'Flush with funds, lending became a cash management exercise.' 'Road projects, power generation plants, airports etc were financed left and right with apparently no regard for the projects' ability to repay,' explains S Muralidharan, former managing director, BNP Paribas.
The target of mopping up Rs 1.75 lakh crore from divestments of some of the public sector companies, including LIC and BPCL during the current fiscal, is on track and groundwork is being prepared for the goal, Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said on Monday. On the COVID-19 pandemic, Subramanian said the impact of the second wave is lesser than that of the first one. In an interactive session, organised by Federation of Telangana Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the CEA said robust GST collections, over Rs one lakh crore per month for eight months in a row shows that consumption is picking up indicating positive signal for growth.
Invest only if you wish to go overweight on the sector.
Nifty PSU Bank index gained 1% led by Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, Syndicate Bank and IDBI Bank
From the Sensex pack, NTPC, Tata Motors, Larsen & Toubro, Bajaj Finserv, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, Titan, Power Grid and State Bank of India were the major gainers. ITC, UltraTech Cement, Tech Mahindra, Tata Steel, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services and JSW Steel were among the laggards.
UltraTech Cement was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising around 3 per cent, followed by TCS, Reliance Industries, HCL Tech, Infosys and Kotak Bank. Nifty rose for the sixth consecutive day, up 37.20 points or 0.28 per cent to 13,392.95.
The 50-component Nifty closed at 10,214.75, a solid gain of 96.70 points, or 0.96 per cent
The benchmark BSE Sensex reclaimed the 28,000 mark, spurting by 409 points or 1.4% at 28,114 and Nifty settled above the 8,500 mark at 8,532, gains of 111 points.
rediffGURU Vivek Lala answers your income tax and personal finance queries.
Among the assets in question include the Force India and Indian Empress super-yacht - which was fitted with an Elton John piano around 2015, a fleet of high-value cars and some artwork from Mallya's Ladywalk property in the English village of Tewin in Hertfordshire.
Indices across Indian equity markets have edged towards new record highs before undergoing a small correction in the past few sessions. The National Stock Exchange Nifty has gained 20 per cent in the past year; mid-caps (up 33 per cent), small-caps (up 31 per cent), and micro-caps (up 44 per cent) have done better. Several factors have precipitated this rally.
While prices sustaining lower levels is crucial, Govt actions are also a key monitorable given the forthcoming elections in 2024.
The share of listed public sector undertakings (PSUs) in the overall market capitalisation has hit a three-year high of 11.4 per cent. This comes on the back of the sharp outperformance of the PSU pack over the past two years. In 2021 and 2022, the BSE PSU index gained 41 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively. Market participants said a combination of factors like value buying and bullishness, particularly in public sector banks (PSBs), were the reason for the improved prospects.
UV Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd has made the highest bid of Rs 16,000 crore to buy Anil Ambani group's Reliance Communications and Reliance Telecom, which are in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Last year it was the highest bidder for taking over Aircel's assets for an upfront payment of Rs 150 crore. Surajeet Das Gupta and Dev Chatterjee dig deeper to find out more about this little known company.
According to advance estimates of the Central Statistical Organisation, the Indian economy is likely to grow at 7.1 per cent in the current fiscal, against 9 per cent a year earlier. Despite slowdown, the numbers are well in line with what the government, RBI and prime minister's economic panel have been projecting.
Discarding a weak economic growth number, markets today rose for the fourth straight day with BSE Sensex gaining 169 points to close at a new 19-month high on hopes of imminent rate cut to revive the slowing economy.
Reliance Industries Limited was leading the chart of the top-10 valued domestic companies, followed by Tata Consultancy Services, HDFC Bank, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever Limited, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, State Bank of India and Bajaj Finance Limited.
Home and auto loans are likely to become more cheaper with several PSU banks promising to revise their lending rates if RBI eases its monetary policy on Saturday.
The idea is to do away with the need for the approval of the Core Group of Secretaries on Divestment for privatisation of companies, especially in non-strategic sectors.
Buoyed by better than expected economic growth last fiscal, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday expressed hope that the economy, spurred by fiscal and monetary stimulus packages, would turn around soon.
Public sector banks, including the country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI), have come out with a templated approach for restructuring retail and small business loans of up to Rs 25 crore under the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Covid restructuring package 2.0. They have also come out with standardised products to make funds available to business entities for improving healthcare infrastructure and to individuals for meeting Covid treatment expenses. Business loans have been divided into three categories.
The S&P BSE Midcap and S&P BSE Smallcap indices gained 0.4% and 1%, respectively
'Today, three areas give banks a big headache -- steel, power, infrastructure.' 'Three Cs are very critical in lending -- character, capacity and collateral of the borrower.'
Infosys was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, jumping over 4 per cent, followed by Tech Mahindra, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, ITC, Maruti, SBI and Axis Bank. On the other hand, HCL Tech, M&M, Dr Reddy's, Asian Paints, Bajaj Auto and Bharti Airtel were among the laggards.
Bharti Airtel was the top loser in the Sensex pack, dropping 4.34 per cent, followed by PowerGrid (2.26 per cent), Sun Pharma (1.75 per cent), M&M (1.67 per cent) and TCS (1.60 per cent).
The state-owned carrier Indian has finally made its way into the e-ticketing club.
The present consolidation can be used to buy into some fundamentally good blue chips including select PSU banks that have lagged the general market, says Sonali Ranade
The government's 4 per cent stake sale in Hindustan Copper was on Friday over-subscribed, marking the start of ambitious Rs 30,000-crore (Rs 300 billion) disinvestment programme that is crucial for meeting the fiscal deficit target.
Banking stocks dipped with Nifty PSU Bank index falling 1.7% after the government notified the ordinance that seeks to tackle non-performing loans in the sector.
From the Sensex pack, Larsen & Toubro jumped 4.26 per cent to emerge as the biggest gainer, followed by IndusInd Bank, Tech Mahindra, State Bank of India, HCL Technologies, Power Grid, NTPC, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank and Wipro. Mahindra & Mahindra, Infosys, UltraTech Cement and Hindustan Unilever were the major laggards.
The rupee declined by 18 paise to 55.44 against the dollar in early trade on Friday, snapping four sessions of gains, at the Interbank Foreign Exchange on fresh demand for the American currency.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram will meet bankers on June 3 to review operations of banks, firm up next generation banking reforms and set targets for credit flow to sustain 7 per cent growth in economy.
Most brokerages have maintained their Sensex and Nifty targets as they believe there is little room for further re-rating in the backdrop of weak earnings.
In the last two months, these stocks have lost nearly a quarter of their market cap.
The gross non-performing assets of public sector banks rose to 6.03% at the end of June.
Dr Reddy's was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding around 2 per cent, followed by Reliance Industries, Sun Pharma, HDFC twins, Infosys, M&M and PowerGrid. NSE Nifty slumped 137.65 points to 14,496.50.
