Friday will be a landmark day for domestic markets, with all the listed stocks entering the professed T+1 (trading plus one day) settlement cycle. About 200 stocks, which account for more than 80 per cent of India's market capitalisation, will be settled on a next-day basis, with effect from January 27. This will evidently complete the transition to the T+1 cycle that started in February 2022 with the bottom 500 stocks in terms of market value.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Tuesday imposed a penalty of Rs 26 crore on Coffee Day Enterprises (CDEL) for alleged violation of securities laws. The regulator also directed the company to initiate steps to recover dues of Rs 3,535 crore-the amount diverted from seven subsidiaries of CDEL to Mysore Amalgamated Coffee Estates (MACEL). Affirming the violations of the Sebi (Prevention of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices) Regulations and Sebi (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, whole-time member Ashwani Bhatia said the listed company was being run like a personal fiefdom with no checks and balances in place.
To become a sponsor-free AMC, a MF must have positive liquid net worth and net profit of at least Rs 10 crore in all of the preceding five years.
Regulatory capacity, hyperactivity and excessive prescription are the biggest challenges the financial sector is facing, said Meleveetil Damodaran, former chairperson, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). Speaking at the Business Standard BFSI Summit on Wednesday, Damodaran highlighted the need for simpler, clear, and continuous regulations in the financial sector. He opined that the industry had felt it challenging to keep pace with the changing regulations.
Online mutual fund (MF) investment platforms like Groww, Zerodha Coin and Paytm Money, which allow investments in direct MF schemes for free, will soon be able to charge their customers or the fund houses for executing transactions. "They can charge some money but commission-like structure won't be allowed," Madhavi Puri Buch, chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), said on Tuesday. At present, none of these online investment platforms generate any revenue through the MF sales.
Sundararaman Ramamurthy has been an interesting choice for the publicly-listed BSE, which has seen its chief move to bigger rival -- the National Stock Exchange (NSE) -- in July. Having spent nearly two decades at the country's largest bourse, Ramamurthy is among the early architects of NSE and understands all the cogs of the exchange wheel like only a few others in the country. Just like NSE's core team, which includes its founder RH Patil, the 59-year-old Ramamurthy has worked at the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) before moving to NSE in 1995.
'Yet the market didn't do all that badly because it was cushioned by domestic inflows.'
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has plans to give a fillip to disclosure requirements to encourage better information symmetry at listed firms. Under the current regulations, companies need to disclose any event such as acquisition, merger, demerger, restructuring, or sale of any unit which will have an impact on the business. In its consultation paper dated November 12, Sebi has proposed new thresholds for so-called 'material disclosures'.
Two firms belonging to the Adani group - India's most valued conglomerate - are part of the Nifty 50 index. The group, however, has no representation in the Sensex. And it could stay this way if a proposed index qualification rule change gets approved. Recently, Asia Index, a joint venture between S&P Dow Jones Indices and BSE responsible for index composition, floated a consultation paper where it proposed that a stock must have a derivative contract to be eligible for inclusion in the flagship 30-share Sensex index.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is working on a new payment system for the secondary market, which could prevent brokers from accessing their client funds. It will be on the lines of the Application Supported by Blocked Amount (ASBA) process used for subscribing to initial public offerings (IPOs), where funds move out of an investor's bank account only after the trade is confirmed. Sebi chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch on Wednesday said that despite the challenges, the new system would be ready in a few months.
The Rs 38-trillion mutual fund (MF) industry is going through a new fund offer (NFO) rush. Since July 1, the industry has launched close to 70 NFOs. This follows the completion of a near three-month embargo period when the industry had vowed to not launch any new offerings till the time it implemented norms around pooling of investor accounts. As a result, between April and June 2022, the industry was able to launch just three NFOs.
In August, domestic equity markets garnered one of the highest foreign portfolio investor (FPI) flows since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, despite the US Federal Reserve standing firm on unwinding its stimulus measures to control inflation. FPIs pumped in over Rs 51,000 crore ($6.4 billion) in August, the most since December 2020 and the third-highest tally since March 2020-the month the Covid-19 pandemic roiled global markets. This was the second consecutive month of positive foreign flows. In the preceding nine months, FPIs had yanked out over $32 billion or Rs 2.2 trillion.
'The idea is to invest where there is opportunity.'
Stock exchanges have increased scrutiny of investors domiciled in Sikkim, following reports of illegal routing of investments through the Northeast state to evade taxes. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has directed its trading members (brokers) to re-verify and certify investors who have declared their permanent address as Sikkim. Further, brokers have been told to maintain a vigil on the location of devices used by Sikkim-based clients for trading to ensure these are genuine investors from the region.
After the massive sell-off since October, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) are no longer the biggest non-promoter-shareholders in top Indian companies. This has happened for the first time in over a decade. "At 25.6 per cent ownership of India's largest 75 companies, domestic investors are now larger holders than FPIs for the first time since 2010," said Morgan Stanley strategists Ridham Desai, Sheela Rathi and Nayant Parekh in a note.
'The potential headwind is that the Indian economy is likely to see a slowdown in growth rates over the next two years.'
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) continue to cut their shareholding in both Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) and HDFC Bank. As per latest data, during the June 2022-23 quarter (Q1FY23), FPIs held 68.1 per cent and 65.96 per cent, respectively, in HDFC and HDFC Bank. Overseas shareholding is down 111/406 basis points (bps) and 260/412 bps on the quarter-on-quarter (QoQ)/year-to-date (YTD) basis in HDFC and HDFC Bank, respectively.
Domestic new-age companies are making their presence felt at India Inc. According to a study done by Credit Suisse, only 15 per cent of the companies in the BSE500 index were formed after the year 2000. By comparison, nearly 90 per cent of unicorns - a start-up with a value of over $1 billion - were set up after 2000.
From the peak of $3.67 trillion in January, India's market cap has eroded by $676 billion amid rising bond yields and a record-breaking sell-off by overseas investors.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) board on Wednesday allowed foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) to trade in exchange-traded commodity derivatives. The move, it said, "will enhance liquidity and market depth, as well as promote efficient price discovery." Overseas investors will only be allowed to deal in non-agricultural commodity derivatives and only cash-settled contracts.
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