Readings: Wall Street outsourced, Propping up NAVs, Gulf cement
Wall Street’s losses are fast becoming India’s gain. After outsourcing much of their back-office work to India, banks are now exporting data-intensive jobs from higher up the food chain to cities that cost less than New York, London and Hong Kong, either at their own offices or to third parties.
“There’s a huge amount of grunt work that has been done by $250,000-a-year Wharton M.B.A.’s,” Mr. Kessler said. “Some of that stuff, it’s natural to outsource it.”
After research, the next wave may include more sophisticated jobs like the creation of derivative products, quantitative trading models and even sales jobs from the trading floors.
MF managers don’t like falling NAVs as they can lead to bigger problems if investors panic and begin to redeem money from their funds. Sitting on huge piles of cash, fund managers, especially the bigger ones, deftly avoid trouble in a systematic manner, says the person, who primarily deals with institutions.
Since NAV of mutual fund schemes are calculated on closing price, the last few trades become crucial for funds irrespective of what price the stocks have traded through the day.
Ah, nice to know that on top of getting a % of your money every year regardless of performance, fund managers also are trying their best to prop up the NAV charts.
- Arabian Business: Sun sets on cement
RAK White Cement is not alone among producers in the region suffering from a lack of power. A shortage in the supply of natural gas, together with pressures to keep up with strong demand, has forced some producers to instead use more expensive fuels like diesel or coal. UAE demand for cement is expected to surge to 26.2 million tonnes by 2011.
Those producers who are turning to alternative fuel sources are experiencing ever slimmer profit margins too. The price of coal has risen to $150 a tonne from $80 to $90 a tonne last year. Meanwhile, the price of diesel is estimated to have rocketed by 50 percent in the last four months.
Pick your poison: this is indicative of huge pent-up demand for real estate in the ME/GCC, or a sign that we are smack in the middle of a ‘top’.
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