Key stock indices Sensex and Nifty declined over 1 per cent at close on Monday due to heavy selling in banking, auto and FMCG shares amid weak global market trends and continued foreign fund outflows. Reversing its previous session's gains, benchmark BSE Sensex tumbled 638.11 points or 1.11 per cent to settle at 56,788.81. During the day, it tanked 743.52 points or 1.29 per cent to 56,683.40. The broader NSE Nifty fell by 207 points or 1.21 per cent to end at 16,887.35 as 42 of its constituents declined.
The bull run in the Indian equity markets is intact, said analysts at Morgan Stanley in a recent note. They expect the S&P BSE Sensex to hit 80,000 levels by December 2023 in their bull-case scenario, to which they have assigned a 30 per cent probability. From the current level, this translates into an upside of nearly 29 per cent.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday slashed India's growth forecast for 2022-23 (FY23) by 80 basis points to 7.4 per cent, citing less favourable external conditions and rapid policy tightening by the central bank. In its update to the April World Economic Outlook, the IMF said that though a global recession in 2022 was ruled out with a growth estimate of 3.2 per cent, the balance of risks was squarely to the downside, driven by a wide range of factors that could adversely affect the global economic performance. "The risk of recession is particularly prominent in 2023, when in several economies growth is expected to bottom out, household savings accumulated during the pandemic will have declined, and even small shocks could cause economies to stall.
Fitch Ratings has cut India's economic growth forecast to 8.7 per cent for the current fiscal but raised GDP growth projection for FY23 to 10 per cent, saying the second COVID-19 wave delayed rather than derail the economic recovery. In its APAC Sovereign Credit Overview, Fitch Ratings said India's 'BBB-/Negative' sovereign rating "balances a still-strong medium-term growth outlook and external resilience from solid foreign- reserve buffers, against high public debt, a weak financial sector and some lagging structural factors". The 'Negative' outlook, it said, reflects uncertainty over the debt trajectory following the sharp deterioration in India's public finances due to the pandemic shock.
Launches of new homes reduced drastically this year.
Investors have scaled back their allocation to equities as pessimism has reached "dire" levels due to cloudy economic outlook, according to the latest Bank of America (BofA) monthly global fund manager survey that covered nearly 300 money managers with combined assets of $800 billion. The survey showed that the expectations for global growth and profits are at all-time lows and cash levels are at highest since the 9/11 attacks. Interest rate hikes by central banks, the unwinding of an easy monetary regime, disruptions in global supply chains, and fears of recession have heightened market volatility since the beginning of the year.
India Inc resorted to salary cuts to protect their profits in the June quarter, as revenues came under pressure due to the second pandemic wave that affected nearly the entire country, a report said on Wednesday. The "weak" wage growth will prove to be a drag on the overall economic recovery in the medium term as it will affect household consumption, the report by India Ratings and Research said. An environment of pandemic-led uncertainty and elevated inflation could impact the level of spending and hence the overall demand, it said.
A recent survey discovered that Bengaluru has some of the classiest high streets in our country.
Consumer stocks remain the biggest laggard on the bourses. The Nify50 weighting of FMCG stocks declined to a decade low of 9.9 per cent at the end of March this year, down 150 basis points from 11.4 per cent a year ago. At their peak in March 2013, major FMCG stocks, such as Hindustan Unilever, ITC, and Asian Paints, together accounted for 15 per cent of the Nifty50. But now together with automobile stocks, the consumer goods sector accounts for only 14.7 per cent of the index, down 200 basis points in the past 12 months and 37 per cent from the record high weighting of 23.4 per cent at the end of March 2014.
HDFC Bank Q4 review: HDFC Bank's January-March quarter (Q4) results, for financial year 2022-23 (FY23), brought no cheer to investors as elevated costs, and merger-related uncertainties continue to dent the sentiment. Moreover, analysts fear that merger-related costs may put pressure on margins and cost to income ratio in the near-term, while the return on equity could moderate owing to low leverage of the parent. Analysts, therefore, opine that the stock's re-rating may be some time away. "While the risk of a de-rating on a standalone basis appears to be quite low given that the business performance is holding up well, we believe a re-rating in the stock would happen as and when more clarity emerges on the smooth transition (merger)," said a report by Sharekhan.
Fitch Solutions on Thursday said the new climate targets announced at the COP26 summit by Prime minister Narendra Modi pose an upside risk to its outlook for renewable growth in the country. With the new targets, it expected to see attempts to alleviate the issues regarding supply chains, manufacturing and project development that have long plagued renewable proliferation.
