Emerging markets such as India have always run higher inflation rates than developed economies such as the US and countries of Western Europe. But for the first time in the past 30 years, the US reported a higher consumer price inflation (CPI) rate than India in five consecutive months. The US reported a CPI rate of 7.5 per cent in January 2022 against 6.01 per cent in India and analysts expect the trend to continue for at least a few months more
The biggest headwind to the consumption story in FY23 is a sharp decline in government subsidies on food, fertiliser and fuel, and overall decline in revenue expenditure net of interest payments. This, analysts say, will adversely impact purchasing power of households at the lower end of the income pyramid, translating into lower spending on consumer goods and services.
Owing to a big rise in the market capitalisation of group companies such as Adani Green Energy and Adani Transmission, the group promoters, the Gautam Adani family, have closed the wealth gap with Mukesh Ambani, the promoter and owner of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). Ambani continues to top India's billionaire league table. The Ambani family's net worth was estimated to be Rs 8.06 trillion (around $108 billion) on Tuesday against the Rs 6.87 trillion (around $92 billion) of the Adani family.
The group began to outperform the broader market only with the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 while earlier it was largely keeping pace with the Sensex. The group's market cap is up 164.4 per cent since the end of March 2020 against a 105 per cent rally in the Sensex.
The Tata group companies are now more valuable than all the listed central public sector undertakings (CPSUs) or companies in the country. The key 20 listed Tata companies ended the 2021 calendar year with a combined market capitalisation of Rs 23.36 trillion, ahead of the 70 listed CPSUs, which had a combined m-cap of Rs 23.2 trillion. In comparison, these CPSUs had a combined market capitalisation of Rs 16.7 trillion at the end of December 2020 against the Tata group firms' combined m-cap of Rs 15.7 trillion.
India's top listed companies reported their best-ever quarterly net profit of Rs 2.39 trillion in the September quarter of FY22, up 46.4 per cent year-on-year. The earnings were driven by a big surge in the profitability of banks, non-banking financial companies & insurance (BFSI), oil & gas, and metal & mining firms. The combined net profit of these three cyclical sectors were up 87 per cent YoY to a record high of Rs 1.53 trillion, up from Rs 82,000 crore a year ago and Rs 1.08 trillion in Q1FY22.
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's holding value in Nazara Technologies crossed the Rs 1,000-crore mark. In the past one month, the market price of Nazara, a diversified gaming and sports media platform, has zoomed 78 per cent. In comparison, the Sensex was up 3 per cent during the same period.
Shares of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) hit a new high of Rs 4,512 after surging 8 per cent on the BSE in Wednesday's intra-day trade, on the back of heavy volumes, ahead of 1:5 stock split. The trading volumes on the counter more-than-doubled today, with a combined 7.02 million equity shares having changed hands on the NSE and BSE till 11:19 am. In the past one week, the stock of the state-owned travel support services company has rallied 20 per cent after the company on September 29, 2021, said that it has fixed October 29, 2021 as the record date, to ascertain the name of shareholders entitled for subdivision/split of equity shares of Rs 10 each into five (5) equity shares of face value of Rs 2 each.
The government has tweaked the income tax laws to make it easier for the new owners of loss-making public sector undertakings (PSUs) to carry forward the accumulated losses and set them off against future profits. This will result in significant tax savings for the new owners if they are able to turnaround operations of the ailing PSU within a few years. This will, in turn, boost the post-tax earnings and returns for the new owners.
After the hit of the pandemic, India Inc is now worried about the adverse impact of inflation and higher commodity prices on their revenues and margins. The inflation scare is the strongest among manufacturers of consumer goods such as automobiles, consumer durables, and fast-moving capital goods (FMCG). Companies across sectors fear they will not be able to pass on the hike in input costs to their consumers due to weak demand, which, in turn, would lead to a hit on margins and profitability in the forthcoming quarters.
Its production declined for the third consecutive year in financial year 2020-21 (FY21) to an 11-year low, while sales volume contracted for the second year to the lowest since FY15. The company manufactured around 1.08 million vehicles last fiscal, a decline from 1.17 million the previous year, and a steeper fall from its all-time high tally of 1.62 million reported in FY18.
