Tata Motors and Tata Motors Finance
Company News

Tata Motors and Tata Motors Finance to Collaborate with Kool-ex Cold Chain

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Indian commercial vehicle giant Tata Motors has announced that it, along with Tata Motors Finance, will be entering into a strategic tie-up with Kool-ex Cold Chain Limited, a leading pharma cold chain logistics service provider, to supply 200 factory built reefer trucks. It will be a first of its kind transaction for both the companies.

This unique tie-up will see Tata Motors manufacturing specially built reefer trucks which will be pharma compliant. It will be a one-stop solution for Kool-ex Cold Chain and will be covered under the Tata Sampoorna Seva umbrella of value-added services. The project will be funded by Tata Motors Finance Group with a mixture of equity and debt, making it a single window transaction. In a statement, the company stated that these reefer trucks would be built on the popular Tata LPT 1613 MCV and Tata LPT 2518 multi-axle trucks.

Kool-ex has been one of the most loyal clients of Tata Motors for the past sixteen years. The company is all set to become one of the largest pharma cold chain logistics players in the country, and this partnership is being considered as a stepping stone in the journey. The company will also be shortly entering in the cold chain warehousing segment, with its first commercial project expected to materialize near Pune, making it a completely integrated 3PL cold chain logistics service provider.

Kool-ex Cold Chain Director, Rahul Agarwal, has said that Tata Motors has been an integral part of the Mumbai based company since its inception. He further added that Kool-ex is strategically expanding its product portfolios and reinforcing its expertise in various segments to cater to growing customer requirements. Agarwal also said the company believes that specialized needs of the ever-expanding e-commerce and cold chain industries will give birth to newer opportunities for niche organized logistics players in the near future.

Commenting on this collaboration, R T Wasan, marketing, and sales head, Tata motors CVBU, stated that as the leading commercial vehicle player in the industry, Tata Motors aims to work closely with its customers and to offer them appropriate solutions for their transportation and logistics requirements. He also said that Tata Motors in association with Kool-ex has co-developed a fully built reefer unit. This will help meet sophisticated and rapidly growing logistics requirements of the pharma industry due to the anticipated changes in regulations concerned with transportation and storage.

Shyam Mani, Managing Director of Tata Motors Finance Group, said that the company was elated to be a part of this one of a kind collaboration to provide one-stop finance solution to Kool-ex Cold Chain. He informed that as a part of this tie-up, they will not only be providing vehicle finance through Tata Motors Finance Limited (TMFL) but will also provide mezzanine equity finance to the company through Tata Motors Finance Solutions Limited (TMFSL), making this a structured financing deal.

The announcement of this collaboration saw the stocks of Tata Motors soar by 4.45% to Rs 159.45. Last week, the prices fell by 29% after the company posted a Rs 26,960 crore loss in Q3.

News

China Threat Neutralised as French Wine and Spirits 2018 Exports Rise to Record Levels

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The slowdown in the Chinese economy has pretty much hit all industries across the world, and due to the drop in consumption, many industries which depend on exports have experienced a crippling slowdown. However, the storied wine and spirits industry in France seems to be existing in a different planet altogether as it has not only been unaffected by the slowdown but has in fact recorded record exports in 2018.

Not only was the Chinese economic slowdown supposed to be a big factor but the continuing Chine-United States trade was also supposed to be a factor. None of that, however, affected the French wine and spirits exports. According to data released by the industry exporters group Federation of French Wines and Spirit Exporters, the value of exports rose to 13 billion Euros.

The wine and spirits industry is France’s second biggest export after the aerospace, and the value of exports in 2018 rose by 2.4%, reflecting the fact that the country’s wines remain the biggest draw all across the world. Despite the slowdown in demand in China, the demand in other key markets rose sufficiently to allow for record levels of growth.

