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Book Review – When Genius Failed
When Genius Failed: The Rise and fall of Long Term Capital Management
This book authored by Roger Lowenstein, is a short biography and chronology of an infamous hedge fund.
Background
So before getting into the review of this excellent read we need to understand, what does hedge fund means?
Investopedia defines the term hedge funds as “An aggressively managed portfolio of investments that uses advanced investment strategies such as leveraged, long, short and derivative positions in both domestic and international markets with the goal of generating high returns”.
For most of us (read naive to financial jargons), hedge funds would refer to something which creates volatility in the market and most of the times makes our well thought out investment decisions wrong. More >
Technical Analysis Book
Technical Analysis: The Complete Resource For Financial Market Technicians by Kirkpatrick Charles D. Ii, Julie R. Dahlquist
This book is the most complete, reliable, and objective guide to technical analysis, this book has been thoroughly updated to reflect the latest advances in field of technical analysis. Selected as the official companion to the prestigious Market Technicians Association CMT program, it systematically explains the field’s principles and techniques, presenting academic evidence and hundreds of illustrations.
There is an extensive review of chart construction, chart pattern analysis and trend confirmation using bar charts, candlesticks, and point-and-figure charts. Also covered is a discussion on cycles, Elliott wave, Fibonacci and Gann. Furthermore, there is a discussion of trading and investing and market and issue selection. A chapter on system design and testing, and money and risk management provides additional insight into the subject.
The knowledge imparted by this book can benefit financial professionals, individual investors, college students; financial journalists who want to learn the key concepts of technical analysis, and other interested parties. In addition, this book can also be used as a study guide for the Certified Market Technician (CMT) designation.
FSSC:A way for Large Corporate to Save Money
Meaning of FSSC:
Financial Shared Service Centre (FSSC) are autonomous operating units providing services to different businesses and geographical entities in group companies.
Need for FSSC:
The main reason for companies to set up FSSC is Cost reduction followed by flexibility and improvement in quality.
It also provides standardization of process and excess staff levels to be removed.
Also FSSC re-engineer processes under which they eliminate the task that do not add value to organization.
Companies who had already set up a FSSC stand on better platform when it comes to growth and expansion in business in terms of reduced overhead, finance and business administration cost.
FSSC set up is also done in order to consolidate the business across the globe, but doing consolidation does not serve the basic purpose of Cost saving, it is achieved only when company automate the process.
The decision to set up a FSSC shall derive from very top of the organization, since top management commitment is a key variable for the project success.
The regulation of the transactions is managed through Service level Agreement whose content is largely defined by rules of standardization adopted by company.
Now the question arises as to which of the processes can move to FSSC.
- Receivables Management
- Accounts Payable
- Procurement
Three main Objective of FSSC
- Standardization
- Automation
- Business processes excellence
There are two types of alternative available to set up FSSC i.e.
> In house FSSC
> Outsource the F&A function
Comparative Advantage / Disadvantage for In house / Outsource FSSC functions
| In house FSSC – Advantage | Outsource FSSC- Advantage |
| Easy to leverage from existing overhead structure | Competitive advantage in terms of pricing which enables to achieve substantially lower cost |
| Stakeholders remain the same | Established SSC infrastructure |
| Contract Pricing easily agreed | Quicker transition and value realization |
| In house FSSC – Disadvantage | Outsource FSSC- Disadvantage |
| Difficult to change the mindset from staff function to service provider when building the old staff | Sensitivity of the business gets exposed to third party |
| Higher cost level | Control is being diverted and also dependency increase |
Worldwide study has revealed that Outsource FSSC functions are more successful than In house FSSC as far as cost cutting is concerned. However In house FSSC may also prove cost effective if it is able to expand itself by pitching third party contracts over the years.
Author: CA Shalini Tibe
Indian Economic Data Sources
MoneyBol Patrons,
Here are some links that you may find useful for accessing macroeconomic information and other statistics. These Datasets don’t require you to pay or register. (Note that some free datasets that require registration are also listed below)
We will be happy to add any link suggested by you for the benefit of all others.
| Type of Data | Publishing Authority | Frequency | Time Lag |
| Macro Economic Data | |||
| Complete Economic and Financial Data | Ministry of Finance | Periodically | |
| External Commercial Borrowings | RBI | Monthly | 2 months |
| GDP of India | Ministry of Statistics | Quaterly | 2 months |
| Index of Industrial Production (IIP) | Ministry of Statistics | Monthly | 1.5 months |
| Export & Import | Ministry of Commerce and Industry | Monthly | 1 month |
| Balance of Payment (BOP) | RBI | Quaterly | 1 Quarter |
| Handbook of statistics on Indian Economy | RBI | Yearly | |
| Inflation | |||
| Wholesale Price Index | Monthly | 1 month | |
| Consumer Price Index – Industrial Workers | Monthly | 1 month | |
| Monetary Policy Data | |||
| RBI’s Balance Sheet | RBI | Fortnightly | http://rbi.org.in/scripts/ECBView.aspx |
| Scheduled Commercial Bank’s business-Deposit and Credit growth | Fortnightly | ||
| Foreign Exchange Reserves | Weekly | ||
| Money Supply | Fortnightly | ||
| Issuances of Certificate of Deposit | |||
| Issuances of Commercial Paper | |||
| Turnover in G-Sec market | |||
| Turnover in Foreign Exchange market | |||
| Govt of India-T Bills and Bonds Issuances | |||
| Central Bank Data | |||
| Speeches by RBI officials during the month | RBI | http://rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_ViewBulletin.aspx | |
| Articles pertaining to Balance of Payments, Indian investments abroad | |||
| Press releases | |||
| Payment related data | |||
| Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)/Foreign Institutional Investment (FII) during the month | |||
| Indices relating to Real Effective exchange rate (REER)/Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) | |||
| Equity & Commodity Exchanges | |||
| Foreign Institutional Investments in Indian markets | SEBI | Daily | |
| NSE | National Stock Exchange | Real Time | |
| BSE | Bombay Stock Exchange | Real Time | |
| NCDEX | National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange | Real Time | |
| MCX | Multi Commodity Exchange of India | Real Time |
Hope this collection is helpful. Leave your comments below.
