A country’s or a region’s cultural influences operate subtly, often at the unconscious or semi-conscious levels

Martin Gannon, in his excellent book Global Cultures, says that “culture counts, and it counts quite a bit.” He quotes from Geert Hofstede’s study done 25 years ago at IBM Corporation involving its managers and employees in 40 countries. Hofstede demonstrated that national culture...

In our 19 June 2008 issue, we had strongly suggested to our readers that fund of funds (FoFs) is not such a great idea. How have FoFs fared in the September 2008 quarter? There are 37 FoFs after excluding institutional plans and funds without a benchmark.

We checked the performance of these funds between 1 July 2008 and 30 September 2008. These funds ended with an astounding underperformance....

In a fortnight of unabated market carnage, even the losers appear winners as they outperformed the Sensex

Winners
It was the worst fortnight ever in recent memory, with the Sensex going down 20%. But 63% (17 stocks out of 27stocks) of our A grade stocks have outperformed the Sensex. During the fortnight, banks had something to cheer about as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a 250...