'The power sector accounts for much of the financial burden of state governments in India.'
Nearly four decades ago, when Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was a young chartered accountant in training, he was paid a conveyance of Rs 60. Deductions would take away Rs 15 from this princely sum and he was left with Rs 45 by the time the allowance made its way to his hands. He would save as much as he could from this amount, so that he would have a small amount to spend when he met his friends on the weekend at Chicken Centre. This was an eatery popular with the young at the time, perhaps because food and drink were affordable even for those new to the workforce.
George Acland from Great Britain ran a coffee plantation in Sri Lanka and set up India's first jute mill in 1855. He raised capital and imported the machinery for the mill on the banks of the Hooghly in West Bengal. His company wasn't a great success, but his pioneering work paved the way for India to dominate the jute industry.
The number of serious incidents has more than doubled in the last seven years.
Investors are pushing back more often against companies' resolutions on what is paid out to top executives. In the first four months of financial year 2022-23 (FY23), there have already been five such rejections, according to shareholder voting data from tracker Adrian, a platform maintained by the proxy advisory firm Institutional Investor Advisory Services India (IiAS). Two of these have been at multiplex chain PVR and direct-to-home company Dish TV India.
During Abe's tenure, Japan had announced support for a number of major projects. These included the bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, besides allocations for a freight corridor between Mumbai and New Delhi.
Most of the long-only funds are closed-ended. This means that investors have to lock in their money for a fixed period before they can take it back.
Amid news of a fuel shortage in some parts of the country and wider unrest over fuel issues in the neighbourhood, an analysis of the data from international tracker globalpetrolprices.com shows that the per litre price of petrol is higher in India than in seven out of its nine neighbours.
The total amount of money various entities have raised through the private placement route is at its lowest since 2014. They raised a total of Rs 1.96 trillion in the first five months of 2022, revealed the numbers from PRIME Database. It is down 23.4 per cent from the Rs 2.56 trillion raised in the corresponding period in 2021.
A strong performance by sectors including banking raised the profits of Indian companies by 28 per cent in the three months ended March 2022. The rate of growth is, however, lower than the 30 per cent seen in December. Growth in net sales was also lower than what was seen in the December quarter for the sample under consideration.
The FPI holding in India's top 100 companies, which are part of the Nifty 100 index, declined to 24.23 per cent on average at the end of March this year, from a high of 27.5 per cent at the end of March 2021. This is the lowest FPI holdings in India's top listed companies in at least three years. A general sell-off by FPIs has weighed on stock prices and the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex is down 8.5 per cent, from its 52-week high made in October 2021. Most analysts expect FPI flows to remain weak in FY23 as well, given rising bond yields in the US and an expected earnings slowdown in India due to high inflation and commodity prices.
Retail investors have put at least Rs 2,296 crore in listed companies facing proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). A median such-company had 16,163 retail investors as shareholders many of whom apparently have bought a stake on the hope of making money if the firm revives. They own a fifth of the total stake in the companies under consideration. The analysis looked at 75 listed firms for whom shareholding data was available for March 2022.
Many years during which monsoons were poor saw high returns, while normal or excess rainfall has also coincided with poor calendar year gains.
10 stocks which are most popular with brokerages right now and are expected to deliver maximum upside over the next 12 months.
The two-wheeler sector has been underperforming its peers on the volumes front for over five quarters now. Even in the March quarter, Bajaj Auto and Hero MotoCorp posted a 17-24 per cent YoY decline in volumes, the sharpest in the listed auto universe. The ongoing impact of frequent price hikes, all-time high fuel prices, and muted rural sentiment has led to the lacklustre showing by two-wheeler makers. What has aggravated the situation for two-wheeler companies, which get almost all their sales from the internal combustion engine or ICE-based units, is the traction for electric two-wheelers (EV).
Indian issuers are borrowing lesser through bonds compared to their global peers. The total value of bond issuances was down 10.1 per cent on a rolling 4-quarter basis in March 2022, compared to a similar period in March 2019, shows an analysis of data from tracker Refinitiv, a London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) business. The four quarters ended March 2019 marked the last full financial year before the pandemic took hold.
Led by Trent, which hit its lifetime-high recently, apparel retailers have gained between 10 per cent and 36 per cent over the past three weeks. Given the network of physical stores, these stocks shall be major beneficiaries of the unlock theme, with most states doing away with Covid restrictions. Amid improving footfall, analysts expect the sector to post double-digit growth in FY23.
A sudden surge in wealth because of stock market gains after the pandemic could be one of the factors behind the relatively lower share of philanthropy in total wealth.
There are multiple near-term worries for the stock of India's largest listed consumer company, Hindustan Unilever (HUL). While inflationary pressures will weigh on its profitability, demand pressures - especially in the rural market - are expected to hit the firm's revenues. This is why brokerages have cut the earnings estimates for financial year 2022-23 (FY23) by 7-10 per cent.
Mutual funds (MFs) are investing in more stocks despite the recent volatility. The industry invested in 824 companies across the listed universe as of October, according to primemfdatabase.com. The S&P BSE Sensex hit its all-time high of 62,245 that month. The index has since corrected to 57,864, around 7 per cent below the peak.