Carbon Trading

Recently while strolling through the pages of Economic Times, popularly known as ET, I cam across an article, with heading "China still ahead of India in Carbon trading". Carbon Trading, the term seems to be obnoxious, but it really struck me and I googled the web to get the exact meaning of Carbon trading. In trading community Carbon Trading is also known as Emission trading. So according to CarbonTrading.com, Carbon Trading can be defined as "is a market based mechanism for helping mitigate the increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Carbon tradingmarkets are developing that bring buyers and sellers of carbon credits together with standardized rules of trade.". So a big power generator company can become a buyer of Carbon Credits, while an agricultural farm owner may become a seller of Carbon Credit. So if a power company has to increase its capacity beyond the defined band, then they have to buy the Carbon Credit from the less polluter or less Co2 emitter seller, thus forming a tradable environment. I hope this platform may provide both development with environment control at the same hand.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Carbon markets get new global trade association
• Energy companies to avoid windfall tax
• UN crackdown to force up price of carbon credits
• UK schools to be tied into cap-and-trade scheme
• Indian National Biodiesel Promotion Plan Given a 'Quiet Burial'

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit Kumar

Artist Funds

Art business as Investment funds are in the market for quite some time, creating value addition for the sellers and the buyers of the art. But just like, Art Funds, on the similar lines can we think of an Artist funds, and start trading them on bourses as a trading commodites. Not necessarily an Artist be from a field of art, but he can be any human being from Films, Sports, Business, VC etc. Now if this Artist Funds exist, the next question is how this funds will have a value. As per my opinion, every Artist successful in its field has a brand image, this brand image brings him more work/business, more number of audiences etc.. Now as more work, audience, earning potential means more market or trading value of that Artist. I don't know how much this concept be viable based on the guidelines given by Capital markets regulators, but it certainly can be viable oppurtunity, to which one can give a serious thinking.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit Kumar

VAS : The next big thing in Mobile Telecom

With the advent of Mobile technology,the communication barrier between the people is completely broken. Now ever days mobile tele density is increasing day by day, just for instance India largest GSM player Bharti , alone adds 20-30 million customers in a month. Bharti is not alone who is getting the customer in big numbers, its every major telecom operator, who is counting on such a big customer number. Though in India, the tele density base is still lowest as compare to other developed nation. But this question must hovering in a mind of every CEO of a telecom company, and the question is What after Mobile Telephony reach its saturation ? The first obvious answer is looking for opportunities in another emerging markets, through ways of merger and acquisitions. But M&A is not a cakewalk for every organization. The second answer is providing Value added service (VAS), to end user. Today, mobile is not only a calling device, but it's a more or less like a computer in the hands of the customer. They use their mobile for ringtones,gaming, chatting, watching news, cricket scores, stock quotes etc.. As the mobile bandwidth increase, the demand for such kind of products will definitely be increased, so during that time, every other telecom operator will not only trying for new customers, but they will also try to retain their existing customers, by offering best of the best VAS services, either free of cost or at a negligible amount. So as per my opinion, the VAS will be the next big thing in Mobile telecom business.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit Kumar

Dark Pool Riding on Bourses

Today, when I was reading TOI, I came across an article which was really quite fascinating to read. The article was on Dark Pool kind of trading activities, which is getting huge momentum in US and Europe bourses. According to Times, its one of the biggest structural in equity trading to hit the American and European in 20 years, and it is threatening the real existence of exchanges like LSE NYSE and Euronext.

By Investopedia, dark pool gets its name because details of these trades are concealed from the public.

So Dark pooling is not for small investors, this kind of trading is suitable for institutional investors having lump sum amount of money to park in such kind of activity.

As this kind of trading involves huge amount of money, and directly or indirectly it will affect stocks valuations. So regulators providing such platform to these institutional investors, have to keep a hawk eye on them in order to prevent some big fraud or crisis like sub-prime, and also to safegaurd interests of small investors.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit Kumar

MTN / R-COM tie up in jittery

After Bharti Airtel broke merger talks with MTN, R-COM without any delay entered with a 45 day exclusivity merger talk with MTN, with a hope to create one of the biggest telecom conglomerate in emerging markets. For intial couple of weeks things seemed to be going smoothly, keeping in mind the scale of the deal and business policies of the two nations, a different deal scenarios were created, from share swaping to R-COM becoming a subsidiary of MTN. But as markets were expecting the deal to work through smoothly, there was a full stop from RIL. The RIL issued a statement saying that in R-COM and MTN deal, they have a Right of First Refusal (RoFR ). This statement from RIL, put the complete deal in jittery, which in turn led to increase in the exclusivity talk time period. Hope to see the animosity between Ambani brothers to be settled off peacefully, so that R-COM and MTN deal end up successfully.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit Kumar

