BETA – The Finance and Investments Club of IIMA

General Awareness Preparation Suggestions

Must know-

Major financial events:

 Financial Crisis:
o Currency Crises and Sovereign Default crises: Latin American debt crisis,
1994 economic crisis in Mexico, 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, 1998 Russian
financial crisis, and the Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002), Euro Crisis
o Stock Market Crashes and Recession: Great Depression, 1970s Recession,
Crash of 1987, Subprime crisis, May 6, 2010 Flash crash
o Failures of financial firms: Savings and Loan crisis, LTCM, Lehman
Brothers, Soc Gen and Jerome Kerviel
 Regulatory Events (Global): Goldman Sachs settlements, Citibank fines, Chinese,
Japanese, Euro-zone monetary policies and their impacts on various macroeconomic
indicators, Galleon fund insider trading scandal, Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, US
TARP Scheme and the repayment of funds by various banks, Stress Tests of Banks in
US and Europe
 Regulatory Events (India) – Mutual fund regulations (HDFC mutual fund scam
related to front running), SEBI vs. IRDA on ULIPs etc.
 Budget Announcements
Trends of major rates/indices over the past one year

 LIBOR -
o General idea about what it means
o present level
o Factors influencing it
o Shape of yield curve and impact of Fed policy on overall interest rate term
structure
 RBI- repo, reverse repo, SLR etc. –
o What do all these imply
o What changes when these rates change
 Sensex –
o What is the Sensex?
o How is it calculated- various ways of calculating indices
o current trends, 52 week high, 52 week low, historical highs and lows
o Major events over the past one year which cause changes in Stock index
 BETA – The Finance and Investments Club of IIMA

o Special importance to index jumps with elections, budget

o Relative performance of sector indices
 Same info for Nifty to same detail
 Similar info for S&P 500, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, NYSE, Nikkei, G-8 currencies, INR
vs G-8 currencies but in lesser detail
 Sectors to invest in, sectors to avoid
o Long-term, Short-term, Medium-term view
 Stocks of your choice and why? Prepare 4 stocks you would buy and 4 which you
would sell

Should know-

 Fundamental analysis vs. technical analysis

 Working of markets, quote driven, order driven, general information about order flow
and market microstructure etc
 Quarter by quarter trends in banking
Can know-

 Follow famous blogs to develop opinions and to know counter opinions

 Columnists from WSJ, NY Times, FT
 Types of derivative products traded in Indian markets and the relative size of these
product markets