'New record for the Nifty50 is only a question of when.'
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.
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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.
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
Minutes of the MPC meeting show Das felt economy needs more monetary stimulus as inflation outlook remains uncertain.
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.
Mutual funds (MFs) are betting on a turnaround in the healthcare sector to boost returns but are divided on the prospects of the information technology (IT) sector amid uncertain growth outlook. At the end of June, all of the top 20 fund houses were overweight on the healthcare sector vis--vis the sector's presence in the BSE 200 index, shows a report by Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFS). In the case of the IT sector, only six of the 20 fund houses had overweight positions.
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.
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.
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.
After a sharp outperformance in the mid-and small-cap segments in the first half of calendar year 2023 (H1-CY23), analysts are now turning cautious on these two market segments and suggest investors stay selective and look for valuation comfort and earnings visibility before investing. The S&P BSE Midcap index has surged 13.7 per cent in H1-CY23, and the S&P BSE Small-cap index gained 12.7 per cent during this period, data shows. The S&P BSE Sensex, in comparison, has moved up 6.4 per cent.
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.
These stocks offer the best combination of maximum 'buy' recommendations from brokerages and share price upside over the next 12 months.
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.
It may be a little early to cheer the recovery in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) space as a deceleration in discretionary demand, after the festival season, may offset fragile rural recovery, analysts have cautioned. "The overall demand environment for staples remains muted, while discretionary demand trends have seen some deceleration after the festival season. "We believe margins in staples have bottomed out, but we expect only a gradual uptick with the ongoing softening in raw material prices.
The common man's main grouse is high inflation numbers. But there are other anomalies as well that need to be addressed.
'The risk is in not being invested and missing out on an upmove.'
India's services sector growth accelerated in April, as strong demand conditions resulted in the fastest increase in new business and output in close to 13 years, a monthly survey said on Wednesday. The pick-up in demand occurred in spite of escalating price pressures. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Services PMI Business Activity Index rose from 57.8 in March to 62.0 in April, signalling the fastest expansion in output since mid 2010, amid a pick-up in new business growth and favourable market conditions.
The report said efforts to stabilise the economy through monetary policy interventions need to be complemented by appropriate fiscal policy measures.
WPI inflation even breached psychological level of 0% in Nov.
Rajan had cautioned against any deviation from the fiscal discipline path.
The decline in inflation was broad-based across major commodity groups except housing and fuel and light.
Bajaj Finserv was the biggest gainer in the Sensex pack, rising 2.21 per cent, followed by Titan, ITC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Bajaj Finance, IndusInd Bank, ICICI Bank, HUL, Reliance Industries and Mahindra & Mahindra. Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Power Grid and Tech Mahindra were the laggards.
What came to the rescue of the IIP numbers in February were mining and electricity.
While existing investments pipelines are on course, newer projects, which are at conceptual stage, may be affected; companies are concerned that high inflation (the wholesale price index is above 12.6 per cent, a 16-year high) and high interest rates would dampen consumer demand growth, Confederation of Indian Industry President K V Kamath said after a meeting of industry leaders with Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
Industrial production (IIP) grew to a three-year high of 6.4 per cent in August, up from 4.1 per cent in July.
Rate cuts are unlikely to be aggressive, in our view.
The repo rate could be reduced by 50 bps in the current year.
A pick-up in farmer income could have a cascading impact on the rural economy, though agriculture is becoming a smaller part of India's overall rural incomes.
Metals, auto and banking shares were in the limelight in this session; the FMCG pack, however, ended lower.
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.
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.
The 30-share Sensex ended up 165 points at 29,044 and the 50-share Nifty gained 54 points to close at 8,834.
If you invest for the shorter-term now, you will be able to roll over to higher rates when the interest-rate cycle turns, advises Sarbajeet K Sen.
The Indian economy is likely to post better than anticipated growth in the second quarter (July-September) owing to robust urban consumption and expansion in services, a Business Standard analysis of high-frequency indicators showed. While gross domestic product growth in the September quarter is expected to come below the 7.8 per cent print in the June quarter due to a favourable base fading, analysts say the print will be much closer to 7 per cent than the 6.5 per cent anticipated earlier. While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had estimated 6.5 per cent growth for July-September, last month Governor Shaktikanta Das said the growth figure would surprise on the upside.
After fighting inflation for more than two years, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Duvvuri Subbarao finally managed to bring it below the five per cent level - the tolerance level of the central bank - in FY14.
The rupee resumed lower at 61.15 per dollar as against the last weekend's level of 61.07 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market and hovered in the range of 61.15 and 61.28 before quoting at 61.24 per dollar at 1030 hours.
MMFs are a good option for the current environment, observes Sarbajeet K Sen.
The Nikkei India Manufacturing PMI dipped from 50.3 in November to 49.1 in December.
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