Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 9 per cent rise in its December quarter net profit as a planned maintenance-induced weakness in oil business earnings was offset by stability in retail and telecom verticals. The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate's consolidated net profit of Rs 17,265 crore, or Rs 25.52 per share, in October-December - the third quarter of the current 2023-24 fiscal - was 9.3 per cent higher than Rs 15,792 crore, or Rs 23.19 a share, earning a year back, according to a company statement. Quarter-on-quarter, the profit was lower when compared to Rs 17,394 crore earnings in the preceding three months ended September 30.
'Investors with higher risk appetite and longer horizon (more than one year) can invest in longer-duration funds like corporate bond funds, long-duration funds and gilt funds for maximum gain.'
While some states have kicked in their heat action plans, experts feel this is not enough to tackle the current extreme weather.
What's different this time is that global financial stress -- which has its genesis in four policy choices made in recent years -- is juxtaposed with a more resilient real economy, observes Sajjid Z Chinoy, chief India economist at J P Morgan.
Hindustan Unilever Ltd on Thursday reported a 6.9 per cent rise in consolidated profit after tax at Rs 2,556 crore in the first quarter ended June 30, 2023, riding on a gradual recovery in the FMCG industry despite operating in challenging environment. The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 2,391 crore in the same quarter last fiscal, Hindustan Unilever Ltd said in a regulatory filing. Consolidated total income in the first quarter stood at Rs 15,679 crore as against Rs 14,757 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.
The Colgate-Palmolive (India) stock gained 2.3 per cent in trade on Friday, and ended at Rs 2,079 per share. This was on the back of a robust operating performance in the July-September quarter of 2023-24 (Q2FY24) and expectations of gradual sales recovery going ahead. While the stock is up 44 per cent from its lows in January this year, further gains will depend on its ability to sustain higher growth rates.
A plea that the banking regulator's stress should be on the strategic role of boards and an increase in the remuneration of independent directors were among the issues put forward to the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) top brass in its interaction with the full boards of state-run banks held on Monday. The meeting, the first leg of first-of-its-kind interactions with the boards of state-run banks, will now be followed by those of private banks in Mumbai on May 29. The RBI's press release, issued late on Monday, did not refer to the specific points that found mention in the deliberations, but top sources told Business Standard the twin concerns were taken up in the open-house interaction with the banking regulator's brass.
Diwali fireworks are expected to continue on Dalal Street next week, with four companies collectively seeking to mobilise over Rs 6,600 crore through initial public offerings (IPOs). In terms of the amount raised, this is poised to be the busiest week of calendar year 2023. Tata Technologies (Tata Tech), a subsidiary of Tata Motors, could lead the charge with an IPO projected to be over Rs 2,900 crore. This will mark the first maiden share sale by a Tata Group firm in nearly two decades.
Tokyo -- the songs Japan, Love In Tokyo and Sayonara from the 1966 Hindi film automatically pop up in the mind -- is buzzing and crowded like any other metropolis, discovers Deepa Gahlot. The modern apartment blocks are built cheek by jowl, so close together that one can open the window and borrow sugar from the neighbour in the next building. One of the fears of the Indian traveller is the unavailability of vegetarian food. Every city and town in Japan has an array of Indian restaurants that serve every variety of cuisine, right from Gujarati to Punjabi to Andhra and Kerala meals.
Hindustan Unilever Ltd on Friday reported a 1.08 per cent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 2,508 crore in the third quarter ended December 2023. The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 2,481 crore in the same quarter last fiscal, Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) said in a regulatory filing. Its revenue from sales of products was marginally down to Rs 15,259 crore during the quarter.
End users should take the plunge despite higher home loan rates as these tend to be cyclical.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said India and China will account for half of the global economic growth in 2023, as the multilateral agency retained its growth forecast for Asia's third-largest economy for 2023-24 (FY24). "India remains a bright spot. Together with China, it will account for half of global growth this year, versus just a tenth for the US and euro area combined," the IMF said in its latest update to the biannual World Economic Outlook. Growth in India is set to decline from 6.8 per cent in 2022 (FY23) to 6.1 per cent in 2023 (FY24) before picking up to 6.8 per cent in 2024 (FY25), the global lender said while citing "resilient domestic demand despite external headwinds".
