Thought Garage

Lots of people are puzzling through the SEC's fraud allegations against Goldman Sachs, trying to work out how it allegedly committed fraud. The way Paddy Hirsch sees it, it's a bit like a bookie and gambler teaming up to fix a horse race. SEC goes after Goldman from Marketplace on Vimeo .

Dow Jones Index crosses the symbolic 10000 figure. U.S. stocks rallied, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 10,000 for the first time in a year, on better-than-estimated earnings at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Intel Corp. Bank of America Corp., American Express Co. and JPMorgan more than doubled since the Dow slid to a 12-year low on March 9 as global financial firms began recovering from $1.6 trillion in writedowns and credit losses. International Business Machines Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. jumped at least 54 percent since March 9 on signs the nation was recovering from the worst recession in seven decades. Source: Bloomberg And, about 7500 International Tax dodgers file for IRS Amnesty to avoid jail Some 7,500 international tax dodgers have applied for an amnesty program that promises no jail time and reduced penalties for tax cheats who come forward, the Internal Revenue Service announced Wednesday. … The program is part of a larger eff...

Promise of a stable government? or Promise of a growing economy? Or both? Its great to the FII flowing again.   Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have pumped in Rs 20,117 crore (US$ 4.3 billion) into the Indian equity markets in the month of May 2009 — the highest in 19 months. India's market capitalisation (m-cap) has touched the US$ 1 trillion-mark, propelling it back among the top-ten in the world m-cap rankings. At US$ 1.04 trillion, India's m-cap is the ninth largest in the world and in equivalent rupee terms, it is closer to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) of Rs 5,332,753 crore (US$ 1.13 trillion). India attracts US$ 4.3 billion worth FII in May 2009

In multiple interviews, Peter Schiff, explains that US Economy foundation is weaker and 'the game is over America'.  He also predicted in detail what markets are affected, credit crunch and how it will lead to recession, only to be laughed away by rest of the Pros on TV.  We all should have watched it earlier :-((

There is a silver lining to the economic turbulence in Indian markets. Net effect of the economic turbulence is that top 10 firms in fact notched up their market valuations. Breaking its six-week long losing trend, country's top 10 club added over Rs. 20,000 crores to the combined market valuation in the past week, even as Reliance Industries and Infosys suffered losses. The top 10 companies together gained Rs. 23,273 crores in market cap last week, while country's most valued firm Reliance Industries alone lost Rs. 24,063 crores from its valuation. Also IT bellwether Infosys' valuation declined to Rs. 6,371 crores in the past week. At the end of Friday's trade, the total market value of the 10 most valued firms, comprising six from public sector and four private sector entities, stood at Rs. 10,15,150 crores, up from Rs. 9,91,877 crores a week ago. ... As per the elite list of top 10 firms, RIL is followed by ONGC (Rs. 1,58,619 crores), NTPC (Rs. 1...