The Reserve Bank of India's interest rate decision, domestic macroeconomic data and global trends will dictate terms in the equity markets this week, analysts said. Trading activity of Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) will also influence markets, they added. "The Indian market will be closely monitoring the Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting scheduled for June 6-8, 2023. Aside from that, market participants will be keeping an eye on the progress of monsoon," said Pravesh Gour, Senior Technical Analyst, Swastika Investmart Ltd.
Dwaipayan Bose on how index funds play a key role in the diversification of portfolios and help manage risks
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the Trinamool Congress vanquishing the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bengal.
'No human bias is involved as happens in active funds.'
The liquidity in the banking system could ease in the coming week due to an increase in government spending - a development that would be the key for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to decide whether to extend the incremental cash reserve ratio (I-CRR) mandate for banks. There are signs of improvement in the liquidity scenario as banks parked Rs 25, 833 crore with the RBI on Thursday. Market participants expect liquidity to gradually improve by the end of the month or during the first week of September, aided by government spending.
Uttam Ghosh and Dominic Xavier offer their respective takes on the Modi Sarkar's decision to hike cooking gas LPG prices.
Strategic deals like the one involving the HDFC twins accounted for a bulk $126 billion of the overall quantum, while transactions involving private equity funds stood at $37 billion, the report by Deloitte, a consultancy firm, said. Despite global headwinds like rising interest rates and elevated inflation levels leading to increased margin pressures for companies, the firm expects the overall activity to remain "strong" in the ongoing 2023.
The monsoons are no picnic. Try to laugh in the rain.
Equity valuations are once again on the rise, after they cooled down in the second half of 2021 and the first half of 2022. The BSE Sensex trailing price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple has risen to a 17-month high of nearly 25x, from 23.7x at the end of December 2022 and 21.6x at the end of June 2022. Similarly, the index closed on Friday with a trailing price-to-book (P/B) value ratio of 3.6x, up from 3.4x at the end of December 2022; it is the highest since December 2021.
The demand for white-collar gig roles saw an 11 per cent uptick year-on-year in March, amid muted hiring across industries due to global headwinds and job cuts, according to a recent report. The month saw white-collar hiring in India rise 2 per cent in terms of job posting activity compared to the same period the previous year, according to the report by staffing portal foundit.in (formerly Monster APAC and ME). Sectors such as retail, telecom, and Travel and Tourism saw the biggest growth in demand on an annual basis.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the weekend's whirlwind political developments in Punjab.
The deepening funding winter that the startups face and the near dry-up of IPOs singed the deal street as the total value of deals plunged by 60 per cent to $1.8 billion in February, shows an analysis. According to Grant Thornton, the industry saw just 89 deals worth $1.8 billion in February, which is 60 per cent lower than the year ago period in value terms and down by 54 per cent year-on-year in volume as investors continued to tread cautiously amid macroeconomic uncertainties. This is the second-lowest deal volume and the lowest value since 2014.
The benchmark indices are set to end their five-month gaining streak, but the market breadth continues to hold strong So far this month, stocks gaining have outnumbered those declining, a sign that the bulls still have the upper hand, even as the pullback in the S&P BSE Sensex and the National Stock Exchange Nifty indicates otherwise. On the BSE, 2,126 stocks have advanced and 1,955 have declined in August, translating into an advance/decline ratio (ADR) of 1.1.
Reflecting strong momentum in business, commercial banks, including one public sector lender, reported a year-on-year (YoY) growth in advances. This was higher than or around the banking sector trend in the first quarter ended June 2023. Bank of Maharashtra said its loans expanded by 25 per cent YoY to Rs 1.75 trillion. This pace was much higher than the banking system's 15.4 per cent growth till June 16, 2023, according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data.
Financial services and consumer durable companies accounted for most of the selling by foreign portfolio investors (FPI) in the last fortnight of February. FPIs sold finance stocks worth Rs 2,263 crore and consumer durable stocks worth Rs 1,111 crore, according to data collated by Prime Infobase. Information technology (selling worth Rs 708 crore), metals and mining (Rs 694 crore), and power (Rs 497 crore) were the other sectors where overseas funds sold shares.
