Among top losers that dragged down key indices were Infosys, TCS, Reliance, SBI, Tata Steel and ITC, falling up to 2.15 per cent.
Over the past year, the National Stock Exchange Nifty FMCG Index, which tracks the market capitalisation of the top 15 companies in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, has surged by 17.3 per cent. In contrast, the Nifty50, a broader market index, has witnessed an 8.8 per cent increase during the same period. The FMCG stocks have also been rally leaders in the current calendar year.
To cut interest rates, the central bank head has to open up a debate on inflation target revision.
Also says PSU banks divestment to be considered after improvement in governance
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to step up efforts to boost consumption and rural economy while keeping inflation under check when she presents her sixth straight Budget on February 1. Experts said one way to boost consumption is to put more money in the hands of people, and one of the possible ways of doing it is by reducing the tax burden through tinkering with tax slabs or increasing the standard deduction. Another proposal is related to increasing the funds under the rural employment guarantee scheme MGNREGA and higher payout for farmers.
Besides high portfolio yield, investors may enjoy capital gains in debt funds in 2023 as bonds rally in anticipation of rate cuts.
Investors will keenly watch US Fed meet starting Tuesday
Elections may be a few months away, but the government may get into election mode much earlier than that, predicts A K Bhattacharya.
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The Indian rupee touched record low of 65.52/dollar on Thursday and is down 16 per cent so far this year despite efforts by policymakers to prop it up.
Retail inflation rises to 4.41% in Sep on dearer food items
Data suggests that households too are expecting inflation to subside, with the three-month-ahead and the one-year-ahead expectations declining by 40 basis points, reports Abhishek Waghmare.
Metal and mining companies, such as Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Hindalco, and Coal India, have been among the top-performing sectors on the bourses in recent months. The S&P BSE Metal Index is up 13 per cent in the past three months, rallying 29 per cent in the past year, outperforming the broader market. For comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex has only seen a 1.7 per cent increase in the past three months, with a 15 per cent gain since the end of September last year.
RBI targets to keep inflation at 4 per cent, (+/- 2 per cent), and its rise beyond this comfort zone will put pressure on the central bank to hike rates.
The US Fed's rate cycle is set to turn later this year, but India is in a much better position than it was in 2013.
Fruits, vegetables and eggs continued to witness deflationary trend during January this year, with their prices declining 4.18 per cent, 13.32 per cent and 2.44 per cent, respectively.
The forecast of deficient monsoon rainfalls scared farmers.
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As on Monday, the prices of many vegetables had fallen as much as 50% compared with those a month before, due to increased supply, following the arrival of winter crops in the markets.
State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Adani-Total Gas Ltd and Shell were among the 29 companies that bid and bought natural gas to be produced from the deepest field in the KG-D6 block of Reliance Industries Ltd and bp, sources said. IOC walked away with almost half of the 6 million standard cubic meters per day of gas sold in an e-auction on Wednesday while state-owned gas utility GAIL bought 0.7 mmscmd, Adani-Total Gas Ltd 0.4 mmscmd, Shell 0.5 mmscmd, GSPC 0.25 mmscmd and IGS another 0.5 mmscmd, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. Reliance-bp on Wednesday held an e-auction for sale of gas from the MJ field in their eastern offshore KG-D6 block after incorporating the government's new marketing rules to give CNG-selling city gas companies first priority over supplies.
The most consistent wealth creators since 2008 are all consumer-facing companies, says Devangshu Datta.
From the Sensex pack, HCL Technologies, Infosys, Wipro, Bharti Airtel, Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services and Asian Paints were the major gainers. Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance, JSW Steel, State Bank of India and Tata Steel were among the major laggards.
Government's push for Make in India which focuses on select 26 sectors and improving the 'ease of doing business' will aid the manufacturing/industrial growth.
If the pattern over the last three months is going to continue, the likelihood is that both indices will register inflation rates close to current levels over the next few months.
As markets complete the first half of the calendar year 2022 (CY22) with a fall of around 9 per cent, the interest-rate hike trajectory by global central banks, paired with the conundrum of inflation and growth, will move the needle for the market, observe experts. Here's a quick rundown on what they'll react to over the next six months.
US consumer confidence tumbled to a five-year low in March, disappointing economists and raising fears that the American economy could be heading into a deep recession. The Conference Board's confidence index fell from 76.4 in February 64.5 this month, compared with economists' expectations of a much lighter drop to about 74, as US consumers fretted over the deteriorating labour market and higher food and energy prices.
After a delayed start, the monsoon is advancing steadily.
The Nielsen survey was conducted online and covered more than 30,000 consumers across 60 markets.
The change from wholesale to retail inflation as an anchor means that the weightage of diesel in inflation has decreased
Economy to grow 6.5% in 2016 on better macro conditions, says Mckinsey.
Lower fuel subsidy payouts might restrict gross fiscal deficit in FY15.
Most market analysts are expecting the momentum to shift towards 'quality' and 'growth' stocks in 2024 after the outperformance of 'value' stocks over the past three years. 'Value' stocks are generally well-established companies with steady profits that are trading at a discount to what they are intrinsically worth. Companies in sectors such as commodities, industrials, commercial vehicles and public sector units (PSUs) fall in this bracket.
The biggest bounce is in the realty sector, where the industry index jumped 80%. There's been a turnaround also in automobiles and ancillaries (up 45%). The pharma and health care indices have a welcome return of roughly 35%.
Profits of India's top listed companies have been growing at a faster pace than those of their American peers, but when it comes to revenue growth, the order has reversed recently. The combined net profit of the S&P 500 companies was up 14.1 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) during the trailing 12 months (TTM) ended December 2023, as against 17.4 per cent profit growth logged by the BSE 500 companies in the same period. This is the second consecutive year of faster profit growth for the BSE 500 companies.
The Seventh Pay Commission had decided to choose the CPI-IW as the index for adjusting inflation for central government employees.
The change in the baseline for IIP and WPI, currently at 2004-05, is expected to bring in more accuracy in mapping the level of economic activity and calculating other numbers like national accounts.
Notwithstanding the recent sharp decline in the stocks of public sector companies, analysts at Jefferies remain bullish on this segment. State Bank of India, Coal India, and NTPC are their top picks in this space, they said in a recent note. The public sector undertaking (PSU) or state-owned enterprise (SOE) index, with a 70-percentage-point outperformance versus the National Stock Exchange Nifty50 over the past 12 months, comes after a decade of underperformance before 2020.
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan on Friday said keeping inflation low is the key task for sustainable economic growth of the country.
The RBI's Monetary Policy Committee brainstormed the impact of any future shocks on the inflation trajectory and stressed monitoring the cumulative effect of monetary policy actions over the past one year, which is still unfolding, revealed minutes of the rate-setting panel released on Thursday. The minutes of the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), headed by Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das, also indicated it would be premature to declare an end to the monetary tightening cycle, which started in May 2022 to check high inflation following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war. The central bank, which effected six back-to-back hikes in the key short-term lending rate (repo) since May 2022 to check high inflation, decided to take a pause early this month.
But it is likely that campaign spending resulted in some positive activity through this period.
The broader markets ended in line with the benchmark indices- BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices ended higher by 1.3% and 0.9% each.
'An eerie similarity with 2019 inflation trajectory could now mean that the RBI and market inflation estimates could go awry.'
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