Given the uncertain macroeconomic conditions, most brokerages have turned slightly cautious on the pace of growth in State Bank of India's (SBI's) earnings going ahead. While they don't see any significant risk arising for now, its sheer balance sheet size and systematic importance has nudged them to cut earnings estimates for fiscal year 2023-24 (FY24) and 2024-25 (FY25) up to 5 per cent. India's largest state-owned bank, on Thursday, reported standalone net profit of Rs 16,694.51 crore for Q4FY23.
An allocation to ESG theme funds can bring down the overall risk of an equity portfolio. Investors with long-term financial goals, such as retirement, should not ignore sustainable investing.
The cash pile within smallcap mutual fund (MF) schemes has grown over the past few months amid a relentless rally in stocks in this space. While fund managers usually don't make cash calls, incessant inflows and valuation discomfort have forced their hand. At the end of January, the top 10 schemes had over Rs 12,160 crore in cash, compared to Rs 8,700 crore in August 2023.
The mid-and small-cap segments at the bourses have outperformed their larger peers thus far in fiscal 2023-24 (FY24). While the S&P BSE Small-cap index has surged around 5.7 per cent in FY24, the S&P BSE Midcap index has gained 4 per cent during this period. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex has moved up around 2.2 per cent.
The stocks of Mumbai-based real estate companies have been hitting lifetime highs on expectations that launches, steady demand, and price increases in the largest real estate market in the country would boost their financials. Macrotech Developers (Lodha) and Oberoi Realty hit their all-time highs last week, while Godrej Properties came close to its 52-week high last month before witnessing a sharp correction.
Indian government bonds, particularly those of shorter maturity, strengthened sharply on Monday, as the collapse of the California-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) prompted investors to rush to the safety of American debt, leading to a decline in US bond yields.
At a time when exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were unloading Jio Financial Services from their portfolios, some active fund managers were placing large bets on the demerged financial services arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), a report by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research shows. Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund and Quant Mutual Fund were the top MF buyers of the stock in August. They bought around 60 million shares each, together investing around Rs 2,800 crore.
Investors should view any bounce-back in bank stocks as an opportunity to exit the pack, analysts suggested, as the worst may not be over yet. The recent quarterly results of HDFC Bank and Axis Bank disappointed the Street, triggering a marketwide selloff by foreign institutional investors, especially in banking counters. While HDFC Bank, which was the anchor for the market correction during the past week, ended 2 per cent higher amid short covering on Wednesday, Axis Bank's shares settled 3 per cent lower.
Despite multiple headwinds at the start of 2023, the Indian markets delivered a strong performance, posting 19-20 per cent growth for the year. Even as new records were set, investor sentiment remains strong going into 2024, given the lower inflation, expectations of steady to lower interest rates, higher economic growth, and strong inflows. However, the overriding concern for most brokerages is valuations.
Markets regulator Sebi has ordered the attachment of bank and demat accounts as well as mutual fund holdings of Videocon Group founder Venugopal Dhoot to recover dues totalling Rs 5.16 lakh. The latest decision has been taken after Dhoot failed to pay the fine imposed on him in March by Sebi for not making disclosures about his interest in Supreme Energy as well as for not disclosing that Quality Techno Advisors Pvt Ltd (QTAPL) and Credential Finance Ltd (CFL) were related parties with respect to certain transactions. In an attachment notice on Monday, Sebi said the pending dues of Rs 5.16 lakh include the initial fine of Rs 5 lakh, interest of Rs 15,000 and a recovery cost of Rs 1,000.
ICICI Bank has emerged as the single Indian entity considered worth investing by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and the investment has given an impressive return of over 25 per cent in past one year alone.
The government has appointed 10 merchant bankers including Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, Citigroup Global Markets India, and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities India to manage the mega initial public offering of country's largest insurer LIC. Other selected bankers include SBI Capital Market, JM Financial, Axis Capital, BofA Securities, JP Morgan India, ICICI Securities, and Kotak Mahindra Capital Co Ltd, a circular on the divestment department website said. "Government has finalised the book running lead managers and some other advisors for the IPO of LIC," DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey tweeted. The divestment department had invited applications for the appointment of merchant bankers on July 15.
At present, the cost of testing for COVID-19 is Rs 4,500 per examination and the results are available within 24 hours. Almost 90 per cent of queries fizzle out after patients realise the cost of testing will not be borne by the government.
Opinions vary, but fund managers remain bullish.
The analyst said since servicing of principal and interest on loans will beome challenging for mall operatos in the next couple of months.
The Rs 702-crore IPO received bids for 2,93,41,84,140 shares against the total issue size of 2,32,59,550 shares, according to data available till 3.30 pm on Wednesday.
While discretionary spend by global enterprises is likely to negatively impact all Indian IT firms, more revenues from products and less exposure to financial services segment are likely to lessen the impact for HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra.
Anup Bagchi has been appointed Managing Director & CEO of ICICI Securities.
People are availing far more of certain kinds of unsecured loans than was the case before the pandemic. Bank lending for buying consumer durables and funding of credit cards and other personal loans have risen by Rs 6.9 trillion between August 2019 and August 2023, shows a Business Standard analysis of data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). These loans are typically unsecured, which means they are provided without collateral.
