Till July 26, kharif crops have been sown in around 68.87 million hectares, which is 6.43 per cent lower than the area covered during the same period last year.
Omkeshwar Singh, Head, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
From January 1, 2021 to September 9, 2024 -- during which Joe Root hit 17 centuries, Kane Williamson has hit, Steve Smith has made six tons but Virat Kohli has managed just two centuries.
Retail investors now own a bigger slice of smallcap companies than at the start of 2023-24 (FY24), underscoring their growing conviction about investing in this red-hot space. Data from Capitaline shows mutual funds' (MFs') average holding in the National Stock Exchange Nifty Smallcap 250 rising to 9.26 per cent from 8.67 per cent during the first six months of FY24, with the number of companies with over 20 per cent MF holdings increasing from 24 to 28. In comparison, MF holdings in Nifty50 companies have gone up only marginally, from 9.67 per cent to 9.75 per cent.
'Historically, equities have consistently outperformed debt, gold, property, and other assets over a reasonable period.'
People in full-time jobs should especially avoid intraday trading as it results in loss of focus and affects performance.
There is nothing to be worried about as bilateral ties are robust with solid foundations. Both are on the same page on the economic and defence/security ties bilaterally and globally and that shall continue irrespective of change in political dispensation in either country, points out Dr Rajaram Panda.
Bharti Airtel on Monday posted a 54 per cent jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 2,442.2 crore in the December quarter, mainly on account of growth in high value customers. Airtel prepaid mobile customers are required to pay at least Rs 155 for about a month-long service as the company had raised rates by 56 per cent in January 2023. Bharti Airtel managing director Gopal Vittal has indicated a need for further increase in mobile services rates.
However, the areas under paddy - the biggest cereal grown during the kharif season - continue to be less than last year, mainly due to delayed onset of rains and also on account of shift towards the more lucrative maize.
Ramalingam Kalirajan explains the pros and cons of both investment types.
Till June 30, the southwest monsoon was 33 per cent lower than normal, which is among the worst in the last five years, with 28 of the 36 meteorological divisions recording deficient rain.
...But sales of domestic passenger vehicles dropped 2% to 3% year-on-year in August owing to low demand.
While weather forecasters remain divided on how the monsoons will play out in India over the next few months, analysts believe the news at the current juncture - at best - can trigger a knee-jerk reaction in the markets. They believe it is too early to say whether the sub-par monsoon on account of El Nino can seriously dent the market sentiment in the short-to-medium term. "These are just initial forecasts and we will have another round / status update from the weather forecasters a month down the line.
Two days back, around 25 bodies were cremated simultaneously on wood pyres at night in a crematorium in Umra area of Surat city.
This year, the monsoon was above normal in almost all parts, except in North-West India, which comprises the major grain producing states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, along with states such as Himachal Pradesh, the NCR, Uttarakhand, and J&K.
The southwest monsoon might finally start withdrawing from parts of North-West India over the next three days, signaling the end of its four-month journey over the country that started in June, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. However, though the retreat might begin from next week, the rains might not descend quickly, as the met department predicted fresh spells of rains in Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh and east MP on September 21-22 and over Odisha, Coastal areas north Andhra Pradesh and Gangetic West Bengal on September 19-21. "Due to anti-cyclonic flows over northwest India at lower tropospheric levels, dry weather is very likely over west Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi during the next five days. "Hence conditions are becoming favourable for the withdrawal of Southwest Monsoon from parts of northwest India during next three days," the IMD said.
'India's fundamentals are a lot better (than those of other emerging market economies).' 'India will suffer (witness a fall in its stock market) what I call the second order effect.' 'And the second order will happen when these funds (belonging to macro and hedge fund investors and which have leveraged Japanese yen-carry trades), because they lose money elsewhere as lot of their positions were financed by borrowing Japanese yen, will have to book profits in investment destinations where they are making money, including in markets like India.' 'They (these investors) will have to effectively sell in countries like India and which is the consequence (the crash in equity markets) that Indian markets might see.'
'It makes sense to have gold in one's portfolio keeping the political and economic risks of 2024 in mind.'