Related articles by Zemanta

• Reliance enters MTN takeover fray
• Reliance begins talks to buy MTN
• $50 Billion Telecom Deal Falls Apart

Leveraging of Web2.0 in Banking/Financial Vertical

Launch of Web 2.0 totally change how web works, how it operates and how it can influences every bodies life. In layman terms, Web 2.0 empowers the END-USER to create and publish its own content, which can be used by other communities or groups on Web. The thriving Web 2.0 applications like blogging, video publishing, bookmarking , social networking etc. have given technology user an edge to express one thoughts and share them with the outer world.

But the question is, How Web 2.0 platform can be leverage for Banking and Financial Industry ?
The question is quite tricky, as Web 2.0 is more user itself, so how can be used by the an Industry which run on some pre-defined set of rules and standards. Let's explore this issue little bit, and segregate Web 2.0 platform based on the application supported by this platform.

1. Blogging : Blogging provides a platform for a user to express his thoughts, it also provide a platform to bring together all like minded people, actually thinking about the similar thoughts.

Now the question is, How blogging can be useful to Banking and Financial industry?
Banking Industry has numerous financial products, normally the knowledge of the products lies with the sector who launches or maintains the product. In order to make their product more competent and more risk averse, the bank should try to spread as much as knowledge about that product to its employess, so that the involvement of large section of intellectual people may make the product more rewarding to the client of the bank. This can be possible, if bank try to implement somekind of intra blogging concept, where people can discuss about their products, their prcing mechanism, advt. strategies etc. and at the same time expect comments and advice from their colleagues.

2. Maps : Every other day, google comes with its newer version of Google Maps. Where it not only provides a comprehensive data of city locations and paths, but its also empowers users to edit and add information about their locations. Now how banks can leverage this technology to their benefits ?
Now the kind of business the banking industry does is changing, now client does not go to banks, but banks come to clients. In order to make sure the bank and its services are accessible, the banks should provide efficient way to reach that services. For e.g. nowadays every banks has large number of ATM machine, they can be widespread throughout the city. Bank should provide detailed information about the ATM location, its accessibility, information about nearby places etc.

3. Social Networking : Social Networking sites are flourishing very fast in Web 2.0 space, sites like Facebook, My Space, Orkut etc. are a big hit among the consumers especially the youth. Banking industry can try to formulate such a platform, where like minded intellectual consumers can come , make friends, discuss about the bank's financial product offering, it's short term and long term benefit. They may also involve in putting ideas in improving the current product . Thus involving consumers directly in developing a financial product and getting their response for the existing products.

The main reason of Banking industry still did not leverage for Web 2.0, it's may be due to security and customer secrecy concerns. But as Web2.0 platform become more standardized and secure proof, no bank stalwart will hesitate to use this platform in their favor. Hope to see more use of Web 2.0 in banking and financial industry.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit Kumar

Battle of Titans : MTN Vs RCOM

Indian corporates are now no longer limited to Indian sub-continents, they are coming to acquire global firms and that too in a big way. Forgot about Wipro 100-200million $ acquisitions, forgot about Tata billion $ acquisitions of Corus steel. But Indian Corporate parlance will certainly going to remember and for the long time if MTN and RCOM(Reliance Communication) 50 billion $ deal worked out.

But deal between MTN and RCOM will not be that easy, it will face plenty of hurdles legal, financial, political, etc. Prior to RCOM, Sunil Mittal promoted Bharti was in the race for acquiring MTN. But the talk between two telecoms biggies ended abruptly due to difference between the demand of MTN and offering of Bharti.

But the question is can RCOM will able to tap the unpredictable MTN?

Though RCOM has started an initial 45 days talk with the global telecom player, and during this process employed some of the best Investment bankers and International advisor's to sort out the terms of the deal between the two companies. The acquisition of MTN will not be easy, but the way Amabani's do their business, my gut feeling is that this time Mr. Anil Ambani will certainly acquire MTN. FYI, Mr. Ambani failed to acquire Hutchison Essar, which went to Vodafone.


If Mr. Anil Ambani is able to tap the MTN deal, then with the user base of more than 115million, his telecom conglomerate will become one of the biggest telecom companies in the world. It will put give his company an access to some of the emerging telecom markets, where still the tele density of user is negligible, as compared to other developed nations. Besides, this deal will certainly give Indian companies to think big and execute even bigger.

So I earnestly wish best of luck to Mr. Anil Ambani for his global acquisition.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit Kumar