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For their size, these tiny companies are making very good money and are available cheap. The only problem? They get sold off sharply during a market slide, says Shailendra Lotlikar Rising revenues and increasing profitability are the most important metrics for determining the...

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Budget airlines can leave a hole in your wallet.  Sucheta Dalal tells you what to guard against Like in the Cliff Richards’ song, everybody is making plans for a summer holiday and, for the second or third year in a row, many travellers are lured by budget-airline advertisements offering...

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Last time, I wrote how it is prudent to keep checking your credit card account to avoid being dumped with a wrong transaction. Now, Rajiv Malhotra’s experience shows us another aspect of foreign currency credit card transactions, especially when charges are “reversed”. Unlike...

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These funds have underperformed in the bull and bear periods of the past four years Fund management is an art, but not all fund managers are good artists. A majority of them performs well only when the going is unidirectionally up. The real test of a fund manager’s skill is in performing...

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Michael Pollan is a man with a mission - to let the obese American know exactly what goes into his mouth and what he passionately terms the “national eating disorder” of the Americans. The book The Omnivore’s Dilemma is in three parts. The first part deals with farming, the primitive methods...

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In our last issue, NR Desai wrote to us about his 6000 defunct shares of Electrolux lying in IDBI Bank demat account. IDBI charges him Rs100+ per month. The shares cannot be rematerialised. The Bank puts a price of Rs25 per share when the shares are not traded. Desai claims to have paid...

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Luxury is not just designer labels. It can also be food. The hippest cuisine the world over right now is Japanese says Hemali Mehta The term ‘being with it’ does not merely mean wearing designer labels, having the right social contacts or being at the most coveted soirees. Instead, the...

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To grow, banks constantly need capital. That is bad for shareholders. Choose your bank stocks by following these principles In any rapidly-growing economy, the financial sector leads the way. This seems logical since, to build any business, you first need capital. Also, with    rising...

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In our March 29th issue, we argued that bank deposits are better than fixed maturity plans (FMPs) which were being pushed aggressively by mutual funds because the returns from an average FMP is no better than bank FDs. After interest rates on bank deposits started surging since late last year...

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“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future,” said Nils Bohr, Nobel laureate in Physics. A recent study shows that finance heads, who confidently forecast stock movements, are often wrong Sometime in 1997, Ratan Tata invited all the major Telco suppliers to Lucknow to...

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SEBI stipulates that every mutual fund equity scheme must have a benchmark index. Does it make sense, asks Vikas Morzaria The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) introduced benchmarking for equity funds vide its circular dated March 26, 2002. The idea was “to provide an objective...

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The market is at a historic high. Money from abroad is flowing in torrents. India is a trillion dollar economy now. The rupee is strengthening relentlessly. It is true that at times like these, it is easy to get carried away about stocks. In this issue, we carry the dire views of Jeremy...

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must compliment you on your write up “Proving Medical Negligence” in MoneyLife of 12th April 07. I would like to add a few points here: - Taking a doctor/hospital to court should always be an objective decision and not riddled with emotions or misguided by some with vested...

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Senior employees hijack a publicly-owned institution in a daring heist as regulators and shareholders sleep! Stock Holding Corporation of India (SHCIL) has always been viewed as a quasi-government company. Its shareholders are IDBI Bank, IFCI, SUUTI, the four government-owned insurance...

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Is it time to question whether Indian companies are borrowing too much, asks Shreedhar Kanetkar Would you take a loan if you weren’t sure whether you could pay it off? Even if you owe nothing to anyone right now, can you say the same about the companies in your portfolio? You may think...

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He is being compared with Warren Buffett, has made $1 billion last year and is only 45 At 7.30 in the evening on Friday, 10th January 2003, successful value investor Edward Lampert was leaving his office when he was kidnapped by four people from the parking lot. They took him to Day’s Inn...

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What can a capital protection scheme do that you cannot do yourself? Virtually nothing Mutual funds are all offering ‘capital protection’ (CP) schemes. Is it such a sophisticated product that an investor has necessarily to go through the fund route? Or is it simple enough for an investor to...

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What about your pens, wrist-watches and spectacles? Here are the don’ts Many years ago, I went to meet Camille Lavington - one of the experts on Business Protocol in USA and Europe - and author of some books on the subject. It was our first meeting and we struck a warm friendship. The second...

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Private banks and finance companies are the new moneylenders, lending to the poor at interest rates as high as 50% Mutual funds are all offering ‘capital protection’ (CP) schemes. Is it such a sophisticated product that an investor has necessarily to go through the fund route? Or is it simple...

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