A Comprehensive Technical Analysis Programmes aimed to make you a Profitable Trader and achieve 100% return per annum on your Investment IN MCX & STOCK MARKET SPECIALLY IN GOLD MARKETIndia on Thursday approved 14 foreign direct investment proposals totally worth 8.26 billion rupees ($193 million), including in electrical-products maker Havells India Ltd.
Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram approved the issue of shares and convertible warrants by Havells for 2.78 billion rupees, the government said in a statement.
The rupee eased on Thursday after global crude prices inched up toward record highs, pushing up dollar demand from oil refiners to meet their month-end import commitments. The partially convertible rupee ended at 42.785/795 per dollar on Thursday off an intraday low of 42.93, and 0.12 percent weaker from its previous close of 42.73/74. It hit a 13-month low of 43.21 last week.
"The rupee weakened due to month-end dollar demand from oil companies, but a lot of state-run banks were selling below the 42.90 level," L. Subramanian, chief currency dealer at ICICI Bank, said. Oil was trading around $130 a barrel on Thursday after hitting a record $135 last week. India imports more than two-thirds of its oil needs and higher prices inflate the trade deficit. Refiners are the biggest buyers of dollars in the local market. A $10 per barrel increase in oil prices widens India’s trade deficit by $6-$7 billion, JP Morgan said.
India’s main stock index ended down 1.3 percent and equity outflows have also weighed on the rupee. Foreigners have sold $3.74 billion of stocks so far in 2008, with the index down 19.6 percent since the start of the year, after pumping in a record $17.4 billion in 2007. "State-run banks are not expected to allow the rupee to depreciate too much and 42.50 to 43 should be the range for the rupee in the next few days," Subramanian said. Dealers also said the central bank may have intervened in the market at 42.75-42.93 levels to prevent the rupee from falling sharply.
Business executives will soon be able to make presentations in distant countries through their virtual presence in the meeting halls, thanks to Australian telecommunications and media company Telstra’s new technology that can create a person’s hologram.
The company used a hologram to beam its Chief Technology Officer, Dr Hugh Bradlow, live into Adelaide from Melbourne to give a speech at a major function for senior business executives. Dr Bradlow addressed and interacted with the audience for around 15 minutes and conducted a realtime media conference following the function.
He revealed that their Musion Eyeliner System enabled them to beam his mobile three-dimensional image from one city to the other to give a live business presentation. “In Melbourne, we have a high definition video camera which is filming me as I stand here,” Dr Bradlow said. “That signal is being taped across the network and the far end is using a very smart optical projection system to create a holograph, or my virtual presence, in Adelaide.”
Dr Bradlow said that a big, flat panel LCD screen enabled him to see who he was talking to in Adelaide , and thus facilitated the real time interaction. “It has the look and feel of being in the same room together,” he said.
“You can envisage this being used in education, in entertainment, in news media as a holographic system, but the whole class of telepresence systems is going to be across all businesses ,” he added. David Thodey, Telstra’s group managing director for enterprise and government, added: “We’ve all seen this sort of thing in futuristic sci-fi movies, but the reality is that it can be done here.”
He also said that the new technology may start entering business houses in four to five years, and eventually in homes.
“In the next few years, as your broadband speeds start to go faster, a step from there to a hologram is not very far,” Thodey said. “I think it is at least four or five years away (for business) before that will be the case because the technology has to come down in price,” he added. “This next generation network is changing the way we live and work.”
Buoyed by a decline in the value of rupee, Indian expats in Kuwait are turning all stops to send maximum remittances back home. The remittances by Indian expats there have increased substantially in last three weeks, media reports said.
While the rupee jumped by 12 per cent last year, the surge in oil prices and other factors led to its decline by 8.2 per cent in 2008. A Kuwaiti Dinar (KD), which fetched Rs 143.5 in January, is now pegged at Rs 162.
Titus E D, the director and general manager of Bahrain Exchange Company (BEC), said the current situation presented an opportune time for Indian expatriates."This is a win-win situation and NRIs should try to capitalise by remitting maximum money. The depreciation of rupee would not last for long. By the year end, I believe, the currency would rise against the dollar due to poor showing by the greenback," he told ’Arab Times’.
A substantial number of Indians are remitting their money through the door-to-door medium which is an efficient service, Titus said.A contract worker from Bihar said he remitted Rs 50,000 to his bank account in India recently.
"I borrowed KD 100 from friends since I did not want to miss out on this golden opportunity. Thanks to the weak rupee, the purchasing power of my family back home has increased substantially. I am planning to borrow more money to be sent home," he added. Another NRI worker, Mohammad Iqbal, said he had saved around KD 350 for his upcoming vacation and had already sent the entire amount to his bank account in Mumbai to capitalise on the weak rupee.
