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[ad_1] New York Democrats take aim at Republicans with aggressive new congressional map [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Automovill, a full-stack mobility start-up has announced the foray into Eastern and Central markets in India. The brand has launched new workshops in the key cities-  Kolkata, Ranchi, Bhubaneshwar, Siliguri, Bhopal, and Indore. The brand has rolled out the workshops on both the models- Co-owned and Partnered. Enabling the expansion, the brand has already partnered with 500 workshops and established 70 hubs across India. With the new launch, Automovill shall strengthen its presence in over 20 cities in India. The brand has been witnessing a rising demand post the pandemic and covering the lockdown numbers aggressively. All the co-owned workshops (hubs) will cover an area of around 4000 Sq.yards each, whereas spokes will expand over 2500 ~3000 sq. yards each “There are many players that are only catering to the urban market. However, after testing waters, and getting a good response in the tier 2 market, we decided to explore it further. We have already been getting an overwhelming response from some tier 2 cities in terms of a rising number of queries,” said Ramana Sambu, Co-Founder & CBO, Automovill. He added, “Hence, upon thorough analysis, we have decided to strengthen our foothold in the Eastern and Central part of the country, with 80 % penetration in tier 2 cities itself.” The brand has been able to register a Month-on-month growth of 20%. Automovill plans to hit 30 cities by the end of the current fiscal alone, and 40% of the same is intended to be company-owned and the rest will be based on partnered workshops. Automovill has already been delivering B2B services and is now gradually introducing a B2C set-up. It anticipates serving over 500 cars monthly in the Eastern region alone. The brand is currently servicing 3000 vehicles per month and aims at reaching 1.5 lakh orders by the end of the current fiscal year. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Running low on laundry detergent? Here’s a great stock up on deal on All Mighty Pacs! Amazon has these all Mighty Pacs Laundry Detergent 4-In-1 with Odor Lifter, Tub, 60 Count for just $7.46 shipped when you clip the $2.01 off e-coupon and checkout through Subscribe & Save! This is a great stock up deal. Note: Once your order ships, you can go into your Amazon account and cancel your subscription if you don’t want recurring orders. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] BOJ deputy governor Wakatabe says premature to tighten monetary policy now [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Share Market News Today | Sensex, Nifty, Share Prices LIVE: Domestic markets were in the firm grip on bulls on Wednesday. Sensex zoomed 695 points or 1.18% on Wednesday to close at 59,558 while the NSE Nifty 50 added 203 points or 1.16% to settle at 17,780. Broader markets mirrored the up-move charted by the headline indices. Ahead of the weekly Futures & Options expiry session, SGX Nifty was down in the red with marginal losses, hinting at a tepid start to the day’s trade. Global cues were largely positive after Dow Jones, S&P 500, and the NASDAQ closed with gains. South Korean markets were up in the green, however, Japanese equity indices were in the red.  LIC IPO may just be around the corner now with the government looking to file the Draft Red Heering Prospectus by next week, management secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey told FE. “As soon as the IRDA approves the embedded value, it will feed into the DRHP. In the next 7-10 days, DRHP will be there, it could be earlier also,” Pandey said. Thereafter, more intensive activity of finalizing anchor investors, roadshows, etc would start, he added. Reports also claim that the government’s revised divestment estimates for the current fiscal year factor in the public issue of LIC. Earlier this week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the LIC IPO will come soon.  [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Everybody needs to put food on the table, so you might as well earn rewards while doing so. Considering that the price of food in Canada is predicted to rise between 5% and 7% this year (nearly $1,000 more per year for a family of four), there’s no better time to earn useful rewards and cash back on this essential household expense. Whether you’re looking for cash back, to rack up points or simply to find the best grocery credit card in Canada, we’ve gathered the information you need to maximize your spending. Take stock of your shopping habits, and get ready to cash in on the rewards. Find your next credit card.What kind of credit card are you looking for? Get matched with the best cards for you in under 2 minutes at ratehub.ca. Let’s get started. I want to earn rewardsI want to pay low interest You will be leaving MoneySense. Just close the tab to return. The best credit cards for grocery purchases in Canada Best no-fee cards for groceries — BMO CashBack Mastercard (Honourable mention — Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card) Best cash back cards for groceries — Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Best cash back card for groceries and gas (tie) — CIBC Dividend Visa Infinite; Meridian Visa Infinite Cash Back Card Best card for Loblaw banner stores — PC Financial World Elite Mastercard Best points cards for groceries — American Express Cobalt (Honourable mention — Scotiabank Gold American Express) Best card for Costco — MBNA Rewards World Elite Mastercard Best no-fee credit card for groceries BMO CashBack Mastercard* If you’re looking for the best no-fee grocery credit card, look no further. 