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[ad_1] P&G lifts sales forecast as price hikes, hygiene product demand continue [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Share Market News Today | Sensex, Nifty, Share Prices LIVE: Bears dominated Dalal Street for the second day straight on Wednesday amid weak global cues. S&P BSE Sensex closed 656 points or 1.08% lower at 60,098 while the broader NSE Nifty 50 ended 174 points or 0.96% in red at 17,938. Bank Nifty closed 0.44% lower. Entering the weekly Futures & Options expiry session SGX Nifty was trading with losses, hinting at continued weak momentum on Dalal Street. Global cues were mixed on Thursday morning as major Asian markets moved higher even though NASDAQ, S&P 500, and Dow Jones closed deep in the red. AGS Transact Technologies IPO saw a strong response from non-institutional investors (NII) and retail investors on the initial day of sale. While NIIs subscribed to the IPO 1.02 times, the retail category subscription tally reached 1.32 times. QIB portion failed to garner any bid. Overall the issue was subscribed 0.88 times with investors bidding for 2.52 crore equity shares against 2.86 crore shares on offer. In the grey market, AGS Transact Technologies’ shares were trading at a Rs 15 premium over the issue price of Rs 166-175 per share. The IPO will close for subscription tomorrow.  [ad_2] Source link

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[ad_1] Blinken vows 'relentless' diplomacy to avert Russian attack on Ukraine [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Sterlite Technologies (STL) on Wednesday reported a loss of Rs 137 crore on account of a one-time provisioning for dues from a customer in the December quarter. The company had posted a profit of Rs 86.64 crore during Q3FY21. Total revenues during the quarter grew 3.12% y-o-y to Rs 1,370.96 crore. Ankit Agarwal, managing director, STL, said this was a one time provisioning and would not affect the business momentum. STL was expecting to collect the dues from customers and had only provided for it. The company had an order book of Rs 11,700 crore, he said. Around 45% of these were non-Indian orders. The company had expanded its footprint in the US with 5G-ready optical products and bagged new orders to the tune of `300 crore, Agarwal said. STL is building a new facility for optical fibre in the US and this would be ready in around six to twelve months, he said. Another cable facility is coming up in UK. This would enhances STL’s fibre deployment capabilities in the US and UK. On the 5G front, the company is working with customers in India, Australia and the USA. STL is taking the lab trials to the filed trials in the next six months, he said. They would be scaling it up to operator readiness levels. “There is strong interest globally to work with Made in India solutions and we are in active engagement with them,” Agarwal said. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Today, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that housing starts came in as a beat at 1.702 million for December. The more critical number of housing permits came in too strong at 1.873 million. You always want to be skeptical of any housing starts data that comes in too strong or too negative from the trend, and we had some specific factors in this report that boosted multifamily construction. For example, the Census report included a special notice that the large increase (119%) in privately owned housing units authorized by building permits in the Northeast from November to December was influenced by real estate tax changes in Philadephia during that time. The trend for housing starts is acceptable, but remember that this data line can be wild month to month, both positive and negative. So the trend is the most crucial factor here, and it’s OK for now.  New home sales haven’t been booming lately, so the growth in single-family starts hasn’t either.While the builders have been more confident lately, even with all the labor complaints, material costs, and delays, this story is still a slow and steady one. From Census: Housing Starts Privately‐owned housing starts in December were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,702,000. This is 1.4 percent (±10.1 percent)* above the revised November estimate of 1,678,000 and is 2.5 percent (±13.8 percent)* above the December 2020 rate of 1,661,000. Single‐family housing starts in December were at a rate of 1,172,000; this is 2.3 percent (±9.8 percent)* below the revised November figure of 1,199,000. The December rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 524,000. As we can see below, housing starts have had a slow and steady climb for many years, and we are nowhere close to the peak of the housing bubble years. Some of the demand that we saw from 2002-2005 was facilitated by credit that no longer exists in the marketplace today. We shouldn’t think of housing being led by a massive credit boom but more about demographics and the need for shelter. Housing permits had been picking up the past few months of 2021, and even excluding this one-month boost, of course, the trend here is still positive. Housing permits have always been a good leading economic indicator, so you always want to watch this data line. However, with that said, the low bar this data line had enjoyed from 2008-to 2019 is gone and we do need to earn growth in this sector. From Cenus: Building Permits Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in December were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,873,000.  