A section of traders and hawkers today staged protests in various parts of the country against the government's decision on FDI policy in multi-brand retail, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said.
About 50,000 to 100,000 people - representing associations of farmers, traders, hawkers, and even chemists from all over India - will converge on Mumbai's Azad Maidan to demand that big corporations quit the retail business.
Among India's tech companies, education-associated start-ups are the worst affected, recording the maximum number of layoffs.
The demands from retailers are fourfold: One, allow kiranas, general trade stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets, and wholesalers to operate every day of the week till 9 pm. Two, ensure uniform and regular opening of all categories of retail. Three, hassle-free movement of goods and employees, and four, lift bans on malls in states like Maharashtra.
A buoyant equity market, coupled with an improved performance of mutual funds (MFs) on the returns chart, has heightened retail investors' appetite for equities. In the past few months, equity MF schemes have seen a surge in fresh investments through both lump sum (one-time investments) and systematic investment plan (SIP) routes. During the August-September 2023 period, equity MF schemes recorded net lump sum investments of Rs 35,270 crore, compared to just Rs 5,550 crore in the previous three months, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi).
Recent spate of scams like Satyam, 2G and coal allocation scam to name a few have robbed retail investors of the confidence to invest continually.
The biggest bounce is in the realty sector, where the industry index jumped 80%. There's been a turnaround also in automobiles and ancillaries (up 45%). The pharma and health care indices have a welcome return of roughly 35%.
The equity cult has grown at a rapid pace in India in the last few years, with retail investors latching on to the stock markets like never before. At 126.6 million, the number of dematerialised (demat) accounts, where investors hold their securities in electronic form for trading purposes, are at record high levels. The growth rate, on an annualised basis, stood at 27 per cent in 2022-2023, up from barely 6 per cent a decade ago.
Total, which had a few weeks back exited Royal Dutch Shell-led Hazira LNG import terminal in Gujarat, will join Adani in developing a 5 million tonnes a year import facility at Dhamra in Odisha. The two will also set up a joint venture to roll out a fuel retail network of 1,500 outlets, mostly on highways, in the next 10 years, Adani and Total said in a joint statement.
The mutual fund industry's assets under management (AUM) have likely breached the Rs 50 trillion mark following a rally in domestic equities this month. The industry's average AUM stood at almost Rs 48 trillion at the end of October. In November, the Nifty50 index has gained about 4 per cent so far, while smallcap and midcap indices have rallied close to 8 per cent.
The governor made it clear that the RBI is aware of what's happening and acts accordingly, but doesn't make a noise about that, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Maharashtra minister Dada Bhuse said the decision to impose export duty should have been taken with proper coordination.
Apple Inc has announced the India prices of the new variants of its bestselling smartphones - launched on Tuesday - as it assembles the device in the country. The new iPhone 15 range starts at Rs 79,900 for the 128 GB variant (the same price as the iPhone 14 when it was launched last year) and goes up to Rs 199,900 for the top-end Pro Max with a 6.7 inch screen and 1 TB (terabyte) storage. The world's most valuable company also launched three new upgraded Apple watches, starting with the SE at Rs 29,900 and going up to Ultra 2 at Rs 89,900.
Online retail in India touched $12.6 billion in 2013.
Retail inflation declined to an 18-month low of 4.7 per cent in April mainly due to falling prices of vegetables, oils and fats, and came closer to Reserve Bank's target of 4 per cent, showed government data released Friday. It was for the second month in a row that Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation remained within the RBI's comfort zone of below 6 per cent. The government has tasked the central bank to ensure retail inflation remains at 4 per cent with a margin of 2 per cent on either side.
Mutual funds focused on small-caps have emerged as the winner with a net inflow of close to Rs 11,000 crore in April-June quarter, as fund managers struggle to create alpha in the large-cap space, and the trend is expected to continue for some time. On the other hand, large-cap space, which is yet to pick up momentum, witnessed an outflow of Rs 3,360 crore during the quarter under review, data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) showed. Apart from the June quarter, small-cap funds logged an inflow of Rs 6,932 crore in three months that ended in March.
The Competition Commission has disposed of a complaint alleging unfair business practices by Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd and certain other related entities, saying that the allegations are devoid of requisite evidence. The complaint was filed by All India Online Vendors Association against Amazon Seller Services, Amazon Wholesale India, Amazon Retail India, Cloudtail India and Prione Business Services. The association comprises more than 2,000 sellers across the country, with its members selling various products on e-commerce marketplaces.
"We will raise Rs 300 crore via bonds of two-, three- and five-year tenures. This will be our maiden bond issuance and is part of our effort to widen funding sources," says Vimal Bhandari, executive vice-chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Arka Fincap. The firm, a subsidiary of Kirloskar Oil, is only five years old and small (assets of around Rs 5,000 crore with an "AA" rating), but the response to this float will be closely watched: It would be the first by a non-banking finance company (NBFC) after Mint Road upped the risk weights on bank exposures to them by 25 percentage points. The move by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has caught NBFCs off guard even though the issue had been flagged by Governor Shaktikanta Das with their corner-room occupants (and that of banks) in July and August 2023 - on consumer credit and the dependency on bank borrowings.