Telecom tribunal TDSAT on Thursday asked public sector operator BSNL to restore connection to Bharti Airtel in parts of Bangalore, as sought by the latter, on payment of 65 per cent of the disputed sum.
The PSU had disconnected Bharti Airtel from its points of interconnection in Malleswaram, located in north-west Bangalore last week, over non payment of dues of Rs 66 crore.
During the proceedings on Thursday, TDSAT chairman Justice Arun Kumar directed BSNL to restore Airtel’s connection to its network within 48 hours of payment of Rs 35 crore.
BSNL had demanded "Rs 66.30 crore, out of which the petitioner (Airtel) has already paid Rs 4.7 crore... (It) would pay Rs 35 crore within two weeks from today and respondent (BSNL) is directed to restore POIs (point of interconnection)" Justice Kumar said.
If Airtel pays the amount earlier, then BSNL would have to restore POIs within 24 hours.
However, Justice Kumar declined Airtel’s plea for an immediate restoration as BSNL said it would not restore the connection without getting the money.
"It is a matter of disconnection. In such cases there is urgency to every one, even to us," submitted BSNL’s counsel, opposing Airtel’s plea to restore the POIs immediately on submission of an undertaking.
BSNL also rejected Airtel’s plea for restoration after payment of only 50 per cent of the disputed sum.
On this, TDSAT Chairmam told both telecom operators, "do not fight for a few crores".
India will review bans on exports of wheat and basmati rice, but shipments of other grades of rice will not be allowed at least until November, the country’s farm minister, Sharad Pawar, told Reuters.
India last exported wheat in the 2003/04 fiscal year and became an importer in the past two years, but a bumper crop has helped the government purchase from local farmers a record 24.8 million tonnes of the staple this year.
Pawar said on Thursday that a government panel, called the empowered group of ministers (EGOM), would soon consider lifting the ban on wheat exports.
"We will think. There is an EGOM. We will discuss it in the EGOM," Pawar said.
He said India had 5.8 million tonnes of wheat on April 1 against a target of 4 million tonnes and the record procurement had helped stocks swell so much that the government had enough supplies for 21 months for subsidised supply to the poor and other welfare schemes.
But controls on non-basmati rice exports would continue at least until November, when summer-sown paddy would be harvested as the government would take no chances with domestic supply, Pawar said.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation raised on Thursday its rice output forecast for 2008 by 1 million tonnes to 667 million tonnes on the back of improved outlook from Cambodia, but said food prices would remain high for a decade.
Pawar said he favoured lifting the ban only for basmati rice exports as the premium grade of grain was either exported or consumed by the rich, not used for subsidised supply to the poor.
"If farmers want to earn a little bit of money, basmati is the crop where they can earn some money. Not a single grain of basmati comes to my kitty for the public distribution system."
Pawar said rival suppliers may push out India from the international basmati market if exports were not resumed and that would hurt Indian farmers, who would find it difficult to regain their market share.
He said the government was keen, but not in a hurry, to help neighbouring countries, which have asked the Indian government to supply rice.
"For the time being, no. We are eager to help. I have got requests from many neighbouring countries. Procurement will take at least three months to get completed and then we will access the situation," he said.
Rice prices have eased from record highs set in late April on signs that global supplies will improve and expectations that Vietnam will lift export curbs from July. Cambodia decided on Monday to lift a two-month export ban.
The finance ministry and Reserve Bank have reservations on the computation of inflation data on a monthly basis, a senior Government official said ON Thursday.
"Everybody from the committee (on new WPI series) has supported moving to a monthly data, except for the finance ministry and RBI, which want it on a weekly basis," Mr Pronab Sen, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation said here.
The Finance Minister, Mr P Chidambaram will have to meet the Reserve Bank to reach a consensus on the committee’s suggestions to have a new series of WPI on a monthly basis, he said on the sidelines of a function to release the results of the Fifth Econo mic Census.
A committee, headed by Planning Commission member, Mr Abhijit Sen that is formulating the new WPI series has advocated a monthly release of data with a two-week lag, Mr Pronab said.
Professing the need for a monthly data, he said weekly figures on wholesale prices released by the Government create huge volatility in both commodities and stock markets.
"Every body is reacting to the current weekly rather than the revised figures, which are a month old, and that creates volatility that is completely unnecessary," Mr Pronab added.
The Abijit Sen committee is expected to submit its report soon. The new series is likely to have a base year of 2004-05 instead of 1993-94, which is followed at present, and the number of items covered under the index would be increased to 900 from 450.
