Overseas shipments fell 4.5% in November from a year earlier, Ministry of Finance data showed. Separately, the Bank of Japan will make a decision on Wednesday on whether to raise the cost of borrowing.
The strength of the Japanese yen as well as the ongoing European debt crisis have weighed on external demand.
The credit rating agency said in the statement it will not immediately lower the nation's rating on long-term debt after a special congressional panel failed this week to reach agreement on alternative cuts to the deficit.
The impasse triggered the automatic cuts, which are scheduled to begin in 2013. Moody's said any effort to reduce those cuts could force the agency to downgrade its rating. Some Republicans are vowing to block the cuts slated to occur in defense programs, which amount to about half of the total.
The agency said it had decided to take no action based on the failure of a special congressional panel to come up with a plan because the automatic cuts will result in the same level of deficit reduction.
Moody's did not say when it would conduct its next review of the U.S. credit rating. Fitch, another rating agency, also has a triple-A rating on U.S. debt but said in August that a failure of the congressional panel to produce a plan could lead to a reassessment of that rating.
On Monday, after the announcement of the 12-member congressional panel's impasse, Standard & Poor's said it would not downgrade the U.S. credit rating. Like Moody's, it warned that its present rating was based on the expectation that the automatic cuts will not be reduced.
The Cabinet is also likely to take up the new Companies Bill after differences over market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India’s jurisdictions in case of regulatory overlaps have been ironed out between the Finance and Corporate Affairs Ministries
At present, India allows 100 per cent FDI in cash-and-carry wholesale trade that is business-to-business. It permits 51 per cent in single-brand retail such as Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo or Fendi. However, FDI is not allowed in multibrand retailing like Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco. The Cabinet will tomorrow be taking for approval both the proposals of increasing the FDI limit in single-brand retail and permitting 51 per cent in multi-brand retail together, a senior official from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry told Business Standard.
Last week, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) had sent the final note to the Cabinet, suggesting both the measures after thorough inter-ministerial consultations.
International Petroleum Investment Co. said it repaid $3.75 billion in borrowings before their 2013 maturities as the Abu Dhabi government-owned investor uses proceeds from a bond sale this year to retire short-term debt.
IPIC, as the company with an indirect holding in carmaker Daimler AG is known, paid on Nov. 21 two separate loan facilities taken out in 2010, according to a statement e-mailed today. The company last month sold three debt tranches for $3.75 billion with maturities of as long as 30 years.
“ IPIC is prudently managing its liabilities,” Managing Director Khadem Al-Qubaisi said in the statement. The company will continue its debt management policy through a “recycling of capital and its subsequent maturity extension,” he said.
Middle Eastern oil producers fund investment companies like IPIC to help diversify their revenue beyond income from oil sales. IPIC owns Spanish refiner Compania Espanola de Petroleos, is the second-largest holder behind the Austria government in oil and gas producer OMV AG and owns stakes in petrochemical producers. Its unit Aabar Investments PJSC holds stakes in non- oil related companies like Daimler.
Gold prices held steady below $1,720 on Wednesday, as rekindled worries about Greece's debt crisis.
FUNDAMENTALS
Spot gold edged down 0.1 percent to $1,716.79 an ounce by 0020 GMT.
U.S. gold gained 0.4 percent to $1,718.90.
Markets falldown on Tuesday. The Greece's Prime Minister George Papandreou shocked the world by announcing plans to hold a bailout plan throwing hopes on solving Greece's debt crisis into trouble.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold an emergency meeting with Greece on Wednesday to push for a quick implementation of Athens' bailout deal, the "only solution" to its debt crisis, Sarkozy said on Tuesday.
A news conference by the U.S. Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke later in the day after a two-day policy meeting. The Fed looks set to take a breather from economic stimulus measures on Wednesday, even if financial market unstable heightens the chances of action later.
Manufacturing surveys on Tuesday from North America to debt-crisis-hit Europe to Asia painted a portrait of softening global demand, but analysts do not see a world recession in the cards.
MF Global -Holding Ltd failed to keep customer accounts, said a top U.S. exchange regulator, shock for commodity markets to run the brokerage's bankruptcy.
The BSE Sensex shot up 516 points today to close at 3-month high of 17,804.80 on the back of strong global markets after EU leaders agreed to a deal that will ease the euro-zone debt crisis.