The recovery in the job market is still miles away as more redundancies and fall in hiring intentions in the public sector are expected even though the economy has come out of recession, says a survey.
Shares of IT major Infosys tanked 9 per cent on Thursday as the company expects sluggish growth in the January-March quarter due to muted spending by clients, especially in the retail sector.
Government's focus on infrastructure is the biggest positive for the Indian economy, followed by the improvement in tax collections and good consumption recovery.
Fuelled by the $57.8-billion merger of HDFC twins (HDFC Ltd and HDFC Bank), M&A (merger and acquisition) transactions in India touched a record high of $124.2 billion in the first half of 2022-23. Bankers said with several transactions, including the government's stake sale in IDBI Bank and Hindustan Zinc in the pipeline, the ongoing financial year will end up as the best year for M&A activity in the country. Apart from the HDFC transaction, the $6.5-billion acquisition of Holcim stake by the Adani family and L&T's $3.2-billion acquisition of Mindtree added to the record transactions in the first half of FY23.
Increase in tax exemption limit by Rs 50000 is positive for the FMCG sector, as it will leave more discretionary income in the hands of consumers.
Import duty on PVC, at 7.5%, is far lower than that prevailing in comparable economies.
Many investors want to exit equities now and re-enter when they begin to rise. Such timing is difficult to pull off.
Six years after the rollout of the biggest indirect tax reform in India, Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue of Rs 1.5 lakh crore every month has become a new normal and tax officers are focusing on dealing with fraudsters who are adopting newer modus operandi to game the system, causing loss to the exchequer. To apprehend black sheep, who operate as syndicates and create fake entities on the basis of forged documents to claim input tax credit (ITC), tax officers have started using data analytics, artifical intelligence and machine learning aiming to curb evasion, which was over Rs 3 lakh crore since inception of GST. It was over Rs 1 lakh crore in 2022-23. Thinktank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said the most critical pending GST reform is upgradation of GST Network to prevent fake supplies and fraudulent claims of Input Tax Credit (ITC).
The dollar moved higher, while prices for US government debt fell, as traders ramped up bets the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates in March
Re-instatement of 5% custom duty on crude imports will help.
In an open letter, they appealed to her to convey their concerns to the Union government and caution them that the attempt to change the character of the civil services is fraught with extreme danger and will 'spell the death of the constitutional government in India'.
As per a Knight Frank FICCI Naredco report, a majority 69% of the stakeholders say that the residential sales will remain tepid or may even go down further in the coming six months.
Facebook's parent company Meta announced on Tuesday it will fire another 10,000 people, implementing a second round of jobs cuts after it slashed 11,000 positions in November last year, to improve its financial performance in a "difficult environment". Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a post that overall "we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven't yet hired." The company has said that in its "Year of Efficiency", the company aims to make itself "a better technology company and to improve our financial performance in a difficult environment so we can execute our long-term vision."
'It will be best for investors to have a systematic investment plan in mid-cap and small-cap funds with a three-/five-year horizon.'
Accelerating inequality, the market dominance of tech platforms and remote working are likely to be the longest-lasting legacies of the COVID-19 crisis, the WEF said in a report on Monday. Releasing its Chief Economists Outlook report during the online Davos Agenda Summit, the WEF said that beyond managing the pandemic and vaccine rollout, these trends could shape a new era of fiscal, monetary, and competition policy. Deglobalisation is seen as the least likely of the current trends to continue in the longer term; particularly as international coordination is key to resolving global challenges such as vaccine manufacturing and distribution.
2023 could be another volatile year for Indian equity markets, according to BofA. In a report, the brokerage pointed out that the Nifty50, at present, is trading at 20.7x against its long-term average of 18.8x one-year forward earnings of current Nifty constituents. Plus, India is trading at a 98 per cent premium to its emerging market (EM) peers against its long-term average of 45 per cent.
Month-on-month stats show industrial output shrank 4 times till Oct in 2011-12.
'Calendar year 2023 is going to be big as pessimism takes a back seat.'
India's economy continues to be robust, but downside risks such as rising crude oil prices, adverse weather conditions, and the global banking crisis outweigh the upside potential in gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the current financial year (FY24), the finance ministry said on Tuesday in its Monthly Economic Review for March. "We reiterate that downside risks to our official forecast of 6.5 per cent for real GDP growth in FY24 dominate upside risks," the review said. "Opec's surprise production cut has seen oil prices rise in April, off their lows of low-seventies per barrel in March.
Indian employers report positive hiring plans for third quarter in 2012. With 55 per cent of employers expecting to increase staffing levels, 2 per cent forecast a decrease and 32 per cent anticipate no change, according to the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.
