Large investors track high-frequency data that is immediately available today. That data has been bullish, points out Debashis Basu.
The country's largest private lender HDFC Bank's bad-loan write-offs doubled to Rs 3,100 crore in the April-June quarter (first quarter, or Q1) of 2021-22 (FY22), from the level of Rs 1,500 crore in the same quarter of 2020-21 (Q1FY21). It also offloaded its non-performing assets (NPAs) amounting to Rs 1,800 crore in Q1FY22 to maintain a robust asset quality profile. It had jettisoned NPAs worth Rs 1,000 crore in the last quarter. Lenders knock off stress assets from books after making full provisions. Their right to recover dues from delinquent borrowers remains intact after the write-downs.
Food delivery apps Zomato and Swiggy reported a nationwide outage on Wednesday. Both the platforms witnessed technical glitches and were unresponsive for almost an hour. Downdetector, a platform that collects status reports from a series of sources, recorded about 3,619 reports of outage against Zomato at 2:05 PM and about 771 reports of outage against Swiggy at around 2:21 PM. According to the sources, the outage was caused by Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud-services platform, which runs both platforms. Though Swiggy and Zomato are working now, some customers reported that the issue has not been solved completely and they are not able to place orders and there are payment related issues.
Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) has emerged as the country's largest wealth creator, adding a staggering Rs 9.6 trillion over the past five years, according to Motilal Oswal's 26th Annual Wealth Creation Study. In doing so, the Mukesh Ambani-led company has beaten its own record of Rs 5.6 trillion generated in 2014-19. The study covered financial year 2015-16 (FY16) to FY21 and ranks the top 100 companies in descending order of absolute wealth created, subject to the company's stock price outperforming the BSE Sensex. The firms were also ranked according to speed (price CAGR during the period).
After ramping up production to meet the steep demand spike during the Covid-19 pandemic, Indian medical device makers are now struggling with idle capacity. According to industry estimates, around a third of the installed capacity, especially for consumables, disposables, small-ticket electronic items, etc., is lying unutilised. Sample this: India used to produce just 6.24 million pieces of PPE kits per annum before the pandemic, but by June this was ramped up to 233.87 million pieces per annum.
In the Sensex pack, HDFC, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, Titan, Asian Paints, Mahindra and Mahindra and TCS were the prominent gainers. On the other hand, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, NTPC, UltraTech Cement, Tech Mahindra and SBI were among the major laggards. On the other hand, HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra, HUL, Bharti Airtel and ICICI Bank were trading in the red.
The sharp increase in commodity prices on account of the Russia-Ukraine war has put automakers in a fix. After the frequent price hikes in the current fiscal, manufacturers fear that any more price increases may further dent the already weak demand in certain segments. "We have taken several hikes and cannot immediately do it again. "We will have to closely watch the situation and act accordingly," said an official at an auto firm, declining to be identified. Even for companies like Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, which has had a strong volume run and a robust order book, passing on the entire costs has been tough.
Reports suggest state-owned banks have lapped up Rs 40,000 crore, so far, using both bonds and equity instruments. The question, though, is whether there will be a perceptional change for PSB stocks.
The rating affirmation reflected RIL's strong business profile - a large-scale refinery with a capacity of around 1.2 million barrels a day and dominant market position in petrochemicals.
These are the highlights of RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das's statement and resolution of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC):
Moody's Investors Service on Monday said it has assigned a first-time B3 corporate family rating (CFR) to ANI Technologies, which operates ride hailing service Ola. Moody's CFRs are opinions of a corporate family's ability to honour all of its financial obligations. It has also assigned a B3 rating to the company's proposed senior secured term loan.
In the upcoming round of privatisation, unviable airports are likely to be clubbed with six main airports and a prospective bidder may be restricted to bid for two airports.
While the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur may have attracted among the highest donations by an individual (former student and IndiGo Airlines co-founder Rakesh Gangwal) at Rs 100 crore last week, IITs have largely seen such contributions rise over recent years, despite the Covid pandemic. According to Mahesh Panchagnula, dean, Alumni and Corporate Relations, IIT Madras, in the last five years, the premier institute has raised more than Rs 135 crore under the endowment category of education alone. Despite the pandemic, there has been an increasing trend in endowment funding received at IIT Madras, with an average increase of about 20 per cent year-on-year across the last five years.