Book Review – Screw it, Let’s do it
Book Review: Screw it, Let’s do it – Richard Branson
The Book
Screw it, Let’s do it – is a capsule of wisdom. You can read it cover to cover in 2.5 hours. In this book, the world famous maverick entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson narrated in a very lucid and frank way the guidelines that have formed the basis of his success. This book has a unique quality of binding and involving the reader while he read this book.
The book has 14 chapters – Just Do It, Have Fun, Be Bold, Challenge Yourself, Stand on Your Own Feet, Live the Moment, Value Family and Friends, Have Respect, Gaia Capitalism, Sex Appeal, Be Innovative, Do Some Good, Pow! Shazam!, Think Young. Reading at the topic of each of the chapters, I am sure everyone will be intrigued by the contents.
This is book is for the people who are looking for inspiration and motivation in their business or life. The personal experiences he has shared make you believe that earning money can be lot of fun.
About Author
Author of this book is one of the most audacious Entrepreneurs of the present world. Branson has beautifully portrayed his unconventional way of doing business. His full name is Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson. He was born 18 July 1950 and he is a British industrialist, best known for his Virgin brand of over 360 companies. Richard Branson is the 261st richest person in the world according to Forbes’ 2009 list of billionaires, with an estimated net worth of approximately £2.6 billion (US$3.9billion).
Other Books written by Richard Branson
If you want to know more about the maverick nature and adventure filled life of Richard Branson and his unique style of doing business, you must read his autobiography -
- Losing My Virginity: How I’ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way
- Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur
Conclusion
Like this review, the book, Screw It, Let’s Do It, is a quick read full of the wisdoms that made and still makes Richard Branson a successful man by anyone’s standard. And it is definitely worth a couple of hours of your time to read through it and learn more about what makes people like him successful.
I got this book brand new hard cover @ just at Rs. 134 (after 19% discount) from Flipkart
Book review: A Colossal Failure of Common Sense
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Friends, I have just finished reading a really nice book discussed below. This is the first time I have tried my hand on writing a book review. I have tried to be very objective and honest. Please let me know your views by posting a comment below.
Background: A Colossal Failure of Common Sense
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense
One date that any person across the world would like to forget in recent times would be September 12, 2008- the day when Lehman Brothers, one of the mighty Investment Banks on Wall Street filed for bankruptcy and set in motion sequence of events which led to one of the most severe recession the World had ever experienced. One question which has still not been answered is what conspired inside such a huge investment bank which led to its dramatic fall?
“Colossal Failure of common sense: The inside story of collapse of Lehman Brothers” is an attempt in that direction.
About the Author
Lawrence G McDonald, until 2008 was vice president of distressed debt and convertible securities trading at Lehman Brothers and was considered as the firm’s most profitable traders.
About the Book
Positives
The book very well describes the causes of crisis and how the seeds of the crisis were sowed with the repealing of Glass-Steagal Act and watered by the subsequent developments in financial markets like wide-spread use of instruments like CDS, MBS etc. One thing for which I really liked the book was the simple way in which such instruments have been explained.
As the title claims, the book does give a good insight into the inside culture and happenings at Lehman Brothers. Different people involved in the decision making hierarchy and their roles have been apt fully described which gives the reader an understanding of what might have happened. For instance, Lehman’s former chief executive, Richard Fuld, who, on reading the book appears to be arrogant, stupid, greedy, reckless and a cause which led Lehman in the mess. Mr. Fuld appears to have supported many others who led to a concentration of risk in the then highly profitable segment of CDOs etc which ultimately led to huge losses and MTM write offs.
It also gives a good account of how Mr Mc Donald and others realized that Lehman might be out in troubled waters early on and how they tried to bring it to the notice of seniors but where put down.
Negatives
What might disappoint readers are initial few chapters which describe the early life of the author which have no connection what so ever with the Lehman failure. Also, at some points in the book, there has been a considerable room for ambiguity but there are only few of them.
My Personal Opinion
Overall, I would say this would be a good read for people who either have no knowledge or just a basic knowledge of the financial world. If you are an expert, looking for some high profile details of what transpired, you might be disappointed.
You can buy this book from FlipCart at 10% discount and free shipping here : Buy A Colossal Failure of Common Sense
Author name: Praveen Bajaj