The net inflows into active equity mutual fund (MF) schemes registered more than a twofold month-on-month rise in August, crossing Rs 20,000 crore, the highest in five months. This rise in net inflows was boosted by an 18 per cent growth in gross investments, driven by a record Rs 15,800 crore inflow through the systematic investment plan (SIP) route and Rs 5,000 crore collected by seven new fund offers (NFOs) in the active equity space, reveals data released by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi). Moreover, redemptions moderated in August, declining by 19 per cent to Rs 24,580 crore, after staying elevated in the previous three months owing to profit booking.
The interest charged on an inter-state loan given to a credit card holder without the use of a plastic card would not be subject to the integrated goods and services tax (IGST), a two-judge bench of the Calcutta high court has ruled. In this connection, it recently set aside a ruling by a single judge of the high court. The issue was a loan of Rs 650,000 granted by Citi Bank with an EMI of Rs 58,056 for 12 months and inclusive of integrated GST (IGST) on each installment of interest.
The 2023-24 (FY24) July-September quarter (second quarter, or Q2) proved to be a mixed period for asset management companies (AMCs). While the two largest listed AMCs, HDFC and Nippon, reported robust growth in both revenue and profits, the other two, Aditya Birla Sun Life and UTI, experienced profit declines. HDFC AMC reported an 18 per cent year-on-year increase in Q2 revenue to Rs 765 crore, while Nippon's revenue rose 15 per cent to Rs 475 crore.
The net debt of top eight realty firms fell 43 per cent to Rs 23,000 crore last fiscal, from around Rs 40,000 crore in 2019-20, as their cash flow improved on strong housing sales, according to Anarock. Real estate consultant Anarock noted that the unfettered demand for housing across the country has enabled the country's leading large and listed developers to reduce their debt. Anarock analysed financial performances of the top eight developers engaged in the development of residential real estate.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has for the first time proposed to regulate online platforms offering fractional ownership in real estate, a model already popular in countries like the United States and UAE. In a consultation paper floated recently, the capital markets regulator stated that such fractional ownership of real estate assets was proposed to be brought as MSM (micro, small, medium) REITs under Sebi (Real Estate Investment Trusts) Regulations. This model allows investors to own a fraction or a small share in a real estate asset like buildings and office spaces, which could include warehouses, shopping centres, conference centres.
The slowdown in corporate revenue growth over the last one year has begun to reflect in India Inc's capital expenditure, or capex. The country's top listed companies are going slow on fresh investment in capacity expansion, in line with a deceleration in their top line growth. The combined fixed assets of the listed companies, excluding banking, finance services and insurance (BFSI) and the government-owned oil & gas firms, were up 10.1 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) during April-September 2023 (H1FY24) - the slowest in 18 months - as against 21.1 per cent Y-o-Y growth in H2FY23 (October 2022-March 2023) and 11.6 per cent growth in the April-September 2022 period (H1FY23).
Private players continued to show strong momentum in the life insurance individual new business segment during August, 2023. On an aggregate, the industry registered 14 per cent growth year-on-year (Y-o-Y) compared to 15 per cent in July '23. Private players were up 21 per cent Y-o-Y, up from 16 per cent Y-o-Y in July '23, while public insurers' growth was muted at 3 per cent.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on Sidhu's latest drama.
The deposit facility for the women and girls will be for a period of two years with a rate of interest of 7.5 per cent, Sitharaman announced.
Equity markets would be mainly driven by global trends and foreign fund trading activity in the holiday-shortened week, analysts said. The BSE and the National Stock Exchange have listed March 7 (Tuesday) as a holiday on account of Holi. However, stock brokers' association ANMI has urged the government, exchanges and Sebi to shift the holiday to March 8 from March 7.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on Health Minister Harsh Vardhan's statement that India is better prepared in 2021 to handle COVID-19.