India's manufacturing sector activity moderated in January amid slower increase in total sales, and headcounts were broadly unchanged amid sufficient staff numbers to cope with current requirements, according to a monthly survey. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell from December's recent high of 57.8 to 55.4 in January, as factory orders and production rose at sharp, albeit slower, rate. The January PMI data pointed to an improvement in overall operating conditions for the 19th straight month.
Demand bounces back but uncertainty over GST rate for jewellery casts a shadow over future.
The sale of mid-segment homes in India has overtaken affordable ones in the first half of calendar year (CY) 2023, a report released on Tuesday showed. It is despite the increase in residential prices in all the major cities in India. The share of premium homes has also gone up during the period.
Auto mobile retail sales in India witnessed a 10 per cent annual growth in July driven by robust sales across passenger vehicles, two-wheelers and commercial vehicles, industry body FADA said on Monday. Total retail sales across segments rose to 17,70,181 units last month, as compared to 16,09,217 units in July 2022. Passenger vehicle sales saw an increase of 4 per cent to 284,064 units last month, as compared to 273,055 units in the year-ago period, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) said in a statement.
The Street's optimism on India's largest listed automotive maker by market capitalisation is not misplaced, given the robust wholesale performance in recent months and the strong 2023-24 (FY24) October-December (Q3) results.
'With China falling out of favour, India is where investors see the demographic and digital dividend apart from the benefits of reforms playing out.' 'Your prime minister has also done a great job of sharing this story with the world.'
India's services sector growth accelerated in April, as strong demand conditions resulted in the fastest increase in new business and output in close to 13 years, a monthly survey said on Wednesday. The pick-up in demand occurred in spite of escalating price pressures. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Services PMI Business Activity Index rose from 57.8 in March to 62.0 in April, signalling the fastest expansion in output since mid 2010, amid a pick-up in new business growth and favourable market conditions.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Tuesday that India's general government debt (comprising both central and state government debt) could exceed 100 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the medium term. It also cautioned that long-term debt sustainability risks are high due to the significant investment required to meet India's climate change mitigation targets. The Indian government, however, disagreed, arguing that risks from sovereign debt are extremely limited as it is predominantly denominated in domestic currency.
Modi said New Delhi has emphasised on dialogue and diplomacy along with restraint to deal with the situation arising out of the Hamas-Israel conflict.
GDP growth of 7.7 per cent in the first half of this fiscal has "left sceptics gasping and woefully behind the curve", an RBI article said on Wednesday. It also stressed the buildup in the growth momentum is likely to be sustained. The article on the state of the economy published in the Reserve Bank's December Bulletin on Wednesday also said CPI-based retail inflation is expected to ease to 4.6 per cent in the first three quarters of 2024-25 from 5.6 per cent in November.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 27 per cent jump in its September quarter net profit as earnings from the oil and gas business rebounded, and a pick-up in fashion and grocery helped boost retail revenues. The oil-to-retail-to-telecom conglomerate's consolidated net profit of Rs 17,394 crore, or Rs 25.71 per share, in July-September - the second quarter of the current 2023-24 fiscal - was 27.3 per cent higher than Rs 13,656 crore, or Rs 19.92 a share, earning a year back, the company said in a statement. The net profit was also higher quarter-on-quarter compared to Rs 16,011 crore earnings in the preceding three months ended June 30.
Equity benchmarks started the first day of trade of the New Year on a positive note and ended with smart gains, propelled by buying in index majors Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank amid a firm trend in European markets. The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 327.05 points or 0.54 per cent to settle at 61,167.79 on Monday. During the day, it jumped 382.05 points or 0.62 per cent to 61,222.79.
His comments evoked sharp criticism following which it was deleted.
Fitch Ratings on Tuesday affirmed India's sovereign credit rating at 'BBB-' with a stable outlook, saying the rating derives strengths from the country's robust growth outlook and still-resilient external finances. It said India's robust medium-term growth outlook is a key supporting factor for the rating. A clear improvement in corporate and bank balance sheets, which were under strain prior to the pandemic, is likely to facilitate a steady acceleration in investment in the coming years.
