It was touted as a game changer but big-ticket privatisation has been a mixed bag as the government faces unanticipated challenges of lukewarm investor response, employee union agitation and legal hurdles. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's often-repeated statement 'the government has no business to be in business' guided the drawing up of an ambitious privatisation pipeline. While Air India sale succeeded, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) divestment failed.
'LIC's proposed investment will come out of what is technically called the 'policyholders funds'.' 'As the name implies, these monies belong to policyholders; that is, you, me and 25 crore others who have taken a total of 30 crore policies from LIC.' 'It is not the government's or LIC's money to play poker with,' says S Muralidharan, former managing director, BNP Paribas.
The S&P BSE Sensex shed 42 points to close at 25,838 and the Nifty50 lost 13 points to end at 7,899.
The challenges before the government, he said, is to put public sector banks back on track and continue to operationalise stalled infrastructure projects
A joint forum of central trade unions has given a call for a nationwide strike on March 28 and 29, to protest against government policies affecting workers, farmers, and people. The Joint Platform of central trade unions held a meeting in Delhi on March 22, 2022, to take stock of the preparations in various states and sectors for the proposed two-day all India strike on 28-29 March 2022 against "the anti-worker, anti-farmer, anti-people and anti-national policies" of the central government, a statement said. The statement said that roadways, transport workers and electricity workers have decided to join the strike in spite of the impending threat of ESMA (Haryana and Chandigarh, respectively). Financial sectors, including banking and insurance, are joining the strike, it stated.
The broader NSE Nifty gained 22 points to 10,480.60
'Periods of high volatility are usually bad for mid-caps and this is something that has to be kept in mind.' 'Focus on quality is of paramount importance.'
This comes even after the Indian ambassador there had said this would affect the interests of other Indian companies.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday presented the Union Budget for 2016-17.
The global brokerage firm believes that CRR cut is likely to help cut lending rates and revive growth sentiments.
Nifty snaps 10-day winning streak
Stocks of Indian companies with exposure to Europe fell on Tuesday amid concerns about the impact on their sales in case the Russia-Ukraine crisis worsens and the US and its allies impose economic sanctions on Russia. While top conglomerates, including Reliance Industries, the Tata group, and Aditya Birla Group, said they did not have any significant exposure to Russia, executives of some of the oil and gas, pharmaceutical, and tea companies said they were monitoring the situation closely as they earned substantial income from the region. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered troops into two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine after announcing that Russia would recognise their independence.
'The slide in growth has arisen primarily because we have an NBFC crisis on top of a banking crisis,' points out T T Ram Mohan.
On the sectoral map, consumer durables stayed in the lead by surging 2.39 per cent, followed by realty index, oil and gas and infra.
Net investments in active equity mutual fund (MF) schemes rose to Rs 7,300 crore in December after declining to a 21-month low of Rs 2,260 crore in November, shows the latest data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi). The rebound in net inflows was driven by a surge in investments and moderation in redemptions. While the inflows into these schemes rose 5 per cent month-on-month (MoM) in December, the redemptions were 14 per cent lower compared to November.
Rate sensitive sectors rallied the most led by banks while metals surged on rebound in commodity prices
Bajaj Auto was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, surging 3.95 per cent followed by Maruti Suzuki at 2.69 per cent.
Automobile dealers' body FADA said the Budget lacked immediate demand boosters for the automobile industry.
Liquidity issues post the crisis at DHFL, progress of monsoon, rupee trajectory at the domestic level and oil prices are some factors that will keep markets choppy, analysts say.
Independent directors of Future Retail Ltd are collating information and will expose the details of contradiction and misrepresentation made by Amazon before the Competition Commission of India (CCI), said FRL independent director Ravindra Dhariwal. Speaking to PTI, Dhariwal said the independent directors are "collating" all the pieces of information together, going "deeper into each and every representation" which Amazon had made before the CCI and showing how its "intent was totally contradictory." "We are going out to point exactly to CCI, this is what they have told you and this is what the internal documents are saying. "We are going to expose the details of contradiction and details of misrepresentation, which they have made," Dhariwal said adding "We are going to show the true face of Amazon to the whole world". In November 2019, Amazon had acquired a 49 per cent stake in Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL), a company that holds a stake in FRL.
The BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices outperformed to gain 0.6% and 1.1%, respectively
The S&P BSE Midcap and the S&P BSE Smallcap indices under-performed to lose 0.8% and 1.6%
Among Sensex constituents, HCL Tech suffered the most by diving 2.26 per cent, followed by HDFC shedding 2.10 per cent.
Bharti Airtel , RCom and Tata Communications ended down between 0.1-1%.
'...Rs 137 lakh crores of people's money?' 'It is not the government's money, it is people's money.'
It was an extremely volatile session, borne out by the Sensex swinging over 1,200 points through the day and the Nifty 369 points.
Earlier, the Reserve Bank of India was the approving authority.
Also says PSU banks divestment to be considered after improvement in governance
The Budget, to be presented on February 1, is likely to be less worried about fiscal deficit and will be focused more on nursing the fragile growth, according to a Wall Street brokerage report. Bank of America Securities India expects the budget to peg "fiscal deficit at a high 5 per cent of GDP for FY22 and 7.2 per cent for FY21, as it is likely to step up capex, recap public sector banks, push asset sales to break government monopolies, offer sops for real estate, tax cuts for lower income groups and creation of a bad bank". Its house economists expect these spends to be funded by debt and partly by imposing a cess on high income groups and also by some non-fiscal measures like tapping the central bank's revaluation reserves and bank recapitalisation and infra bonds.
'Money that came into mutual funds near the previous peaks -- the second half of 2017 and 2018 -- has in most cases experienced unflattering returns.' 'A large proportion of redemptions could be such inflows exiting when the market recovered sharply from July 2020 onwards.'
"A very easy solution to suggest is tax-payers must pay because the private sector has defaulted," Jaitley said, adding that bank recapitalisation, where the government puts in more capital in public sector banks to shore up their books, effectively amounted to that. "Therefore, I think let's try and make the private sector pay for their debts or allow somebody else to step in."
Mihir Tanna, Associate Director, S K Patodia & Associates, answers your tax queries.
A fall presents an opportunity to buy rate-sensitive stocks.
P Chidambaram says all options are on the table.
TMFs invest in a public index, so investors know beforehand which instruments the fund will invest in.
Indeed, this is one policy area where the Modi-led government is different from the one that was headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The Sensex closed higher by 170 points at 26,128 and the Nifty rose 59 points to end at 7,943.
Top gainers among the S&P BSE Sensex include GAIL, Dr Reddy's Laboratories and Bharti Airtel, all edging up by 1% in late morning deals
But the 30-share Sensex rose by 141.52 points, or 0.41 per cent, to close at 34,297.47. The broader NSE Nifty gained 44.60- points, or 0.42 per cent, to end at 10,545.50 after touching a high of 10,618.10.
Oil tanked to a 7-year low as OPEC decided to maintain production.
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