rantlust

Posted by papi on March 13th 2007 in Business, Finance, Travel
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Recently, I learned that many credit card companies tack on an extra surcharge for using your credit card overseas. This charge is often not reported as an extra line item. Instead, it is hidden inside the cost of the purchase, and since hardly anyone bothers to check the prevailing exchange rate to figure out if they’ve been billed the right amount for each purchase, this tactic largely goes unnoticed. The surcharge, tax, or whatever your choose to call it, can be as high as 3%. For people who do a lot of travelling and make significant purchases overseas, this can be a rather high premium to pay. The good news is that there are several cards which do not charge this premium. CapitalOne is one such company, but there are others. If you’re planning to travel abroad, it’s wise to check with your credit card company to find out if they charge extra for this service, and if so, shop around for another card.

In spite of these caveats, a credit card is still the most convenient way to pay for stuff abroad. Besides the security and convenience, credit cards can also get you better value for money, since the major banks typically negotiate a better exchange rate than you would get from an ATM or a money-changer. Just be aware, and shop around.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/26/news/economy/cards_travel/index.htm

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Posted by crewcut on May 18th 2006 in Business, Disasters, Finance, India
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Yesterday, the Indian stock exchanges lost Rs 2.25 lakh crore in value (Rs 2.25 trillion), the biggest drop in the 150-year history of the Indian stock exchanges. The country’s premier index, the Sensex, lost 826 points (6.7%) to close at 11,391. Nifty, the more broadbased index, also lost 6.7% to close at 3,388.

The markets have been driven up by FIIs (Foreign Institutional Investors) doubling the Sensex in the past 1 year from 6,438 to a high of 12,671 two weeks ago. FIIs have pumped in Rs 45,000 crore (Rs 450 billion) last year and about half of that in the first few months of this year.

The reasons being given for the crash are the sale of Rs 7,300 crore (Rs 73 billion) shares by FIIs in the past 1 week, an expected increase in interest rates by the US Feds, a crash in the international commodity prices, and the straw which broke its back seems to be a government circular which was interpreted that FIIs should be taxed. P Chidambaram, the country’s Finance Minister, issued an evening press release denying the latter.

A decade ago powerful individuals could sway the market and everyone would scream that small investors have lost their retirement savings but this time most investors have suffered only paper losses and are still in the black. The real big losers, paper losses again, are the business tycoons. Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani lost Rs 11,600 crores (Rs 116 billion) in personal wealth yesterday.

Notes
Sensex is the index of the BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) analogous to to NYSE
Nifty is the index of the NSE (National Stock Exchange) analogous to NASDAQ
Dalal Street is where the BSE is located and is analogous to Wall Street
1 Lakh - 100,000
1 Crore = 100 lakhs (10 million)
US$ 1 = Indian Rs 45.50

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Posted by anupcs on February 01st 2006 in Europe, Far East, Finance
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San Francisco is ranked by the Economic Intelligence Unit at 40 in their biannual ranking of the world’s costliest cities. Forty? Are they shitting me?

Anyway, it’s Sayonara Tokyo and Hallo Oslo. The latter is the most expensive city in the world. Not what I would have thought. Of all the cities in the top ten, only Osaka and Tokyo are not in Europe.

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Posted by kinnum on January 08th 2006 in Business, Finance, Food & Wine
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http://www.slate.com/id/2133754?nav=wp

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Posted by tafkap on October 31st 2005 in Developing Nations, Finance, Humor
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Yes, King Win Laurel Limited; a Chinese company with a penchant for making ludicrous buyout offers has made a bid for Exxon, in an offer worth $450 billion. Previous bids by King Win Laurel for Telstra (Australia’s largest telephone company) and Restaurant Brands have been unsuccessful.

Amusing to say the least, but one day life may well imitate humor.

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Posted by jcaldera on October 28th 2005 in Finance, Society, Technology
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The following is taken from www.sans.org, one of the most influential computer security organizations in the industry.

–Financial Institutions to Create Database of Employees Who Pose Security Risks
(26 October 2005)
US financial institutions are working together to establish a database of employees who are known to pose scam risks. People included in the database will be those who compromised customer data or “knowingly caused financial losses.”

[Editor's note (Schultz): This initiative will pay rich dividends to the financial institutions, but the implications for privacy and individual rights are truly frightening. A person whose name is entered into this database will for all practical purposes be "blackballed" throughout the financial industry, per the intention of this initiative. But what if an individual was falsely accused and then was fired anyway? There appears to be no appeal or review process for such an individual.]

(Read more…)

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Posted by tafkap on August 30th 2005 in Finance, Nature, USA
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I heard on the radio that the estimated claims for Katrina would be in the 9-27 billion dollar range. Lets see what the final figures turn out to be. The claims for all the hurricanes put together last season were in the 27 billion dollar range. The claims for 9/11 were in the 30 billion dollar range. Considering the widespread devastation of the storm, this comparison is somewhat eye opening. I guess that’s why the mantra when it comes to shopping for real estate is ‘Location, location, location’.

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Posted by riyer on August 07th 2005 in Finance, Politics, Religion, USA
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Much has been said and written about the silence of religious leaders when some of the most horrific atrocities are committed - especially when many of these atrocities are in the name of religion. Most notable of these is the silence of the RC church during the holocaust. So I read with some admiration a story in the NYT that many of the church leaders in the US are taking a bold stand calling for a vote to divest its stock in some of the leading corporations that supply military and infrastructure equipment to the Israeli army. (Read more…)

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