With Steve Ballmer announcing that Microsoft is going after Ad revenues aggressively and to directly take Google head on. Global Ad business in Digital world is around 650B USD. That justifies their investment in Facebook, a social networking site, at a 15B USD valuation.

Looking at India and China, the growth story is similar in the Digital and Mobile world.

China View reports

Strong advertising sales boosted Chinese portal Sina.com’s third quarter earnings 61 percent which helped offset a decline in wireless services revenue. The strong growth in ad sales was fueled by a sharp rise in financial service ads and the portal’s commercializing bloggers’ space has also contributed to the sterling results.

Net income hit 17.2 million U.S. dollars, or 28 U.S. cents per diluted share, compared to 10.7 million dollars, or 19 U.S. cents per share, in the same period last year. Revenues grew 15 percent to 64.3 million dollars, Shanghai-based Sina Corp said in a statement Thursday.

Sina, China’s largest portal, is relying increasingly heavily on ad sales as the non-ad business shrank in the quarter, mostly due to a decline in mobile value added services as a result of a tougher regulatory environment.

Ad revenue swelled 40 percent in the quarter to 45.8 million dollars, while non-ad sales fell 21 percent to 18.5 million dollars, which met company guidance.

Sensex has touched almost 20000, though this number is arrived out performance of 30 big companies listed on the exchange. Some of the stocks are quoted on a all time high basis but still investors want a pie in these India based equities. Fundamentally speaking there is growth there and any growth in earnings will take the stock price high with a favourable macro economic factors.

Economic Times reports

Stocks on Indian bourses may be commanding huge PE (price-to-earnings) multiples, but for brokers and investors they translate into an ‘extra price’ they pay for higher returns on investments.

A dipstick study, conducted to see how well-priced desi blue chips are vis-a-vis their peers in developed and emerging markets, reveal that Indian shares are far more expensive (in terms of PE multiples) than global majors with better revenues and adjusted profits.

To make a point, L&T with a trailing PE of 56 times is far more ‘expensive’ than engineering behemoth GE (18) or a Mistubishi (13). Likewise, ICICI commanding a PE of 41 times is far more expensive than Citigroup (9) and BNP Paribas (8). IT major Infosys with a trailing PE of 24 is undoubtedly valued higher than EDS (13.8) and Oracle (20). PE gives investor an idea as to what the market is willing to pay for the company’s earnings. The higher the PE the more the market is willing to pay for the company’s earnings. PE, as an indicator, helps investor in deciding whether he should invest in a particular stock or not. A scrip trading at a PE of 15-18 times is generally regarded as a ‘fairly valued’ stock across markets, provided the company has decent earning potential.

Resource-rich Brazil is in the crosshairs of world mining giants as they race to uncover new deposits to feed red-hot demand for metals from fast-growing economies such as China.

Analysts say the possible mining sector takeover of Rio Tinto by BHP Billiton would boost competition for CVRD on its home turf in Brazil, where some of the world’s richest iron ore reserves are located.

Brazil-based mining sector consultants said on Monday such a tie-up was good for new projects and unlikely to trigger antitrust restrictions in the world’s second-largest iron ore exporting country after Australia. CVRD, in its turn, is the world’s No. 1 iron ore exporting firm.

BHP, the world’s biggest mining house, mapped out its plan on Monday to acquire rival Rio Tinto, signalling it was ready for a long fight despite Rio Tinto’s rejection last week of its $US140 billion ($A154.79 billion) takeover proposal as too low.

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The Age Reports

Despite the growing economic clout of emerging countries, students still want to pursue higher education in United States.

India remains the leading exporter of students to the US for the seventh year in a row, followed by China and South Korea. With 83,833 students in 2006-07 and a 10 per cent increase from previous year, India maintained the lead as the place of origin for highest number of international students in the US.

China remains in second place, with numbers up by 8 per cent to 67,723 and the Republic of Korea, in third place, increased its share by six per cent to 62,392.

The United States continues to attract the imagination and ambitions of international students, which is evident from the increase in numbers of total enrollments.