Morgan Stanley has increased the target prices of certain information technology (IT) stocks by as much as 29 per cent, anticipating an improvement in earnings in the near future. Within the IT and engineering research and development (ER&D) services sector, it is now more optimistic about growth and margin estimates for 2024-25 (FY25).
Only 21 tonnes of gold have been mobilised in the last eight years under the gold monetisation scheme (GMS) which was announced by the Government of India in November 2015. This could be considered as a failure as the scheme has undergone several changes with a revamped GMS announced in April 2021 to improve collections. This figure was released by the World Gold Council (WGC) on Wednesday in its report titled 'Gold Investment Market and Financialisation, in India gold market series'.
While the RBI's guidelines aim to streamline the loan closure process, borrowers must remain proactive.
Among the Sensex firms, Wipro, Axis Bank, Titan, UltraTech Cement and HDFC Bank, HDFC, HCL Tech and Reliance were the gainers.
Sebi on Wednesday approved measures to strengthen the framework for Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs), including having an independent valuation of their investments and introducing a comprehensive certification requirement for key investment teams of AIF managers. To improve governance and transparency to investors with respect to transactions involving conflict of interest, the regulator also approved that there should be a mandate for obtaining approval of 75 per cent of investors by value for buying or selling of investments potentially involving conflict of interest. The proposals pertaining to valuation of investments, dematerialisation of units, certification requirement for key employees of investment manager, transactions with associates and option to sell unliquidated investments to a new scheme of AIFs were approved by the Sebi's board on Wednesday.
If you have not yet filed an ITR for the 2022-2023 financial year, you can file a belated return.
Taiwan in 1951 came up with an ingenious plan to improve tax compliance: citizens taking receipts for purchases could use them as lottery tickets. Customers were incentivized, and businesses found it hard to evade taxes. The plan's success prompted other countries, Slovakia and Greece among them, to launch similar initiatives. India doesn't seem to find the need yet for such schemes amid surging goods and services tax (GST) collections.
The Reserve Bank of India on Monday gave banks time till end of December 2023 to complete renewal of agreements for the existing safe deposit lockers of customers. Banks were earlier required to complete the process by January 01, 2023. The central bank has asked them to complete work in phases with intermediate milestones of 50 per cent by June 30, and 75 per cent by September 30.
The retirement fund body EPFO is likely to announce the rate of interest on employees' provident fund (EPF) deposits for 2022-23 at its two-day meeting beginning Monday. EPFO had lowered the interest on EPF for 2021-22 to an over four-decade low of 8.1 per cent for its about five crore subscribers, from 8.5 per cent in 2020-21 in March 2022. This was the lowest since 1977-78, when the EPF interest rate stood at 8 per cent.
Despite the narrowing spread of yields between the benchmark 10-year Indian government bond and the 10-year US Treasury bond, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) are continuing to invest in the domestic debt market this year -- a trend backed by a stable currency and a less volatile bond market. FPIs have been net buyers in the debt market in 2023 so far, marking the first time since 2019. The yield spread between the 10-year Indian government bond and the 10-year US Treasury note stood at 3.14 per cent on August 8 - the narrowest in over a decade.
In August, the Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das held a meeting with chief executive officers/ managing directors (CEOs/ MDs) of large non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs). The discussions included diversifying borrowing sources for NBFCs and housing finance companies (HFCs) to contain increasing reliance on bank borrowing, risks associated with high credit growth in retail segment in unsecured loans, prioritising IT upgrades and cyber-security, improving provisioning, monitoring of stressed exposures and slippages, ensuring robust liquidity and asset-liability management, ensuring transparency in pricing, creating robust grievance redress mechanisms.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the current state of Indian democracy.
The previous two sessions have seen benchmark indices, the BSE Sensex and Nifty presenting signs of fatigue, reaching closer to its all-time highs level. Both indices are down approximately 1 per cent from recent highs and 2 per cent away from reaching a new peak. This has led to confusion on the street about its ability to reach another milestone. The present bullish trend in the leading indices; which has displayed smart recovery since late March this year, remains intact as the market breadth continues to stay elevated.
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