While the Chinese export number floundered, the exports to the United States, which has long been the biggest market, rose substantially. Exports to the US rose by 4.6% from 2017 and over the years, it has accounted for around 25% of all exports. The significant rise in the value of exports to the US has been the biggest reason behind the industry’s brilliant show in 2018. Back in 2017, the exports to China had grown by a whopping 24.5%, but in 2018, it fell drastically by 14.5%, and the total intake from the Chinese market fell to 1 billion Euros. That being said, exports to Chinese export hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong largely compensated for the drop in China. The chairman of the industry body FEVS, Antoine Leccia said as much, “Taking into account these hubs that are Hong Kong and Singapore, exports are almost stable.”

Despite the drop in productivity of wines, France’s most recognizable export, the prices increased proportionately, and that ensured that the overall export value of wines went up by 2.6%. The total value of wine exports stood at 8.9 billion Euros. On the other hand, the value of spirits exports went up by 1.8% and generated 4.3 billion in total sales, the bulk of which was made up of cognac sales.

Opinion & Analysis

Kraken’s acquisition of crypto facilities leads the company to a new high

By 7219 0

Kraken is a giant cryptocurrency exchange based out of US and is operating in Canada, the EU, Japan, and the US, and it is the largest Bitcoin exchange in Euro volume and liquidity. Recently, the company made a huge announcement about the acquisition of cryptocurrency facilities. This will restructure the entire company to rank between 1 and 10 in the global bitcoin exchange. Currently, they are the 46thexchange by adjusted volume.

Kraken released details about the acquisition to the press, but they had not mentioned the exact amount spent on crypto facilities. They hinted the cost to be a “nine-digit figure” which amounts to $100 million at the least. This move of acquisition took the market by surprise as there was news about the company downsizing last year. CEO of Kraken, Jesse Powell, cleared the air confirming the dismissal of 57 employees in Halifax. However, he stated that the company was still hiring in various sectors.

Furthermore, Kraken has stepped into Bitcoin Derivatives space. This could be given the success of its #10 competitor Huobi Global, a cryptocurrency exchange based out of Singapore, which proliferated after launching the derivatives market in November last year. Instead of creating its platform, Kraken has used Google’s approach and procured the best derivative platform and have put them to use for their clients.

Crypto facilities are based in London, and as seen by the UK’S financial conduct authority, the firm will be functional from its base country and benefit from the oversight of the authority. Even though the company operates from London, the future of the product will be Kraken branded.

Crypto facilities have taken a step forward and introduced a Revenue Sharing Program (RSP) for the clients who provide liquidity. This program calculates the contribution from clients on a weekly basis, starting at 12 p.m. UTC ( Universal Time Coordinated) every Friday. RDP is scheduled to run for ten weeks initially, and at the end of each week, the revenue will be calculated according to the contribution and paid out. $50,000 a week is allotted to the clients who create markets in the exchange.

Unlike stock market and share prices, the price of crypto asset originates from spot trading. Hence, the derivative market is effective only in a limited period. Even so, the sentiment value on a derivative market has the power to affect the price of an asset, which means, if the derivative values an asset more or less than your value, you will have to change your value and the price to trade it.

Virtually, the value of derivative exchanges is unlimited. For-profit, the Bitcoin derivatives, and its competitors are offered higher prices, depending on the volume, the offered price could be extreme. Binance’s founder, ChangpengZhao mentioned that the crypto market grows rapidly (could increase by 1000 folds)and hence makes the derivatives market bigger. BitMEX proved Changpeng right by trading for $1 billion on an everyday basis, making it the largest exchange in the derivatives market. Kraken is now following the steps of both BitMEX and Huobi, therefore, would emerge as a giant exchange with more innovations and profit in the future.

Nvidia Generated 1.95 Billion
Company News

Nvidia Generated $1.95 Billion in Revenue from Crypto Mining Sales

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A report published by Markets Insider reveals that Nvidia has earned a whopping $1.95 billion in revenue via its crypto business. However, the official financial statement of the company has claimed a crypto-related revenue of $602 million. RBC analyst, Mitch Steves, told that the actual number is at least three times higher.

“We think NVDA generated $1.95 billion in total revenue related to the crypto/blockchain. This compares to company’s statement that it generated around $602 million over the same period,” Steves alleged.

During the third quarter of 2018, Nvidia chief financial officer Colette Kress said to its investors to not expect any revenue from its crypto business. And at the time, the company’s shutdown of its cryptocurrency venture caused a decline in its stock price.

