Monthly Archives: August 2011

The Outlook for the Brazilian Real

Recent oil discoveries, the hosting of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, as well as improved sovereign ratings from credit agencies, have firmly placed Brazil as a ‘must-have’ investment in every emerging market focused portfolio. However, investor interest … Read More…

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Understanding the Recent Growth in Food Prices

The last year has seen an all too familiar pattern of food price hikes, not dissimilar to what we experienced back in 2007-2008. The 2008 food price hikes were driven by several factors, including high oil prices and the increasing … Read More…

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Africa – A Closer Look

Africa is a continent that evokes a wide range of perspectives, from the cultural to the political to the economic.  In all of these different, yet interrelated ways, it is clearly a force to be reckoned with. Consider a few … Read More…

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Delinquency Modeling Using Survival Analysis

For financial services organizations in the business of lending, understanding which customers should be granted a particular loan, and, importantly, how much, has been a central question that not just drives their profitability, but, as we have seen in the … Read More…

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Precious Metals – The Outlook for Silver and Gold

“The ultimate asset bubble.” This is how George Soros described gold last year, even as his fund took sizable long positions in the precious metal. Why not take advantage of rising values (so long as the bubble doesn’t burst), particularly … Read More…

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The Cloud and Corporate Computing Capacity

A lot has been written about ‘cloud computing’ as the next megatrend that is set to change the IT landscape. Cloud computing is defined as a system where scalable and elastic IT capabilities (both hardware and software) are provided as … Read More…

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Nuclear Energy in Germany

Nuclear energy has been heralded by many as one of the most important solutions to the growing energy demands of the world, particularly given concerns regarding increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the rising price of oil. The popularity of nuclear … Read More…

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Understanding the Concept of Market Basket Analysis

Retailing today is nothing if not a hypercompetitive industry. A complex & rapidly changing landscape, stiff competition, and ever more demanding customers are pushing progressive retailers to rethink how they operate. Their responses have included strategies of scale (consolidation, growth, … Read More…

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4 Key Trends Influencing Automotive Procurement

Few industries today are as global, interrelated and complex as the automotive sector. (Fewer still have gone through the level of challenge and change that we have seen over the past several years.) As the automotive sector has emerged from … Read More…

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Success in Mergers & Acquisitions

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) activity is par for the course in the corporate world these days. Over the last several decades, there has been a consistent increase in both the number and value of transactions taking place, not only in … Read More…

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