Gold investment demand returns, but rising dollar is a major hurdle

Crude oil prices slipped nearly 3 percent as the Saudi Arabian energy minister said it will keep the market well supplied. Moreover, the Saudi Arabian OPEC governor said on October 25, the oil market could be over-supplied in the fourth quarter. During the week gone by, such statements kept the sentiment in oil market bearish. Next week, the US will release its non-farm payrolls and core PCE price index. It would be interesting to see which direction the yellow metal is pulled. The latest plunge in equity prices and the spike…

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Rising NPAs in education loan add to banks stress

Education loans too have started bleeding the banking sector with the default in repayment rising to 7.67 per cent of the outstanding amount at March- end, 2017 from 5.7 per cent two years ago. As per the data compiled by the Indian Banks Association (IBA), the total outstanding education loan at end of the fiscal 2016-17 was Rs 67,678.5 crore, of which Rs 5,191.72 crore was NPA. The government is already struggling to deal with the problem of mounting NPA in the public sector banks and has drawn a mega…

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