Rediff.com takes its readers through the various moods of Raghuram Rajan.
Forex dealers said besides the dollar's gain against other currencies, fresh demand for the American unit from importers and a weak opening in the domestic equity market put pressure on the rupee.
There are overvaluation and excesses in many pockets of the market. This is most obvious in the IPO market, where loss-making companies have inflicted large losses on investors, observes Debashis Basu.
The proposed hike is in accordance with the accepted formula based on the recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission
On the reduction in the SLR ratio, he said it was a signal from the point of view of long-term reforms.
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Onions had the highest inflation rate among all major commodities.
Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) February 8 for the first time ever crossed the Rs 7 trillion market capitalisation, as the stock price of state-owned insurer hit a new high of Rs 1,144,45, on rallying 10 per cent on the BSE. The board of directors of the Corporation are scheduled to meet today i.e. February 8, 2024, to consider a proposal for declaration of interim dividend for the financial year 2023-24 (FY24). The board will also consider and approve the unaudited financial results for the quarter and nine-month period ended on December 31, 2023.
Many analysts argue with limited space for a fiscal stimulus, the burden of lifting growth lies squarely on monetary policy.
Although the WPI-based inflation has been in the negative for two consecutive weeks, the Consumer Price Index, which measures movement in the prices that consumers pay, reported double-digit increase in May.
The Sensex ended 229 points down at 27,602 and the Nifty ended down 63 points at 8,293.
India's industrial production contracted by 3.6 per cent in February, official data showed on Monday. According to the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), manufacturing sector output declined by 3.7 per cent in February 2021. Retail inflation rose to 5.52 per cent in March, mainly on account of higher food prices, government data showed on Monday. The consumer price index (CPI) based retail inflation stood at 5.03 per cent in February.
The breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was slightly positive
The rate of price rise in food items stood at 17.14 per cent in the corresponding week of 2010.
Higher growth in vegetable demand relative to supply in the recent past has led to an upward trend in inflation, with spikes becoming more frequent. A study by rating agency Crisil found that vegetable inflation has been the most volatile in the food category, in fact. Inflation volatility is detrimental for both consumers and farmers and also sidetracks policymakers in the short term, necessitating frequent and repeated price-smoothing measures.
D-Street is hoping RBI policy review meeting on Tuesday will uphold its stand on easing of interest rates
In the context of RBI's view that the real interest rate, defined as the repo rate less "look forward" CPI, should be around 150-200 basis points.
The Lok Sabha elections in 2024 are not a consideration when it comes to monetary policymaking, said Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das to underscore the central bank's commitment to controlling inflation. "It's not possible for me to comment what we do in the next MPC (Monetary Policy Committee), but one thing I can tell and I would like to make it very clear-that the fact of elections coming up in 2024 is not a factor at all so far as monetary policymaking is concerned. "Monetary policymaking is for checking (and) controlling inflation," Das said at the Business Standard, BFSI Insight Summit.
Minutes of the MPC meeting show Das felt economy needs more monetary stimulus as inflation outlook remains uncertain.
The central bank, however, warned that the downside risks to growth could play out if global recovery slows.
Key macroeconomic indicators suggest softening industrial growth.
The repo rate has been left unchanged at 4 per cent, Governor Shaktikanta Das said while announcing the decisions taken by the central bank's MPC.
Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) Chairman C Rangarajan may have found the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s inflation projections on the higher side, but independent experts agree with the central bank and expect both wholesale and retail prices to remain high.
The statement said the food inflation stood at 7.56 per cent in February, 2014, against 8.94 per cent of the previous month and 14.98 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year.
There is a significant amount of dispersion in the growth rates across different industries.
Price rise in services sector after the goods and services tax (GST) gets implemented and the pay hike of central government employees will make inflation control a tough job for the central bank
With sales of cooling products turning out dismal this summer due to unseasonal rains, the stocks of related companies are now off their March highs. Shares of fan and air conditioner makers such as Voltas, Symphony, Orient Electric, Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning and Crompton Greaves are down 5-23 per cent since March when the summer season saw a firm onset. In comparison, the BSE Sensex index is up 10 per cent.
The median forecast for wholesale price index-based inflation in the first quarter of 2010/11 is at 10.4 per cent, according to Reserve Bank of India's survey, higher than 9.5 per cent in the previous survey.
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Bank stocks have underperformed in the second quarter of FY'14 with the BSE Bankex declining 18 per cent compared to fall of 1 per cent in the BSE 30-stock index, Sensex, during this period.
CPI-based inflation on a (year-on-year) basis has come down from 8.59 per cent in April 2014 to 7.80 per cent in August 2014.
The RBI, which has been keeping rates at an elevated level citing the high inflation, wants to bring it down to 6 per cent by January 2016.
On India achieving higher growth, Rajan said 9 per cent, which is the widely believed potential growth rate of the economy, is still some time away.
The RBI expects non-food credit growth to pick up marginally to 15 per cent in 2013-14 from 14 per cent achieved in the previous fiscal and deposit mobilisation to be flat at 14 per cent.
The common man's main grouse is high inflation numbers. But there are other anomalies as well that need to be addressed.
The economic survey for 2020-21 has suggested revision in the weightage of food items to gauge the true picture of inflation in the country, and said new sources of price data also need to be incorporated in the wake of increasing retail e-commerce transactions. As per the survey, the current spike in consumer price-based retail inflation of food prices is mainly a supply-side phenomenon. The survey noted that the weights of all items in retail inflation are based on the NSO household consumption expenditure survey of 2011-12, adding the weight of food items in the index might have significantly decreased over the decade since then.
In the mid-quarter review on December 18, the Reserve Bank left key policy rates unchanged but said it will hike interest rates if inflation does not subside.
The decline in inflation was broad-based across major commodity groups except housing and fuel and light.
Manufacturing companies have been outperformers on the bourses in the current year, leading to a rise in their weighting in the benchmark index. Companies in sectors such as FMCG, automobile, pharmaceuticals, metals, cement, and agrochemicals now account for 25.43 per cent of the Nifty 50 index, up 88 basis points from 24.55 per cent at the end of December last year and a record low of 23.1 per cent at the end of CY20. The manufacturing sector is now dominated by FMCG majors such as Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Asian Paints, Nestle, and Britannia, accounting for 45 per cent of the combined market cap of all manufacturing companies in the index.
Rajan had cautioned against any deviation from the fiscal discipline path.
'The finance ministry and the RBI will never admit to the difficulties in the economy because if they do so, it will adversely impact the financial markets, etc.' 'They like to present a rosy picture that everything is fine and under control.'
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