"Increase in the number of items would make the WPI more comprehensive," Mr Pronab added. The Government, in due course also plans to move towards a Producer Price Index, comprising the Wholesale Price Index and the proposed Service Price Index. - PTI
Shares in Reliance Communications, which is in talks with South Africa’s MTN, rose more than 6 percent on Thursday after a brokerage said the deal was positive and it expected a rebound in the stock.
The stock rose as much as 6.5 percent to 587.70, taking it to its highest since last Friday, the last day of trading before the talks about a possible tie-up with MTN were announced. The stock had lost 3.6 percent on Monday.
Macquarie Research analysts referred to media reports of a share swap between Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), 66 percent owner of Reliance Communications, and MTN, that would see MTN become the largest shareholder in Reliance Communications and ADAG in turn becoming the biggest controlling shareholder in MTN.
"This deal structure would require no equity dilution and/or issuance of new debt at RCOM, which makes the deal doable," Macquarie Research analysts said in a report.
Macquarie has an outperform rating on Reliance Communications stock with a 12-month price target of 865 rupees, 57 percent higher than its Wednesday closing price of 551.6 rupees.
"We see the deal as positive for RCOM due to the ramp-up in non-wireless businesses and we expect the sale of shares to MTN to be at a premium to RCOM’s current price," the report said.
A deal with MTN would help Reliance Communications’ international unit, Reliance Globalcom, to tap emerging markets in Africa and the Middle East for its non-wireless businesses.
If MTN acquired a stake of 15 percent or more in Reliance Communications, Indian law would require it to make an open offer for a further 20 percent.
"We believe the open offer is likely at a premium to RCOM’s current stock price," the analysts said.
Reliance Communications stepped into a gap left by India’s top mobile firm, Bharti Airtel, which said at the weekend it had ended talks with MTN after failing to agree how to structure a deal.
The Macquarie analysts said a merger of Bharti and MTN would have required significant equity dilution and debt issuance by the Indian mobile firm.
Separately, JPMorgan analysts said that given India’s 74 percent limit on foreign ownership in telecom companies, MTN would be able to acquire about 61 percent of Reliance Communications, and in turn ADAG would be able to own 33 percent stake in MTN Group.
A turbulent stock market notwithstanding, India Inc has raised more than four billion dollars through IPOs in 2008, but had it not been for Anil Ambani-led Reliance Power, this amount would have been just about one-fourth.
The 4.2-billion-dollar raised through 21 IPOs since the beginning of 2008 marks an increase of 62 per cent from 2.6 billion dollars raised through 50 deals in the same period in 2007, according to global deal data provider Dealogic.
However, excluding the Reliance Power IPO, that mopped up a record three billion dollars, the Indian IPO market fell by 52 per cent in volume in 2008 as against the same period in 2007, Dealogic said.
About four billion dollar raised through IPOs in the first quarter of 2008 is also the second highest for a quarter in the Indian capital’s history after over five billion dollar raised in fourth quarter of 2006.
Besides, Deutsche Bank has been ranked as the leading bookrunner of the Indian IPOs, accounting for 16 per cent market share so far in 2008, it added.
Reliance Power IPO issue managers were ABN Amro, Deutsche Bank, Enam Financial Consultants, ICICI Bank, JM Financial, JP Morgan, Kotak Mahindra Finance and UBS.
Although, firms managed to raise 4.2 billion dollars this year also witnessed three IPO withdrawals including that of Emaar MGF, Wockhardt and SVEC Constructions.
The three IPOs had to be withdrawn because of the low response received from investors due to meltdown in the secondary Markets and weak global cues.
Other successful IPOs in the first five months include state-run Rural Electrification Corporation (REC), Future Capital Holdings, Anu Laboratories and Gammon Infrastructure projects.
Meanwhile, a host of firms have filed their draft prospectus with market regulator SEBI recently for entering the capital market and experts believe the coming months may lead to improved situations in the primary Markets.
Around four draft offers have been filed by firms in May itself which include -- Adani Power, retail firm Gini and Jony, Infinite Computer Solutions and Triveni Infrastructure Development Company.
Besides, in April, six firms including Bharat Oman Refinery, Rites Ltd and VRL Logistics had filed their draft offers with the regulator.
Employment generation in the country has increased considerably in the eight-year period ending 2005 as compared to 1990-98, says Economic Census released by the government Thursday.
The employment grew at the rate of 2.78 per cent in 1998-2005, which is much higher than the 1.75 per cent recorded during 1990-98, the fifth Economic Census report said.
The report, compiled by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), said that Jammu and Kashmir emerged as the state with maximum employment growth of 6.82 per cent followed by Andhra Pradesh (5.87 per cent), Kerala (5.86 per cent) and Haryana (5.35 per cent).
