Wednesday, 22nd July ’20
Good morning, let’s take out some time to savour the moments today. Just look around, capture a photograph, and live in this moment. This followed with gratitude will make you happier according to research carried out at Yale University.
You’ll get more cricket as IPL 2020 to be held in Dubai. Amazon Prime day nears next month and the markets continue to be choppy as the quarterly reports of most firms show a downward trend.
MARKETS
Markets: Bajaj Finance Q1 profits fell 19% to Rs 962 crore. Axis Bank Q1 profit falls 19% to Rs 1112 crore. This reflected in the sharp fall in the stock value of these companies. There were positive global cues after European Union leaders reached an agreement on a huge stimulus plan to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
- Adevinta to buy Ebay’s classified business for $9.2 billion. This deal makes eBay a 44% owner of Adevinta. Over the years, eBay has spun off from an e-commerce business to classified ads, payment services(Paypal) and ticketing. Now these 3 businesses are no longer part of eBay.
- Fantasy sports league company Dream 11 to raise $200 million in a round led by Kedaara Capital, a homegrown private equity investor. Dream11 plans to accommodate 3-4 investors. It is expected that the valuation of the company would be doubled in just over a year. According to a KPMG report, the online gaming industry is expected to rise to Rs. 25,000 crore by 2024.
- Amazon is expected to kick off its Prime Sale day in early August. This is to revive the customer spending ahead of the festive season and to make up for the lost sales during the lockdown. Prime Day will offer the customers products from thousands of small businesses as well as 300 new product launches from big brands.
WHAT ELSE IS COOKING
- Microsoft Corp, Nike Inc, Starbucks Corp, Unilever NV, Danone SA, Mercedes-Benz AG and Wipro are teaming up in a new consortium devoted to sharing resources and tactics for slashing carbon emissions, bringing together the efforts of some of the biggest global companies that have pledged to take action against climate change. The group, called Transform to Net Zero, is taking a leaf out of Microsoft’s book after the latter pledged $1 Billion to a climate innovation fund.
An experimental COVID-19 vaccine, called AZD1222 and being developed by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and scientists at Britain’s University of Oxford, did not prompt any serious side effects and elicited antibody and T-cell immune responses. The scientists hope that this means the immune system will remember the virus, so that the vaccine will protect people for an extended period.
OnePlus launched its budget smartphone Nord, in augmented reality via a special app. Using this, the audience could see the phone as if it were in front of them, being rotated in every direction. Media and fans who had the physical invite could also manipulate the phone in AR. The phone harkens back to the initial years of OnePlus when they’d offer the best specs at an affordable price.
IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS
Carbon Pricing works to Reduce Emissions
Why is it in the news?
A study examined that 142 countries found that CO2 emissions fell by 2%(2007-17) in countries with a carbon price. While, the emissions increased by 3% in those countries that did not have the carbon price. There is a statistical link between adoption of a carbon price and reduction in carbon emissions.
What is carbon pricing?
Carbon pricing is an instrument that captures external costs of emission and ties them to their sources, through a form of a price on CO2 emitted. Cost of emissions includes damage to crops, healthcare costs from heatwaves and droughts, etc.
What are the types of carbon pricings being adopted?
- Carbon tax, that directly sets a price on carbon by defining an explicit tax rate on greenhouse gas emissions
- Emissions Trading Systems, that caps the total level of greenhouse gases and allows those industries with low emissions to sell their extra allowances to larger emitters
- Internal Carbon Pricing, a tool that an organization uses internally to guide its decision-making process in relation to climate change impacts, risks and opportunities
Recently, Indian companies have voluntarily started implementing ICP.
MANAGERS’ CORNER – Finance with TMT
Modern portfolio theory (MPT)
Modern portfolio theory (MPT) is a theory on how risk-averse investors can construct portfolios to maximize expected return based on a given level of market risk. MPT can also be used to construct a portfolio that minimizes risk for a given level of expected return. Modern portfolio theory is very useful for investors trying to construct efficient portfolios using ETFs.
Based on statistical measures such as variance and correlation, an individual investment’s performance is less important than how it impacts the entire portfolio. The expected return of the portfolio is calculated as a weighted sum of the individual assets’ returns. If a portfolio contained four equally weighted assets with expected returns of 4, 6, 10, and 14%, the portfolio’s expected return would be:
(4% x 25%) + (6% x 25%) + (10% x 25%) + (14% x 25%) = 8.5%
POLLING
There has been a lot of vocality for local products and Indian brands, esp pertaining to products from countries with which India has disputes.
Now OnePlus is launching it’s budget smartphone Nord which is certainly going to be one of the best buys in that price range. Would you go for a OnePlus smartphone and recommend it to a friend ahead of the festive season?
Written by Kumar Sourav Mohanty, Akansh Bhatt, and Shashank Dobhal
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