Business News

A runaway price line, poor infrastructure and slow project implementation could upset India's growth applecart, a latest report by global research and securities firm Goldman Sachs has said.

DESPITE FEARS of an economic slowdown at home and a slump worldwide, the country's employers are looking for workers actively. India has topped a global employment outlook survey, powered mainly by service industries such as IT, realty and financial services.

Investors who bought shares of Sylph Technologies that zoomed 99,900 per cent in intra-day trade on Thursday found themselves trapped on Friday. They were unable to sell the stock on Friday as no single trade took place in Sylph Technologies counter.

The Government of Turkey has handed over a second airport in Istanbul to a consortium of led by Hyderabad-based GMR Infrastructure Limited for modernising and operating it for a 20-year period.

While Laxmi Niwas Mittal predictably remains at the top of The Sunday Times list of Britain's richest 1000 people for the fourth year running, a host of new, hitherto unknown Asian names - most of them Indians - have also made it to the rarefied list this year.

Missed out on the recent boom in real estate due to fund shortage? Now, a few thousand rupees will be all that takes to profit from getting a real estate exposure.

Stock market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India is expected to simplify the guidelines for new fund offerings (NFOs) of mutual funds shortly.

When New York sneezes, London can catch a cold. Tremors of the sub-prime crisis triggered by home loans that went wrong in the United States as house prices crashed took away 1,300 jobs on Thursday in the British capital's 'City' – and by all accounts there were more wickets to fall among high-flying financial industry executives and workers.

Today is arguably the most important annual day for the information technology calendar. Infosys, the infotech bellwether that gives specific annual guidance, will set the bar for 2009.

Last week's events in the US could be very instructive for us. After it's resilient march to 12,600, the Dow has paused and retreated on the back of earnings disappointments. The entire focus of the US market so far has revolved around credit market problems and the looming economic recession.

Union finance minister P. Chidambaram, who flew into London to inaugurate India Infrastructure Finance Company (UK) Ltd, an off-shore subsidiary of IIFCL, told bankers and top NRIs businessmen here that the opening of the IIFCL in the second most important financial market signified India's economic success story.

Inflation for this week was worse than expected, IIP was better. The market didn't sell off on the WPI number perhaps because it had already steeled itself for the shock. Nevertheless, it's always encouraging to see a market shrug off bad news and move on.

At the Goafest, conducted recently for the advertising fraternity, NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies) ex-president Kiran Karnik and Saurabh Srivastava, ex-chairman of NASSCOM foundation, acquainted the advertising industry with the benefits of having a strong industry body, like the IT industry has in NASSCOM.

As we enter earnings season, the market is beginning to focus on individual stocks. This is a good sign. Till now, traders and investors were so overwhelmed with overall market risk that there was little mindspace for spotting individual stock price aberrations.

The biggest negative trigger just a month back could actually be our only friend in the near term. Saddled with our inflation problems, India has underperformed most emerging market peers barring China in recent weeks.

Last week's poor inflation number was not a one off, after all. We have hit 7 per cent on the Wholesale Price Index and there is every chance of it heading even higher.

Doesn't it strike you as odd that the US market is among the top 3 performing global markets in 2008? It is supposed to be at the heart of the world's economic problems yet just look at the facts: the Chinese stock market is down 35 per cent so far in 2008, the Sensex 25 per cent and the Dow Jones index only 5 per cent. It's startling.

Every little upmove seems such a struggle nowadays. It is like swimming against a tide. Even tailwinds like global rallies do not seem to help us much. Upmoves are laboured, down drifts are quicker and effortless.

Inflation hitting 7 per cent in a pre election year is just the kind of stuff that makes governments panic. The thing about panic is that people stop behaving rationally or intelligently, poor decisions are taken. I fear we will see some kneejerk policy action which won't be very clever, in this round of inflation fighting too.

Another upmove that flattered to deceive, the second this month. All of us want to believe the worst is over, but the ticker simply refuses to oblige. Hopes are raised every time the Nifty pulls back towards the 5,000 mark and then there is despair as it fizzles out. Perhaps there are just too many headwinds at this point for the market to move ahead unfettered.