Eco Forum hosts Guest Lecture by Mr. A V Rajwade

The Economic Forum at SPJIMR recently hosted a guest lecture by Mr. A V Rajwade on the Subprime Crisis as part of its strategic task to enhance interaction between participants and experts from the field of economics. The Subprime Crisis has been haunting the US economy for the past few months and its impact is now starting to be felt globally, especially on the Asian economies of China and India.

Mr. A V Rajwade, the eminent speaker, has been an independent Forex and Treasury management consultant for over two decades. He currently holds the position of a director in several public and private limited companies as well as being the Member/Chairman of various sub-committees of these companies. He is also a former member of the supervisory board of India Opportunities Fund, Bermuda and Mauritius, and Director of CRISIL, India's first credit-rating company.

Organised on the 1st of December 2007, the guest lecture was well attended by participants cutting across different programs. Mr. Rajwade spoke about certain fundamentals such as credit derivatives, credit default swaps, total return swaps, structured finance, collateralised debt obligations (CDO’s), risk and uncertainty and how all these fundamentals help us to diagnose the root cause of the recent credit crisis/subprime crisis. Overall, the lecture proved to be extremely informative and we look forward to similar sessions in the future.

Guest Lecture by Mr. Ramesh Damani

A guest lecture was organized by the Eco Forum on the 19th of November 2007. The eminent speaker invited for the lecture was Mr. Ramesh S. Damani, member of the Bombay Stock Exchange Limited and a broker for over 16 years. Mr. Damani is also a well known host of the TV show, “Dalals of Wall Street” on CNBC TV 18 and a frequent commentator on financial issues on CNBC and NDTV news. The topic for the guest lecture was - “THE BULL RUN” The Stock market boom – Is it real???

Mr. Ramesh Damani commenced the lecture by highlighting the major bull runs over past century. He spoke about the dynamics behind a bull run and the dimensions attached to it viz. price and time. He also gave some basic rules for novice investors such as invest early, think long-term and hold on to your investments. Towards the end, a short question and answer session was held during which questions related to future trends of the stock market, impact of population on growth rage and the impact of BRIC countries on the global economy was discussed.

Overall, the event was an enriching experience for all the participants who came away with a better understanding of complex financial issues. We look forward to more such interesting lectures organized by the Eco Forum, who deserve kudos for a job well done.