India's economy is estimated to contract by 9.6 per cent in the fiscal year 2020-21, reflecting a sharp drop in household spending and private investment, and the growth is expected to recover to 5.4 per cent in 2021, the World Bank said on Tuesday. In its Global Economic Prospects report, the World Bank said that the informal sector, which accounts for four-fifths of employment, has been subject to severe income losses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
'The probability of this being a suckers' rally, where all kinds of beaten down stocks have begun to rally sharply, should be a time to be cautious and circumspect.'
The HSBC Emerging Markets Index, a monthly indicator derived from Purchasing Managers' Index surveys, inched up to 50.6 in May from 50.4 in April, indicating weak output growth across global emerging markets.
The sudden movement of the rupee - post the monetary policy - is not a reason to panic, said currency dealers. According to them, a correction was overdue for the rupee that remained the best performing currency in the region for well over a month. The rupee closed at 74.72 a dollar on Friday from its previous close of 74.60. It had dropped 1.52 per cent against the dollar on April 7 after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced its monetary policy, committing to buy Rs 1 trillion of bonds in the June quarter. A weak rupee goes well with the export narrative of the government, and is consistent with the RBI's intervention strategy that prevented an appreciation.
PE/VC investments touched a record $11.2 billion in the first half of 2017 against $8 billion in the same period in 2016
The HSBC Emerging Markets Index, a monthly indicator derived from the PMI surveys, inched up to 50.4 in April, from 50.3 in March, signalling only a marginal increase in output across global emerging markets in April.
'Whoever owns the best chip industry will be the Saudi Arabia of the era of data,' predicts Rajeev Srinivasan.
Around 41 per cent of these companies saw such instances, compared to the global average of 29 per cent. India's number is higher than other countries such as the United States (26 per cent), the United Kingdom (32 per cent) and Japan (27 per cent). It is also worse than other emerging markets. China had 39 per cent of firms affected by data theft. It was 19 per cent and 16 per cent for Brazil and Russia, respectively.
With automation taking place at a much faster pace across industries especially in the tech space, domestic software firms that employee over 16 million are set to slash headcounts by a massive 3 million by 2022, which will help them save a whopping $100 billion mostly in salaries annually, says a report. The domestic IT sector employs around 16 million, of them around 9 million are employed in low-skilled services and BPO roles, according to Nasscom. Of these 9 million low-skilled services and BPO roles, 30 per cent or around 3 million will be lost by 2022, principally driven by the impact of robot process automation or RPA. Roughly 0.7 million roles are expected to be replaced by RPA alone and the rest due to other technological upgrades and upskilling by the domestic IT players, while it the RPA will have the worst impact in the US with a loss of almost 1 million jobs, according to a Bank of America report on Wednesday.
The brokerage, which previously had a target of 31,000, cited global growth concerns for revision in the target.
In the past 12 months, such earnings have grown in double digits in Europe, the US, Japan and South Korea.
China posted the sharpest increase in output for 15 months, while India saw the steepest expansion since February 2013.
Equity markets braved all odds this fiscal and rewarded investors with high returns as the benchmark Sensex surged more than 66 per cent despite COVID-led disruptions and concerns over its impact on the economy. Market analysts termed FY 2020-21 as a roller coaster ride for not only Indian markets but also for equity indices globally due to the pandemic. In an unprecedented come back, the 30-share BSE Sensex has jumped 19,540.01 points or 66.30 per cent so far this fiscal. This extraordinary rally holds significance as markets faced volatile trends this fiscal.
Mutual funds (MFs) are set to be net sellers of Indian equities for the first time in the past seven financial years, having sold stocks worth about Rs 1.27 trillion so far in 2020-21 (FY21), making it the highest net sales on record in a financial year. MFs had been net buyers in the previous six financial years, including purchases of over Rs 1.41 trillion in FY18, Rs 88,152 crore in FY19, and Rs 91,814 crore in FY20. The last time they offloaded Indian equities was in FY14, when they net sold stocks worth Rs 21,159 crore. In contrast, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have ramped up buying in FY21, purchasing more than Rs 2.6 trillion worth of shares.