Which entrepreneur would willingly part with her or his hard-earned money for grasping, self-serving politicians? asks Debashis Basu.
ICICI Bank, India's largest private sector bank, has been fined Rs 2 lakh (Rs 200,000) for knocking at the judiciary's door on false pretext by a Delhi court which asked it to have a sense of responsibility matching its size.
rediffGURU Ulhas Joshi answers readers' mutual fund queries
rediffGURU Nikunj Saraf suggests considering small-cap, mid-cap, and multi-cap mutual funds.
While near-term performance is difficult to predict after a huge run-up, fund managers believe the PSU theme's prospects remain sound over the medium to long term.
If raters get away by moving from AAA to D overnight after companies default, as happened with DHFL, YES Bank, RCom, and IL&FS, it shows a complete breakdown in the rating system. It calls for exemplary punishment, not kid glove treatment, says Debashis Basu.
Mutual funds (MFs) are investing in more stocks despite the recent volatility. The industry invested in 824 companies across the listed universe as of October, according to primemfdatabase.com. The S&P BSE Sensex hit its all-time high of 62,245 that month. The index has since corrected to 57,864, around 7 per cent below the peak.
'The recent price hike would only be beneficial if the airlines continue to operate at 80 per cent airline capacity. An increase towards 90 or 100 per cent airline capacity would again add pressure to the fares as demand remains muted. Also, we are in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year which is a seasonally weaker quarter,' says an analyst.
rediffGURU and financial planning expert Colonel Sanjeev Govila (retd) answers your personal finance-related questions.
HDFC Bank Q1FY24 results analysis: Shares of HDFC Bank, the world's seventh largest financial entity, have advanced 2 per cent in two days, as against 1 per cent rise in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, after the lender reported its April-June quarter (Q1) results for financial year 2023-24 (FY24) on July 17. The S&P BSE Bankex index, meanwhile, has gained 1.3 per cent. While the near-term stock performance may remain sideways due to merger-related hiccups, analysts remain bullish on the stock's long-term prospects.
Mutual funds (MFs) are likely to surpass foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) in terms of anchor investments in initial public offerings (IPOs) for the second consecutive year. In calendar year 2023 so far, MFs have invested Rs 5,577 crore as anchor investors, compared to the Rs 5,417 crore invested by FPIs this year. In 2022, MFs put in Rs 9,026 crore as anchor investment, 21 per cent higher than the FPI tally of Rs 7,105 crore. This marked the first time since 2014 that MFs had outpaced FPIs in anchor investments.
Adani Group on Friday launched its Rs 31,000-crore open offer to acquire 26 per cent additional stake from the public shareholders of Swiss firm Holcim's two Indian listed entities ACC Ltd and Ambuja Cements. In May this year, the Adani Group had announced that it had clinched a deal to acquire a controlling stake in Holcim Ltd's businesses in India for $10.5 billion. Markets regulator Sebi granted approval for the open offer last week.
Kotak Mahindra Bank was the biggest loser from the Sensex pack, skidding 1.83 per cent, followed by Axis Bank, NTPC, Hindustan Unilever, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries, HCL Technologies, IndusInd Bank and Nestle. In contrast, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services, Titan, Infosys, HDFC Bank, HDFC and ITC were the gainers.
PB Fintech, the parent of Policybazaar and Paisabazaar, has set a price band of Rs 940-950 apiece for its initial public offering (IPO), which will open on November 1 and close on November 3. The company may be valued at around Rs 44,000 crore, and looking to raise an amount of around Rs 5,826 crore. The IPO comprises a fresh issue of Rs 3,750 crore, along with an offer for sale (OFS) of Rs 1959.72 crore by existing promoters and shareholders.
The improving outlook for the power sector has caught the interest of dividend yield funds. In the first four months of the current financial year (2023-24, or FY24), five of the six largest dividend yield funds have shown a notable increase in their exposure to stocks within the power sector. Some have even introduced new stocks to their portfolios.
rediffGURU Dev Ashish answers your personal finance and mutual fund queries.
EPFO's advisory body FIC on Thursday shortlisted five entities --ICICI Securities, Reliance Capital, HSBC Asset Management Company, SBI and ICICI Prudential -- for managing its corpus of Rs 3.5 lakh crore (Rs 3.5 trillion).
From the Sensex pack, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Titan, UltraTech Cement, ITC, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the major gainers. Tata Steel, Axis Bank, NTPC, ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank were the major laggards.
However, both developers as well as analysts are hopeful that these business metrics will pick up once activity resumes.
While small-caps have delivered higher returns than their large-cap peers, investors would do well to recognise the incremental risk of investing in these companies.
In Chanda's defence, one can always say, why would the Videocon Group take care of her husband as a quid pro quo to get a loan? After all, the group has taken money from the entire banking industry and ICICI Bank's share in the pie is not even 10 per cent. So, if it had a quid pro quo with Chanda to get the money, it must have had similar arrangements with other banks, too. If this is not the case, one must accept that it had got money from all banks, including ICICI, without any under-the-table conditions, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances