Financial Post And Essays

The pandemic COVID-19 started in China, while the rest of the world remained oblivious to the crises ahead which could change the course of history. Neither world wars nor 9/11 have impacted the world economy to this extent, but a virus brought the whole world to its knees. Now is the perfect occasion to juxtapose a virus to the world’s stockpile of weapons. In India, the news of job cuts and slowing down of the economy were all around the corner especially in the automobile sector before the pandemic was even started. But it exacerbated this and took other sectors to its control. As the government had only one arsenal of lockdown to stop this virus from spreading, it resulted in zero demand and break-in consumption cycle which affected most of the manufacturing, IT, travel and hospitality sectors. Further, with no generation of wealth, the only options for the big firms were to shoulder the burden with its employees. This led to emotional and distress emails of job cuts, s...

In the recent study conducted, by Comparisun, of 25 individuals company analysed, only eleven have the chance to become a trillionaire during their lifetime. According to the study, Jeff Bezos is most likely to become the first trillionaire by 2026  when he will be aged 62. Despite losing an estimated $38 billion in divorce and even more in the pandemic, Jeff is still the richest persons and his net worth growing at a rate of 34% on average to past five years. With a current net worth of 142.8 billion and if the arithmetic goes right he would easily become a trillionaire($1000 billion) by 2026. There are many other names to this list, India richest Mukesh Ambani could become a trillionaire by 2033 at age 75. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg could gain this title after 2036 with his current growth rate. Alibaba’s Jack Ma could become a trillionaire in 2030 when he will be aged 65. For the study, Comparisun analysed the market capitalisation of the highest value com...

The world travel industry has hit a cul de sac as the foundation of the economic edifice has been hit by coronavirus pandemic. As the planes remain grounded for more than two months, it has shredded the stock price of airline companies more the 60% across the globe. This phase of uncertainty has transmitted a shockwave to the investor as the prediction is that the recovery will be slow and demand will be suppressed, there is no hope of getting the airline industry back on track. This led the billionaire investor Warren Buffet company, Berkshire Hathway to sell all of their airline shares. The conglomerate had an 11% stake in Delta Airlines, 10% in American Airlines, 10% in Southeast Airlines and 9% of United Airline. This announcement was taken after the company lost $50 billion in first-quarter. Further, to this report say that American Airlines has been working on negative free cash for almost three years. Now after this pandemic, American Airlines net debt stands at $2...

Will the flight from economic distress beats the fight against COVID-19 virus? The economy of India is going to face an output loss of $190 bn(according to Nilesh Shah, MD, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company) as the wheels of commerce have been ground to halt. The arithmetic of the GDP of India is about $3 trillion, if it remains shut down for a month with a 100% drop inactivity it will create an output loss of $250 bn but as it is likely to be shut for 47 days it will create an output loss of $190 bn assuming that it will open on May 17.  Albeit, there could be a beacon of hope as the oil price has seen a significant reduction due to less demand in the world, it will provide $40-45 bn of benefit in terms of trade deficit this year. Another way to decrease this is to replace China-made goods with India made products, it will create $20 bn benefit in trade deficit. But still willy-nilly it will create $100 billion or thereabouts of output loss which is a signifi...

In normal economies, the product does not have a negative price. If a company is at loss they just stop production and shut down the unit. But unfortunately that is not the case with oil, its different. Once an oil well is started, it is costly to shut down permanently or temporarily and then restart. This was the reason the price of oil futures gone done by 300% of the West Texas Intermediate(WTI) not the actual crude oil that you buy from the local gas stations. Yes, like any other commodities gold, silver you can invest, speculate, or hedge in oil futures. So the question arises what is the oil futures and how can you invest in that? There are basically three major oil futures you can invest in it. Brent Crude - Roughly two-third of the crude contract around the world is of the Brent. As it is waterborne in nature so it is easier to transport and cheaper to buy. West Texas Intermediate - The oil extracted from the US oil well and send by pipeline to Cushing, Ok...

In the 21st century, notoriously known for cut-throat competition, the theory of business ethics appears to be fast losing ground to profitability concept thereby narrowing the scope for preaching and practicing the philosophy of ethical standards in business. We have been taught and reminded of this jargon since our childhood as if being indispensable lessons for successful Business people. But going by Hume’s theory which suggests, “The strength of belief be a product of repetition.”, and there are not enough real-life examples that’s why we tend to deviate from the idea of morals and ethics.  In 2016, the presidential election of the United States was manipulated by a company called California Analytics which bought the data about demography from Facebook and influenced the people's opinion in a big way into supporting the particular candidate. If the top 500 fortune companies of the world like Facebook hardly stand the scrutiny of, let alone other hapless sections...

                           What is the financial crisis? Why does it happen? Developing countries are at a loss to understand why developed countries are facing financial crises. These are the questions that have become common in the last two decades. In a broader sense, financial crises is the inability of a country to generate income and leading it to halt the wheels of the economy. The most important question arises that there are several regulatory authorities around the world that have chalked out modus operandi to drive the economy in a smooth and efficient way. Still countries fail to stand strong and end up in financial crisis. There are two major reasons for this. The first one, is the incompetence of the ruling government and turning blind eye to major problems like tax evasion and corruption. In the long term these string of set...