In August, Kress said, “We believe we’ve reached a normal period as we’re looking forward to essentially no cryptocurrency as we move forward. Our revenue outlook had anticipated cryptocurrency-specific products declining to approximately $100 million, while actual crypto-specific product revenue was $18 million, and we now expect a negligible contribution is going forward.”

During the past five months, however, a majority of analysts have associated the decline in the performance of the company to the 85 percent fall of the cryptocurrency market.

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress has emphasized in August that it pulled out of the crypto sector. Now, the narrative that the correction in the cryptocurrency market is hurting the firm’s numbers has elevated.

RBC recently published a report that revealed that the company’s ties with the crypto market are deeper than how they were initially presented late in 2019. RBC analyst Mitch Steves added that the revenue Nvidia generated from its crypto mining equipment manufacturing business from April 2017 to July 2018. The revenue is ascertained to be over $2.75 billion.

However, Steves suggested that the numbers cannot be fully confirmed and that Nvidia has 75 percent control over the GPU-related crypto mining market. Between January 25 to January 29, the stock price of Nvidia fell from $160.15 to $131.6, which is more than 18 percent. Such a large short-term drop in market valuation is unprecedented. However, throughout the past month, analysts claimed that the overall decline in demand for Nvidia’s gaming GPUs affected the firm’s performance negatively rather than the struggling crypto market.

In another report by the Motley Fool, it was alleged that gamers are not compelled to purchase Nvidia’s high-performance GPUs because of three factors:

  • Most popular PC games are not graphically intensive
  • New GPUs do not have killer features
  • Gamers are not upgrading GPUs as frequently as before

A games, esports, and mobile market research firm, Newzoo, mentioned that the most sought out GPUs in the market are the GTX 1060, GTX 1050 Ti, and GTX 1070.

Nvidia challenged AMD, a graphics card manufacturer, in taking control of the low-end GPU market. Nvidia was successful in doing so, and this led to an overall decline in demand for high-end and expensive GPUs, a market where Nvidia is claimed to dominate.

It seems that the struggle of graphics card manufacturers has not been exclusive to Nvidia alone. Even AMD and smaller GPU makers have displayed poor performance throughout the last quarter of 2018.

Nvidia first started to show signs of underperformance in December 2018. During this period, CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer claimed that it was a forecasting mistake that caused Nvidia’s stock to drop rather than variables like the crypto market.

“Nvidia still makes the best graphics chips, which have become more powerful than traditional microprocessors. It still has a lead over the competition in a lot of uses, although you could argue that AMD’s catching up to them in the data center while Intel rivals them in self-driving vehicles. I think Nvidia made an honest forecasting mistake, although given that some of us saw it coming, it was definitely an avoidable mistake,” Cramer added.

Company News

Commerce Chief Tells Unpaid Federal Workers to Get Loans

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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday advised the furloughed federal workers who would be facing a second missed paycheck to get loans to pay their pending bills. He also added he doesn’t understand why the federal workers have any issue availing loans.

Ross, who made a fortune buying distressed companies, said it was disappointing to see some federal workers not showing up to work after the shutdown.

Ross said, “So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out – there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it, and we’ve seen some ads from the financial institutions doing that.”

He also added, “So there is not a good excuse why there really should be a liquidity crisis, true the people might have to pay a little bit of interest.”

Ross’s comments came as the most extended ever shutdown in the United States’ history entered into the 34th day.

President Trump on Ross’s comments said he had not heard anything about the comment, but he did understand.

“Perhaps he should have said it differently,” Trump told reporters during a trade meeting at the White House. “Local people know who they are when they go for groceries and everything else, and I think Wilbur was probably trying to say they will work along. I know that banks are working along. But he’s done a great job; I will tell you that.”

It should be reported here that the shutdown has affected around 800000 federal workers who have been furloughed. Many of them went to take the help of unemployment assistance, food banks or other work to try to make ends meet.