This is 9.1 percent (±1.1 percent) above the revised November rate of 1,717,000 and is 6.5 percent (±1.7 percent) above the December 2020 rate of 1,758,000.  Single‐family authorizations in December were at a rate of 1,128,000; this is 2.0 percent (±1.3 percent) above the revised November figure of 1,106,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 675,000 in December. An estimated 1,724,700 housing units were authorized by building permits in 2021. This is 17.2 percent (±0.6 percent) above the 2020 figure of 1,471,100. The real story here in America in housing construction is the long delays in finishing a home which, is very obvious now in the housing data. From Census: Housing Completions Privately‐owned housing completions in December were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,295,000.  his is 8.7 percent (±14.5 percent)* below the revised November estimate of 1,418,000 and is 6.6 percent (±10.4 percent)* below the December 2020 rate of 1,386,000. Single‐family housing completions in December were at a rate of 990,000; this is 3.9 percent (±13.3 percent)* above the revised November rate of 953,000. The December rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 299,000. An estimated 1,337,800 housing units were completed in 2021. This is 4.0 percent (±3.2 percent)* above the 2020 figure of 1,286,900. Honestly, this is one of the most pathetic-looking data lines ever in my life. Here we are at pre-cycle highs in housing demand, and not much going on here. I have been waiting for years 2020-2024 to come for the housing market, and getting hit with a pandemic was the most epic wild card ever. However, you can see right here one of the main issues with the housing market in America today is that it takes a very long time to finish a home. This adds to my premise that this is the most unhealthy housing market post-2010, not because we are in a bubble, but because we are dealing with low inventory and too much cost and construction delays. Regarding labor for housing construction, job openings are very high in the construction sector. Lack of labor runs in line with very high levels of job openings in America, so we have certain parts of the U.S that are fine with labor and others that are having issues. Again, this is a first-world problem to have. Next up for this sector is the new home sales report, and this sector is just OK: demand is good enough to keep housing construction moving along. However, I always caution that higher rates won’t crash a marketplace but can cool the rate of growth. The 10-year yield is making its first attempt to try to break above 1.94%, a line in the sand that has been very dear to me. In December of 2019 I wrote: “Currently, the 10-year yield is at 1.88%. For many months on social media sites, I have talked about how important it is for the bond market to close above 1.94% — this would mean that the bond market has more confidence that we will have higher growth next year. Until then, I would be skeptical of any story that preidcts a higher rate of growth for 2020.” Of course, the economic data was getting better in the second half of 2019, and in the first two months of 2020 the data was good.

[ad_1] On paper, making extra payments on a low-interest mortgage makes no sense at all. After all, the returns you can achieve from investing will almost always be worth more than any interest you save by becoming debt-free. So, why would anyone pay off mortgage debt any faster than they have to? When you consider the fact that the stock market typically returns around 10%, paying off a 30-year home loan with a rate that’s below 4% seems foolish at best. And, that’s just the stock market we’re talking about. What about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies? The reality is, Bitcoin alone has multiplied in value several times since the beginning of the pandemic. Where a single Bitcoin was worth $10,764 in September of 2020, values have easily grown 5X since then.  Still, my wife and I have decided we absolutely want to pay our Nashville home off faster than we have to. This is despite the fact we would almost certainly score a higher return by investing when compared to the interest we save. But sometimes, a decision like this isn’t all about the numbers. It’s also about peace of mind, stability, and personal preferences toward debt in general. So, why are we taking the steps to pay off our mortgage early? I break down all the details and strategies we’re considering below. Our Mortgage Details My wife and I moved from Illinois to Nashville, Tennessee in the summer of 2017. It’s was a scary move.  Probably the scariest decision we’ve ever made as a family.   This picture of the moving trucks showing up doesn’t truly capture how terrified we both were: We started building a home there pretty much right away, and we secured our mortgage in January of 2018. Interestingly, this move took us from almost debt-free to nearly $1 million dollars in debt! That’s because our old house in Illinois was almost paid off, and because we started the whole process over during our move.  If you want to learn more why we made the move, you can check out the YouTube video here: Ultimately, the total price for our new home worked out to $955,165.10. After putting down two separate deposits of $75,000 and paying closing costs, our new VA home loan started with a balance of $843,511 and an interest rate of 3.625%. This made our mortgage payment balloon to $4,397, which is a lot higher than any mortgage payment we have had in the past. Of that amount, $630 went into our escrow account for taxes and insurance each month. If we decided to make the minimum payment on our 30-year home loan, the total amount paid in (including principal and interest) would work out to $1,384,863.44.  This means we would wind up paying $541,596.33 in interest alone!  We decided we don’t want to pay quite that much interest. We also know there is no way we want to owe mortgage payments 25+ years from now. With that in mind, here are some of the early mortgage payoff scenarios we started considering: Option 1: Making an Extra Payment One of the most popular strategies for paying off a mortgage early involves making an extra payment each year. This strategy lets you pay your house off earlier than normal, but it’s not so aggressive that you have to sacrifice other financial goals. When I ran the numbers for our mortgage, I found that making an extra payment of $4,397 per year would cut around four years off our repayment timeline and reduce our total interest paid to $456,442.  That means making an extra payment on our mortgage would save us around $85,154 in interest payments over time. Knocking four years off our mortgage is good but we have goals of paying our home much faster. Since making an extra house payment a year didn’t cut it, I was curious to see what would happen if we made a double payment each year. By making an extra $8,800 ($4,397 x 2) payment each year it did reduce our mortgage loan down another 3 years (so 7 years total). The total interest paid would be reduced to $395,763 or a savings of $145,833. That’s a huge savings but still not fast enough for us. But I think you can see that making an extra payment (or two) is a solid way to save a ton of interest on your mortgage and pay your house off faster. Wealth Tip: Making an extra payment each year on your mortgage can dramatically reduce your loan and save you thousands of dollars of interest. Option 2: Refinance Our Mortgage On April 30, 2021, I contacted a mortgage broker to find out how much interest we could save if we took steps to refinance our home loan. Based on our current loan amount, which was $794,000 at the time, refinancing to a 15-year home loan with an interest rate of 2.375% would increase our monthly mortgage payment to $5,798.95.  However, I was pretty put off by all the fees involved in refinancing, which you can see clearly in the screenshots below: Not only were they asking for an origination fee and appraisal fees, but they wanted to charge processing fees, underwriting fees, and other fees galore. I would also have to pay a second VA funding fee in order to use my VA loan benefit. Then there’s the hassle and stress involved in refinancing a mortgage. People who have refinanced in the past already know what I’m talking about! But, even with the fees involved, this option can still lead to huge savings over time. Considering a new 15-year home loan of $794,000 with an interest rate of 2.375%, total interest paid works out to just $150,588 and some change.  That’s more than $390,000 in interest savings when you compare to just making the minimum payment on our mortgage for 30 years! Btw, if you are considering refinancing your mortgage, always – and I mean ALWAYS – get at least

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[ad_1] 'In the name of God, go': UK's Johnson faces demands to resign [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] An expert panel of India’s central drug authority on Wednesday recommended granting regular market approval to Covid vaccines Covishield and Covaxin, which are currently only authorised for emergency use in the country, subject to certain conditions, official sources said. Pharma companies Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech had submitted applications to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) seeking regular market authorisation for their respective COVID-19 vaccines Covishield and Covaxin. Prakash Kumar Singh, director (government and regulatory affairs) at SII, had submitted an application to the DCGI on October 25 on this matter. On that DCGI had sought more data and documents from the Pune-based company following which Singh recently had submitted a response along with more data and information. In addition to the successful completion of phase 2/3 clinical study in India, till now, more than 100 crore doses of Covishield vaccine have been administered to the people in this country and worldwide, Singh is learnt to have stated in the response. “Such a large-scale vaccination with Covishield and containment of COVID-19 infection is in itself a testimony of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine,” he had said. In an application sent to the DCGI a couple of weeks ago, V Krishna Mohan, whole-time director at the Hyderabad-based company, submitted complete information regarding chemistry, manufacturing and controls, along with the pre-clinical and clinical data while seeking regular market authorisation for Covaxin. Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) took up the challenge to develop, produce and clinically evaluate a vaccine (Covaxin), from the SARS-CoV-2 strains isolated from COVID-19 patients in India, Mohan had said in the application. Covaxin and Covishield were granted Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) on January 3. “The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) which reviewed SII and Bharat Biotech’s application for the second time on Wednesday has recommended granting regular market approval to Covishield and Covaxin subject to certain conditions,” an official source said. The recommendations will be sent to DCGI for final approval. During last week’s meeting the SEC had sought more data and information from the two companies. [ad_2] Source link