BLOOMING INSIGHTS

It is hard to imagine a world without big companies like Microsoft or Apple in it. Things get worse when they rival each other to satisfy their wants. Something similar is happening in India, where two big giants in the business world, Reliance and Amazon are in pursuit of a similar goal i.e., to dominate the retail market of the country. It all started when the debt-ridden Future Group agreed to sell various assets of its subsidiary, Future Retail to Reliance in August last year for a total value of Rs. 24713 crores. The deal was the only way out for the struggling Future Group which has been adversely affected by COVID-19 lockdown. It would have also provided a major boost to the retail chain of Reliance as the deal would increase its presence in more than 150 cities. Also, major Future Group brands like Big Bazar and Food Bazar would be under their shawl. But to add to the miseries of Future Group, Amazon disapproved of the deal. The basis of the objection between Amazon and Kisho...

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Annual Budget which holds  great significance primarily because it is the first budget since the outbreak of the Covid-19  pandemic. While there are plenty of talking points of the latest budget, one highlight which  certainly got noticed by folks in the automotive industry was the introduction of a Vehicle  Scrappage policy. The new policy will be applicable to cars and commercial vehicles which are older than 20 or 15 years, respectively. This scheme will require all private vehicles older than twenty years to undergo a fitness test. According to the Finance Minister, this fitness test will be conducted at automated fitness centres which will evaluate whether or not the vehicle in question is fit to run on roads. If not, the vehicle will then head to a scrap yard. While it is possible for a vehicle to pass the fitness test, each such test would set back an owner by Rs 40,000. In addition to this, one has to pa...

Our finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has announced that Center would be setting up Bad Banks to take the stress off of financial institutions. It wouldn’t be said an unanticipated doing as the plan isn’t new and has been talked about many times in the past few years, but it certainly was a little shock nonetheless. Indian markets aren’t used to have Bad Banks around. What is a Bad Bank? Speaking in layman’s tongue a Bad Bank is just a dumping ground for banks to put all its bad assets. Now assume a bank carrying a very heavy bag with lots of assets, and when the weather gets deteriorated (economy goes down), that heavy bag will most probably lead the bank to its demise. In such case, the bank could make a sperate subsidiary and transfer all of its toxic (potentially and existing) and non-performing assets to it, at their actual realizable value, which, of course, is lesser than book value. Bank does get hit by a sudden loss in this way, but this helps it survive through the worsen...

If you are active on social media, the story of GameStop isn’t something that you are ignorant of. There has been continuous buzz about the company and how a group of investors created havoc like situation for the big players in Wall Street. So, what exactly happened? How did rookie investor overpower the veterans? And what role did Reddit play in this mayhem? Before delving into the incident there are few terms the readers must be enlighten. These includes key financial terms like day trading, short selling and hedge fund. Day trading refers to purchase and sell stocks or vice versa, this can be done multiple times in a trading day. The main aim is to earn a small profit out of the price fluctuation. Short selling is a form of day trading where the investor first sell a stock and then purchase it later before the end of the trading day. It is a way of profiting off the price of the stocks that one knows is going to fall. Hedge funds are big institutions with a massive pool of investin...