The report further said, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh were the two main employment-providing states followed by Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh provided maximum employment in the rural areas (13.14 per cent of the total rural employment), followed by West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, UP, Kerala and Maharashtra.
Among the urban-employment providers, Maharashtra topped the list providing the maximum employment at 14.10 per cent of total urban employment.
Referring to the non-agricultural activities, the report observed that such activities in the rural areas were more compared to urban areas, evident by the fact that number of non-agricultural establishments in rural areas was 19.83 million as against 15.92 million in the urban areas.
In non-agricultural activities, the manufacturing sector scored the maximum with 25.48 million workers engaged in it.
This was followed by retail trade (25.14 million workers) and education (7.49 million workers).
Other major area of employment was farming of animals, which employed 9.2 million workers.
Also, the report observed, number of establishments grew significantly during the period. Rural areas showed a higher growth rate (5.37 per cent) compared to urban areas (3.69 per cent).
Pointing out that there was positive growth in all the states except Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Islands, the report said highest growth rate in establishments was marked in Mizoram, Tripura, Kerala and Tamil Nadu which grew above 8 per cent.
Interestingly, Delhi and Goa registered a negative growth rate in rural areas, while Bihar, Nagaland, Lakshadweep and A&N Islands saw a negative growth in urban areas, the report said.
A decision on raising retail fuel prices and partly compensating revenue losses of oil firms will be taken by Saturday, even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday assessed the problems caused by the spike in crude prices.
"Hopefully, by day after tomorrow, we will have a solution," Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told reporters after a meeting with the Prime Minister and key ministers in New Delhi.
A meeting of the Cabinet, which was to have taken up the matter, has been postponed, he said.
Any hike in prices would be accompanied by a duty rejig to help state-run oil Companies curtail revenue losses that are pegged at Rs 225,000 crore for this fiscal on account of crude prices touching a record level in the global market.
"The Prime Minister and Finance Minister saw papers of revenue losses and the price increase in the international market. They realised very much that we need to help (PSU oil Companies) on a war-footing," Deora said.
Singh would also discuss the issue with Congress President and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, the Petroleum Minister said, adding that these decisions (price hike) were outside his jurisdiction.
The Petroleum Ministry has been pushing for a combination of duty cuts and price hike (Rs 10 per litre in petrol, Rs 5 a litre in diesel and Rs 50 per LPG cylinder) to bail out PSUs IOC, HPCL and BPCL that are on the verge of running out of cash in the next 2-3 months to import crude.
"Somethings have been agreed at today’s meeting, but I cannot say what the Cabinet will decide," Deora said after the meeting that was attended by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary T K Nair.
India’s top two cities, Delhi and Mumbai, continue to be amongst the ten most expensive office Markets of the world in the league of other places like London, Moscow, Tokyo, Paris and Singapore.
According to a latest study by realty consultant CB Richard Ellis, Mumbai has been ranked 4th in the list of 50 most expensive office Markets, slipping from its last year’s second position. On the other hand, Delhi moved up a place to 7th from last year’s rankings.
"The drop is not due to rentals in Mumbai falling, but because of a significant increase in rentals in London and Moscow," CB Richard Ellis Chairman and Managing Director (South Asia) Anshuman Magazine said.
He said the positions of Mumbai and Delhi were still very high and was reflective of the tight supply of prime office space and of demand remaining constantly active.
London topped the list of most expensive office Markets, followed by Moscow and Tokyo. In May, the monthly rentals in Mumbai and New Delhi were recorded at 210.97 dollar per sq ft and 145.16 dollar per sq ft respectively. The rentals in London stood at 299.54 dollar a sq ft in a month, the consultant estimated.
Paris, Singapore and Dubai also found places in the list at 8th, 9th and 10th positions respectively.
Besides, Mumbai also found a berth at 8th place in the list of world’s top 50 fastest growing Markets in terms of occupancy costs with 40.7 per cent rise in the last one year.
The top three positions were held by Ho Chi Minh City (94.4 per cent), Moscow (92.7 per cent) and Singapore (86 per cent) respectively, CBRE said.
Bangalore and New Delhi were also included in the list with 22.6 per cent and 15.3 per cent increase in cost, which in turn placed the cities in 22nd and 45th positions, it added.
State-run Indian Oil Corp on Wednesday announced a standalone net loss of Rs 414.27 crore for the quarter ended March 31, against a net profit of Rs 1,502.69 crore in the corresponding period last year.
The total income of the company rose to Rs 71,792.82 crore for the quarter under review, from Rs 53,818.75 crore in the same period a year-ago, IOC said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.