Sensex and Nifty by a huge 3 per cent, adding an estimated Rs 1.5 lakh crore to the investor wealth. The BSE 30-share barometer commenced trading sharply higher and shot up over 600 points to a high of 17,908.13 before concluding at 17,804.80. It closed 515.97 points or 2.98 per cent up – biggest gain in absolute term after August 29, when it had spurted 567.50 or 3.58 per cent. The NSE wide-based Nifty also flared up 158.90 points or 3.05 per cent to close at a fresh 3-month high of 5,360.70. All the 13 sectoral indices closed with gains of between 6.34 per cent and 0.18 per cent with metal, realty, banking, capital goods and auto leading the rally. From the Sensex pack, 27 of the 30 scrips finished with sharp to moderate gains while only Maruti Suzuki, Bharti Airtel and Bajaj Auto closed with losses.
Economic Analysis is very important in order to the exact condition of an economy. This process analyze the strength and weakness of an economy. India economic analysis provides various effort on economic condition of this south-east Asian country. It can be done both at a microeconomic as well as a macroeconomic level. India economic analysis could also be described as being an explanation of various economic phenomena going on in this country.
Finanace Minister: Pranab Mukarjee
India's economy moving in positive direction: Pranab
India's Finance Minister said India's economy moving in positive direction and hoped international commodity prices would decline, helping the government tame inflation and cut subsidies. Mukherjee maintained that India's economic fundamentals were strong and capable of meeting any challenge posed by the downgrade of the US economy and the crisis in some eurozone nations.
Reserve Bank of India raised rates 12 times in 18 months, causing growth to slump while inducing no discernible impact on inflationary pressures.
The market is braced for RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao to announce a 13th rate rise on Tuesday. Ideally, he instead would hold rates steady and allow time for an inevitable downward drift in price pressures as growth slows further.
Reserve Bank Of India
"Enough damage has been done," says Sanjay Mathur, chief economist for Asia ex-Japan at the Royal Bank of Scotland. "But they are so deep in the quick-sand that they are finding it hard to reverse course now and say food prices are not our problem."
Like most othereconomists, Mathur feels sorry for Subbarao. Hapless or not, the governor and his board have had precious little help from the government in tackling pressure points, such as supply bottlenecks in food.
The world's Largest software company released its first-quarter fiscal 2012 financial results after market close today.The company’s revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2012 climbed 7% on a year-over-year basis to $17.37 billion.
Analysts were on average expecting the maker of Windows operating system to report earnings of $0.68 per share and revenue of $17.24 billion.
Peter Klein, CFO of Microsoft, said that the company saw customer demand across the breadth of its products, resulting in record first-quarter revenue and another quarter of solid earnings growth.
Microsoft’s first-Quarter revenue from Windows sale rose less than 2%, reflecting the weakening demand for PCs. Growing economic uncertainty has led to a decline in technology spending, hurting demand for PCs.
Microsoft's shares, which have traded in the $20-$30 range for the last decade, fell 0.7 percent in after-hours trading, to $26.85. They closed at $27.04 on Nasdaq.
Fears rising in IT sectors over new economic downturn. The situation is definitely grim, posing stiff leadership challenges for Chief Information Officer. But IT initiatives in many cases are proceeding as planned, partly because of a desire among business executives to rely even more heavily on technology to help reduce corporate costs and boost revenues.
For example, Auto Warehousing Co.'s IT staff has been relatively lucky — although certainly not safe AWC processes new cars for automakers, and it's feeling the pain of the drop in car sales. For IT, that means a 24% budget cut this year.
IT wages across US: The 2008-09 recession reduced wages in Silicon Valley last year by about 10%. But even with that drop in pay, tech employees in the Valley remain, by far, the best paid in the U.S.
IT hiring jumps in January: U.S. IT employment increased by 12,900 jobs, or 0.3%, in January, one of the best month-to-month gains since the recession hit in late 2008, the TechServe Alliance reported today.
The positive news comes after the prolonged recession had reduced overall IT employment by some 200,000 jobs, according to the Alexandria, Va.-based IT services industry group, which tracks monthly changes in IT hiring based on its own analysis of U.S. unemployment data.
China's red hot economic growth cooled slightly from July through September, but remains the desire of many western countries still struggling to recover from the global economic meltdown.
