI tries to 'smooth the impact of bunching up seasonal of dollar inflows' (buying of dollars explained in RBI-speak), it has added significantly to the money supply of the economy. Though it has sterilised some of these inflows, there still is a lot of money sloshing around in the system that is not being lent out to deserving and productive investment projects.
And this can potentially trigger another bout of inflationary tendencies or asset price bubbles within the Indian economy. Unfortunately for the RBI, this has coincided with the dollar itself weakening against the world currencies as the US economy grapples with large current account deficits and the overhang of sub-prime loans on its financial system.
So the RBI has to fight that much harder to support the progressively weaker dollar. Not surprisingly, the Rupee halted its appreciation against the Euro after the European central bank recently raised the interest rates.
Domestic interest rates � Key to the future
With expectations of global interest rates inching upwards as most countries face higher inflation, the arbitrage opportunity in the cost of funds will reduce. If this is accompanied by lower interest rates within India, business should flow back into the Indian financial system, stemming the tide of external borrowings.
Prospects of a brilliant future will continue to attract foreign investors into investing a part of their 'risky' portfolio into India. But her imperfect power supply scenario and the long gestation period required in righting its imbalance, will necessarily limit investments.
Just as any adversity is a blessing in disguise, investment into India's shoddy infrastructure itself can potentially catapult the GDP growth into double digits for years to come. At some later date, this will set up a chain of higher foreign currency inflows that would further strengthen the Rupee.
As long as India suffers from shoddy political will on these issues, progress would probably be in spurts, and that too at gunpoint, rather than a well-defined and planned exercise.
The current domestic savings of 34% of GDP and a 1.5% of GDP current account deficit will suffice for funding an annual average GDP growth of about 8% to 9%. Any surpassing of this rate can come mostly from a faster pace of growth in agriculture and/or efficiency gains across industries with extensive computerisation.
These productivity gains are deflationary and will help keep Indian interest rates down, fuelling further growth on domestic funding.
For the present, the strengthening Rupee juggernaut can halt with any move by the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to raise interest rates coupled with some easing of the domestic interest rates in India.
RIL set to be India's first $100-bn m-cap firm
Reliance Industries Ltd, India's most valued firm, may become the first in the country to achieve a market capitalisation of $100 billion, international brokerage and equity research major Morgan Stanley said on Tuesday.
Morgan Stanley's India-based analysts said in a research note sent to the firm's institutional clients that they were raising the consolidated earnings forecasts for RIL in the current and next fiscals.
They also revised upward their one-year price target for RIL shares, while projecting a 35 per cent surge from the current levels in its 'base case' scenario.
Morgan Stanley further said in 'bull case' scenario, the shares could rise by about 37 per cent, which when translated into market capitalisation would amount to over $100 billion.
RIL's market cap currently stands at about $64 billion, the highest for any listed entity in the country.
However, this pales in comparison to the US, where the most valued listed entity ExxonMobil, which is also into the energy business, has a market value of close to $485 billion.
None of the Indian companies have ever achieved this mark, even though at least 30 companies in the US have a market capitalisation of more than $100 billion.
These include tobacco giant Altria Group, insurance major AIG, telecom firm AT&T, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Google, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, JP Morgan, Johnson and Johnson, Merck, Microsoft, Procter and Gamble, Verizon Communications and Wal-Mart.
The combined market cap of all the 30 constituents of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the benchmark index of the US market, is more than four trillion dollars, which is over four times the entire market capitalisation of all the listed entities here in India.
In comparison, the cumulative market cap of the 30 companies present on Sensex, the Indian market's benchmark index, is less than $500 billion.
Morgan Stanley said the key value drivers for RIL going ahead were the increased reserve base for the company's exploration and production business, robust performance in refinery business, signing gas contracts with various consumers, higher global refining margins and the setting up of pan-India retail network.
However, it also noted reduction in import tariffs and the rupee appreciation versus the US dollar and potential delays in the execution of the company's business plan as some potential key risks.
Morgan Stanley noted that RIL has reported strong first quarter results with a 28 per cent net profit growth, which was 8 per cent ahead of expectations
Morgan Stanley's India-based analysts said in a research note sent to the firm's institutional clients that they were raising the consolidated earnings forecasts for RIL in the current and next fiscals.
They also revised upward their one-year price target for RIL shares, while projecting a 35 per cent surge from the current levels in its 'base case' scenario.
Morgan Stanley further said in 'bull case' scenario, the shares could rise by about 37 per cent, which when translated into market capitalisation would amount to over $100 billion.
RIL's market cap currently stands at about $64 billion, the highest for any listed entity in the country.
However, this pales in comparison to the US, where the most valued listed entity ExxonMobil, which is also into the energy business, has a market value of close to $485 billion.
None of the Indian companies have ever achieved this mark, even though at least 30 companies in the US have a market capitalisation of more than $100 billion.
These include tobacco giant Altria Group, insurance major AIG, telecom firm AT&T, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Google, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, JP Morgan, Johnson and Johnson, Merck, Microsoft, Procter and Gamble, Verizon Communications and Wal-Mart.
The combined market cap of all the 30 constituents of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the benchmark index of the US market, is more than four trillion dollars, which is over four times the entire market capitalisation of all the listed entities here in India.
In comparison, the cumulative market cap of the 30 companies present on Sensex, the Indian market's benchmark index, is less than $500 billion.
Morgan Stanley said the key value drivers for RIL going ahead were the increased reserve base for the company's exploration and production business, robust performance in refinery business, signing gas contracts with various consumers, higher global refining margins and the setting up of pan-India retail network.
However, it also noted reduction in import tariffs and the rupee appreciation versus the US dollar and potential delays in the execution of the company's business plan as some potential key risks.
Morgan Stanley noted that RIL has reported strong first quarter results with a 28 per cent net profit growth, which was 8 per cent ahead of expectations
Monday, July 30, 2007
TCS announces Q1 results
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) has announced the following Audited Results for the quarter ended June 30, 2007The Company has posted a profit after taxes of Rs 10738.50 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2007 where as the same was at Rs 7966.90 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2006. Total Income is Rs 43357.40 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2007 where as the same was at Rs 34328.50 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2006.The Consolidated Results are as follows:The Group has posted a net profit for the period of Rs 12029.30 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2007 where as the same was at Rs 8826.60 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2006. Total Income is Rs 53646.70 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2007 where as the same was at Rs 42256.20 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2006.
Source: BSE India Type: Announcements
Source: BSE India Type: Announcements
TCS, Ferrari forge closer alliances
It is not just the drivers and the technicians who work on the cars who make Grand Prix wins possible.The computer engineers from India are just as responsible. It was three years ago that the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was hired by Ferrari to meet its IT needs.A first for an Indian company to get on to the racetrack and now that contract is set to grow. The two companies have grown closer with Ferrari's reliance on TCS also increasing.At the start there were a handful of engineers assigned to the Ferrari project, now there are over 30 in Maranello alone and a similar number in Chennai who work on the company's solutions.And the work now includes not just the formula one cars but also Ferrari's road cars like the best selling F430 and 612 Scaglietti.
Source: Asian CERC Type: Tie-Ups /Collab/Joint/MoUs
Source: Asian CERC Type: Tie-Ups /Collab/Joint/MoUs
Sunday, July 29, 2007
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