The company’s board has declared a dividend of 55 per cent for the year 2007-08. That is, for every share of face value Rs 10 the shareholder would get a dividend of Rs 5.50.
For the year ended March 31, 2008, IOC reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 7,912.74 crore, against a net profit of Rs 7,867.45 crore in the year-ago period.
The total income rose to Rs 2,32,558.62 crore in FY’08, from Rs 2,02,694 crore in the year-ago period.
IOC announced a standalone net profit of Rs 6,962.58 crore for FY’08, a 7.16 per cent decline over the previous fiscal. The firm had a net profit of Rs 7,499.47 crore in FY’07.
The total income rose to Rs 2,49,169.16 crore in FY’08, from Rs 2,17,533.82 crore in the year-ago period.
Shares of IOC closed at Rs 428, up 1.53 per cent on the BSE.
The Madras High Court has ordered notice to Web portal Rediff.com and its owner Mr Sandeep Goyal, on a petition from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), seeking the court to restrain the former from using the domain name indianfant asyleague.com, in an online cricket game in Rediff.com.
The BCCI moved the court yesterday praying for restraining the respondent from using the trademark or domain name Indian Fantasy League and a logo depicting a batsman playing a shot in the game, as they were deceptively similar to BCCI’s Indian Premier L eague (IPL) trademark and the logo.
Justice Mr M Sathiyanarayanan, before whom the case came up, posted to June 10, for further hearing in the case.
The BCCI also sought a direction to Mr Goyal and Rediff.com to render a true and faithful account of all profits earned by them by using the impugned trademark "IFL" as well as the logo, and claimed damages to the tune of Rs 10 lakh.
The cash-rich IPL has just entered its last stages, with all semifinalists being spotted with Chennai Super Kings’ win over Deccan Chargers last night. - PTI
The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC) wants the Government to pay its employees in phased manner and deposit part of the estimated arrear of 18,000 crore in their Provident Fund while implementing the Sixth Pay panel report to m inimise its impact on inflation.
"Since the payment of arrears in cash could result in marginal rise in inflation rate due to spurt in demand for various products, EAC has said that the Government should consider depositing part of the arrears due to employees in provident fund and pay the remaining amount in a phased manner," official sources said.
The Council headed by noted economist and former Reserve Bank Governor, Dr C Rangarajan, is of the opinion that the payment of arrears in one go could result in further rise in prices, especially of manufactured goods and consumer products.
"The Government had paid the arrears in a phased manner while implementing the report of previous Pay Commissions, so it can consider it again," Dr Rangarajan had earlier told PTI.
The council, which advises Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh on important economic matters, had earlier said the inflation rate could come down to 5 to 5.5 per cent after about four months following good monsoon and measures taken by the Government.
Inflation, however, has already crossed 8 per cent mark, and the analysts fear that it could soon touch 10 per cent mark if the hike in international crude oil prices is partly passed on to the consumers. - PTI
Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Jerry Yang said on Wednesday a potential deal with Microsoft has tremendous power, but the software giant appears no longer interested in a full merger. In his most public comments to date about his thinking on the four-month-old, on-again, off-again Microsoft merger saga, Yang signaled his company remained open to a potential deal, but said Microsoft had ruled out a merger for now.
Earlier this month, Microsoft walked away from a proposal to acquire Yahoo for $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, after Yahoo rebuffed its offer, saying it would only settle for $37 a share."We did not walk away from that proposal. Microsoft did," Yang said during an on-stage interview at the D: All Things Digital conference taking place near San Diego on Wednesday. He said he had felt a combination with Microsoft would have had a "tremendous amount of power."
In mid-May the two Companies said they had begun discussions on an unspecified deal that is short of a merger."Microsoft is no longer interested in buying the company, and we are talking about other things. We definitely have to understand what they’re proposing...they clearly have an interest in Yahoo, and we need to understand more," Yang said.
Last week, a source familiar with the latest round of discussions said Microsoft has proposed buying Yahoo’s search business and taking a minority stake in the Web pioneer, but has stopped stopping short of reinitiating full merger negotiations. As part of such a deal, Yahoo would sell its Asian assets including significant minority stakes in Yahoo Japan and China’s Alibaba Group, while Microsoft would buy a chunk of what remains of the company, the source said.
In an on-stage interview at the "D" conference on Tuesday, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer suggested discussions had broken down largely over price. "It became clear there was a difference between the bid and ask," he said, using stock trader terms.In its original unsolicited takeover offer in late January, Microsoft offered $31 a share in a half-cash, half-stock bid, to buy Yahoo, which valued it at $44.6 billion. Yahoo responded by saying it was open to a deal but the offer was too low.