Democrats have reacted profusely to the comments of Ross.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked at a news conference, “Is this the ‘Let them eat cake,’ kind of attitude, or ‘Call your father for money?’ or, ‘This is character building for you?’” She also added that Ross’s comment was unfortunate as hundreds of thousands of men and women would be missing a second paycheck in the coming day.

U.S. Representative Jennifer Wexton, whose northern Virginia district includes many furloughed workers and federal contractors, said she invited Ross to visit food bank with her to show him the real woes.

Wexton said, “That’s one thing that’s been so striking about this entire process is the complete lack of empathy from the president on down through his administration, a complete lack of understanding of what day-to-day life is for regular people in this district.”

This is not for the first time that one of the people in the Trump administration tried to downplay federal workers’ plight. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett compared the furlough to vacation in an interview last month. Though he later clarified his stand is saying he understands workers are in pain.

Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and adviser to his 2020 re-election campaign, told online television outlet BOLD TV this week that the federal workers who had been furloughed were facing a little bit of pain to pay the bills, but they needed to make the sacrifice as the border wall, or national security is bigger than any one person.

She later explained on Fox News Channel on Thursday that she was extremely empathetic towards the furloughed workers, but her whole point was that the president had been standing firm on his position because this was really about the future of the United States, about fixing that immigration system.

Chinese Tech Giant Huaweis
Opinion & Analysis

Chinese Economy Hits Its Lowest In 3 Decades

By 9990 0

China which is the world’s second-largest economy grew by 6.6% which is slowest in 28 years. As per the latest official data released the economy lost its way further in the last quarter as the county tried to overcome the debt crises and the ongoing trade war with the United States. With that, there is tremendous pressure on the communist leaders to make an amicable settlement with the U.S and end the trade war. The report showed that the growth dipped to its lowest quarterly since the 2008 recession.

The Chinese government is meanwhile implementing measures to enable the country to get more sustained growth through customer spending. However, the customer reaction to this is jittery as they see impending job losses which have made them wary of spending. That has, in turn, prompted the government to increase spending and has even asked banks to reduce interest rates and increase lending so that they can reduce the job cuts. Despite these measures, the growth is expected to go further low as these take time to produce results. Analysts believe that there could be a slowdown again this year and reduce growth to 6.3%. However, if the quarterly growth is taken into account, there was an increase in 1.6 percent from the previous quarter while the analyst has predicted 1.5%.

Oxford Economist Louis Kuijs said in a report that the ‘Growth will remain under pressure’ and that it could get worse if the credit growth and the trade tussle with the US do not end quickly.

The trade war with the US to end soon?

The Chinese government which is already under great pressure after customer spending reduced due to fears of job losses and slowdown are keen on ending the tussle with the US. It can be considered as a sign of progress as Beijing announced that Liu He who is the vice premier and their top envoy of trade would be visiting Washington for bilateral talks that are going to be held at the end of January.  That has prompted economists and analysts to suggest that the talks held at a low-level have made progress and that has made China and American opposite number Robert Lightizer. Trump also indicated that it was ‘going very well’ and a deal could happen very soon.

The key risk to the Chinese economy is if the talks fail yet again and no deal is made then that is a huge downside to the growth.

gdfg
Trading News

Proposed licensing system to keep anonymous Crypto trading at bay, claimed by Dutch Government

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As per recent news from the Dutch media group, Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS), the Dutch Ministry of Finance has received an official confirmation to set up a licensing system which would create transparency as far as the digital asset trading and crypto-based services are concerned.

Pete Hoekstra who is the Netherlands’ Minister of Finance has asked for a special report on the various operations of crypto markets and several trading platforms which are currently in use from the Netherlands’ Authority for the Financial Markets and De Nederlandsche Bank which is the local central bank of Netherlands

The minister in a press meet claimed that he has already planned his operation by the outcome of the report and have taken it up seriously. As per the report, the down surge in crypto space speculations has made to take up investor’s protection action lightly in the recent times. The consequence on the aftermath of this less stringent action is that emphasis has been put on the prevention of laundering of money and terrorist financing through trading in crypto industry.

