Category Archives: Capital Markets

Business Services, Capital Markets, Finance, Software, Technology

BFSI moving to a Cloud-first paradigm

Cloud migration is an integral part of the digital transformation journey of banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) firms. Many BFSI firms are adopting cloud-first strategies to realize the benefits of business excellence, innovation, speed-to-market, and operational and infrastructure savings. BFSI organizations tend to initiate the cloud migration journey by adopting infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) models and evolve to embracing platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) models as cloud solutions and products mature. Successful migration will, however, depend on choosing the right cloud deployment models as well as cloud service models. BFSI firms must consider some crucial factors while choosing the cloud migration model:

  • Business value and technology
  • Functional uniqueness and product maturity
  • Privacy, security, and regulatory requirements
  • Costs, scalability, and performance

Aparna Jiddu
Platform Architect, Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance, TCS

Sripada Sarma
Solution Architect, Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance, TCS

Capital Markets, Commodities, Economy, Energy, Finance, Investments, Market News, Risk Management

Global Market Updates – Monday, 11 Nov 2019

The US-China trade war returned to centre stage last week as investors swayed between optimism and caution as mixed, but broadly positive reports turned the markets bullish. Reports earlier in the week suggested that China was demanding more concessions in rolling back existing tariffs as a condition for the first phase deal. There was more uncertainty as the US suggested midweek that a deal might be delayed until December but on Thursday markets turned positive again as China stated that the US had agreed to roll back existing tariffs as part of the first phase deal. As a result Crude Oil and stocks were boosted, while Gold decreased in value.

The General Election campaign officially began in the UK with investors keeping a close eye on opinion polls. The governing Conservatives have a firm 12% lead over the Labour party, although some opinion polls show that this lead is narrowing The election will take place on December 12th and investors will be hoping for a clear result which doesn’t prolong the uncertainty on Brexit.

The Middle East was another source of focus last week with both Iran and Iraq in the headlines and affecting Crude and Gold prices. While Iran continues its nuclear program in Iraq large numbers of protests continued with some blocking the key Nassiriya oil refinery and disrupting oil supplies.

Crude Prices were again pressured by poor inventories data this week, but finished higher over trade optimism.

Stock prices recorded all time highs again this week as trade sentiment supported the markets and better than expected US economic data, continued to calm fears of a US economic slowdown.

The prices of Natural Gas, Crude Oi, Palladium, Silver Platinum, and Gold saw the greatest volatility last week.

Natural Gas was the most volatile last week at 14.25%, and edged lower over the week by 0.64%, as the weather forecasts showed slightly milder weather was expected dampening prices somewhat.

Crude oil also experienced very high oscillations, showing volatility of 13.34%. The commodity’s price slipped slightly by 0.21% and prices were most volatile on Wednesday as fears over global demand continued amid nervousness over US – China first phase trade talks progress.

Palladium saw great volatility, recording 10.06% volatility but falling by 3.04% over the week with a strengthening dollar putting pressure on precious metals last week.

Silver was also highly volatile last week recording volatility of 12.68% and fell lower by 6.31%. Silver saw greatest volatility on Tuesday.

Platinum prices oscillated this week recording 11.46% volatility and declined by 3.04% over the week. The precious metal experienced most volatility on Thursday.

Gold prices continued oscillating by 6.68% last week and traded downwards by 3.51% over the week with the precious metal seeing most volatility on Thursday, in a volatile week that saw trade optimism turn slightly sour at the very end of the week.

Business Strategy, Capital Markets, Industrial, Investments, Leadership, Mobile & Telecom, People, Risk Management, Technology

Reliance Industries (RIL) – Letter to Shareholders – FY2019

A robust foundation for the golden decade

Dear Fellow Shareowners,

It gives me great pleasure to share with you the exceptional performance of our Company in FY 2018-19. Our revenue and profit numbers have touched new heights, strengthening our position as India’s largest private sector company by market capitalization and profitability.

We now rank in the top 100 profitable companies in the Fortune Global 500 list of ‘World’s Largest Corporations’. We delivered a solid performance in our hydrocarbons businesses despite the volatile oil price environment and incremental capacities in some of our product categories.

Consumer businesses witnessed phenomenal growth in terms of revenues and profitability, with Reliance Retail and Jio now collectively contributing nearly 25% of consolidated segment EBITDA.

Global economic growth remained healthy at 3.6% in CY 2018, as against 3.8% in CY 2017, impacted by weaker performance in the European Union and China. Economic activity was driven by a boost in spending due to tax cuts by the US. Global trade growth was robust in the first half of 2018, but tapered later in the year with trade tensions and higher energy prices.

The Indian economy continued to witness an increase in investments, with Gross Fixed Capital Formation growth at a six-year high of 10%. Healthy industrial activity continued and service indicators sustained positive trends. Service exports growth is at a seven-year high of almost 17%. The Indian economy remains the fastest growing major economy in the world. Continue reading →

5 Questions, Capital Markets, Economy, Finance, Investments

Market Views from S Naren of ICICI Prudential

S Naren, CIO – ICICI Prudential AMC, shares his outlook on the equity markets for 2016, the problems the markets are facing currently and explains why investing in the current bear phase will be rewarding for investors.

Notes: Just for the record, S Naren has been one of the few fund managers who has been very successful in getting broad market direction right. In Jan 2015 he called for investors to move into bonds and wait for markets to stabilize and earnings growth to come through. In Aug 2013, when Nifty was at 5150, he was of clear view that investors should buy Nifty or broad based mutual funds to benefit from upswing as valuations were crushed. That was also a very valuable assessment.

5 Questions, Capital Markets, Finance, People

George Soros on Financial Markets

In this valuable video, George Soros shares his lifetime learnings on Financial Markets. Some of the key messages are:
1. In business cycles, Earnings (EPS) rise will lead Valuation(P/E) rise, and Earnings (EPS) fall will lead Valuation(P/E) fall because investors tend to extrapolate the present into the future.
2. Whatever is known to the majority, can not create profits (competitive advantage).
3. Markets discount all the known things. The profits are in the unknown (events of the future), which are not yet discounted by the market.