3% cash back on grocery purchases, no annual fee, and solid earn rates in other categories have made this card is a standout in the category. Keep in mind, though, that earnings are capped at $500 spent per statement period, so if you spend more than $500 per month on groceries, you’ll want to consider another card in order to reap the full benefits. In addition to earning cash back on groceries, this card earns you 1% on recurring bill payments and an unlimited 0.5% on other spending. You can choose when to redeem cash back, in increments as little as $1; you can also set up automatic recurring redemptions of $25 or more. Annual fee: $0 Interest rate: Purchases 19.99%, cash advances 22.99% (21.99% for residents of Quebec) Earn rate on groceries: 3% cash back on groceries, up to $500 per month Rewards on other purchases: 1% on recurring bills; 0.5% on everything else Welcome bonus: Get up to 5% cash back for the first 3 months, plus a $50 cash back bonus, adding up to $175 in cash back in your first year. It also features a 1.99% introductory interest rate on balance transfers for 9 months with 1% transfer fee Additional perks: Purchase protection and extended warranty; discounts at Avis and National Car Rentals; discount Cirque du Soleil performances; add authorized cardholders at no charge Income required: None specified Get more details about the BMO CashBack Mastercard* Honourable mention: Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card* Every cardholder is given a 2% return on spending in two categories of their choice, of which groceries is one. (There are 10 categories in total, including drug store, gas, hotel and motel accommodations, restaurants, furniture, recurring bill payments, home improvement, entertainment, and public transportation and parking.) Plus, you can earn 2% on a third category of your choice just by having your rewards deposited into your Tangerine Savings Account. In addition to being a no-fee card, this is a stand-out because your cash-back earnings are unlimited, meaning that your regular 2% earnings don’t have a cap. While this card doesn’t offer too much in the way of perks, like the card above, it currently has an attractive welcome offer. Annual fee: $0 Interest rate: Purchases 19.95%, cash advances 19.95%, balance transfers 19.95% Earn rate on groceries: 2% cash back Rewards on other purchases: 2% in up to two other spending categories of your choice and 0.5% cash back on everything else Welcome bonus: Earn 10% cash back (up to $100) when you spend $1,000 on everyday purchases within the first 2 months of having the card. Must apply before February 28, 2022. Additional perks: Purchase protection and extended warranty Income required: $12,000 Get more details about the Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card* Best cash back card for groceries Everybody likes flexible rewards, and cash is the most flexible around. This card offers 4% cash back on groceries and is part of the Visa Infinite family, which means cardholders receive perks including concierge service, and wine and dining experiences. Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite* You’ll earn a healthy 4% on groceries, as well as subscription services like Netflix and recurring bill payments, while transportation costs (including Uber) and gas earn at 2% (up to an annual total spend of $25,000; after that the earn rate drops to 1%). All other purchases earn at 1%, so if you’re carrying this card you’ve got a lot of cash back to earn in a broad group of spending categories. Annual fee: $120 (waived for first year) Interest rate: Purchases 20.99%, cash advances 22.99%, 22.99% on balance transfers Welcome bonus: Earn 10% cash back on all purchases for the first 3 months (up to $2,000). Plus, get a 2.99% introductory interest rate on purchases and balance transfers for the first 6 months Earn rate on groceries: 4% cash back Rewards on other purchases: 4% cash back on recurring bill payments, 2% on gas, public transit, taxis and rideshares, and 1% on everything else Additional perks: Travel emergency medical coverage, travel accident, trip cancellation, trip interruption, and flight delay insurance, and delayed or lost baggage protection; car rental loss or damage insurance; mobile device insurance Income required: $60,000 or $100,000 as a household Get more details about the Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite* Best credit card for groceries and gas (tie) When it comes to can’t-avoid-it expenses, gas and groceries

[ad_1] In 2022, I’m setting monthly reading goals. You can see the 9 books I picked to read in January here. My book picks for February are coming tomorrow! Stay tuned! I finished 10 books total in January — 4 were audiobooks and 6 were physical books. The 6 physical books I finished were from the stack I had chosen to read in January. Since I didn’t finish three from my January stack, I’m carrying those over to my February reading goals and prioritizing reading them at the beginning of the month. My Honest Reviews From This Week Here are my honest reviews of the the four books I finished this past two weeks: Note: You can follow along with the books I finish this year and my star ratings over on GoodReads. Also, books are rated on a 1-5 star scale. I basically won’t finish a book if it’s one star (not worth my time!) and I’ll rarely give a book a 5-star rating unless it was just absolutely amazing or life-changing. Fighting Forward So many different sections of this book resonated with me deeply. It’s part memoir-ish, part essay-ish, but all around thought-provoking! The idea for my word for the year, Stay, actually originated from reading the very first section of this book at the very beginning of the year. I slowly savored this book and didn’t want it to end. I appreciated the author’s vulnerability and her beautiful way with words. I am guessing that her style of writing isn’t for everyone (I know a lot of people don’t love books that are more like a collection of essays with more poetic writing woven through), but I truly appreciated it and multiple sections will sit with me for a long time. Verdict: 4 stars The Flirtation Experiment This book is an easy read written by two women who are in very different stages of life — one who has been married for years and is mostly an empty nester and one who has only been married for a few years and has young children. I found the perspectives at both ends of the spectrum to give the book a really good balance that you don’t often find in marriage books. There