Debt-To-GDP Ratio

A measure of a country's federal debt in relation to its gross domestic product (GDP). By comparing what a country owes and what it produces, the debt-to-GDP ratio indicates the country's ability to pay back its debt. The ratio is a coverage ratio on a national level.

Rate differential swap

A swap in which the two payments are tied to two currencies in two different interest rate indexes, but in which the payments are exchanged in one base currency. For example, a rate differential swap might have payments denominated in U.S. dollars, but could have one set tied to the Japanese LIBOR and another to the U.S. LIBOR. The Japanese LIBOR payments will still be made in dollars. The rate differential swap allows investors to profit from changes in the interest rates of the two indexes. also called cross-index basis swap, cross-rate swap, differential swap, interest rate index swap, LIBOR differential swap.

2 Ways to Spot Industry-Changing Trends

All leaders want to know what trends will shape the future of their industries before they happen. To spot them early, you can't mingle with the usual suspects at industry events. You need to interact with the peripheries of your industry. Here are two ways to do that:

• Spend time with peripheral customers. Every industry has cutting-edge users that know—or are even setting—the trends. Find these customers (hint: they are often the younger, technology-focused ones) and tap them for their insights.
• Investigate peripheral companies. Be on the lookout for interesting startups or established companies that could one day edge into your market. Don't be limited by traditional industry demarcations. Investigate companies solving similar problems that you solve for your customers..

Currency Strategist

A financial professional who evaluates economic trends and geopolitical moves to forecast price moves in the foreign exchange market. A currency strategist is often employed by a forex brokerage firm to perform research and analysis, and to form opinions regarding current and future currency price moves.

Currency strategists often use a combination of technical and fundamental analysis to make forecasts. A currency strategist usually has a degree in economics, international finance or international politics, and has a deep understanding of the international monetary system.

A currency strategist may also be called a currency researcher or a forex market analyst.

Urgent Opening in one of the International BPO for the "Voice Coach" for Gr. Noida.

 

Got an email, publishing for your interest…

Degination :Voice Coach
Work location – Greater Noida
Skills Required :International voice process experience
• 1 yr experience in International voice process
• Only Graduate can apply
• Flexible to work 24/7
• 5 Days working
• Good communication skills required
Wud Be responsible for taking care of Agents livecall and supervising the agents in rectifying the errors
Interested Candidate can forward their CV as soon as Possible to swatigupta@firstcalli.com
Interviews r on 18th August,2011 So hurry up to grasp the opportunity
Regards
Swati
First Call
0120-4336508
08527933058

Job Opening in Accounts

I got this email, publishing for your interest…. hope it will help out for a good career.

Good luck..!!

Experience required for the Job: 0 - 3 years

Job Location: Noida

Dear Candidate,

Dear Candidate,
This is in reference to your cv on a job site. We are currently processing a position for candidates holding B.Com with 0-3 year of industry working experience. Your current job profile and academic credentials seem to be in line with our client's requirement. Please note that the above-mentioned position is with our client. The current position is based at their Noida Operations. Please note that your cv is being considered for the position of Accounts.
Following is the brief company profile and job description for the mentioned position for your reference:
Our Client is a leading provider of Transformation and Outsourcing services to Global 1000 companies in multiple industries including insurance, banking, financial services, utilities, transportation and travel. Our solutions integrate our knowledge and experience in Decision Analytics, Financial & Risk Management, Operational & Process Excellence, Re-engineering and Integrated Transaction Processing to provide our clients with immediate business impact and long term financial value. We customize our solutions to improve the economics of business performance, transform organizations to be leaner and more flexible and provide a competitive edge in the marketplace. Our Client leverages its highly qualified and experienced professionals at its offshore, near-shore and onshore to address our clients’ present challenges and prepare them to Go Next. Now. to effectively address future challenges.
Our Client is a U.S. company that was incorporated in 1999. Our headquarters are based in New York City and we operate 15 state-of-the-art delivery centers in India, the Philippines, US, Czech Republic, and Romania with sales offices in New York, New Jersey and London. Our solutions help organizations achieve a competitive edge by managing their legal support operations from our global delivery centers. Organization can gain significant cost advantage and better quality of service.
Following is the brief job description for this position: A/P, A/R, Reconciliation, Invoice, B/R, Accrued Income / Expenditure, General Accounting etc.
Academic Background
· Must be B.Com
· Strong analytical skills
· Good Written and Verbal Communication Skills
· Sensitivity to quality of deliverables & meeting deadlines
· Ability to function in a team.
Please immediately forward us your updated cv along with the details of your present and expected salary.

