Brigitte Grisanti

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of IMF, requested European leaders during her address at the opening ceremony of IMF’s annual meeting to issue bail out packages for European banks as they are in debt of €300bn and in that condition they cannot support the market. Ms Lagarde stated that Europe must overcome this twin problem of sovereign debt and they need to strengthen capital buffers.  She further said “It is critical that to fuel growth banks must be in a position to finance the economy, to finance enterprises, households, and local governments. To do that they need to have the balance sheet that will actually support credit to the economy.”

According to the calculations of IMF, banks have taken debt of €300bn last year fearing the increased risk of default by Greece and other vulnerable Euro zone countries. The IMF does not accept the stress tests carried out by the European Banking Authority which suggested that most of the banks are capable of dealing with the sovereign debt crisis, stats Brigitte Grisanti.

The World Bank will also hold its annual meeting this week. Its President, Robert Zoellick, has already warned that if Europe and the US fail to resolve the mounting crisis, the world’s poorest countries will be hit hard. In his statement he has said, “Some developed country officials sound like their woes are just their business. Not so”.

The FTSE 100, London Stock Exchange, failed to do good business and at the end of the day witnessed a decrease of 4.7% because of a large fall in the shares of mining companies. Bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group witnessed a decrease of more than 10%. Out of the hundredths of stocks, only Autonomy, a technology company, did well and fell by less than 1%.

According to the economic analysts, investors were selling gold and buying dollars to support US currency but they witnessed the collapse of Lehman and a harrowing recession. Stuart Rosenthal of Factor Advisors said “Gold has been a pseudo currency for traders”. The traders have started selling gold which has downed the value of the same by $80 to $1,742 an ounce. The price of silver is also growing and may collapse. Neil Meader, Research Director at Metals Consultancy GFMS utters the reason behind this activity of selling was the rising dollar and it is wrong to correlate dollar and gold negatively.

Markets are now looking at the meeting of G20 finance ministers who will meet in Washington on Saturday and their commitment to deal with the situation will also affect the market.

So many industries are there in the market to offer their franchisees. It is a big question before people who are planning to take a franchise that which company and industry will suit their interest. Once, one of my friends “John” came to me and asked my guidance about his future plan to take a franchise. How to guide him was really a big question for me.

I consulted my other acquaintances that were indulged in different sectors and took their suggestions about their experiences with their businesses. It helped me to have some ideas about different industries and their working method. I asked John to deal with FMCG sector as demand of FMCG products would be always there.

I suggested him to go the economy news paper and do a small survey with the malls and shops which company is doing well and take your decision accordingly to deal with that particular company.  Brigitte Grisanti said, “If you do not like this idea, you might consult many agencies which help people like you, who are unable to decide about their business plan.” He said, “Which organizations or companies, he should contact for.” I informed him many names like the International Franchise Association, FranData and World Franchise Network.