Mortgage Crisis effect on Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers

Topic: Mortgage Crisis

The repercussions of Mortgage crisis is devastating. The ill-effects is slowly moving into the Financial world. The day would not be too far when the negative output spreads all over the world affecting every aspects of the functioning of the financial world. Two of the major Financial Institutions facing the heat of Mortgage crisis is Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers.

The main reason for this fall is considered to be bad Mortgage Finance and Real estate Investments.

Merrill Lynch which was worth $100 billion last year is now taken over by Bank of America for $50 billion. This act of Merrill Lynch is considered to avert the huge financial losses that they have been facing. Lehman Brothers unable to find a company which could take over them has chosen the path of  Liquidation to avoid the huge Financial loss. According to leading Economists and other financial Institutions these two events would greatly affect the American Finance sector in a negative manner. With Lehman Brothers chosing the path of Liquidation, the Indian Stock market faced a severe downward movement losing nearly
Rs 2000 crores.

Another event which is expected to have ever lasting effect in American Finance sector is American Institutional Group a major Insurance Company seeking $40 billion from Federal reserve to sustain the losses from the credit crisis.

Bollywood turning out to be hot destination for Investment

Topic: Bollywood turning out to be hot destination for Investment

Multinational Companies are pooling in huge investments in Bollywood on account of better Return on Investments. They believe that there is a huge market potential in Bollywood that needs to be harnessed. The major Multinational Companies who are turning towards Bollywood are Tata Groups, Mahindra and Mahindra, Moser Baer and Ranbaxy.

“Mumbai Chaka Chak” happens to be the first venture for Mahindra and Mahindra media venture company. According to its CEO Entertainment Industry happens to be a hot spot for destination in the coming years. He feels that the Industry is in an Expansion state which happens to be a good sign for Investors in the Corporate sector. Bollywood’d present worth is $2.1 billion and is expected to reach $3.9 billion by 2011.

The key player who has already capitalized on this huge Business is Anil Dhirubai Ambani Group who have already bought Adlabs. More and more people are raising funds to invest in Entertainment sector to get a part of this rising profit. The corporates are trying only small and medium budget films at first to get a feel of the necessities for them to survive in this sector.

Source: The Hindu, September 11, 2008

CHROME v/s Internet Explorer

Topic: CHROME v/s Internet Explorer

Google’s recent free Web-browser ‘CHROME’, according to its officials happens to be more superior than Microsofts Internet Explorer and Firefox browser. Google feels that with the increase in number of internet users, there is a great scope for scalability of its product. This web-browser can also be adopted in mobile phones to provide internet access to mobile users. This feature has brought about increase in the number who comes in contact with Web advertising, due to Mobile user community. This is a huge boost to Google’s lead in Web Advertising. Online search and Web Advertising happens to be the bone of contention for Microsoft and Google. Google has been competing with Microsoft in the areas of presentation software, e-mail software by providing a free or low cost effective packages. Until now Google has been backing Firefox browser which is also open source but due to the Introduction of CHROME, the situation has changed which implies an additional competitior for Internet Explorer.

In reply to Google’s CHROME, the official in Microsoft replied by saying that User friendly nature provided by Internet Explorer 8 along with the Security features offers a high resistance to any Web-browser.

Source: The Hindu, Newscape, September 3, 2008.