Current Affairs Month Wise - Business And Economy Current Affairs: January 2012

Business And Economy Current Affairs

Brighter economic news worries euro zone
• The euro zone is filled with worries after news of brighter economics from countries like U.S, China and Germany surfaced. The euro zone fears increased risk appetite, raising global shares and the single currency. The stock index in the U.S rose marginally allowing the investors to look for corporate profits following the Citigroup posted an 11 percent fall in the profit.
  
  A manufacturing gauge in New York showed a huge growth in January thereby rising to the highest level in the last nine months. This all happened as the unit saw new orders and employment which improved the overall result. 
  
  The previous ratings from China, the world’s second largest economy showed a huge slowdown. But it still kept the hopes alive by easing measures of the government.
  
  Investors are looking somewhat happier after the release of the data by the Chinese government that will boost global activity in the 2012 spring. 
  
  Also the investors from the German empire showed monthly improvement in the month of January. This has helped to upbeat the previous data and hopes for the Central Bank of Europe to ease the European debt problem.
World stocks becomes cautious before EU Summit
• The world stock became cautious ahead of EU summit as investors became alert post the U.S. growth figures that showed lower rates and they fell just short of expectations.
  
  There is lack of progress in Greek debt talks. And these talks which are on a verge of deal kept markets on edge all over the region. Also for the single currency part there was some element of profit thereby taking its rates to a strongest week. 
  
  It is important to have a Greek deal before an agreement can be made. The Greek deal needs to meet a 14.5 billion euro repayment for its debt that is due for mid-March. If this deal is not met then the Athens are on the verge of facing a messy default that could hamper the European and world stock markets.
  
  As per the scene everything seems to be negative but Greece is still trying to make a deal as said by Joe Rundle, who is the head of trading at ETX Capital.
  
  In his statement he further said that the Euro zone leaders still need to come up with a vital solution as the negative news that is going round is not good for confidence of the investors and the consumers and it may lead to a snowball effect.
Indian currency opens at higher rates 
• On Wednesday the Indian Currency Rupee opened at a stronger rate leading to expectations for continued inflow of foreign funds following the shift in the Central bank policy to support growth. The Reserve Bank of India on the other hand dropped the cash reserve ratio by 50points in order to ease off the tight liquidity, but simultaneously kept the key rates steady. The rates were kept steady as core inflation is still at its high point .
  
  RBI Governor D.Subbarao said financial markets should not think that the administrative steps being taken to curb the speculation in foreign exchange are temporary. The Rupee opened at 50.00, firmer than 50.07/08 and closed on Tuesday.
3 Android magic in Last Two Months
• 3 charms were reported for the Android in the last two months (December and January). The following devices were unveiled recently and are all set to hit the market. These three devices will define what to look forward in a smart-phone this year.
  1. Samsung Galaxy Nexus:
     This is the new member in the Galaxy family launched in December 11. This is the first smart-phone to be launched with the latest version of Android 4.0. The Galaxy Nexus has a screen of 4.65-inch 1280×720 with Super AMOLED display, 5MP camera with 1080 video capture along with 1.3MP front-facing camera that has 720p video capture. Not only this, the smart phone has 1.2GHz dual-core processor. But this device has some drawbacks. Like the size is a bit large and cannot be handled with one hand and there is no preloaded Google wallet. This phone will hit the Indian market during the month of March. The price for the gadget is around
  2. LG Spectrum:
     LG showcased its LG Spectrum in the mid January. This new smart-phone has Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread with 4.5-inch True HD 1280×720 Display. Not only this, it has 8MP rear camera with 1080p video capture, 1.3MP front camera. The smart phone has 4GB of built-in storage space expandable to 32GB. There is a 1.5GHz dual-core processor for good processing and is affordable at a rate at of
  3. Motorola Droid Razr Maxx: Droid Razr Maxx is in news because of its incredible battery life. It supports 20 hours continues talk time higher than any smart-phone. This phone was launched in January this year and has two major features: a 3300 mAH battery and 32GB storage. This Razr has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED advanced 960×540 display along with 8MP rear camera which has 1080p video capture, 1.3MP front-facing camera and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. This smart phone runs on Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread. Though the price is not confirmed yet but the expected cost is slated to be
Low earnings for Nokia and still deep falls feared. 
• The world's largest cell-phone Nokia, though showed somewhat better core earnings but they still fell 73 percent low. The reason for low earnings was that its new Windows Phones have failed to provide better sales in order to compensate for lowering sales of its old smart-phones.
  
  Shares of Nokia rose to 7 percent in the recent weeks. Its fourth quarter core earnings, has a share of 0.06 Euros as compared to market expectations for 0.08 Euros. 
  
  The smart phones sales fell to 31 percent and still showed steep declined. Following this Nokia has revealed a new strategy for its smart phones in order to boost sales and to give tough competition to its rival Apple and Google’s Android. Nokia claims that it has sold over 1 million smart phones by the month of January.
  
  As per the reports from the Nokias’ spokesperson more than 1 million Windows smart phones have been shipped which is more than what was expected.