Growth of the world's second-largest economy in the three months ending in September was down from the previous quarter's 9.5 per cent and the lowest level in two years, data showed Tuesday. The government said that was in line with plans to steer growth that hit 10.3 per cent last year to a more sustainable level and cool politically dangerous inflation
China's gross domestic product grew at an annual pace of 9.1% during the third quarter, down from 9.5% growth in the second quarter and 9.7% growth in the first three months of the year.
Google’s latest quarterly earnings soared above most analysts’ forecasts as the internet search company rebounded to its highest growth rate since before the 2008 financial crisis and shrugged off recent signs of economic weakness.
The third-quarter results, released late on Thursday, drove the company’s share price up by more than 6 per cent in after-hours trading, despite a extension of the hiring binge that has caused unease on Wall Street this year.
Google said it had added 2,585 employees in the latest three months – more than in earlier quarters this year – to take its total headcount to 31,353.
Google is showing results from heavy investments in areas beyond search, with notable inroads in the mobile, video and display markets, with chief executive Larry Page setting social networking as a top priority.
Americans Thomas Sargent of New York University and Christopher A. Sims of Princeton University have won the Nobel Prize in economics.
In awarding the $1.5 million prize, with the formal title the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the researchers "for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy."
Sargent and Sims, both 68, carried out their research independently in the 1970s and '80s, but it is highly relevant today, as world governments and central banks seek ways to steer their economies away from another recession.
The two economists take different approaches to macroeconomics, with Sargent focusing on analyzing the effects of broad economic policy changes, while Sims has worked to identify and measure the effects of "temporary and unexpected changes," such as fluctuations in interest rates and deficit, according to the prize committee.
Sargent and Sims "have independently developed complimentary methods that make it possible to evaluate policy and trace effects over time,"
Obama stopped short of explicity backing legislation that calls for U.S. tariffs on imports from countries with purposely undervalued currencies, and he restated concerns that any measure must comply with global trade rules. Still, in his toughest language on China to date, the president echoed sponsors of the bill, which is now headed toward a final Senate vote on Tuesday. Efforts to bring action to a close on Thursday faltered because of a dispute between Republicans and Democrats over which amendments would be considered.
The measure, which has drawn warnings from Beijing that it could trigger a trade war, is still widely expected to pass.
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about jobs and the U.S. economy during a press conference at the White House in Washington, October 6, 2011.
"China has been very aggressive in gaming the trading system to its advantage and to the disadvantage of other countries, particularly the United States," Obama told a news conference focused on his proposal to revive a weak U.S. economy."Currency manipulation is one example of it," he said.
Obama, who faces a tough bid for re-election next year, did not say whether he would sign or veto the legislation if it reached his desk. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives would have to approve the measure first.
A market trader has given an extraordinary interview in which he admits he has been hoping for another economic crashbecause it will make him rich.
Independent trader Alessio Rastani told the BBC that the rescue package being put together by governments to save the eurozone was doomed to failure and appeared pleased by his own prediction.
he said. "I've been dreaming of this for three years, I have a confession, I go to bed every night and I dream of another recession, I dream of another moment like this," he said.
"I'm very confident that this particularly rescue plan ... It doesn't matter how much money they want to put in, it's not going to work, because this problem can not be solved."
He added: "I'm fairly confident the euro is going to crash and its going to fall pretty hard. Because markets are ruled right now by fear."
A proposed three trillion euro (£2.6 trillion) rescue package for the eurozone is expected to be announced within days, and could be in place within weeks.
Confirming the worst stereotypes of the City trader, Rastani said traders did not care what happened to the economy as long as they made money. "We don't really care whether they're going to fix the economy, our job is to make money from it," he said. "The 1930s depression wasn't just about a market crash, there were some people who were prepared to make money from that crash. I think anyone can do that," he said. "It's an opportunity." He added: "When the market crashes, if you know what to do, if you have the right plan to set up, you can make a lot of money from this."
Rastani said that it was "wishful thinking" to believe government's could prevent another recession. "Government's don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world. Goldman Sachs does not care about this rescue package," he said. The interviewer said "jaws had dropped" around the BBC newsroom while they listened to his answers.
