After gold’s weakest quarterly performance in around five years at the end of March, there are encouraging signs that it may have reached close to bottom. By the end of the first quarter, gold was down 10% year-to-date and 18% below its record level of $2,067/ounce reached in early August. The catalyst for the slide was […]
Prof. Joshy Jacob, IIM Ahmedabad The Chinese commodities derivatives market has grown at a rapid pace in the recent past. Today, the Chinese commodities derivative exchanges are among the top-five globally. Out of the top-15 futures contracts in the world, nine are traded at the Chinese exchanges. Our recent field study on the Chinese markets […]
Last March, as the world economy shut down, commodity producers knew they were in for a harrowing time. Demand fell off a cliff and producers scrambled to cut capacity. Mines shut shop, rolling mills ground to a halt and oil transporters had to pay buyers to take delivery. A year later, the speed of the […]
New Delhi would without doubt be cheering Beijing’s crackdown on polluting steel mills towards the end of this week. The single action by China’s government has sent skyrocketing iron-ore prices crashing, which will translate into lower prices of the most important steel-making ingredient for Indian steel mills as well. New Delhi has been so troubled […]
While the Covid-19 outbreak disrupted crop plantings and raised the spectre of hunger in poorer nations including parts of India, the year ahead is looking brighter because of a stronger global outlook for cereals. The most important food staple, their consumption in 2020/21 is expected to rise by 2% above the level of 2019-20 to […]
Indian consumers are feeling the pinch as a surge in crude oil prices have caused prices of gasoline (petrol) to rise to as high as Rs 100/litre in the country’s financial hub Mumbai. While Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently told a conference that it’s a dilemma on whether to bring down taxes on fuel or […]
Asian economies are performing better than expected. In the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook Update, we upgraded our growth estimate for 2020 by 0.7 percentage point from our previous forecast in October, to a contraction of 1.5 percent—in regional terms, a better outcome than other parts of the world. This is largely driven by stronger-than-expected performance among […]
We live in unprecedented times. As the world’s population grows and industrialization takes hold in more corners of the world, climate change is accelerating, and, in response, humanity’s concern for our planet’s health is growing. The teenage activist Greta Thunberg put it best: “I want you to act as if the house is on fire, […]
The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s third budget indeed has some strong measures which can provide a major push to the agriculture sector as well as allied businesses like dairy. For instance, 10% increase in the agri credit target by 1.5 lakh crore (in conjunction with the proposal to set up DFI) will improve access to credit […]
The Budget for 2021-22 combined much needed radical policy interventions with risk prudence, to address a range of crises that have plagued the Indian economy, from unemployment, secular wage disinflation, a banking crisis and low economic growth. The government made an excellent decision to run a high fiscal deficit and increase capital outlay to build […]
