Showing posts with label Finance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finance. Show all posts

Friday, January 3, 2020

India's economy will suffer eventually as the US attacks Iran!!




                                              




Stena Impero, a British Oil tanker, on its way to Saudi Arabia was dramatically boarded and seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on July 19th, 2019. The Radio message received was:
“If you obey, you will be safe. Alter your course TO 360 degrees immediately” said the Iranian Naval Forces.



Note: In their language, altering TO 360 degrees means to change course so that the compass read 360 degrees or due north.
The oil prices spiked $2 per barrel after the incident.

Let's ignore the quoted lines for a while and try to understand the relation between the US and Iran. The above-quoted para will find its relevance in the last and most importantly, I promise that the justification of the headline too will be explained in the latter part. Just be patient and try to understand the history of animosity.
Pre 1979, Saudi Arabia and Iran constituted to be the twin pillars of the middle east providing stability in the region. Iran shared a much longer border with USSR and to keep the soviet’s influence off the region, the USA sold guns, bombs and virtually any conventional weapon to secure Iran as well the Saudi from soviets. Ultimately the goal was to secure the oil that the US was importing from the middle east. But things fell apart.

Act I: Iranian Revolution 1979

The Iranian Revolution overthrew the monarchy and Iran was declared an Islamic Republic led by Ayatollah Khomeini. But interestingly the monarch which was led by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah shared great relations with the United States. The fact remains that Shah was led to the throne because of the US. Shah was forced to leave his country and was admitted to the US for cancer treatment. Back in Iran, the new government in place demanded his return in order to face the trials for the crime he had been accused of. The demands were rejected by the US.
And then the Unthinkable happened.
Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981, after a group of Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
By Algerian Declaration, the 52 American citizens were set free and were able to leave Iran. One among other key provisions of the accord was that the US would not intervene politically or militarily in Iranian internal affairs.
Also the movie Argo is based on a similar incident of the "Canadian Caper" which was the joint covert rescue by the Canadian government and the CIA of six American diplomats who had evaded capture during the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran, Iran, on November 4, 1979



                                 





The Iranian Revolution terrified the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and which has led to the cold war between Iran and Saudi Arabia since then. The US is a very strong ally of Saudi. On May 20, 2017, U.S. President Trump and Saudi Arabia's Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud signed a series of letters of intent for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to purchase arms from the United States totaling US$110 billion immediately and $350 billion over 10 years. The statement has been mentioned to signify how Saudi Arabia is important to the states.

Act II: Tanker War

The Iran–Iraq War began on 22 September 1980, when Iraq invaded Iran, and it ended on 20 August 1988. The so-called "Tanker War" started when Iraq attacked the oil terminal and oil tankers at Kharg Island in early 1984. Iraq's aim in attacking Iranian shipping was to provoke the Iranians to retaliate with extreme measures, such as closing the Strait of Hormuz to all maritime traffic, thereby bringing American intervention; the United States had threatened several times to intervene if the Strait of Hormuz were closed. As a result, the Iranians limited their retaliatory attacks to Iraqi shipping, leaving the strait open to general passage.
How the US was involved in the Iraq-Iran war?
1.    Iraq acquired 60 multi-role military helicopters (MD 500 Defender) directly from the United States in 1983
2.    USS Stark was deployed to the Middle East Force in 1984 and 1987. The ship was struck on 17 May 1987 by two Exocet anti-ship missiles during the Iran–Iraq War fired from an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1 aircraft. The Reagan administration, however, attributed the blame to Iran for its alleged belligerence in the underlying conflict.
3.    American support for Ba'athist Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, in which it fought against post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars' worths of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, and special operations training. However, the U.S. did not directly supply arms to Iraq
4.    Iran Air Flight 655 was a scheduled passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai via Bandar Abbas, that was shot down (the flight was mistaken for a jet fighter) on 3 July 1988 by an SM-2MR surface-to-air missile fired from USS Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser of the United States Navy. The aircraft, an Airbus A300, was destroyed and all 290 people on board, including 66 children, were killed. In 1996, the governments of the United States and Iran reached a settlement at the International Court of Justice which included the statement "...the United States recognized the aerial incident of 3 July 1988 as a terrible human tragedy and expressed deep regret over the loss of lives caused by the incident.”