are 30 chapters — each focusing on one aspect of deepening our relationship with our spouse. They are short and practical, but also honest. Each chapter ends with some ideas to implement the focus topic to build our marriage. It was convicting and challenging to me! One of the things I especially appreciated was that they didn’t give formulaic answers, they recognized from the get-go that some wives are in really difficult marriages and that this book might not be a good idea to read and that they need counseling or need immediate help if they are in an abusive relationship. Verdict: 4 stars The Midnight Library I’m not sure what I thought about this book. It had some sections and points that I really loved and some that I just didn’t at all. It also felt like it really developed slowly in the middle and I felt like it would have been better to have condensed it some. I loved how it gave you fresh eyes to recognize the gifts that are in your life right now. I thought it fell very flat because it wasn’t written from a Christian perspective. There’s so much more to life than just trying to find your happiness! But all in all, it was thought-provoking, so I’m giving it three stars! (Note: There is some crass language in it.) Verdict: 3 stars The Masterpiece This book has been sitting on my shelf for a long time! I finally discovered that it was on Libby and I was excited because I was looking for a new audiobook to listen to! While it’s long and I felt like some of the parts could have been edited down some, it’s a beautiful story of redemption. There’s a lot of real-ness and raw-ness woven in and it doesn’t tie all up neatly with a bow. I also loved that there were themes of foster care in it that I didn’t know about when I started the book! And I thought it was such a great reminder how we never know what someone has walked through or how many deep wounds and hurts they are carrying around. Verdict: 4 stars What books have you read recently? I’d love to hear! [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Wall St posts 4th straight gain, Meta earnings rattle social media after hours [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] By A Balasubramanian The Union Budget presented by the finance minister emphasised on creating linkages that will incentivise private players to step up investments and create employment opportunities. The Budget is in line with the recent view of the government that increased private participation will be a key factor in driving the economy. Capital expenditure has been used as a tool to encourage various players to take part in nation building. It has provided an impetus for state governments to undertake infrastructure development through higher allocation towards states. The ambitious river linkages project would result in increased water availability for agriculture, creation of infrastructure and employment. This, I believe, is a good move. High focus on manufacturing sectors like solar panel, electronics and waste management systems should lead to the development of new business models and make India self-reliant and self-sustainable. Another step towards ESG is creating biomass out of agriculture residue and using it to generate thermal power. This also creates new business opportunities and increases the income of the rural agricultural economy. Setting up the Digital University is a move towards creating a culture of digital economy. The decision to bring in 100% of post offices under the core banking system should benefit farmers and senior citizens in rural areas and further the goal of financial inclusion. Another step towards digitalisation and modernisation of the financial sector is the announcement of the digital rupee. The recognition of Venture Capital and AIF assets as a key player of growth and the need to regulate for smooth facilitation is a timely move in the right direction. Introduction of Funds under NIIF and SIDBI to meet requirements in areas such as climate action, agriculture, thematic funds with the government contributing 20% and the remaining 80% being crowdsourced is a great move that will encourage investment in the green economy. Also, the introduction of green bond under the Sovereign category would make money readily available to environment-related sectors. From an equity market point of view, the budget has set the tone for higher growth through higher spending. Many mid-sized companies would get benefited from the Urban and Digital focus. No change in taxation related to the capital market is a good move to build a strong capital market to fund the future need of the country. However, the market in the near term will start looking at unwinding given the high liquidity, expected interest rate rise and forthcoming outcome of five state elections. Any adverse outcome from these events may make the market volatile and will start making investors look at the real interest rate, earnings yield versus bond yields and premium valuation to emerging markets among other indicators. While the overall tax buoyancy is good, the huge capex spending undertaken has resulted in a marginally higher fiscal deficit. Nothing was mentioned regarding the tax on Indian bonds that could be part of the bond index globally. This in some sense will push up the bond yields. As the credit growth start picking up this year, it could potentially increase the cost of borrowing for corporates as well. Given the high liquidity, one can expect the impact of the bond yields to go up nominally at this point in time. Overall, from a mutual fund investor’s point of view, optimism is going to continue with growth returning in the economy. Therefore, investing for the long term through equity will remain one area of focus. With bond yields going up on expectation of higher government borrowing and potential rate hikes, mutual fund asset allocation funds that take into consideration different asset classes like equity, debt or commodity could be one of the options that investors can consider. The author is MD & CEO, Aditya Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Mortgage industry participants may disagree a great deal on several different topics. However, I expect that you would find no argument with the following statement: Mortgage lending is a highly competitive business. While the scope of the market, which totaled roughly $4 trillion in volume each of the past two years, might suggest abundant opportunities, loan officers and companies need to stay on their toes to survive, let alone thrive in this environment. Make no mistake: the mortgage market has become more competitive. There are multiple different ways to measure the level of competition within an industry. First, simply look at the number of competitors. 