The Manmohan Singh government is readying a New Year booster for the Indian economy in the form of an economic stimulus part-II and is signalling that while major industry concerns are being addressed, the forthcoming financial fillip will not be followed by another for a while. The Indian industries have, on number of instances, urged the government to deliver a “message of hope’’ in this time of doom and gloom, which have been enforced by news of falling revenues, operational losses …

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Ahead of the New Year revelry, here is a warning from the Supreme Court for all parents — Do not lend your two-wheelers or cars to your children, who are eager to impress their peer group, without taking an appropriate insurance cover. For, if the youngster driving your vehicle meets with a fatal accident and, even if you have a third-party insurance cover, the insurer is not liable to compensate the death of your child, says the apex court.

People may …

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Equity Linked Savings Schemes (ELSS) are the ideal way to gain in the share market while reducing your tax burden. These are diversified schemes, floated by different mutual fund houses, which invest more than 80% of their funds in shares and have the added advantage of tax benefits. You also benefit from portfolio diversification and professional fund management.

Objectives & Features:

Type of scheme: Diversified equity scheme
Scheme objective: Capital appreciation
Asset allocation: 80-100% in equity
Lock in period: 3 years
Return: In line with equity …

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There are funds which, while having the potential to give higher returns in the long term, also carry the baggage of high volatility. These particular schemes tend to remain in losses in the short- and even medium-term – that’s longer than some of the other funds – because of aggressive investment strategies. As a result, such schemes are good only if you have the ability to see off the negative returns in your portfolio for a fairly long time. In …

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United States of America

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for November declined by 1.7% mom, the decline was higher compared with the drop of 1.0% in the previous month. The steep m-o-m decline in the consumer prices indicates the possibility of deflationary situation in the USA.
The initial jobless claims for the week ended December 2007 increased to 573,000 compared with 515,000 in the previous week. The factory orders for October declined by 5.1% yoy as compared with a decline of 3.1% …

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… Continued from PART 1 & PART 2 of the series …

@ Banking

The credit growth as on November 28 has jumped up to 29.8% yoy, the highest in the past one year. The credit demand has grown mainly on account of the drying up of the alternative sources of funds due to which corporates are turning to banks for meeting their working capital requirements. The deployment rate (i.e. the credit-deposit ratio) declined to 73.2% while the incremental credit-deposit ratio …

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… Continued from PART 1 of this series …

@ Equity markets

During November, the benchmark indices (BSE Sensex) corrected by ~7.0%, followed by an increase of ~8% during the month-to-date period (December 01–15), negating the decline in the previous month. However, the volatility in the equity markets has taken its toll on the volumes, which continued to decline in the same period. The volumes in the F & O continued to decline while that in the cash market remained largely stable …

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