Shares of HCL Tech hit a fresh record high of Rs 1,118.55 on Friday, up 2 per cent on the BSE in intra-day trade, surpassing its previous high of Rs 1,101 touched on Thursday in intra-day deals.
The latest circular from BSE that sought to cap the price movement of select scrips, especially the mid-, small-cap segments, traded on the exchange is not without a reason. A quick calendar year-to-date price check on the stocks from the categories put under 'Add-on Price Band Framework' by the BSE reveals a total of 210 stocks have seen their market price more than double. Among individual stocks, SC Agrotech, Adinath Textiles, Waaree Renewable Technologies, Steel Strips Infrastructure, Unistar Multimedia, Texel Industries, Raja Bahadur International and Hindustan Everest Tools from the BSE's X and XT group have rallied over 500 per cent during this period. Topping the charts is Gita Renewable Energy, which has zoomed 3,964 per cent to Rs 272.35 now from Rs 6.7 as on December 31, 2020.
The retail frenzy over initial public offers (IPOs) seen over the past few months is not without reason. Over the past two years, 61 companies have tapped the primary market and raised funds via IPOs. Of these, 24 companies (nearly 39 per cent companies) have more than doubled at the bourses with Happiest Minds, IndiaMart Intermesh, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), Affle India and Route Mobile surging 468 per cent to 722 per cent since their listing date till now. Retail participation in the equity market, according to analysts, has just reached an inflection point due to the low interest rate regime amid lack of investment-worthy avenues that can generate a good return for investors.
After outperforming the broader market and their public sector peers for the better part of the post-Lehman period, private sector banks - such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank - are now underperforming. Last week, the Nifty Private Bank index was up just 6 per cent year-to-date in the calendar year 2021, against nearly 13 per cent rally in the Bank Nifty and a 15 per cent rise in the benchmark Nifty50. Public sector (PSU) banks, such as State bank of India, Bank of Baroda, and Punjab National Bank, are now rally leaders and outperforming the broader market. The Nifty PSU Bank index was up 42 per cent since the beginning of this calendar year. But on a longer term, the Nifty Private Bank index is up 101 per cent since March 2016, against a 118 per cent rally in the Bank Nifty and just 2 per cent rise in the Nifty PSU Bank index in the period.
The market's sensitivity to the US Fed's balance sheet changes makes it vulnerable to the possible tapering of the bond buying programme and the resulting stagnation or even shrinkage in the balance sheet.
Top companies have grabbed a bigger pie of their sectors in the pandemic period, leading to a further rise in market concentration in many industries as measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). The HHI score, which indicates competitive intensity in an industry (or a lack of it), reached a new high in FY21 as bigger firms raised their revenue market shares either organically or through mergers and acquisitions. A higher HHI score indicates a rise in market concentration in favour of a few firms while a lower score means that the industry's revenue is more evenly divided among many companies
The rally in mid- and small-cap stocks has spilled over into the IT sector as well. Second and third-tier IT stocks, which historically traded at a discount to the big five IT companies, are now trading at nearly 25 per cent premium to their large-cap peers. The smaller IT companies have a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of nearly 38 times against the big five's current P/E multiple of around 31x.
Mobile operators with the exception of Reliance Jio are in a much worse financial condition than expected earlier. The combined borrowing of the four incumbent operators - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) - reached an all-time high of Rs 3.85 trillion at the end of March this year. The companies' combined debt was up 22.4 per cent year-on-year last financial year against 8.3 per cent growth in their borrowing in the previous year. As a result, the incumbent operators' debt-equity ratio shot up to an unsustainably high level of 6.83X at the end of March this year from 2.3X at the end of March 2020. This was largely due to big losses reported by all these companies last financial year. The four incumbent operators racked up combined net losses of Rs 70,000 crore in FY21.
Mid- and small-cap indices have outperformed the frontline benchmarks - the S&P BSE Sensex (up around 10 per cent) and the Nifty50 (13 per cent) - in the first half of calendar year 2021 (H1-CY21) by rallying 26 per cent and 39 per cent, respectively. The trend, analysts believe, is likely to continue in H2-CY21 as well. The outperformance in H1-CY21 comes on the back of improved earnings and strong inflows from the foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) in Indian equities. However, good monsoon so far, gradual opening up of the economy and the pick-up in the pace of vaccination provides support to the market.
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