Such a disruption will take the clock back by many years - in terms of passengers handled - for these airports, thus raising questions among some of the airport operators over a delay in expansion plans.
The biggest headwind to the consumption story in FY23 is a sharp decline in government subsidies on food, fertiliser and fuel, and overall decline in revenue expenditure net of interest payments. This, analysts say, will adversely impact purchasing power of households at the lower end of the income pyramid, translating into lower spending on consumer goods and services.
Old timers in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) still remember how in early 2000 its overseas subsidiary, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), was on the verge of closure. Though OVL was set up in 1965, the only discovery the company had made till then was in Vietnam offshore, with more investment needed to monetise it. In 2001, when OVL started looking for new blocks abroad, the company's previous acquisition was 13 years old.
The Centre could better its fiscal deficit at 6.6 per cent of GDP in this financial year on stronger-than-expected revenue buoyancy, even if the budgeted disinvestment target is not met, Fitch Ratings has said. The international rating agency had last week kept the sovereign rating unchanged at 'BBB-' with a negative outlook, and said that the risks to India's medium-term growth outlook are narrowing with rapid economic recovery from the pandemic and easing financial sector pressures. In an email interview with PTI, Fitch Ratings Director (Asia-Pacific Sovereigns) Jeremy Zook said the two key positive triggers that could lead to a revision of the outlook to stable are implementation of a credible medium-term fiscal strategy to lower debt burden and higher medium-term investment and growth rates without the creation of macroeconomic imbalances, such as from successful structural reform implementation and a healthier financial sector.
Household indebtedness is higher in the southern states as compared to the other parts of the country, a report said on Tuesday. Citing the All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) data from 2013-2019, domestic agency India Ratings said household indebtedness both in rural and urban areas was higher in southern states than rest of India. In 2019, Telangana with 67.2 per cent had the highest proportion of its rural households indebted and Nagaland with 6.6 per cent had the lowest proportion of its rural households indebted.
The anticipated adverse impact on the economy and consequent uncertainty around employment prospects is likely to result in lower purchasing power.
Stating that an economic recession gripped global economy following the lockdowns due to COVID-19 pandemic, Fitch Ratings on Friday said the initial disruptions to regional manufacturing supply chains in China have now broadened to include local discretionary spending and exports.
The total vehicle registrations in India fell by 29.85 per cent to 1,52,71,519 units in financial year 2020-21, the lowest in the last eight years, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) said on Monday. Total vehicle registrations were at 2,17,68,502 units in fiscal year 2019-20. All categories of vehicles, except tractors were in red in FY21 with two-wheeler (2W), three-wheeler (3W), commercial vehicles (CV) and passenger vehicles (PV) falling by 31.51 per cent, 64.12 per cent, 49.05 per cent and 13.96 per cent respectively -- the lowest in last eight years and way below the FY13 levels, FADA said in a statement.
The retail industry's business is on the brink of full recovery as it achieved 93 per cent of the pre-COVID sales in February, according to a report. Segments such as consumer durables and quick service restaurants (QSR) have shown positive growth of 15 per cent and 18 per cent respectively in February 2021, the report from the Retailers Association of India (RAI) said. "The quantum of de-growth in retail sales has reduced as most segments in retail have started to show significant improvement," it said. Categories like footwear, beauty, wellness and personal care, sports goods and food and grocery are showing steady month-on-month recovery.
The government's move to freely supply coronavirus vaccines to the states for universal inoculation and extend free rations to help the poor tide over the pandemic will only add an additional 40 bps of GDP to fiscal deficit, says a report, which also called for more transparent vaccine distribution plan for efficient vaccine allocation to the states.
The company will raise $1.8 billion for the under construction and contracted portfolio of 12 GW, which includes the country's first manufacturing-linked solar power plant of 8 GW.
M&M was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying around 6 per cent, followed by SBI, ITC, NTPC, Bharti Airtel and ONGC. On the other hand, Bajaj Finance, HDFC, Bajaj Finserv, Titan, Sun Pharma and Dr Reddy's were among the laggards. NSE Nifty inched up 1.40 points to its fresh closing record of 14,564.85.