Very gradual fiscal consolidation glide path with looser-than-expected fiscal policy; good quality spending mix and reasonable assumption on fiscal math; and focus on privatisation, asset monetisation and long-term funding for infrastructure investments, according to Morgan Stanley, are the three key themes from the Budget 2021.
Stock markets in structural bull run but there can be bouts of volatility says Ravi Gopalakrishnan, head, equities, Canara Robeco Mutual Fund
Economists polled in a recent survey by Ficci unanimously felt that the rupee will continue to be under pressure in 2018-19
Investors are willing to wait to give a new government a chance.
The proposal to increase public float, hike income tax surcharge, move to tax share buybacks and lack of stimulus to shore up economic growth has hurt investor sentiment.
UN economists announced a likely USD 50 billion drop in the worldwide manufacturing exports in February alone as the extent of the damage to the global economy caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) moved further into focus. Citing the China Manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI), Pamela Coke-Hamilton, who heads UNCTAD's Division on International Trade and Commodities, said that it had fallen to 37.5 -- a drop of about 20 points -- the lowest reading since 2004. "This also correlates directly to exports and also implies a two per cent drop in overall exports," she said, with a resulting "ripple effect" worldwide "to the tune of a USD 50 billion fall in exports."
Indian central bank may soon edge out its counterpart in the Netherlands from the top-10 list, as latter's holding has largely remained unchanged.
Professionals with sharp technical skills and knowledge of emerging markets will continue to be in demand, says Nikhil Barshikar, founder and CEO of Imarticus Learning, a tech learning and training company.
'India's sizeable foreign exchange reserves should serve as a buffer.'
The Indian market is more in sync with mobile markets of advanced countries like the UK, Japan, and South Korea, where there are fewer players - three to four.
In the past few years, MFs have emerged as significant institutional buyers, often offsetting the selling by FPIs.
HCL Tech was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising over 4 per cent, followed by HDFC Bank, Infosys, NTPC, Nestle India, TCS and HUL. NSE Nifty surged 337.80 points to 14,845.10.
'Do some profit booking and bring your equity allocation back to its original level.'
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) are back in droves.
Investing in the US market provides Indian investors a hedge against the rupee's long-term tendency to depreciate against the dollar.
'There is a weak link between the economy and the stock market.'
Traditionally, issuance from Chinese companies dominate the green bond market, but other emerging market economies are coming up fast
The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday night hiked interest rates by 0.25%.
Top gainers in the Sensex pack included Kotak Bank, HCL Tech, HUL, TCS, Bharti Airtel, Asian Paints, Bajaj Finance and SBI, while Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, ICICI Bank and Infosys ended with losses.
The central bank can directly print money and finance the government, but it should avoid doing so unless there is absolutely no alternative, former RBI governor D Subbarao on Wednesday said while pointing out that India is 'nowhere' near such a scenario. In an interview with PTI, Subbarao suggested that to deal with the second wave of COVID-19 induced slowdown in the economy, the government can consider Covid bonds as an option to raise borrowing, not in addition to budgeted borrowing, but as a part of that.
BSE-listed companies' market capitalisation reached Rs 197.7 trillion on January 21, against India's nominal GDP of Rs 190 trillion during 12 months ended December 2020.
Data for the four largest emerging economies showed contrasting activity trends in November. China registered growth for the seventh month running, while India posted the fastest growth since June.
The IMF on Tuesday projected an impressive 12.5 per cent growth rate for India in 2021, stronger than that of China, the only major economy to have a positive growth rate last year during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Washington-based global financial institution, in its annual World Economic Outlook ahead of the annual Spring meeting with the World Bank, said the Indian economy is expected to grow by 6.9 per cent in 2022. Notably in 2020, India's economy contracted by a record eight per cent, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said as it projected an impressive 12.5 per cent growth rate for the country in 2021.
Zomato has the potential to be an equally important milestone for Indian equity markets, notes Akash Prakash.
They have been on an unbroken selling streak since the Union Budget, spooked by increase in income-tax surcharge, taxes on buybacks, and lack of stimulus to prop up the economy.
Despite the 3 per cent gain in September 2019, the FPI sell-off during the quarter has seen the benchmark indices - the S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty 50 register negative returns in Q3CY19.
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