Ballmer repeated on Tuesday that Microsoft had "moved on" but stopped short of saying the mating dance between Microsoft and Yahoo was over. "We are not rebidding for the company," he said, but added: "We reserve the right to do so."
In the Wednesday interview conducted by Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg, Yang said a merger with Microsoft would involve a variety of issues beyond price. He said discussions between the two had never thoroughly explored such non-price hurdles, including regulatory issues.
Yahoo President Susan Decker, appearing alongside Yang on stage, said price had always been the biggest barrier to reaching agreement on a deal with Microsoft."We never got through the price door ... once we could have gone through it, then other issues could have been discussed."
Yang argued a competing deal between Yahoo and Google made sense but no deal had been reached. Last month, the Companies conducted a two-week test where Yahoo hired Google to run advertising sales alongside Yahoo search results.
"It makes a lot of sense, but if we do something, we will talk about it," Yang said, adding the "level at which Yahoo can fully partner with Google has not been fully appreciated by the marketplace." In the wake of the breakdown of the Microsoft takeover talks, Yang defended his one year on the job as CEO and said he believed he was the right person to lead Yahoo into a new era of growth, even if the company must invest heavily to do so.
"I do think I am the best person to lead Yahoo," Yang said. He compared conflicting media reports about who was responsible for the failure to reach a deal to a romance gone bad: "It’s like you break up with your girlfriend in high school ... it pretty quickly becomes ’he said, she said’."
Yang reiterated what the company has been saying over the past year: that it "has a lot of work to do" and needs to make investments to reach management’s vision of a new Yahoo.
Its strategy involves tapping the underlying social connections of its roughly 500 million monthly visitors to become a "must buy" for advertisers.
One audience member complained to Yang she was having a hard time finding Yahoo mobile services on US smartphones. She was apologetic for drifting off the topic of Microsoft.
Yang was only too happy to answer: "Of all the questions I have been getting for the past four months, I am glad to get a technical question."
Opposing any move to hike petrol prices, the CPI(M) on Wednesday asked the government to impose a ’windfall profit tax’ on private and JV oil firms as well as private refineries and not burden the common people.
"In no case can the UPA government pamper the private oil Companies to make windfall profits and, at the same time, increase the price of petrol and diesel and burden the people further when they are suffering from steep price rise of essential commodities," CPI(M) Politburo said in a statement.
It recommended the imposition of ’windfall profit tax’ on private and joint venture oil producing firms as well as private standalone refineries ‘earning huge profits through import parity policy of pricing’.
“With crude prices exceeding 100 USD per barrel, it is necessary that windfall gains be recovered from all private and joint venture oil producing Companies like M/S Cairns, Reliance, Essar etc. extracting oil and gas in India," the statement said.
It added that when these contractors participated in the New Exploration Licensing Policy, "none of them could have envisaged crude prices beyond 30 USD a barrel."
"It would be a failure on government’s part to allow upstream contractors additional gain of 70-80 USD per barrel without any extra work," the party said, adding that many other countries had "renegotiated their contracts with a threat of imposing windfall taxes on such profits."
"It is time that the government takes charge and recovers unintended gains from upstream contractors," it said.
State-run refiner and retailer Indian Oil Corp will only be able to afford to buy crude at the current sky-high rates up until the end of September, company chairman S. Behuria said on Wednesday.
Oil firms are losing millions of dollars each day as they must sell their fuel at discounted rates set by the government and far below oil’s surge to around $130 a barrel on the world market. They have appealed for price hikes and duty cuts.
India’s Reliance Money, which on Wednesday announced its foray into China and Hong Kong, expects to generate 50 per cent of its revenues from overseas Markets in the next five years.
The financial products distribution firm has embarked on its plans for global expansion with an aim to set shop in about half a dozen locations overseas by the end of the current fiscal.
"Over the next five years, 50 per cent of our revenues will come from overseas Markets," Reliance Money Director and CEO Sudip Bandyopadhyay said in Hong Kong.
The company on Wednesday, launched its bouquet of financial services for retail investors in Hong Kong and China and has also tied up with leading broking firm in the region, Goldride Securities.
"Hong Kong will be our base for the East Asian region and going forward we will like to expand our presence in London and some neighbouring countries of India," Bandyopadhyay said.
"We will utilise the partnership with Goldride to expand our presence in countries such as Philippines and Kazakhstan," he added.
The company’s foray would also help Indian investors to invest in Hong Kong and Chinese Markets in addition to reaching out to the large base of Non-Resident Indians and Persons of Indian origin in the region to transact in Indian financial instruments.
Reliance Money now has a presence in UAE, Oman, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Two Federal Reserve policy makers warned on Wednesday that interest rate increases might be needed before too long to curb inflation, even as the United States struggles with a weak Economy.