Please immediately forward us your updated cv along with the details of your present and expected salary.
Thanks n Regds,
Pooja Goel
Intellect Career Solutions
9899515244, 0129-4011180
E-mail: pooja@intellectsearch.in

3 Ways to Build Confidence

Few people succeed in business without self-assurance. But, everyone has bouts of insecurity from time to time. Here are three ways you can bolster your confidence:


Be honest. Know what you're good at and what you still need to learn. With an accurate assessment of your abilities you can tell the difference between self-doubt and lack of skill.

Practice. If there's a job or task that you're worried about, practice doing it. Preparation builds both skill

and confidence.

Embrace new opportunities. Playing to your strengths is smart, but not if it means you don't try new things. Conquer fresh challenges to remind yourself what you are capable of.

THE NEW BENCHMARK FOR HIRING MANAGEMENT GRADUATES

The All India Management Association (AIMA) – the apex body for management in the country has launched a new test – MAST – Management Aptitude and Skills Test to bridge the gap between education and employment market.

 

Demand for Management Knowledge and Skills is increasing exponentially in the current business scenario and MAST will cater to the candidate’s aspirations and companies expectations from Management postgraduates.

 

A high profile advisory committee consisting of senior HR professionals under Chairmanship Mr. D Shiva Kumar, Managing Director, Nokia India is mentoring this Test. AIMA will conduct MAST on 18^th September 2011. The score card along with the professional details will be shared with the endorsing recruiters through AIMA portal.

 

MAST is a 2 ½ hours duration test and has three components

 

1.      General Aptitude   2. Domain Knowledge (Specialisation Area)   3. Psychometric Profiling

Key Features

 

1.      Test designed to evaluate Managerial skills of the MBA/PGDM candidates

2.      Computer adaptive objective type test to be conducted across India

3.      Fees  - Rs 1750

4.      Test scores to be accessed by Recruiters for full 1 year 

 

Why you should take MAST if you are MBA/PGDM pass out after 2008

 

•          Assessment of Managerial skills set sought by recruiters

•          Level playing field for the candidates irrespective of the geographical location and category of B School

•          Sharing of resume and MAST score  with endorsing recruiters at pan India level

•          Help streamline career growth and choose right career path    

 

MAST is being aggressively promoted to the HR fraternity, Placement Consultants & Job Portals in India and is backed by the best companies such as Dabur , Parle , ITC , JK Cement , Metlife , HDFC , Camlin ,Britannia  Intex etc which will be using  MAST score for their fresher hiring process.

 

Also click the below links for more information

 

Website: http://www.aima-ind.org/mast.aspx

 

MAST Flyer:   http://www.aima-ind.org/pdf/Mastflyer.pdf  

 

Registration Form: http://202.138.125.132/aima/Home/Menu.aspx

 

Feedback Form: http://www.aima-ind.org/AIMAFeedback_MAST.aspx

 

If you wish to have a great start to your career then please take MAST and brighten your chances of being picked by the company matching your managerial skills.

 

Best Regards

Team

Management Aptitude and Skills Test

All about ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds)

Exchange traded funds or ETFs have revolutionized the global investment industry in recent times due to their simplicity, low costs and ease of use.

In India, exchange traded funds have been in existence for quite some time now. But they have not been able to attract investors' attention and money unlike its global peers.

The foremost reason for ETFs not being popular among investors in India is the lack of understanding of the concept of ETF.

What are ETFs? How are they different from a normal MF? How does ETF work? Are ETFs worth investing? We look at the answers to these and some other common queries regarding the ETFs.

1. An exchange traded fund (ETF) looks like a mutual fund that tracks an index, a commodity or a basket of assets like an index fund, but trades like a stock on an exchange.

ETFs experience price changes throughout the day as they are bought and sold throughout the trading day. When you buy shares of an ETF, you are buying shares of a portfolio that tracks the yield and return of its native index.

Buying/selling ETFs is as simple as buying/selling any other stock on the exchange allowing the investors to take advantage of intra-day price movements. The main difference between ETFs and other types of index funds is that ETFs don't try to outperform their corresponding index, but simply replicate its performance. ETFs don't try to beat the market, they try to be the market.

2. Convenience: ETFs can be bought/sold any time of the day when the market is open, as they are traded on a real time basis.

Diversification: By investing in ETFs an investor can enjoy the diversification benefits of an index fund with the flexibility of a stock.

ETFs can be bought and sold anytime during market hours at a price which closely replicates the actual NAV of the scheme.

With a small amount of money an investor can get the benefit of an entire underlying asset which could be an Index or a commodity like gold.