In a recent report by the Netherland’s Financial Intelligence Unit, it was found out that the number of unusual and illegitimate transactions in the digital asset space has increased at an exponential rate from a meager 300 up to 5,000 last year.

The proposed licensing system once introduced is expected the crypto exchanges and wallet providers to monitor and record their customers’ transactions and bring to the notice of the authorities if any suspicious activity is found. The exchanges are also required to collect and store all trading related information of their customers and provide to the authorities during the instance of an investigation.

procedure on their operation. The bank authorities have confirmed that they would ensureThe Netherland’s central bank has been asked to follow a systematic that the companies will be scrutinized and tested before the license are issued. Recently, the bank has conducted an exercise to check if they are competent enough to collect the required user data in times of need.

Richard Kohl who happens to be a board member of the Nederland Foundation for Bitcoin claimed that the step taken would not be something conducive for the young innovative companies and would be a backlash on the face of local innovation and culture

Kohl believes that the new stringent law would bring in an inconsiderable amount of manual-based paperwork and rising cost to the companies for staying compliant with the new regulated system. Once inducted into the system, these would cause major competitive disadvantages when compared to large financial established bodies like banks and other financial institutions. He even believes that not much research has been done when setting the process considering the actual dangers which can be brought on by cryptocurrencies with stringent measures taken which are too extreme. He also expressed his concerns over the feasibility of data storage and its privacy and other possible dangers associated with storing of such sensitive data.

As per a report from a daily publication last December, all digital assets and cryptocurrency-based service providers would be required to get licenses from the central bank of the Netherlands for their business operations.

Earlier in August’18, there was a news break that one of the top officials of the Dutch central bank had claimed that since cryptocurrencies are not considered as real money, the bank has not resorted to any plan of banning them.

ripl
Trading News

Popular Ripple’s Coin XRP’s Fake Liquidity on Crypto Exchanges?

By 13387 0

Ripple’s coin XRP is the second largest cryptocurrency coin in the market only after the Bitcoin [BTC] according to market cap. The XRP which is a digital asset is trying to achieve new financial organizations and institutions across the world to execute cross border transactions. This digital asset in future will be the top serious competitor for Bitcoin in the market.

XRP coin has significantly seen an increase in the trading volume at various exchanges around the world. As per the CoinMarketCap report the XRP coin traded at a volume of about $400 million, placing it at the 5th position by trading volume in the last 24 hours. However, coinmarketbook.cc confirmed that some portion of the coin liquidity is not true and is false.

The Coinmarketbook launched a new metrics .cc that will show the capacity of real liquidity of some of the popular coins in the market. The metrics have a Buy Support option that defines the sum of buy orders from the highest bid price at 10 percent distance and is computed by adding all the buy orders which are near to the bid price at max 10 percent distance and later the amount is exchanged into USD.

By using this technique, the Coinmarketbook will escape the operation of the market by market makers and big whales. The big whales and other market makers specify big orders to support the coin price which hides the real interest in the coin which is basically below the buying price level.

The buy support indicator displays that there are around $138 million users who are waiting to purchase bitcoin, around $26 million buying orders are for Ethereum, and there is only $13 million buying order for XRP token. To know more about XRP click here.

The website will give you the details information about real liquidity that has taken place on leading exchanges. The website allows the market to get an idea of the coin and the trading volume of the coin.

Few XRP token holders are misguided and falsely believe that XRP token is an essential element for operation across the company’s cross border payments solution. But this is not true because most of the banks are seen in support of a Ripple Product mostly known as xCurrent. The xCurrent product of Ripple does not make use of XRP tokens at all.

Now the question is about the price of the one XRP and how is it decided? As of now the price of XRP is decided by the speculators on crypto exchanges. In the long run, the speculators cannot decide on the value of XRP. The price of one XRP can be valued from people’s speculation, similar to the case like bitcoin. Nevertheless, the Banks are no more motivated by these beliefs and ideas.

Trading News

US Warns German Companies of Sanctions Over Russian Links

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In a long-standing conflict between the United States and Russia, this time German companies will have to face the ire. The United States has warned German companies involved in the Russian-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that they may face sanctions if they choose to continue with the project.

