Custodian banks are selling dollars for their foreign fund clients.
In his massive election rallies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi often caught voters fancy promising that each individual would get Rs 15-20 lakh in his bank account if he came to power.
Occasionally, a whistle-blower releases sensitive financial data.
'India's sizeable forex reserves should help stem a possible fall in our currency.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day visit to Britain has seen India and the UK agreeing on Rs 90,000 crore deals.
Benchmark indices failed to sustain gains and retreated from day's high dragged primarily by the losses in metals, information technology and bank shares as investors started to book profits in late noon deals. Earlier, markets had scaled fresh all-time highs on the surprise post-budget rate cut by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The 30-share Sensex ended down 213 points at 29,380 and the 50-share Nifty closed down 74 points at 8,922. Intra-day, Sensex reached the all-time high mark of 30,024.74 while Nifty touched the life-time high level of 9,119.20. In the broader market, both the BSE Midcap index and Smallcap indices, down 1% and 1.2% each underperformed the front-liners. Market breadth in BSE ended negative with 1,882 declines against 1,010 advances. A day after signing an agreement with Finance Ministry on inflation targeting, RBI surprised the markets with an early post-budget repo rate cut of 25 bps (basis points) to 7.5% from 7.75% which was again outside of central bank's scheduled policy review meetings as the earlier rate cut effected on January 15. "RBI's latest rate cut of 25 basis points, while a surprise in its timing is in-line with our expectations of a sharp rate-cutting cycle over the coming quarters. With inflation sustainably lower by 500bps, the RBI has in recent months acknowledged the scope for rate cuts and was only waiting for additional comfort that the government's fiscal policy would not play spoil-sport," said Dinesh Thakkar, chairman and managing director at Angel Broking in a note. Analysts at Karvy believe that further monetary policy action will depend on number of factors including easing of supply constraints, improved availability of power, land, minerals and infrastructure, fiscal consolidation, the pass through of rate cuts by banks and the expected monsoon. Citing weakness in some sectors of the economy and the overall global trend towards monetary easing as rationale for the rate cut the central bank also exuded confidence in the road map for fiscal consolidation as laid out in the Union Budget, 2015. Commenting on how the markets reacted to RBI's surprise move, K Subramanyam assistant vice-president (institutional research), Asit C. Mehta Securities said, "The unexpected cut did take the market by surprise .However, credit off-take is not dependant only on interest rates. A gradual revival in the economy would be of more help which would trigger credit off-take. Hopefully this will follow and RBI's action would prove helpful. From market point of view this is bullish as equity becomes more attractive vis-a-vis falling interest rates." On the macro-economic front, the HSBC services PMI rose to an eight-month high of 53.9 in February up from 52.4 in January indicating strong expansion in output across the sector. Respondents cited robust growth of new business as the principle factor for the increase in activity. Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 773 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional data. Buzzing Stocks 9 out of the 12 sectoral indices of BSE ended in red. BSE Metal index, down 2.4% was the top loser followed by BSE Oil & Gas and Power indices, down 1.3% each. BSE Healthcare index, up 1.2% and BSE FMCG index, up 0.9% were the top losers. Bank stocks came under during late noon trades as traders booked profits at higher levels. However, RBI rate cut may encourage large lenders to cut their lending rates boosting demand for home and auto loans and provide funds for various stalled and new projects. Many stalled projects across the country are waiting for cash to restart work. The stock of stalled projects at the end of December 2014 stood at Rs 8.8 lakh crore or 7% of GDP. ICICI Bank ended down 0.1%, Axis Bank and SBI declined over 3% and HDFC Bank shed 1.5%. Sun Pharma gained over 6% on approval granted to Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company (SPARC) by US FDA for an antiepileptic drug. The product will be manufactured by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries at its Halol (Gujarat) facility in India. SPARC was formed in 2007 when Sun Pharma separated out its active projects in drug discovery and innovation into a new company. Dr Reddys Lab and Cipla have gained over 1% each. ITC gained over 1% after consecutive sessions of losses on the proposed larger-than-expected hike in excise duty on cigarettes in the Union Budget. The biggest ever auction of spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) started on Wednesday in the morning where government expects to garner Rs 80,000-1lakh crore from the sale of spectrum. Idea Cellular gained over 2%, Reliance Communication gained around 1% and Bharti Airtel closed 0.5% higher. Metal stocks were under pressure in today's session. Hindalco declined over 3%, Sesa Sterliteended down over 4% and Tata Steel closed down 2%. Profit-taking in IT stocks led to Wipro losing around 1.8%, Infosys declining 0.7% and TCS losing 1.5%.
Sending money to families in India will get more expensive
Identity of 427 account holders abroad has been established and 250 of them have admitted to having accounts, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley revealed on Wednesday.
Experts say a lot of new wealth is being generated by promoters selling their stake.
The broader markets, however, outperformed their larger peers.
Any change in rates would mean more volatility; else, poll outcome-fuelled rally expected to continue.
Reliance announced energy asset sales worth around $ 16 billion; end of the investment cycle in telecom; bringing net-debt to zero in 18 months; value-unlocking options for real estate and financial assets; listing of telecom and retail in five years; and focus on dividends.
Rajan's deputy Khan cautions against early celebration of falling inflation, unhedged forex exposure.
The 30-share Sensex is down 359 points at 26,378 and the Nifty has dropped 78 points to trade at 7,883
BSE Mid-cap index ended at a record closing high of 10499.86 and CNX Mid-cap index ended at a record closing high of 12672.85 levels.
Chetan Bhagat turns entrepreneur by getting into the movie business with Half Girlfriend.
Was Adani able to clinch this loan merely as a result of his proximity to Prime Minister Narendra Modi?
The optimism in global markets could help India as the rebound in GDP is expected to continue and get more broad-based.
Sebi's new FPI regulation has helped attract new capital pool, up registrations.
FDI inflows into India were $34 billion in 2014, up 22%.
But lower growth numbers in the quarters to come may not mean renewed weakness in the economy at the ground level, says Pranjul Bhandari.
For now, the upside appears to offset damage done to exports by weaker global demand.
The 30-share Sensex ended lower by 61 points at 29,122 mark and the 50-share Nifty slipped by 12 points to close at 8,797.
A stable dollar will at minimum reduce incremental cross-currency pain for Indian cos.
However, IT stocks fell on weak growth forecast by Gartner
India must first improve working condition, then it can concentrate on Make in India concept.
Whether India can create labour-intensive factory jobs instead that it needs to put millions to work in the next few years looks very unlikely.
The blockchain, the public ledger that tracks every bitcoin transaction, is changing commerce as we know it, says Devangshu Datta.
FY16 GDP growth was seen at 7.5%, against 8.1-8.5% earlier.
Cashi Crisis: Day 9: Aaj ki Taaza Khabar!
Government on Monday formed a multi-agency group to monitor exposes in this regard and vowed to take action against all "unlawful" accounts held abroad.
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The market regulator is wielding an unprecedented level of control over how mutual funds operate, delaying new launches and dictating investment strategy, frustrated insiders in the embattled industry say.
Concluding the three-part series, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta says that the black money law is likely to fail because of the ineptness of India's investigative and enforcement agencies.
Pranjul Bhandari, Chief India Economist, HSBC, speaks about a range of issues ranging from inflation, to how Goods and Services Tax and land acquisition bills can help India hit double digit growth, and her impressions about economic growth in the last one year after Narendra Modi took over as India's Prime Minister.
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