US Army helicopters protecting the Oil Tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz


Act III: Iran Nuclear Deal

By 2002, Iran was fighting multiple proxy wars and the US feared that their Nuclear weapon may fall into wrong hands.
In 2002 State of the Union Address, George W Bush referring to North Korea and Iran mentioned that “States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world” The term ‘axis of evil’ has got a lot of repetitions after then to pinpoint the common enemies of United States.
UN report also revealed that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The mutual distrust between the US and Iran boiled over. Iran has refused to satisfy legitimate concerns about the nature of its nuclear program. Eventually, The US announced sweeping sanctions against Iran
[On June 24, 2010, the United States Senate and House of Representatives passed the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISADA), which President Obama signed into law July 1, 2010.]
The sanctions again brought Strait of Hormuz into the limelight as Iran threatened that they would not allow a single drop of oil to pass by. The US retaliated saying that they were well prepared to take any action. The economy of Iran contracted for the first time in a decade after the sanctions as oil makes up 80% of their exports.



Result:
The Iran nuclear deal framework was a preliminary framework agreement reached in 2015 between the Islamic Republic of Iran and a group of world powers: the P5+1 (the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China—plus Germany) and the EU






In all the three acts, a name that has come often is the Strait of Hormuz. A third of the world’s liquefied natural gas and almost 25% of total global oil consumption passes through the strait, making it a highly important strategic location for international trade. The jugular of the world economy seems to have found its relevance again and again whenever Iran has been placed in a discomfort position.






Act: IV: Withdrawal from Iran Nuclear Deal


On May 8, 2018, United States President Donald Trump announced the United States was withdrawing from the deal.
Iran has the world's fourth-largest oil reserves. But sanctions prevented it from capitalizing on that resource. As a result, Iran is only the world's seventh-largest oil producer, pumping 4.5 million barrels per day. In 2018, it exported 1.9 million barrels per day. Without sanctions, Iran had hoped to double that amount once it built up the necessary infrastructure. With the reinstatement of sanctions, exports were projected to plummet to 945,000 barrels per day. In 2018, Iran's unemployment rate rose to 13.8%. Sanctions caused its currency, the rial, to plummet. That's caused its inflation rate to skyrocket to 55% in 2018.
On July 19th, 2019, Stena Impero, a British Oil tanker, on its way to Saudi Arabia was dramatically boarded and seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. It was passing through Strait of Hormuz. I had said that the quoted text will find its way.
The above clearly states how US and Iran relations have only deteriorated over the years but most importantly mentions as to how the strait is used as leverage by Iran to oppose their oponents

Act V: Things that could have been avoided 

These 4 incidents happened as the world was on the verge to enter a new decade.
1.    December 28, 2019: A US civilian contractor was killed Friday in a rocket attack on a base near Kirkuk, Iraq, where US service members and civilian contractors were located. The attack was linked to groups backed by Iran.
2.    The 2019 U.S. embassy attack in Iraq happened in Baghdad, Iraq, on 31 December 2019. Iraqi militiamen, pro-Iran protesters, and supporters of the Kata'ib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia, attacked the U.S. embassy in response to U.S. airstrikes on 29 December 2019 that killed 25 fighters of Kata'ib Hezbollah in Iraq
3.    Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani (architect of nearly every significant operation by Iranian intelligence and military forces over the past two decades) was killed in an American drone strike in Baghdad on Friday.
4.    His death is a considerable blow to Tehran, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for retaliation on Friday and for three days of national mourning.

The #WWIII and #Worldwar3 were the trending topics on Twitter on 3rd January. But the most significant point remains that India has a lot to lose in these things.

Point A: The Strait of Hormuz is again going to be affected in between this feud. And this is something we can very sure about as we have read about the history of the nations. India is in a no state to handle further distress to the economy as the current economic slowdown has come at a time when the oil prices are at a record low. This, in fact, has been stated as a cushion and widely mentioned that this government has been lucky in this regard. But the fact remains that the spike in the oil prices is going to make things worse. Iran’s Oil imports to India has dipped to 1.7 mt in the current fiscal year down from 23.9 mt in 2018-19. But still, we import 226.5 mt (during FY19) that has cost India about $111.9 Billion. This is when the crude prices are at $61.18 per barrel (It was $106 per barrel in July 2014)




    