2020 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data showed that more than 4,300 lenders originated enough mortgages to meet the disclosure requirement, while many more lenders likely originated just a few loans that year. These lenders included banks, credit unions, and independent mortgage banks (IMBs), all offering a similar product to millions of potential customers across the country through retail, wholesale, and consumer direct channels. Consumers can instantly compare mortgage products and rate offerings online either through lender websites directly or through the various websites that offer comparison shopping. Some might argue that even though there are many potential competitors vying for a consumer’s loan, if there are certain competitors who dominate market share persistently over time, one could get a false perception regarding the intensity of competition. Are there lenders who have persistently dominated the mortgage market? Exhibit 1 shows lender rankings from MBA analysis of HMDA data over the past 20 years, in this case showing the top 20 lenders by retail and broker volume at four points over this time period. Lenders in bold were in the Top 20 in 2005 and in these successive years. Clearly, the impact of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) mattered, as there were a large number of failures and an extraordinary number of mergers and acquisitions among both banks and IMBs. Regardless, aside from the three largest banks in the country, it certainly looks difficult to remain at the top of the industry in terms of volume. Exhibit 1: Top 20 Lenders Over Time Perhaps more than simply looking at the leaderboard at different points in time, it’s interesting to see the proportion of industry volume accounted for by lenders outside of the top 50, per Exhibit 2. These data suggest that the industry has gotten somewhat less concentrated over the last decade compared to the decade around the GFC. The fact that smaller lenders (outside of the top 50) as a group can originate half or more of total retail and broker volume highlights another important point. While it would be very difficult for a new entrant to immediately vault into the top 20, the prevalence of so many smaller lenders suggest there are plenty of choices for prospective borrowers. Exhibit 2: Market Share of Smaller Lenders Source: MBA Analysis of HMDA data Some published lender rankings include not only retail and broker volume, but also correspondent volume. For certain purposes, that is highly relevant. We know from industry benchmarking efforts that half or more of many larger lenders’ total volume can come from the correspondent channel. However, competition policy is correctly focused on consumer welfare. Thus, measuring the level of competition in the mortgage industry should similarly focus on the competitors who interact with the consumer at the point of sale: retail loan officers and brokers. Using correspondent volume would distort the fact that, underlying those correspondent volume numbers are hundreds or even thousands of smaller originators that touch the consumer — each lender making their own pricing and credit decisions and offering their own levels and quality of service to the borrower. Therefore, it makes sense to focus on retail and broker volume here. Now, this casual analysis of the competitive landscape in the mortgage industry, in concert with their lived experience, may convince some. However, there are certainly more formal means of assessing the competitive structure of markets. First, one could compute the summary measure of market concentration that the Department of Justice (DOJ) uses, the HHI.  According to the DOJ’s website: “The term “HHI” means the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index, a commonly accepted measure of market concentration. The HHI is calculated by squaring the market share of each firm competing in the market and then summing the resulting numbers. For example, for a market consisting of four firms with shares of 30, 30, 20, and 20 percent, the HHI is 2,600 (302 + 302 + 202 + 202 = 2,600). The HHI takes into account the relative size distribution of the firms in a market. It approaches zero when a market is occupied by a large number of firms of relatively equal size and reaches its maximum of 10,000 points when a market is controlled by a single firm. The HHI increases both as the number of firms in the market decreases and as the disparity in size between those firms increases. The agencies generally consider markets in which the HHI is between 1,500 and 2,500 points to be moderately concentrated, and consider markets in which the HHI is in excess of 2,500 points to be highly concentrated.”   Source: Justice.gov As a comparison, consider the market for soft drinks in the United States. According to statista.com, in 2020, Coke had a market share of 44.9%, and Pepsi was at 25.9%, which indicates an HHI of 2,678 looking at just the top two companies. This matches the level that the DOJ suggests is “highly concentrated.”   No lender in the mortgage industry has close to the level of market share claimed by Coke or Pepsi, so not surprisingly, the HHI for mortgage origination has been considerably lower in the past 20 years, peaking at about 350 in 2010, immediately following the financial crisis, and now at a level below 150. The mortgage industry’s level of concentration has been considerably below the levels that would raise policy concerns by DOJ. Admittedly, this is a very high-level analysis. In