Lower expense ratio: ETFs are managed passively. Hence administrative charges are low which pushes down the expense ratio.

Tracking error, which is divergence between the NAV of the ETF and the underlying Index, is generally observed to be low as compared to a normal index fund due to lower expenses and the unique in-kind creation / redemption process.

3. Investors can use ETFs for strategic asset allocation and tactical asset allocation to reflect their short-term investment insights.

Investors can use ETFs to make sector bets or reduce their sector exposure.

Investors can effectively short or hedge Index exposure by selling ETFs against long stock holdings, thereby reducing the broad market risk exposure or beta of the portfolio.

An investor in an open-ended mutual fund can only purchase or sell at the end of the day at the mutual fund's closing price, while ETF is continually priced throughout the day and therefore is not subject to this disadvantage, allowing the user to react to adverse or beneficial market condition on an intraday basis.
Tax efficiency: ETFs generally generate relatively low capital gains, because they typically have low turnover of their portfolio securities. While this is an advantage they share with other index funds, their tax efficiency is further enhanced because they do not have to sell securities to meet investor redemptions.

4. An investor can invest in ETF through AMC or an exchange. Expense ratio for ETFs is generally low but there are certain costs unique to the investors.

As investors can buy or sell ETF in the exchange like stocks, for every transaction he has to bear a brokerage commission. Investors may also have to bear costs related to difference in the ask-bid spread.

But these costs are not related only to ETF, even plain vanilla funds are also charged the same expenditure rather indirectly, as the fund pays for these costs.

5. One of the most important differences between open-ended mutual fund and ETF is that ETF are traded on an exchange on an intra-day basis and an investor can buy/sell ETF units at the prevailing market price.

While in an open-ended mutual fund, NAV is declared once a day and the investor can buy/sell at that NAV only.

6. Though ETFs and Futures provide an exposure to the same underlying index, they also differ on these points:

ETFs trade in much smaller investment sizes than a futures contract, making it possible for retail investors to participate in index investing.

Futures trading require an account with a broker having derivatives terminal and are subject to margin requirements prescribed by the exchanges.

Futures involve significant leverage which magnifies losses in the vent of prices moving against the positions held by the investor.

Futures contracts must be rolled over every three months (or every one month if liquidity is poor in far month contracts) which can lead to higher trading costs and tracking error.

7. Equity ETFs: Equity ETF is a basket of stocks that reflects the composition of an Index, like S&P CNX Nifty or BSE Sensex. The ETFs trading value is based on the net asset value of the underlying stocks that it represents. Think of it as a mutual fund that you can buy and sell in real-time at a price that changes throughout the day. Currently there are eleven equity ETFs which can be traded in BSE.

Liquid ETFs: Liquid ETFs are the money market ETFs, the investment objective of which is to provide money market returns. Liquid BeES launched by benchmark mutual fund is the first money market ETF in the world. Liquid BeES will invest in a basket of call money, short-term government securities and money market instruments of short and medium maturities.

Gold ETFs: Gold ETF is a special type of exchange traded fund that tracks the price of gold. Currently there are six gold ETFs which can be traded in BSE.

8. Gold ETF is a special type of exchange traded fund that tracks the price of gold. Uses of gold ETF:

To keep gold as part of your portfolio, invest in gold ETFs

To accumulate gold for special obligations, and you can sell them to purchase jewellery or other forms of gold when you desire

Advantages of gold ETF

Price approximately equal to 1 gram of gold

Backed by physical gold holding of 0.995 purity

No wealth tax

Long term capital gains after on year

No STT

No storage issues and fear of theft

No need to bear insurance cost

No need to shell out a huge sum of money to purchase ETF units.

9. ETFs trade just like any other normal listed security on the BSE , settlement is just like any other stock.

In case an investor has purchased ETF from the market, he has to pay the broker before the pay-in on T+2 and in the case of sale, an investor has to transfer ETF units from his demat account to his brokers account before the settlement on T+2.

Are ETF's For ME ... . . .??

10. Here are some guidelines to help you know when to consider an ETF and when not.

If you're trying to get market returns or believe the index will yield good long-term returns, ETFs may be a good choice because of their low cost and diversification. But ETFs make little sense if you're trying to beat the market, since they only track market indices.

When you're looking for wide diversification, but have only a small sum to invest, an ETF may make sense.

When you're unsure what to buy but want to invest in equity, an ETF lets you invest in the stock market without betting on a particular company.