At a time when climate change poses significant challenges and the need for sustainable and efficient farming practices has never been more critical, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) allow farmers to gain a bird's-eye view of their crops from ground level. Drones have become a new force in precision agriculture, helping increase productivity while prioritising sustainability and resilience. Fertiliser major IFFCO is exploring this very transformative power of technology in agriculture.
Strong macroeconomic headwinds causing turbulence in the $245-billion Indian IT industry are yet to calm down. Top Indian IT services companies are likely to post a decline or just marginal growth in sequential revenue in Q1FY24 because of a soft discretionary spending environment. Though the first quarter is seasonally strong for IT firms, "June 2023 will be an exception", according to analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities.
India appears poised to sustain its growth in a more durable way than before with the economy carrying the momentum from FY23 into the current fiscal year, the Annual Economic Review for 2022-23 released by the finance ministry on Thursday said. However, the report cautioned that escalation of geopolitical stress, enhanced volatility in global financial systems, sharp price correction in global stock markets, a high magnitude of El-Nino impact, and modest trade activity and FDI inflows, are factors that could constrain the pace of growth. "Should these developments deepen and dampen growth in the subsequent quarters, the external sector may challenge India's growth outlook for FY24," the finance ministry said.
Moody's Investors Service on Friday affirmed India's rating at the lowest investment grade of 'Baa3', with a stable outlook, saying high growth will support a gradual increase in income levels, but flagged risks of populist policies due to rise in political tensions. Moody's said although India's potential growth has come down in the past 7-10 years, the growth would outpace all other G20 economies through at least the next two years, driven by domestic demand. Moody's said the restoration of robust growth prospects post-pandemic, the effective commitment to inflation targeting and the rehabilitation of the financial system aided by reform supports its view of strengthening monetary and macro policy effectiveness.
The seasonally adjusted IHS Markit India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell from 58.9 in October to a three-month low of 56.3 in November, indicating that the manufacturing sector growth remained strong, despite losing traction.
'India did really well under Kohli and Ravi Shastri, India played with a fearless attitude and showed guts in England and Australia.'
The migration of domestically developed intellectual property to foreign corporations within India reflects an anomaly in the demand pattern of the country's job market, points out Kanika Datta.
Rating agencies Crisil and Icra on Monday revised down their India growth projections for the current fiscal and the second quarter mainly due to the ripple effect of slowdown in global growth and mixed crop output. Crisil downgraded the India growth forecast by 30 bps to 7 per cent while Icra pegged the economic expansion at 6.5 per cent for the second quarter of FY2022-23. "We have revised down our forecast for real gross domestic product growth to 7 per cent for fiscal 2023 from 7.3 per cent, primarily because of the slowdown in global growth that has started to impact our exports and industrial activity.
The tea industry's cup of woes brimmeth - scanty rainfall and pest attacks have dragged down production in May, prices are lower than last year, and demand from some export markets is muted. Production in North Bengal - comprising the Dooars, Terai, and Darjeeling - is majorly affected; parts of Assam are also hit. Arijit Raha, secretary general, Indian Tea Association (ITA), said that the Tea Board numbers for April show a crop loss of about 9 per cent for North Bengal, compared to last year.
In 2017, a retired R&AW officer conveyed that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was keen to get monarchy restored in Nepal and suggested that I support these efforts.
'The last year's growth is a foretaste of things to come in the retail credit market.'
The IMF on Tuesday projected a growth rate of 6.1 per cent for India in 2023, which is a 0.2 percentage point upward revision compared with the April projection. This is reflective of the "momentum" from stronger-than-expected growth in the fourth quarter of 2022 as a result of stronger domestic investment, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said. "Growth in India is projected at 6.1 per cent in 2023, a 0.2 percentage point upward revision compared with the April projection," it said in its latest update of the World Economic Outlook.
Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) chairman Bibek Debroy on Tuesday said the government was losing revenue due to the GST, which should be revenue neutral with a single rate. Speaking at an event organised by the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata, he however said that GST has led to a lot of simplification. "The ideal GST is one that has a single rate, and it was meant to be revenue neutral.
'India is an equity market with a breadth and depth of companies to invest in.'