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The agency has kept its FY15 growth forecast unchanged at 5.6 per cent.
'If you see another 1000-point correction, people may start panicking.'
'This was earlier driven by industries and the commercial sector.'
rediffGURU Ramalingam Kalirajan answers your personal finance queries.
Corporate margins and profits in India remain vulnerable to changes in crude oil prices in the international market. Historical quarterly data from listed companies (excluding banks, finance and insurance, oil and gas, and power sectors) indicate an adverse correlation between corporate margins and crude oil prices.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh posed questions for the prime minister ahead of his rallies in Karnataka.
Rediff.com spoke to registered investment advisors to figure out how best the extra Rs 17,500 saved ever year can be invested to create a decent corpus in the years ahead. This is what they said.
The agriculture sector has witnessed feeble growth on account of drought for two successive years
Monsoon will be insufficient this year.
Tracking losses in the broader market that has seen the Nifty Smallcap 250 index and the Nifty Midcap 100 indices slip 9 per cent 6.1 per cent in the last three sessions, the frontline Nifty 50 index has remained resilient and registered a fall of 2.2 per cent during this period. Going ahead, can the nervousness in the mid- and small-cap universe spread to the large-cap peers? Most analysts do not think so. They expect a minor dip and a sharp recovery as investors flock to the large-caps in search of safety and value buying as the mid-and small-caps falter.
Indian engineering research and development (ER&D) players, such as Tata Technologies, Tata Elxsi, and Cyient, among others, had a subdued January-March quarter of 2023-24. The outlook for 2024-25 (FY25) also remains unexciting amid weak discretionary spending, prompting analysts to revise their growth expectations for the ongoing financial year (FY25).
Australia head coach Andrew McDonald on Saturday showered praise on David Warner and said that he is probably the greatest all-format Aussie player.
The film tires to present a socially relevant issue in a humorous manner, but sadly, the film fails to make any kind of impression.
'For experienced and risk-taking investors, now may be the time to go all in.' 'By 'experienced and risk-taking', I refer to those who remained net buyers in equities during the early stages of the 2020 pandemic.' 'On the other hand, those who exited the markets during the pandemic may go the SIP way.'
Notwithstanding the recent sharp decline in the stocks of public sector companies, analysts at Jefferies remain bullish on this segment. State Bank of India, Coal India, and NTPC are their top picks in this space, they said in a recent note. The public sector undertaking (PSU) or state-owned enterprise (SOE) index, with a 70-percentage-point outperformance versus the National Stock Exchange Nifty50 over the past 12 months, comes after a decade of underperformance before 2020.
Though early days, meteorologists point towards a neutral La Nina during the initial phase of the four-month monsoon season this year that starts from June. If this holds true, by the time the rains hit the mainland, it could mean there would be one less reason to worry about the prospects of the monsoon this year. Weathermen said making any accurate prediction of how El Nino will behave and what impact it can have on the progress and distribution of rains is difficult to say at this point. A clear picture will emerge around late May or early June.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Following alterations in the tax structure, mutual fund (MF) schemes that invest in overseas securities have experienced a sharp decline in inflows. In the first five months of 2023-24 (FY24), international MF schemes have received an average monthly gross inflow of only Rs 270 crore, compared to Rs 490 crore during the same period in the previous year. This decline persists despite nearly all fund houses opening subscriptions for such schemes, with higher redemptions creating headroom for fresh investments.
G P Sharma, President (Meteorology) of the Skymet Weather said the Long Period Average of the rainfall during June to September will be 103 per cent with an error margin of plus or minus 5 per cent.
The exercise, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said, will help ease any possible impact of sub-par rainfall on farmers.
Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) reported very strong results for the January-March quarter of the last financial year (Q4FY24), beating consensus comfortably. The margins of the automobile business improved 170 basis points (bps) year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to 8.8 per cent, while FES (Farm Equipment Sector) margins improved to 15.8 per cent (up 60 bps Y-o-Y), despite a decline in volumes due to cost optimisation and lower raw material costs.
'Although mid- and small-cap funds have the potential for higher growth, they come with inherent higher volatility.'
