Category: News

The results of global search statistics have been announced and predictably Google (GOOG) snatched the top position for frequently being used to search websites across the world. Surging from 55.6 billion searches in Dec 2008 to 87.8 billion in Dec 2009, it rose over 58%. Google, as usual, was the top ranker and it wasn’t a difficult guess. Yahoo (YHOO) searches totaled 9.4 billion, whereas Baidu (BIDU) had 8.5 billion. So, Google is far ahead in the competition. In December 2009, over two-third of the total searches (131 billion) were contributed by Google. However, if we gauge the leap in number of searches, Microsoft (MSFT) emerged to be the winner. With 2.4 billion searches in Dec 2008, it rose around 70% to reach the figure of 4.1 billion in Dec 2009. This surge can be mainly due to the introduction of its new search engine, Bing, which seems to holding grip quite rapidly. Another  [...]

Over 168-story tall, Burj Khalifa is now open for business since 4th January, 2010. It is taller than the former world’s tallest structures known as pyramids in Egypt. This is the first time that a tall (world’s tallest) structure has been erected in one of the Middle East countries. Along with the foundation of Burj Khalifa, Dubai hopes to strengthen its economic balance and expects international customers to invest in the edifice. This once strong economic foundation was shaken considerably, when Dubai announced in November that it might not able to repay the debt of $60 billion. With the introduction of Burj Khalifa, it intends to regain the lost prestige of being known as top-notch financial center. The giant structure was initially known as Burj Dubai. However, it was transformed to be Burj Khalifa to respect the president of Abu Dhabi, who helped the vicinity to be bailed  [...]

Lot of factors were responsible for dollar’s downward slide on Monday. Like before Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s comment that interest rates will continue to be low as the economy shows some signs of recovery was the most important factor in pulling the dollar down. Also lack of agreement between Asian and US leaders on currencies was taken as a signal by traders to sell the dollar. The United States and China leaders had met at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Singapore to discuss currencies. However they failed to come to an agreement which was taken by traders as an indication that the dollar’s downward trend will continue and that the US interest rates will continue to be low while interest rates in other countries may eventually increase. In search of better return investors normally transfer funds to an economy with higher interest rates. Other economies  [...]

Wednesday was a day full of action with lot of economic announcements being made. Obviously it turned out to be a mixed day for super sensitive dollar with dollar initially losing ground and falling to 15 month low and then gaining. Dollar index which measures the value of dollar against a basket of currencies first fell to a 15 month low of 74.775 and later in the trading day increased to 75.130.The dollar increased by 0.2% against the Euro to $1.4961 later in the trading day after hitting a low of $1.5048. The dollar gained against yen to 89.84 Japanese yen from 89.77 yen. Against Swiss Francs dollar increased to 1.0086 Swiss francs from 1.0081 Swiss francs but declined against Canadian dollar to 1.0463 Canadian dollars. There were lot of factors responsible for dollar’s dilly dally run on Wednesday. First of all Chinese government in a report  announced that its factory output has  [...]

Citigroup Citigroup one of the worst hit banks in the current financial crisis announced a profit of $101 million for the third quarter. This is definitely a reduction from last quarter when the bank had reported profit of $4.28 billion. However last year in the corresponding period the bank had reported a loss of $2.82 billion. Like the other banks analyzed Citigroup still continues to be plagued by high credit losses. Credit losses were marginally down from $8.4 billion in the second quarter to $8 billion in the third quarter.  Managed credit losses at $11 billion was also down from $11.5 billion in the second quarter. The total credit cost at $9.1 billion in the third quarter was lower than $12.7 billion reported in the second quarter. The bank’s third quarter revenue increased to $20.39 billion as compared to $16.26 billion in the same period a year ago. Citi had received stimulus  [...]

JP Morgan For JP Morgan Q3 financial result was a mixed bag. Investment bank and retail banking helped the bank report an increase in third-quarter profit. The bank’s Card Services and Consumer Lending segments however had a bad phase with the credit costs continuing to be high. The bank has proved to be one of the best banks to weather the current crisis. In June the bank paid back the entire $25 billion assistance it had received under TARP. Third quarter net earnings of the bank increased to $3.59 billion from $527 million last year. Net revenue for the quarter increased by 81% to $26.62 billion from $14.74 billion in the corresponding period last year. As expected the credit losses for the quarter increased by 40% to $8.1 billion from $5.8 billion last year. Segment wise Investment Banking unit had the best performance with revenue increasing by 85% to $7.5 billion. The unit generated  [...]

Last month four of the US banking giants announced their third quarter financial results. With the banking sector in doldrums, every quarterly result announcement is being awaited for some good news and being scrutinized by analyst like never before. All these four banks were among the biggest recipients of payouts from government. Lets analyse their financial statements to understand what they did right and what went wrong. Gold Man Sachs A year after receiving government aid, Goldman Sachs Group had an impressive third quarter with profits of $3.19 billion , or $5.25 a share up from $845 million, or $1.81 a share, a year earlier. Overall the bank doubled its revenue to $12.4 billion from $6.04 billion last year. In spite of having a record level of capital the firm managed an impressive return on equity of 21.4% compared with 7.7 percent in the third quarter of 2008. Segment wise the  [...]

The world’s biggest retailer Wal-Mart Stores recently announced that is has cut prices on 100 electronic items including plasma televisions, digital cameras and mobile phones. Price cuts include a $500 reduction on a Panasonic 42-inch plasma television to $1,294. This follows the earlier price cuts announced on a collection of toys and games which had boosted sales volume. The world’s biggest retailer is aggressively cutting prices as it tries to raise weak sales at its U.S. stores. Last month, the retailer had started selling more than 100 toys for $10 each. Walmart.com cut prices on 10 unreleased hardcover books to $10 each, fuelling a price war with its online competitor Amazon.com. Both online retailers then cut their prices on those books to $9 each, after which Walmart.com reduced a penny more off that price and was selling them for $8.99 each amounting to discounts of nearly  [...]

The recent decline in the value of dollar has again put the dollar in the line of fire as a reserve currency. Currently the United States Dollar is the most widely held reserve currency in the world. What is a reserve currency? A reserve currency or anchor currency is a currency which is held in significant quantities by many countries in their foreign exchange reserves. It also tends to be the international pricing currency for products traded on a global market such as oil and gold. Holding the reserve currency permits the holding country to purchase the commodities at a marginally lower rate than other nations, who must exchange their currency with each purchase and pay a transaction cost. It also permits the government holding the currency to borrow money at a better rate, as there will always be a larger market for that currency than others. Currently with an average of two thirds  [...]