The News: Oil prices jump after top Iranian general killed by US – BBC

Point B: Reliance Industries toppled the IOCL as the largest company in India in terms of revenue. I am mentioning this fact because this company is one of the major index heavyweights of Nifty50 and Sensex. Reliance mentioned earlier that they have the plan to become the zero-net debt company. Their plans have been drawn on the altars of partnership that they are looking forward to forge with Aramco and BP (Both being, Oil-based company). With the recent developments in the oil market, we could see that a chunk of investors’ money wiping out because of the escalation.
Point C: Nevertheless, the positive sides are that macroeconomics factors have been quite stable for the nation. We have healthy foreign exchange reserves. The data reached an all-time high of 413.0 USD bn in Oct 2019 and a record low of 1.1 USD bn in Jun 1991 (just for a perspective). This would mean that we have enough cushion to shrug off the exchange rate fluctuation that the economy may face in the wake of the oil price fluctuations. Though weak rupees would mean a lower dollar return for foreign investors and making India an unattractive market for investment.
Point D: In the domestic stock market, oil-linked stocks like Spice Jet, InterGlobe Aviation; Paints stocks like Asian Paints, Berget Paints, and Nerolac may face the brunt. BPCL, HPCL, and IOCL are too not going to be spared

Point E: For a country like India which meets 80 percent of its oil demand through imports, any further rise in crude prices may have an impact on government finances. Every $10 a barrel rise in crude oil prices expands India’s current account deficit (CAD) by 0.4 percent of GDP. Every 10 percent increase in crude oil prices can push up the inflation rate by 20 basis points.
The preventive measures for the same distress may find its way to the highly talked next budget.


References:

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Dungeon Dragons and Netflix.









Virtual economy is an emergent economy existing in a virtual world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an Internet game. Now we are talking of an economy worth $160 Billion that does experience the dynamics of real economics. I mean, the prices of items do fluctuate as per the demand and supply convention, have an exchange rate, and even experience hyperinflation (Diablo III Auction House). We are talking about the items like a special sniper available for a price in games like Counter-Strike, skin, stickers, or surf boost that you may get while playing Subway surfer. People are buying these stuff with real money. Virtual markets for In-game goods for a 2018 estimate is roughly at $ 45-49 Billion while the Global box office collection for that year was worth $ 41.1 Billion(Just to put in perspective). Well, that’s how Pokemon Go made $795 million of revenue in 2018 even though you didn’t pay a cent for downloading it. (Freemium Model) 

Recently I came across a group that had two exciting opinions on Reddit: 
1. Disney Plus is not a competitor to Netflix. If a person wants to stream House of Cards, Stranger things, or something similar, he will go for Netflix. Period. It's more about the content than the platform. 
2. Twitch (Video live streaming service) is a real threat to Netflix. An average twitch user spends 95 minutes daily on the platform, keeping you hooked. That’s what is making these streaming platforms a kind of worried. (Twitch was acquired by Amazon in 2014 for $ 970 Mn)

Games are changing the landscape. Google Stadia got launched on November 19, 2019. The concept of playing heavy games right away from your chrome browser without downloading the actual content (size of GBs) irrespective of whether you have an i3 machine or i5 is very fascinating and a real deal. Google is also exploring further ways to reduce latency, using an idea called "negative latency," which involves prediction of user input through various means so that any apparent network lag between controller and game response is minimized. The service has received mixed reactions, but it will get improvised for sure, given that expertise that Google does have with their software arm. 

The gaming industry is already making a lot of waves in the contemporary world. China has announced a curfew on online gaming for minors to curb video game addiction. Under the new rules, gamers aged under 18 will be banned from paying online games between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. On weekdays, minors can only play for 90 minutes, while they may play up to three hours per day on weekends and public holidays. A heavy blow to Tencent, perhaps. 

Though a lot of behavioral science goes in behind the scenes. Now we all know that you never purchase any kind of item with real cash. You buy virtual coins/gold bar at a certain exchange rate by paying real cash. And then with those coins/gold, you purchase the in-app goods. When you pay cash for something, you see it leave your hands, and you get a very immediate sense of depletion, but while paying for cards, that’s already saved in your google account, you tend to spend more in comparison to real cash for the same utility and item. Also, developers do analyze the data about the time stamp when the users closed the application or game. The developers try to answer these questions: Did the user quit because the level was difficult?  They are unable to kill the dragon or what? The pain points are analyzed, and developers then may incentivize you to keep on playing by offering that the entire level may be skipped by paying this amount, or you may unlock a special weapon at this stage. 

Some of the other facts are: 

a.    2018 DOTA 2 Int’l prize money was $ 25.2 Million, and that puts it ahead of Daytona, Tour de France, or even US Open (Golf) in comparison to prize money.
b.     Global e-sports audience is approaching 500 million by the end of FY202
c.      According to TwitchTracker, 560 billion minutes of Twitch was watched over 2018 – rising from 255 billion minutes in 2017 – an increase of 58%. And that’s too when the site is banned in China.

The bottom line is this simple line that Mr. Ben Gilbert used in his article on Business Insider. 

“I've been playing games on Google's ambitious new Netflix-like game service for the last week, and it's clear the service isn't ready for primetime.” 

