Indonesia
March 19, 2011
Coal Mines in Indonesia,Australia,Africa and North America are selling like hot cakes as Indian,Chinese companies as well as mining conglomerates like Rio Tinto,Vale,BHP Billiton fight to secure raw materials.Note India and China are consuming huge amounts of coal to power their thermal plants.While China consumes a monstrous 3 billion tons,Indian demand is rising at more than 10% a year though on a smaller base.Coal is the cheapest form of power despite its polluting and health hazardous affect.Though Coal Plants in Developed countries are becoming much more expensive to build due to taxes and opposition by environmental groups,there is no stopping their furious growth in countries like China and India.Though India too faces some environmental opposition,massive ultra mega power plants with capacity of 4000 MW are getting built by new Indian private utilities
January 25, 2011
Inflation in India is raging at double digit levels as it is in most of the other countries in Asia.While Food Inflation has been hogging the headlines as Onion Prices become costlier than the daily earnings of the majority of Indians,other commodities are becoming expensive as well.Tyre Companies in India have seen their margins and profits collapse on the back of higher natural rubber prices.This is despite the explosive growth being seen in the automobile sector in India.JK Tyres and Ceat reported their quarter results and both were equally bad with stock prices taking a major hit.Consumer giant HLL which is a subsidiary of the Unilever Group and the largest consumer company in India also saw its stock price tumble.HLL too has been hurt by higher input commodity costs.While volume growth was excellent,the margins got compressed as input prices increased faster than output prices.Note the Indian stock market has fallen more than 10% of its peak even as developed markets are seeing higher peaks.Other Asian markets like Indonesia,Thailand and others too have fallen as high inflation hurts the prospects of companies here.The Central Bank in India RBI raised the intrest rates by 25 bps which some consider as too low.Like other central banks in Asia,India too seems helpless to fight the inflationary pressures brought upon by the higher commodity prices fueled by Bernake money printing.
September 5, 2010
ndia is one of the fastest growing economies in the world with fundamentals indicating that this rapid growth will continue for the next 10-20 years as well.However Green Investing in India is fraught with risk since major Green Energy Companies like Suzlon and Moser Baer have proven to be abject failures till now.A Good Way to do make Green Investments into India is through Renewable Energy Focused Utilities.Tata Power which is one of India's largest utilities is looking to focus on Green Energy as well.The company has 16% of its power supplied from Renewable Energy Sources and is looking to increase it to 25% by 2017.
August 6, 2010
When Push comes to the Shove,every country looks after its own.Russia has stopped exports as prices increased domestically without a care about the rest of the world.This is not only specific to Russia but all the world's countries where nationalism reigns supreme.With most of the worlds commodities approaching "Peak Supply" it is a worrying thought.
June 16, 2010
Asian countries are being forced to impose capital and currency controls as zero interest rates in Developed countries moves speculative money towards Asia.The Lehman Crisis in […]