US president Donald Trump has accused Germany of being a captive of Russia as it is heavily reliant on Russian energy and urged German companies to stop work at the earliest in the $11 billion gas pipeline project.

The pipeline since its plan formulation days has been criticized heavily as it will pass through Baltic Sea direct from Russia to Germany. It would bypass Ukraine depriving the country of lucrative gas transit fees. This may make Ukraine more economically vulnerable.

US Ambassador Richard Grenell has sent letters stating the same to various companies, as per the Embassy’s statement. The Embassy spokesperson said the letter reminds that any company operating in the Russian energy export pipeline sector is in danger under CAATSA of US sanctions and also added that other European countries had opposed this pipeline.

Germany along with its allies in the whole Europe alleged that the United States by using its Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) is trying to influence the country’s foreign and energy policies.

The Russian giant Gazprom is implementing the project along with western partners Uniper, Wintershall, Engie, OMV, and Shell.

The letter has created much talk in the Chancellor’s own Government. As per the sources, Chancellor Angela Merkel will direct take this issue with Washington as the ambassador’s letter did not follow the common diplomatic practice.

Juergen Hardt, the foreign policy spokesman for Merkel’s conservatives in parliament, said that the US ambassador’s direct threatening letter to the German companies is not acceptable. The letter demeans the tone of the transatlantic relationship. He also added that if the United States President wants to act tough on Russia in public, instead of targeting German companies he should first clear the air above his alleged relationship with the Russian regime.

The German companies that have received the letter denied making any official comment on the whole issue.

However, German and Russia also did not share a good relationship after Russia’s Crimea accession from Ukraine in 2014. But, both the countries had to advance the plan as they have common interests in the Nord Stream 2 project, which has the capacity to double the load of existing Nord Stream 1 route.

Russian Advantage-

German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported that the letter from the Ambassador would only help Russia to have leverage on the gas pipeline project in future.

As per the spokesperson in US embassy, the letter is a coordinated effort by several US government agencies; it was never meant to be a threat letter but a letter stating the US policy clearly.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that the US sanctions on Nord Stream 2 pipeline project would be a wrong step for solving the dispute. The United States should stop meddling in the internal affairs of the European Countries and let the European countries decide their own energy policy.

News

US Subscribers to Pay More for Netflix

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US subscribers will see a rise in its monthly fee subscription by about 13 to 18%. The company spends a lot of its money on expanding beyond US shores and also on original content. After Netflix made this announcement, the shares saw a 6% rise in trading which is on top of the 30% increase posted this year.

The below plans are going to cost subscribers more:

  • The subscription for the basic plan will increase from $7.99 to $8.99.
  • The company’s most popular standard plan wherein videos can be streamed on two devices at the same time will see a price rise from $10.99 to $ 12.99 per month.
  • The premier plan wherein HD streaming can be done on up to 4 screens will be increased to $15.99 to $13.99.

Netflix competes with Amazon, HBO, AT&T and others and the extra money they get out of this price hike will help them further in their endeavor to invest in original movies and shows.

When will the prices be effective from?

The new pricing will be charged from immediate effect and now has an impact on all new subscribers of Netflix, and the same will be rolled out to its existing customers in the coming few months. The countries that will have to pay more other than the US are the Latin American countries where Netflix is available. Brazil and Mexico are the only two countries that are unaffected. Despite the rise in subscription charges, it is still cheaper when compared to HBO which charges $14.99 per month for its streaming services or to Hulu’s plan which ranges from $11.99 and above. That makes Netflix a provider of cheap entertainment despite price rise.

What Netflix gains?

Netflix has about 79 million subscribers from across the world, and the high prices could make many subscribers cancel their subscriptions. This situation is not new to the company considering something similar had happened in 2011 where it lost 600k subscribers after they separated the DVD by mail service and the video streaming options. However, Netflix thinks that it is still the best priced and hence the best alternative for people. The company is also likely to get many millions of dollars due to the price hike and compensate for the $8 million they spent in the year 2018 investing in original movies and tv shows. Netflix is confident that the subscribers will not mind the price hike as they have a great lineup of shows and movies.