The remarks solidified expectations that the Federal Open Market Committee has ended an aggressive rate-cutting campaign and could start to reverse its policy course late this year. Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher and Minneapolis Fed President Gary Stern, both voting members of the FOMC in 2008, said they are keeping a close eye on inflation expectations being dialled into financial Markets.
"If inflationary developments and, more important, inflation expectations, continue to worsen, I would expect a change of course in monetary policy to occur sooner rather than later, Fisher said in San Francisco. Rate increases could be made "even in the face of an anemic economic scenario," Fisher told the Commonwealth Club of California, adding that he did not expect a recession.
Fisher said it would be "unacceptable" for the Fed to be viewed as resigned to higher levels of inflation.That is a particular risk as the lagged impact of the Fed’s interest rate cuts starts to kick in, boosting economic growth at a time inflation is already "too high" and commodity prices are being pushed up by strong global demand. Earlier, Stern vowed that the Fed would act in an "appropriate and timely" way.
"The key to maintaining low inflation and inflation expectations is likely to be the timeliness and magnitude of decisions we make to reverse course" on interest rates, Stern told a local business group in Altoona, Wisconsin.
SO FAR SO GOOD?
The Fed monitors inflation expectations as a test of what assumptions are priced into Markets and, by implication, consumer behavior. Central bank officials have expressed concern the United States may face early signs of stagflation, the damaging combination of weak growth and wage-price spiral that hit the world’s biggest Economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Stern suggested the Fed had been able to hold the line. "Inflation expectations have remained reasonably well anchored so far, which is encouraging," he said.
Headline inflation, which includes food and energy prices, "is clearly too rapid for comfort," he said, adding that core measures "have been better behaved."The Fed lowered its federal funds rate to 2.0 percent in April, the latest in a string of cuts started in mid-September, when the rate was at 5.25 percent, to shield the US Economy from the fallout of a housing and credit crisis.
Fisher has been one of the Fed’s most vocal policy hawks this year, and on Wednesday termed inflation "a sinister beast" and the "enemy of capitalism." He has tallied three straight dissents against the FOMC’s decisions to lower interest rates.
"Growth cannot be sustained if Markets are undermined by inflation," Fisher said. "Stable prices go hand in hand with achieving sustainable economic growth."But Stern said the Fed was still walking a policy tightrope given the combination of weak growth and rising inflation pressures, that demands delicate action.
"We are seeing challenges on both sides of that (dual mandate) and I think we are simply going to have to navigate the minefield," he said.In particular, Stern said it was unclear if federal tax rebate checks now being mailed to millions of Americans would have an impact beyond one or two quarters.
Some forecasters fear that the United States faces a "double-dip" slowdown, with growth likely to pick up in the next few quarters on the back of the stimulus package, before fading again in late 2008 or early 2009.
Fisher said figures like Wednesday’s stronger-than-expected April durable goods orders, while hard to view in isolation, were a sign that the most disastrous outcomes predicted for the Economy have not played out.
"We’ll have anemic growth for a while, but to me, inflation is the bigger risk," he said.
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST
Separately, the FOMC will lose a voter with the departure of Frederic Mishkin, effective Aug. 31. The Fed’s usual line-up of seven governors, including the chairman and vice chairman, will dwindle to four because of two vacancies that have been unfilled for months.
"This will mean the departure of an influential dove," said David Sloan, analyst at 4CAST Ltd in New York.Mishkin, seen as an ally to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in his support of formal inflation targets, will return to his teaching post at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.
The Indian rupee is overvalued and should fall by 10 percent to about 48 per dollar but the central bank will support it to help state-run oil importers, a member of India’s convertibility panel said on Wednesday.
A.V. Rajwade, member of a 2006 central bank-appointed panel on capital account convertibility, said there was little historical evidence that a stronger rupee was effective in curbing inflation and many exporters were not strong enough to shield themselves from sharp currency gains.
The rupee rose more than 12 percent against the dollar in 2007 and touched its highest level in nearly 10 years at 39.16 per dollar in November.
But it has fallen nearly 9 percent so far in 2008 because of portfolio outflows and higher oil import costs, and hit a 13-month low of 43.21 last week. It stood at 42.85 on Wednesday. "The rupee had become absurdly overvalued in my view, probably around 15 to 18 percent, but the central bank will intervene by selling dollars to arrest the rupee’s fall to help oil Companies," Rajwade said. "They will have to keep intervening if they want to keep the rupee around 43 level or it will keep slipping," he said.