It is rare for Cabinet ministers to tick off state-owned companies publicly, yet that was what then petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan did for ONGC. Speaking at an event on June 29, Pradhan said he has asked India's premier exploration company to find fresh oil acreages fast. "Do it yourself through some joint venture (or) through a new business model. But the government cannot permit you to hold resources for an indefinite time." The reason for this stricture is India's rising dependence on imported oil and gas. Or, to put it another way, falling domestic production (see chart: "Crude truth"), especially from ONGC, which faces a simple problem.
Shares of HCL Tech hit a fresh record high of Rs 1,118.55 on Friday, up 2 per cent on the BSE in intra-day trade, surpassing its previous high of Rs 1,101 touched on Thursday in intra-day deals.
'Let's not get carried away by stocks like D-Mart, Jubilant Foods and all those companies that are trading at an expensive valuations.'
'We expect exports to touch Rs 1,000 crore by the end of the year.'
A British brokerage on Tuesday cut India's FY22 GDP growth estimate by a sharp 0.80 per cent to 9.2 per cent, saying the economic impact of the second wave of infections has been deeper than initially expected. Barclays chief India economist Rahul Bajoria also mentioned the slow pace of vaccinations in the country and the rolling lockdowns across many states for the estimate. It can be noted that last month has seen a slew of similar forecasts from analysts, even as the RBI maintained its estimate of a 10.5 per cent growth in real GDP.
The focus of the company would be to develop its capability across segments of injectables, vaccines, biosimilars, inhalation and APIs to drive growth.
About 50 per cent of the accounts that availed of the EMI moratorium amid the pandemic, which made things worse in an already slowing economy, are expected to be restructured, and of these accounts that would undergo restructuring, one-third, or Rs 6-9 trillion, could turn into NPAs.
After the RBI surprised the Centre with a record Rs 99,122 crore in surplus transfer for FY21, analysts said this will help the government tide over the revenue losses from lockdowns and extend more support to the pandemic hit industries and to the poor people. In fiscal 2020, the RBI had paid only Rs 57,128 crore in dividend to the government and the finance minister had budgeted only Rs 45,000 crore from the central bank. The higher payout followed the Bimal Jalan panel report that had set a new economic framework capital buffer for the central bank along with the contingency risk buffer at 5.5 per cent.
The finance ministry said the sharp inflows last fiscal were due to the government's policy initiatives and economic recovery.
Tamil Nadu has cornered around 18.63 per cent of the fresh investments in Q1FY21 and topped the list of state-wise investments. These investments should help create over 67,212 jobs.
After the second wave of the pandemic, general and health insurers have seen a fall in their outgo of Covid-related health claims. In the July-September quarter (Q2 of FY22), insurers settled a little over Rs 5,000 crore worth of Covid health claims. This is 35 per cent lower than the Rs 7,700 crore worth of claims they settled in Q1, sources said.
HCL Technologies on Monday announced a special one-time bonus worth over Rs 700 crore for its employees, as the IT giant marked $10 billion (about Rs 72,800 crore) revenue milestone. The special bonus will be paid to employees in February 2021, amounting to nearly $90 million plus payroll taxes in some countries, the impact of which is excluded from FY21 EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) guidance provided by the company last month, HCL Tech said in a statement. HCL Technologies said it is "issuing a one-time special bonus to employees around the world" worth over Rs 700 crore in recognition of its recent milestone of crossing the $10 billion mark in revenue for 2020.
Lockdowns imposed by the states in April and May to contain the second wave of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic has likely led to the economy contracting 12 per cent in the June quarter as against 23.9 per cent contraction in the same quarter in 2020, says a brokerage report. The economy had its worst contraction on record in FY21 at 7.3 per cent as the 2.5 months of unplanned lockdown announced by the centre with just a four-hour notice had crippled the economy in the first quarter with a massive 23.9 per cent contraction, which improved to -17.5 per cent in the second quarter.
This demand comes at a time when the government is falling short of its revenue targets due to dwindling tax and low disinvestment receipts. It could account for the dividend in the upcoming Union Budget on February 1. RBI is, however, yet to take a final call on the government's demand and might decide on this at its central board meeting scheduled for February 15 in New Delhi.
India's economy has bounced back amazingly from the Covid-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown over the last one year, but it is not out of the woods yet, according to the World Bank, which in its latest report has predicted that the country's real GDP growth for fiscal year 21/22 could range from 7.5 to 12.5 per cent.
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