So if a person got hooked, he would be less switching for media content. Right?  And if he got caught again, would he buy all those Predator, Razor, ROG series? 
And I would conclude by quoting,  “Are you getting it?”

References: 


Saturday, November 16, 2019

Tweets that Shook Fortune 500 Companies


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1. Tencent:
Daryl Morey (General Manager of Housten Rockets) on 04 October 19:
Tweet: “Fight for Freedom, Stand with HongKong” 
As Yao Ming from Shanghai, China was selected for Housten Rockets for the 2002 NBA, things changed forever for Basketball as a game in China. It Boosted the league’s popularity. The following data very explicitly do the talking: 
2015: Tencent acquired exclusive digital streaming rights for NBA games in a 5-year contract worth $500 million  ($100 million per year)
2019: The tech giant extended the rights to 2025; Contract worth $1.5 Billion ($ 300 million per year)
Viewership for NBA Games in China (650-750 million) is almost 5-6 times that of the US (90-110 million). Just for a comparative perspective, IPL Season 2019 had a viewership of 462 million, and the entire population of the US is 372.2 million. 
But the tweet didn’t auger well. Chinese Consulate in Housten responded by saying that they were ‘deeply shocked by the erroneous comments on HongKong’ 
For the damage control, Mr. Morey took down the tweet, players apologized and expressed their love for China and their fanbase. But perhaps it was too late. 
Smartphone Maker VIVO, broadcaster CCTV, and internet giant Tencent suspended all cooperation with the NBA or Housten Rockets itself. This had a significant impact on Tencent as a listed company. Alibaba ($ 435 Bn) and Tencent ($ 398 Bn) are just the 2 Non-US and Chinese companies that make into the US-dominated ‘List of public corporations by market capitalization.’ With the recent developments, the gap with Alibaba has widened much further. 

China has made it very clear that they don’t like others to meddle in their issues like HongKong or 3T (Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen). There is a price that needs to be paid if done so, and now there lies a risk of importing Chinese Censorship along with profit that organizations look forward to reap because of the presence of 1.4 Billion people that China has and can really make a difference.


2. Tesla:
Elon Musk (Needs no introduction) on 07 August 2018: 
Tweet: ‘Am considering taking Tesla Private at $420. Funding secured’
His tweet “set off a trading frenzy,” and pushed Tesla’s stock price up more than 6 percent, forcing Nasdaq to halt Tesla trading for 90 minutes until the company gave an official response. The company’s stock price hit the intraday high of $387 before closing at $379.57 on the day of the tweet. It's currently trading at 350.43 (As of 7:37 pm GMT, 14th November 2019)
 The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Mr. Musk after his tweet. The SEC later claimed that the tweet was “false and misleading.” 

Outcome: Mr. Musk was directed to step down as chairman. Paid a fine of 40 million. Appointed 2 independent directors; Was directed to get his tweets reviewed before posting.
As the public face of Tesla, Musk had gained legions of fans for his bold approach to business and technology, and it can be expected that he is going to be around Tesla for many years to come. This is in the interest of the company also. In the recent Bloomberg survey, a question was asked to around 5000 Tesla owners. 
Question: Did the opinion of Elon Musk influence purchases? 55.4 percent responded affirmative (30.8 percent- strongly agree, 24.6% agree). 

3. Apple:
David Heinemeier Hansson (partner at Basecamp, a web-based software development firm on 07 November 2019 
Tweet:  “The @Applecard is such a f*****g sexist program. My wife and I filed joint tax returns, live in a community- property state, and have been married for a long time. Yet Apple’s black box algorithm thinks I deserve 20x the credit card limit she does. No appeal work.”
Steve Wozniak, too, responded on the same affirming that he and his wife also had experienced something similar. The tweet garnered much attention
 The apple credit card launched in partnership with Goldman Sachs earlier this year uses an algorithm to assign credit limits, and many online pointed out that it may favor men over women. The issue has been taken into, and has led to an investigation from New York’s Department of Financial Services over the issue of gender discrimination.  
An interesting thing happened when I was reading about Mr. David. He is a Le Mans Class-winning racing driver. And co-incidentally I  happen to be at Le Mans circuit currently as I am posting this on my blog. 

Mr. David can be reached @dhh on Twitter and is unavailable at other social media platforms. 

Note: 

a. The viewership data quoted are subject to  much of deviation depending on the methodology adopted and source choose. I have tried to get a median number for higher degree of accuracy. 
b. Mr David in his tweet had used the full 'f' work instead of using * symbols


References: 

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