Ask rediffGURU and PF and MF expert Janak Patel your mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
Only experienced investors with a high risk appetite, a grasp of market cycles, and comfort with volatility and timing risk should invest.
Early-bird results for the January-March 2025 quarter (Q4FY25) suggest a slowdown in earning growth for India Inc, despite a benign cost environment that has led to an improvement in margins. The combined net profit (adjusted for exceptional gains and losses) of 175 early-reporting companies rose by 3.8 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in Q4FY25, marking the slowest growth in 17 quarters.
But there are challenges, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
HDFC Bank's latest shareholding data showed that the room for foreign investment has fallen just 5 basis points short of the threshold set by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) to fully include the stock in its indices. Currently, the index provider has applied an adjustment factor of 0.5 since the foreign room is less than 25 per cent. Removal of the adjustment factor will result in inflows of a massive $4.8 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) into HDFC Bank, according to Brian Freitas, a New Zealand-based analyst with Periscope Analytics.
Indian equity benchmarks rose nearly 2 per cent on Thursday, capping a truncated trading week with their strongest weekly performance in over four years. The rally was sparked by renewed risk-on sentiment following progress in trade negotiations and expanded tariff exemptions.
rediffGURU Vipul Bhavsar answers readers' personal income tax queries.
After the latest rout, the American depositary receipt (ADR) premium of HDFC Bank to its local shares has shrunk to nearly zero. Shares of HDFC Bank on Thursday fell 3.1 per cent to Rs 1,490, extending its two-day decline to 11 per cent. Meanwhile, the ADR has slumped over 15 per cent in the past two trading sessions.
HDFC Bank expects to amalgamate its home loan major parent HDFC into itself by September next year, a top official said on Friday. Both HDFC and HDFC Bank held general meetings on Friday to seek shareholder approvals for what is billed as the largest merger in Indian corporate history at over $40 billion. At the time of announcing the merger on April 4 this year, the entities had said the merger will take 12-18 months.
Ask rediffGURU and PF and MF expert Janak Patel your mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) decision to cut the repo rate by 50 basis points (bps) to 5.5% was contrary to the expectations of many economists. Firstly, most of the economists expected the MPC to cut the repo rate by 25 bps citing the weakening of inflation, prospects of economic growth, geopolitical uncertainty and comfortable system liquidity.
The country's largest private lender HDFC Bank on Saturday reported a 6.51 per cent decline in its consolidated net profit to Rs 16,474.85 crore in the April-June quarter compared to the previous January-March quarter. The city-headquartered lender, which merged its mortgage major parent HDFC into itself in July last year, had reported a net profit of Rs 17,622.38 crore in the March quarter. On a standalone basis, the net profit declined to Rs 16,174.75 crore in April-June 2024-25 from Rs 16,511.85 crore in January-March 2023-24.
The merged entity's deposits grew by 16.2 per cent YoY at Rs 20.63 trillion at the end of the first quarter. Sequentially, the merged entity's advances rose by about 0.7 per cent to Rs 22.30 trillion as of March 31, 2023. However, the pace of deposit mobilisation was higher at 1.2 per cent over Rs 20.39 trillion as of March 31, 2023.
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Selected applicants will receive a monthly stipend of Rs 4,500 from the government and an additional Rs 500 from participating companies as a part of the Prime Minister Internship Scheme (PMIS) 2025.
Without changes to the taxation rules, buybacks are expected to remain scarce.
The board of HDFC Bank has approved the appointment of Keki Mistry and Renu Karnad as the additional non-executive directors of the bank, and V Srinivasa Ranjan as its executive director. Mistry was the chief executive officer and vice chairman of HDFC, which merged with the bank today (1 July 2023). Karnad has been the managing director of HDFC since 2010. Ranjan was the executive director and chief financial officer of HDFC.
Talks of a merger between HDFC Bank and parent HDFC Ltd had gained steam nearly eight years ago, when the Reserve Bank of India allowed banks to issue long-term bonds to fund infrastructure and affordable housing. At that time, key executives at both entities denied any such proposal. And today, the merger has been officially announced by the two players.
Ask rediffGURU and PF and MF expert Janak Patel your mutual fund and personal finance-related questions.
From the Sensex pack, HDFC Bank, Maruti, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, ITC, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Bajaj Finance were among the biggest laggards. NTPC, Adani Ports, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Steel and IndusInd Bank were among the gainers.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) continue to cut their shareholding in both Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) and HDFC Bank. As per latest data, during the June 2022-23 quarter (Q1FY23), FPIs held 68.1 per cent and 65.96 per cent, respectively, in HDFC and HDFC Bank. Overseas shareholding is down 111/406 basis points (bps) and 260/412 bps on the quarter-on-quarter (QoQ)/year-to-date (YTD) basis in HDFC and HDFC Bank, respectively.
Sashidhar Jagdishan, managing director and chief executive officer of HDFC Bank, the largest private-sector lender of the country, has just completed his first term. The period October 2020-October 2023 was a roller coaster, and the second one, which started on October 27, could be more interesting as the lender absorbs the impact of the merger of HDFC, which was integrated on July 1, and moves to the next growth phase. Soon after he took over the reins from Aditya Puri on October 27, 2020, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) debarred HDFC Bank from enrolling new credit card customers and launching new products under the Digital 2.0 programme due to repeated outages on its mobile-banking and internet-banking platforms.
