ONGC's January-March quarter results for the 2022-23 financial year (Q4FY23) indicated changes in the trends of the energy cycle as well as the impact of policy change in gas-pricing. The public sector oil and gas major reported standalone Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) at Rs 16,340 crore, down 12 per cent year-on-year (YoY), and down 20 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ). There was a net loss of Rs 250 crore due to exceptional items of Rs 9,240 crore for provisions related to the ongoing dispute regarding the applicability of service tax and goods and services tax on Royalty.
'It will send a very strong signal that it is now our time to grow.'
Very often, 'sentiment' drives prices well beyond what is warranted and it is hard to forecast market sentiment, explains Debashis Basu.
M&M was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding around 3 per cent, followed by Tata Steel, Bajaj Finserv, TCS, HDFC and Infosys. NSE Nifty declined 55.95 points to 17,076.25.
The early bird results for the January-March quarter of 2022-23 (Q4FY23) show a pick-up in earnings growth, despite a slowdown in revenue growth, thanks to a decline in input costs and lower provisioning for bad loans by banks. The combined net profit of 66 companies that have, so far, declared their quarterly results was up 15.2 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in Q4FY23, an improvement from 4.3 per cent YoY growth in Q3. Net sales growth of these companies, however, slowed down to 11.5 per cent YoY in January-March 2023, the slowest rate in eight quarters.
Perhaps the finance ministry or NITI Aayog could take a detailed look at what governments actually deliver and at what cost; how their services can be improved and expanded where necessary; how much money can be saved through doing things differently; and how many things the government does which it can safely leave to the private sector, argues T N Ninan.
A sudden surge in wealth because of stock market gains after the pandemic could be one of the factors behind the relatively lower share of philanthropy in total wealth.
'If private capex has to kick in, there should at least be 2-3 years of visibility.'
Foreign currency loans raised by Indian companies nosedived to $210 million in the September quarter (Q2), 93.3 per cent less than the year-ago period when five firms raised $3.1 billion. The Q2 amount is the lowest since December 2003 quarter when India Inc raised $191 million. Companies cited volatility in the currency markets, sharp rise in interest rates in the United States, and fund availability in India as the main reasons behind the sharp fall.
NITI Aayog has not said what the reasons were for having achieved or not having achieved what was sought to be achieved, or what lessons can be learned for the future, points out Aakar Patel.
Clearly, the extra borrowing of Rs 4.2 trillion the government has planned so far will not be enough to meet the shortfall in revenues which could be between Rs 8 trillion and Rs 10 trillion, points out A K Bhattacharya.
The S&P BSE Auto Index has been one of the biggest outperformers among sectoral indices over the past year with returns of 26 per cent. By comparison, the benchmarks - the National Stock Exchange Nifty50 and the S&P BSE Sensex - managed about 6-8 per cent during this period. Improving demand, falling raw material costs, and rising product realisations, led by the premiumisation of portfolios, have led to a revision of growth estimates and upgrades by domestic brokerages.
Senior tax officials were told to focus on cash collection from the arrears so that the target for FY23 was achieved and the overall revenue position improved.
Putting forward the government's view on the high level of fiscal deficit, Arvind Virmani, chief economic adviser in the finance ministry, claims the 6 per cent deficit is reversible.
25 student suicides in 2023 at India's coaching hub Kota have revealed the mindboggling stress children confront every day, reports Prakash Bhandari.
The government's decision to release the reports comes two days after over 200 scholars from across the globe issued a statement demanding release of all withheld reports produced by the NSO, including the household consumer expenditure survey that was junked.
'An era of fiscal pessimism is setting in, which, if not countered intellectually, is going to have the same effect as export pessimism has had,' notes T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
As the FM said, this is a Budget that lays the foundation for the next 25 years, observes Kumar Mangalam Birla.
The first step to keeping your job safe, experts tell Rediff.com's Divya Nair, is understanding why layoffs happen.
Many IEDs explode even when the troops are on foot and their trigger mechanism gets activated just due to the pressure of the feet. These incidents have injured more than 100 personnel over the last two years, the officer said.
'You may see some movement indicating a simpler tax regime with less exemptions but with fewer tax rates making life simpler for taxpayers.'
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may go for a hike of up to 0.25 per cent in the reverse repo rate at which the RBI absorbs excess liquidity and leave the repo rate at which it lends, to narrow the policy rate corridor, a British brokerage said on Thursday. "Growth concerns amid spread of the Omicron variant and relatively benign inflation out-turns provide the RBI with enough room to maintain its growth-supportive monetary policies," analysts at Barclays said, ahead of the resolution announcement next week. The RBI will hike the reverse repo rate by 0.20-0.25 per cent, given its liquidity management actions, it said.
There are two ways: Deliver a rapidly growing economic pie or reform GST and close corporate tax loopholes, suggests T N Ninan.