State-run oil retailers are losing millions of dollars a day selling fuel at discounted rates set by the government. The falling rupee has also increased import costs and with oil prices rising, India’s trade and current account deficits are widening. Economists estimate the trade deficit was $90 billion in 2007/08.
"You cannot have the rupee going up when the trade deficit is at $100 billion," Rajwade said.
Traders say the central bank intervened last week to slow the rupee’s fall, but analysts have been surprised that it did not step in sooner while inflation is running at 3-½ year high.
Other central banks in South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines and Indonesia have been propping up their currencies to temper the inflationary impact of rising oil prices. But Rajwade said China’s yuan and Brazil’s real had risen in the past few years and Brazil’s inflation was still 5 percent. "The yuan has appreciated about 15-18 percent and the inflation rate is very similar to India’s, so currency appreciation does not necessarily lead to lower inflation," he said.
The Reserve Bank of India bought $20.3 billion in the first quarter of 2008 to keep the rupee down and has been a net buyer of dollars in the currency market for more than two years. Rajwade said dollar selling by the central bank may drain rupee liquidity from the money Markets at a time when cash is already tight, eventually pushing bond yields higher.
The government gives bonds to oil retailers to compensate them for their losses, but Rajwade said this was inflationary in the long term as it did little to check demand-side pressures. Furthermore, monetary steps would do little to check high commodity prices as this was a supply-driven problem, he said. "None of these are very susceptible to monetary policy as you do not eat less because interest rates go up."
Giving incentives to farmers to produce more would help bridge the supply-demand gap rather than using price controls and subsidies, he said.
India’s economy probably grew last quarter at the slowest pace in 2 1/2 years as the highest interest rates since 2002 restrained consumer spending.
Asia’s third-largest economy expanded 8.1 percent in the three months to March 31 from a year earlier, less than the previous quarter’s 8.4 percent gain, according to the median forecast of 20 analysts in a Bloomberg News survey. The figures are due tomorrow around noon in New Delhi.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Yaga Venugopal Reddy twice last month unexpectedly ordered lenders to set aside more funds amid concern surging global oil and commodity prices may further stoke inflation. Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram says India can afford a moderation in growth and that fighting inflation is now his top priority.
``The government and the central bank will use all possible tools to keep inflation in check,’’ said D. H. Pai Panandiker, president at RPG Foundation, an economic policy group in New Delhi. ``They won’t take a chance with inflation now.’’
Reddy has raised the central bank’s cash reserve ratio seven times since December 2006 and increased its key overnight lending rate seven times in the past 2 1/2 years. That’s yet to put a dent in India’s inflation rate, which climbed to more than 8 percent in March, the highest in almost four years.
Higher borrowing costs are discouraging consumers in the South Asian nation from taking out loans to purchase motor vehicles produced by Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., the maker of half the cars in India, and refrigerators made by Samsung India Electronics Ltd. and other companies.
Rice, Lentils
The 52 percent of the Indian population of 1.1 billion people that survive on less than $2 a day also have less to spend on consumer goods because of the higher prices they are paying for food staples such as rice and lentils.
India’s consumer-goods production fell 0.1 percent in March from a year earlier, after increasing an average 7.2 percent in the previous 12 months. Industrial output gained 3 percent in March, the slowest pace since 2002.
``The biggest drag on growth is industry,’’ said Sujan Hajra, chief economist at Anand Rathi Securities Ltd. in Mumbai.
Still, the slowest economic growth since 2005 may not be enough to prompt the central bank from reducing borrowing costs. India is unwilling to risk an inflation flare-up from lower interest rates at a time when the government is bracing to face elections due by May 2009, analysts said.
Rising prices have already hurt the government’s popularity. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Indian National Congress party this week lost elections in the southern state of Karnataka to rival Bharatiya Janata Party, its ninth setback in the 11 provincial polls held since January 2007.
India’s GDP Forecasts
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GDP YoY%
Company Jan-March
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Median 8.1%
Average 8.1%
High 8.6%
Low 7.4%
Number of Estimates 20
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Anand Rathi Securities 7.8%
Citi 8.3%
DBS Group 8.1%
Dun & Bradstreet Info. 8.1%
Edelweiss Securities 8.1%
Forecast Singapore 8.1%
Goldman Sachs 8.6%
HSBC Singapore 7.5%
ICICI Bank 8.2%
ICICI Securities 8.3%
IDBI Gilts Ltd. 8.2%
JPMorgan Chase Bank 8.2%
Kotak Mahindra Bank 7.9%
Kotak Securities Ltd. 7.4%
Lehman Brothers 8.2%
Securities Trading Corp. Of India 8.0%
Standard Chartered Bank 8.1%
Thomson IFR 8.1%
UBS 7.9%
Yes Bank 8.5%
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