Strong margins in the jewellery segment in Q4FY25, steady growth guidance for FY26 and expectations of outperformance in the organised jewellery sector boosted sentiment for the largest listed jewellery maker by market capitalisation, Titan Company. The stock was the highest gainer on the benchmark indices (Sensex as well as Nifty), rising 4.1-4.5 per cent at close on Friday, taking the total gains over the past month to about 12 per cent.
HDFC Bank has reshuffled the portfolios of its senior management team. This is the first major rejig after the amalgamation of HDFC Ltd on July 1. "The runway for our growth is large. This change is being done to bring in a very sharp focus on leveraging what we have built and for enhanced execution," said Sashidhar Jagdishan, managing director and chief executive of HDFC Bank, explaining the reason for this overhaul.
HDFC Asset Management Company (HDFC AMC) reported a healthy profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 430 crore for the July-September quarter (Q2) of financial year 2023-24 (FY24). It rose 20.2 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) and decreased 8.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q). This was driven by good equity returns, leading to a sequential improvement in revenue yields.
'He has been one of the clearest thinkers in the history of business.'
Gold prices tumbled by Rs 1,550 to Rs 91,450 per 10 grams in the national capital on Monday amid heavy selling by jewellers and stockists as well as weak global trend, according to the All India Sarafa Association. On Friday, the precious metal of 99.9 per cent purity had finished at Rs 93,000 per 10 grams.
Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, ICICI Bank, and ITC were the biggest laggards. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 4,294.69 crore on Friday, according to exchange data.
The country's most valuable lender HDFC Bank can perhaps no longer claim to be a favourite of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs). Two data indicators, both somewhat interconnected, point to this - the diminishing premium of HDFC Bank's American depositary receipts (ADRs) compared to local shares, and the ample investment opportunities available to FPIs in the domestic market. The ADR premium has shrunk to below 5 per cent, down from over 30 per cent in March 2021, and even lower than recent levels.
HDFC Bank on Monday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 16,811 crore for the September quarter, its maiden quarterly earnings announcement after merging parent HDFC with itself. On a standalone basis, the largest private sector lender reported a net profit of Rs 15,976 crore. In the year-ago period, the net profit of the merged entity would have been Rs 11,162 crore on a consolidated level while the same on a standalone basis would have been Rs 10,606 crore.
Gold prices rose by Rs 70 to hit yet another record high of Rs 98,170 per 10 grams in the national capital on Thursday amid firm global demand, according to the All India Sarafa Association. On Wednesday, the precious metal of 99.9 per cent purity soared by Rs 1,650 to hit an all-time high of Rs 98,100 per 10 grams.
Largest private sector lender HDFC Bank on Tuesday reported a 34 per cent jump in its standalone net profit to Rs 16,373 crore for the third quarter ended December 2023. The bank had earned a net profit of Rs 12,259 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal year.
The effect of the HDFC-HDFC?Bank merger will be for the bigger space of the Indian financial sector and not just limited to the banking sector. The large finance companies have practically no benefit of regulatory arbitrage. Earlier, such arbitrage between banks and NBFCs was normal. The logic of the merger is very clear - the cost of borrowing of banks is lower.
HDFC and HDFC Bank's merger - touted as India's biggest-ever corporate merger - pumped up shares of the two entities on the bourses. Shares of Housing Finance Development Corporation (HDFC) skyrocketed 9 per cent while those of HDFC Bank zoomed 10 per cent. In comparison, the benchmark S&P BSESensex and the Nifty50 indices settled 2.2 per cent higher on Monday.
Securitisation - sale of loans to investors - by lenders, including banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), crossed Rs 50,000 crore during the fourth quarter ended March 2025 (Q4F25). This is a tad higher than Rs 48,000 crore during the same period of FY24.
Trading sentiment in the equity market will largely be driven by domestic corporate quarterly earnings, any update related to US tariffs and foreign fund movements this week, analysts said. Investors would also focus on world market trends, movement of global oil benchmark Brent crude and the rupee-dollar trend for further cues, experts noted.
Having successfully executed the merger with parent HDFC, HDFC Bank's managing director and chief executive Sashidhar Jagdishan on Saturday said the country's largest lender aims to double every four years. In a letter to the over 4,000 employees from HDFC who joined the bank's rolls on Saturday, Jagdishan said the future is bright, and the work on realising the potential of the merger starts now. "The runway for financial services and mortgage, which are so underserved and under penetrated, is going to be very large. HDFC Bank - the combined entity - with a large and growing distribution and customer franchise, more than adequate capital, healthy asset quality and profitability, will be best positioned to capture growth.
HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh on Friday exuded confidence that the synergies between HDFC Bank and the group companies will deepen with the bank taking on the mantle of ownership of the group following the reverse merger likely to be effective from Saturday. As chairman of HDFC Ltd, Parekh in the last message to the shareholders said home loans will now be complemented with HDFC Bank's core strengths -- its sales engine, execution capabilities at scale and deep insights on consumer behaviour. The reverse merger of parent HDFC Ltd with HDFC Bank is expected to be effective from July 1.
We have not been able to communicate in a very articulate manner and clear manner on the merger as earnings were due, says HDFC CEO.
Stock markets will be driven by further developments on the US-China tariff war front along with quarterly earnings announcements from IT majors Wipro and Infosys in a holiday-shortened week, analysts said. Global market trends and trading activity of foreign investors would also dictate market movement this week, experts noted.
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