DELLXPS15Z Economically its Price is Rs 80,900
Specs: 15-inch screen, Intel i7 2.70 GHz; 8 GB RAM; 720 GB HDD; NVIDIA 525M graphics card; Slot dvd drive; USB, Windows 7 Home
The XPS 15Z is a specialist: it combines style with the capability to provide the best entertainment you wold need. This laptop is built to perfection. The shell has high-grade aluminium and plastics. Its silver colour is a sight for sore executive eyes. The keyboard is nicely laid down and is very comfortable to work with. On the sides, you will find a couple of USB 3.0 ports and a slot for a DVD drive. Users get a 15-inch LED screen which is exceptionally good for both gaming and movies.
The slim frame hides astounding fire power inside. For starters this laptop has the second generation Intel Core i7 processor with turbo boost, which clocks at 2.7 GHz, an impressive 8 GB of RAM and a lavish 720 GB hard drive. For gaming geeks it even carries the NVIDIA 525M graphics card. It boasts a configuration that allows for editing of HD videos. On our test bench, it did not a decent job, but a fabulous one. Its PC Mark Vantage benchmark score stood at 7741 while on 3D Mark 06, it had 6434-wonderful results. The battery lasts for about 6 hours. This is a laptop for a chosen few.
85 per cent of middle income earners in India feel a greater need for additional insurance to protect their lifestyles, according to a economic survey. According to the ING Investor Dashboard Survey for the second quarter of 2011, more than 75 per cent of respondents that believe they have less coverage than they require want to purchase an additionalinsurance policy in the coming 12 months.
The survey reveals that within the Asia-Pacific region, Indians feel that there is a greater need to protect their lifestyle and intend to purchase additional insurance policies in the next one year.
"With rising disposable income, better health, education and housing conditions, more and more individuals have lifestyles that they want to protect," ING Insurance Asia Pacific CEO Frank Koster said, adding that insurance policies with attached savings plans are proving to be the product that attracts the maximum demand.
Priority-wise, within the Asia-Pacific region, Indians attach the highest importance to their children's education after the need to protect family income. Saving for retirement is the third-most important priority for Indians, the survey said "Indians have a strong desire to give good education to their children. Compared to the region, Indians have the backing of a joint family system, which makes retirement planning a lesser priority," ING Life India Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer Uco Vegter said.As the nuclear family system grows in India, we will see growth in the retirement segment too, Vegter added.
Due to prevailing high interest rates, the Indian middle class finds fixed deposits their favorite instrument to plan for their child's needs, followed by life insurance Policy.
The survey further reveals that parents are starting to save for their child early, with over 45 per cent of the Indians surveyed asserting that they prefer to start saving for their children when they are 0 to 3 years of age.
The survey tracked insurance purchasing behaviour across seven markets (China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan) in order to explore the lifestyle choices of Asia's middle class.
The survey was conducted in June, 2011, and involved online interviews with a total of 2,329 middle income respondents aged 25 years and above across seven Asia-Pacific markets.
Europe's financial crisis intensified as banks moved to obtain more dollars for loans to their U.S. customers, and some nervous corporate clients began looking to banks outside the euro zone for loans.
Some of Europe's biggest banks are taking steps to shore up their defenses should the debt crisis spiral out of control and one or more countries leave the euro zone.
BERLIN (AP) -- The IMF singled out European banks as it insisted Wednesday that more needs to be done to shore up the global financial system, saying Europe's weak banks are "caught in a maelstrom" and must beef up their financial buffers.
Europe on Monday announced a trillion-dollar rescue package for crisis-hit euro countries backed by the IMF and central banks worldwide, sending the euro surging in Asian trade.Leaders hope an unprecedented international intervention, officially running to more than 750 billion euros, will represent a game-changing financial war chest.Essentially, Europe wants to leverage vast borrowings to prop up nations the way governments did their banks during the global economic financial crisis -- keeping interest rates down.
The interconnectedness of global finance is a truism. This has led many to suppose that U.S. banks could be badly hurt by the crisis currently unfolding in Europe. I believe that the threat to U.S. banks deriving from the crisis in the Old Continent has been somewhat exaggerated. First, the direct exposure of U.S. banks to sovereign bond or private lending markets in Europe is small. U.S. banks have limited exposure to European credit, and much of this exposure has been reduced in recent months. U.S.
As was widely expected, the Reserve Bank of India on Friday hiked the economic Policy Repo Rate by 25 basis points to 8.25 per cent and said the rate of price rise remained "much above" its comfort zone. This is the 12th straight rate hike since March 2010, as the monetary authority continues its war on inflation. Most observers expected the increase.