5 Reasons Not To Fear The Stock Market

According to a recent survey released by Prudential Financial, fear and disillusionment have once again grabbed hold of many individual investors. Nearly 60% of the survey respondents said that they had "lost faith" in the stock market, while 44% said that they are unlikely to ever put more money in the stock market again. (Why have stocks historically produced higher returns than bonds? It's all a matter of risk. Check out Why Stocks Outperform Bonds.)

TUTORIAL: Investing 101

Those are sobering statistics, but not terribly surprising. When times are good and the markets are running hot, people feel great about the markets and throw money at stocks. When times are bad, people swear off the markets and promise "never again" - until the next big thing dominates the headlines again.

For those who don't wish to ride that pendulum between frenzy and despondency, there are several solid reasons not to fear the market.

1. Volatility Is Not Risk
Investors should perceive the difference between long-term risk and short-term volatility. Risk is the chance that an investor experiences a permanent loss of value, while volatility is the turbulence along the way. Although it is not exactly true to say that an investor has not really lost anything until he or she sells, it is true that no stock ever goes up in an unbroken line; there are always pullbacks and sell-offs. Most people would not quit a job, sever a relationship or abandon a friend over one or two rough patches and the same should be true of the stocks of solid companies - a momentary setback is just that and one or two down years is no reason to abandon an investment (or investing altogether).

2. Long-Term Losses Still Rare
It may seem crazy to raise this point in the wake of a decade that saw the tech bubble crash and the housing market drag down the stock market, but long-term losses in the stock market are actually uncommon. It is true that the Nasdaq still has not regained its tech-bubble highs, but the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average both did before investors fled the market amidst the credit crisis and pushed them down to the post-tech bubble lows again.

In point of fact, it is uncommon for the markets to be down over five-year stretches and very rare to see long-term declines beyond that length of time. That means that investors who can block out the volatility and stick to their plan do win in the end. Invest less money when stocks are overpriced (when you have a hard time finding bargains) and you limit the damage even further.

3. The Market is the Only Proven Way to Outpace Inflation
The stock market happens to offer one of the only proven ways to grow wealth faster that the rate of inflation. While bonds rarely offer more than 1% or 2% more than inflation (and sometimes much less), stocks have historically offered much better returns. This is a key consideration for those saving for retirement, as inflation represents a persistent economic loss on your savings and investing too conservatively (i.e. not beating inflation) is tantamount to locking in that loss.

Some will argue that gold is just as good at outpacing inflation, but the record on gold is dicey. Long stretches of outperformance in gold are frequently followed by major pullbacks, and it often takes decades to see those inflation-beating benefits. Unlike stocks, it is much more common to see five or ten-year losses in gold.

Likewise, real estate is another asset class famous for beating inflation, but like gold it is prone to huge run-ups and crushing pullbacks. Real estate also requires a large amount of capital and a fair bit of savvy from investors and is not nearly as accessible as the stock market.

4. Good Managements Create Real Growth and Value
The best that a bond investor can hope for is to be paid back in full, while gold investors have to wait and hope that some future buyer will pay more for those bars or coins than they did. With stocks, though, investors buy actual ownership in a business entity. Time has shown over and over again that talented managers do create real growth and real increases in value.

A gold bar will always be a gold bar - nothing less and nothing more. A share of Apple, Chipotle Mexican Grill or Alexion, though, is something much different today than it was just five years ago.

5. Fear Is a Contrarian Indicator
One of the best reasons not to fear the market today is that so many other people do. The stock market often offers the best values precisely when investors want nothing to do with it. Those who can control their fear, find the undervalued stocks and not abandon their strategy will often find that they end up paying much less than those who run hot and cold on the market. This is not easy to do - human instinct says that if everybody is fleeing from the same direction, you shouldn't go there - but success in a market of human beings often demands that you be less emotional and more patient than the crowds are capable of being. (Buying at the right price determines profit, but selling at the right price locks it in. See When To Sell Stocks.)

The Bottom Line
One of the fundamental traits of fear is its persistence - there is always something to be afraid of if you want to find it. In terms of investing, it is said that the markets are always in a tug of war between fear and greed, and this recent survey from Prudential suggests that fear is now winning the battle. Patient investors should see this as an opportunity to buy and should remember that the stock market offers numerous valid reasons to continue investing. There will be tough stretches and investors should not blindly throw money at stocks no matter what the valuation, but investing rewards patience and discipline and the stock market still represents one of the best opportunities that regular people have to build wealth.

Read more: http://financialedge.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0611/5-Reasons-Not-To-Fear-The-Stock-Market.aspx?partner=facebook#ixzz1Q2uMTpXO

Taken from Investopedia.com