Led by Trent, which hit its lifetime-high recently, apparel retailers have gained between 10 per cent and 36 per cent over the past three weeks. Given the network of physical stores, these stocks shall be major beneficiaries of the unlock theme, with most states doing away with Covid restrictions. Amid improving footfall, analysts expect the sector to post double-digit growth in FY23.
Former CAG Rajiv Mehrishi says Centre has held back a report he submitted to the President, to end what he called "a nightmare of accounts that militates against good governance".
A hallmark of some new businesses today is that they seek to use the brute force of capital, combined with smart technology and operations, to create new needs that you didn't even know existed, the chairman of Aditya Birla group said in a blog post on the trends for the new year.
The Centre's capital expenditure (capex) outlay for the April-June quarter (first quarter, or Q1) of 2022-23 (FY23) could be close to Rs 1.5 trillion, Business Standard has learnt. As a percentage of full-year capex Budget Estimates (BE) of Rs 7.5 trillion, this could be at similar levels to the trends in the past few fiscal years. It is in the July-September quarter (Q2) of FY23 that capex is expected to pick up, when a bulk of the long-term capex loans to states are expected to be expended.
How long will the RBI allow the government to borrow cheaply? A change in policy direction will see rates climb and bond values fall. Investors in debt funds are therefore at risk, as are people invested in the heated stock market, warns T N Ninan.
Amid prolonged uncertainty, continued policy support will be crucial for sustained economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das said at the recent meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee. "In this period of prolonged uncertainty, it would be wise to remain agile and respond in a gradual, calibrated and well telegraphed manner to the emerging challenges," opined Das, according to the minutes of the MPC meeting released by the Reserve Bank on Thursday. Observing that economic recovery from the pandemic remains incomplete and uneven, he said, "continued support from various policies remains crucial for a sustained recovery." The governor said the renewed surge in international crude oil prices, however, requires close monitoring.
Both the Asian giants were among the top three countries spending more on armaments, according to a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The economy has shown sharp resilience in the past and has also bounced back in good time. We could hence expect a similar trajectory next year, observes Madan Sabnavis, chief economist, CARE Ratings.
In 2019-20, the capital expenditure of Indian Railways (IR) increased 60 per cent over 2016-17. The draft National Railways plan envisages a further increase in IR's capital expenditure, but an analysis by Business Standard shows that IR has come to depend more on borrowings and budgetary support. In 2016-17, while 11 per cent of its capital expenditure (capex) was funded by internal sources, in 2019-20 the ratio dropped to less than 1 per cent. A 2015 Committee on Restructuring Railways had flagged that over-reliance on borrowings could exacerbate the financial situation of Railways.
Members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) felt that though the Indian economy was resilient in the third wave, it, however, lost some momentum and with inflation likely to soften, there is room to continue with the accommodative stance and support revival, the minutes of the MPC meeting released on Thursday revealed. The six-member MPC voted to keep the policy rate unchanged and continued with the accommodative stance at its meeting on February 10. However, external member Jayanth Verma voted against the stance because he felt a switch to neutral was long overdue and the current stance has become counterproductive and deflects focus away from addressing recessionary trends that date back to at least 2019.
After navigating the turbulent pandemic waves, the recovering Indian economy is now sailing through unchartered waters of rising coronavirus cases, spiralling commodity prices and spiking inflation though the lighthouse of sustainable growth remains visible. As 2022 begins, a raft of developments, ranging from Budgetary announcements to continuation of stimulus measures to monetary policy, will set the tone for the domestic economy, which is projected to grow more than 9 per cent in the current fiscal ending March 2022. The country's continuing massive vaccination drive and 'precaution' doses starting for select categories of people this month will provide a firewall against any steep spike in coronavirus cases amid the emergence of the Omicron variant.
It is now becoming increasingly clear that rising imports have played a significant role in sustaining the buoyancy in revenues from GST, notes A K Bhattacharya.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the much-awaited 2022-23 Union Budget on February 1. While there has been strong recovery in some sectors, touch services like hospitality, tourism and leisure continue to suffer after two Covid-19 waves. Household savings have been hit due to increased spending on health care. Consumption has still not reached pre-pandemic levels.
'The road ahead for the government's fiscal management will be full of many new challenges,' warns A K Bhattacharya.
India is better positioned to face external shocks emanating from increasing geopolitical tensions, the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and the inevitability of climate change, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Michael Debabrata Patra said on Monday. Relative to macroeconomic configurations in 2013 when India was described as one of the fragile five countries, he said, "India is better positioned currently, as its macroeconomic fundamentals have improved significantly, and external sector indicators point to the availability of enough cushions to manage external shocks." He was speaking at a conference on 'Growth And Development in the BRICS Economies' organised by the Delhi School of Economics (DSE) and the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).
'In a serious fiscal situation like this, an ostrich-like focus on annual budgeting, event management and defensive rhetoric will only make matters worse,' warns Rathin Roy.
The Centre for Media Studies after releasing a report on 2019 polls expenditure, also claimed the recently-concluded election has signalled that the more the expenditure, the "more vicious and ugly" the campaigns become.
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