Read more in Financial Express

US attracts lot for education

Health of the industrial economic growth is based on Order books. Indian executives are most optimistic about their economy according to a recent Mckinsey study when compared to other countries including China and other major economies. A huge order book is seen for real estate, engineering, construction and capital goods manufacturers. Its a no brainer on which companies to look for investment purposes.

Business Standard reports

In the first 10 months of CY07, Indian firms received orders worth Rs 128,147 crore.

Contrary to hints of an economic slowdown, India Inc’s order books are overflowing.

Leading the charge are 79 real estate developers and engineering, construction and capital goods manufacturers that accounted for over 94 per cent of total orders received.

In the first 10 months of calendar year 2007, Indian companies received orders worth Rs 128,147 crore. This is 68.6 per cent more than Rs 75,984 crore in the same period a year ago.

Orders have been pouring in from Indian and foreign companies, the central and state governments and local bodies for construction of roads, power plants, refineries, turnkey projects, electronic goods and water and irrigation works.

The daughters of Russia’s richest men are trying to make their names on almost everything - fashion industry, pop music, television and publishing. They always succeed because they always enjoy the support of their incredibly wealthy fathers.

	Top 7 Russian super-rich It-girls that may outshine Paris Hilton

Meet Russia’s richest It-girls (Photos)

Fourteen-year-old fashion designer Kira Plastinina is among such girls. Her father Sergei is worth an estimated 700 million dollars.

Last week he reportedly paid two million dollars to fly Paris Hilton to Russia to endorse his daughter’s label at the Moscow Fashion Show.

Unsurprisingly, in a country where one in four people still lives below the poverty line, such extravagance causes deep resentment.

And whereas America took 200 years to produce the likes of Paris Hilton, the Russian equivalents have emerged only 16 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, The Daily Mail reports.

read more

Russian Youth makes it Rich

India born Management Guru C. K. Prahlad has been chosen as the World’s most influencing management thinker by Suntop media.

A professor at the University of Michigans’ Stephen M Ross School of Business, Prahalad specialises in corporate strategy research and is a globally known figure consulted by the top management of many of the world’s foremost companies.

His book “Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid” is a fantastic book on emerging economies opportunities. The author emphasises how capitalism can eradicate poverty. There are classic examples of Hindustan Lever, Bharti Airtel, Tata’s proposed Rs 1 lakh (USD2500) car, ICICI rural banking…etc which are surely adopting this theory to go to consumers at rural areas.

Indian Express reports

Brazilian Petrobras, state owned oil company, announced today that it believes there is huge Oil & Gas base at its Tupi field. We saw yesterday PetroChina becoming the world’s largest Oil Co in Market Cap terms. We are sure to see more happenings with Russia and India Oil cos. As these BRIC oil companies push the envelope on more exploration, their domestic consumption for energy will be addressed as their economic growth surges and may in turn soon be a leading supplier.

Bloomberg News reports

How do you explain this ? Reliance Money is joining hands with McDonalds to distribute their financial products. While consumers  queue up for ordering their Mac menu, they would be also exposed to various products from Reliance Money. This could happen only in emerging countries where big corporates are trying to reach the masses in their own form of adopting distribution methods. In India financial products are sold through retail sales offices and this could be a perfect experiment for Rmoney to see the behaviour.

Financial Express reports

Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Money Limited announced a tie-up with McDonald’s for distributing its financial products at retail outlets of the fast food chain in the northern region. Besides, the company also announced the launch of limited free trading account offer for their customers in Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.

“Under the tie-up with McDonald’s, Reliance Money would install its financial desk at various outlets, which would explain its offerings, including Free Trading account, gold chain retailing and mobile financial portal to customers,” Reliance Money Limited Director and CEO Sudip Bandyopadhay said.

“Initially, about 18 outlets will be covered, mainly in New Delhi and Punjab under this partnership and after getting feedback, we will evaluate for further extending this service to other outlets,” McDonald’s India Head Marketing, Jyoti Rakheja said.