The repo rate now stands at 8.25% and thereverse repo rate now stands at 7.25%. There has been no change in the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), which stands at 6%. The bank rate has been retained at 6%.
The Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate, determined with a spread of 100 bps above the repo rate, stands recalibrated at 9.25% with immediate effect.
PRANAB MUKARJEE SAYS RATE HIGH ONLY TO CHECK INFLATION:
The RBI said it had little choice but to continue its tightening stance, as despite 12 rate hikes the year-on-year wholesale price index (WPI) inflation rose from 9.2 per cent in July this year to 9.8 per cent in August.
The oil marketing companies raised the price of petrol by Rs 3.14 a litre with effective from this month.
President Barack Obama is proposing $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue as part of his long-term deficit reduction plan, according to senior administration officials.
The president on Monday will announce a proposal that includes the new taxes, nearly $250 billion in reductions in spending on Medicare, the federal health care program that primarily benefits the elderly; $330 billion in cuts in other mandatory benefit programs, and savings of $1 trillion from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Barak Obama
Obama's tax plan is aimed mainly at the wealthy and draws sharp contrasts with congressional Republicans.
It comes just days after House Speaker John Boehner ruled out tax increases to lower deficits. It also comes among a clamor in his own Democratic Party for Obama to take a tougher stance against Republicans. And while the plan stands little chance of passing Congress, its populist pitch is one that the White House believes the public can support.
The core of the president's plan totals just more than $2 trillion in shortage reduction over 10 years. It combines the new taxes with $580 billion in cuts to mandatory benefit programs, including $248 billion from Medicare.
The administration also counts savings of $1 trillion over 10 years from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The deficit reduction plan represents an economic bookend to the $447 billion in tax cuts and new public works spending that Obama has proposed as a short-term measure to stimulate the economy and create jobs. He's submitting his deficit fighting plan to a special joint committee of Congress that is charged with recommending deficit reductions of up to $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
These strong reading coming from 1.7% increase in auto production in August and a 4.5% jump in July. factory production increased 0.3%, matching the increase seen in July. High-tech production increased 1.5% in August after a 0.9% drop in July.
The diffusion index of industrial production increased 59% in August (see Chart 3), the highest since January. The operating rate of the nation’s industries rose to 77.4% in August from 77.3% in the prior month.
The Empire State survey and the Philly Fed survey for September present weak factory conditions, with index measuring new orders showing a decline. These factory surveys contradict the pace of activity depicted in actual production numbers. The nationwide factory survey results for September will be published on October 3.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for August increased 0.4% in August after a 0.5% increase in July. Higher prices food and energy prices have raised the overall CPI in the past two months. The energy prices index increased 1.2% in August after a 2.8% gain in July, while food prices have risen 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively, in July and August. Gasoline prices at the whole sale level have dropped in the last three months but retail prices are yet to reflect the decline of the past two months.
On a year-to-year basis, the CPI had risen 3.8% in August. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.2% in August, putting the year-to-year increase at 2.0% (see Chart 6). The year-to-year readings of botheconomic price gauges are above the Fed’s preferred non-official threshold of around 2.0%.
International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has urged "bold action" on the faltering world economy, ahead of a meeting of the G7 group of leading economies. The G7 is meeting in Marseille to consider a "coordinated response". The two-day meeting comes as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicted a global slowdown this year.Europe is also struggling with a sovereign debt crisis.
Credible plans: Speaking at the same event in London before leaving for the G7 talks, Chancellor George Osborne vowed to stick to the UK's deficit reduction plan - which has so far helped the UK avoid the kind of bond market turmoil seen in the eurozone."It is the rock of stability on which our economy is built," he said.
The IMF chief praised the UK's plans - with several caveats.
Rocky road ahead
No communique will be issued after the talks in Marseille, according to French Finance Minister Francois Baroin.Earlier, Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said he would explain his nation's intervention to stem the increase in its currency, which has hurt its exporters."Japan's economy has been steadily recovering, but I'm concerned that it is showing some signs of downturn due to the yen's rise," Mr Azumi said.
"I want to share the view that it would be bad for the world economyif Japan's economy faces downturn."
The OECD predicts the G7 economies will grow by just 0.2% in the last three months of the year.
The group also expects 0.3% growth in the UK in the fourth quarter, but said the economy could contract by as much as 1%.