The Reserve Bank is working on a phased implementation strategy for its own digital currency and is in the process of launching it in wholesale and retail segments in the near future, RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar said on Thursday. He said the idea of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is ripe, and many central banks in the world are working towards it. Sankar further said CBDC is needed to protect consumers from the "frightening level of volatility" seen in some of the virtual currencies which have no sovereign backing.
India's services sector activity continued to expand in September, supported by favourable underlying demand amid the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, but lost some momentum from August's 18-month high level, a monthly survey said on Tuesday. The seasonally adjusted India Services Business Activity Index fell from 56.7 in August to 55.2 in September, but remained well above its long-run average. "Despite easing from August, the rate of expansion was marked and the second-fastest since February 2020," the survey said.
In order to counter the growing penetration of e-commerce portals, the ICT industry in Gujarat is also mulling initiation of its own portal for selling products.
Starting with the third quarter of financial year 2020-21 (Q3FY21), we have seen "unlock" trades at various times. Whenever lockdowns have been eased, traders have taken long positions in consumer-facing businesses. Let's look at the logic. Since March 2020, sectors like retail, personal vehicles, hospitality, aviation, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), multiplexes, etc., have been under severe pressure. As a result, there's been a low base effect. Every company in these spaces has suffered top line contraction. Many suffered losses, especially in the first half of FY21.
Last November, a lawyer for Future Retail Limited (FRL) told Delhi high court that Amazon is interfering with its lawful business and thousands may lose their jobs and FRL may go bankrupt. Senior advocate Harish Salve, who appeared for FRL, likened Amazon to East India Company. Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, who represented Amazon, told the Future counsel to keep the "East India Company" rhetoric aside, as Amazon has invested $6.5 billion all over India and created 900,000 jobs. This drama played out in the case in which Amazon has challenged Future's $3.4-billion deal with Reliance, alleging the retailer's deal breached an agreement with the American e-commerce firm.
It also plans to open 5 new centres across India in addition to its two fulfilment centres (FCs) in Mumbai and Bangalore.
The government has also set targets for the next 25 years. We are working on the target of becoming a $5-10 trillion economy as well as taking exports to a record high, he said.
The company is keen on creating 'a differentiated e-commerce model'.
The government on Friday proposed hiking the securities transaction tax on Futures & Options (F&O) contracts, a move that will increase the trading costs in the derivatives segment as well as help in curbing excessive trades. In the Finance Bill 2023, passed by the Lok Sabha on Friday, the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on options is proposed to be increased to 0.0625 per cent from 0.05 per cent and on futures contracts to 0.0125 from 0.01 per cent. Analysts opined that higher STT will shore up the government's revenues to some extent and also discourage excessive trading since a large number of retail traders are losing money in the segment.
India will need $223 billion of investment to meet its goal of wind and solar capacity installations by 2030, according to a new report by research company BloombergNEF (BNEF). The government has set a target of increasing non-fossil power capacity to 500 GW by 2030. It wants non-fossil fuel power sources to provide half of its electricity supply by 2030. "To achieve this target, India needs to massively scale up funding for renewables," the report said, adding that $223 billion is required over the next eight years just to meet the solar and wind capacity targets.
Gross inflows into active equity mutual fund (MF) schemes dipped 34 per cent month-on-month (MoM) -- to Rs 25,400 crore -- in April as investors applied brakes on lump sum investments amid a sharp upwards movement in the market. Gross inflows for March stood at Rs 38,641 crore. The sharp decline pulled the net inflows to a five-month low of Rs 6,480 crore, shows data released by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi).
Dwaipayan Bose highlights the similarities and contrasts between ETFs and Index Funds.
Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) have pumped Rs 47,148 crore in the Indian equities in June, making it the highest inflow in 10 months, enthused by the country's steadily improving macroeconomic fundamentals. However, inflows in July may be subdued as FPIs might adopt cautious stance due to the recent comments from the US Federal Reserve, Mayank Mehraa, Smallcase manager and principal partner at financial consultancy Craving Alpha, said. Besides, VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said FPIs are likely to turn a bit cautious going forward as valuations in the country are rich from a short-term perspective.
The Reserve Bank is planning to extend wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for transactions for interbank borrowing or call money market, sources said on Tuesday. The pilot in the wholesale segment, known as the Digital Rupee -Wholesale (e-W), was launched on November 1, 2022, with the use case being limited to the settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities. "RBI is now planning to go into the interbank borrowing market.
Automotive (auto) and auto ancillary stocks have been in the fast lane thus far in 2023-24 (FY24), with the National Stock Exchange Nifty Auto Index surging nearly 27 per cent, outperforming the Nifty50, which has gained roughly 11 per cent during this period. The top-gear performance of auto stocks at the bourses, according to A K Prabhakar, head of research at IDBI Capital, has been triggered by the premiumisation of products across vehicle manufacturers, which has seen vehicle sales remaining relatively stable. "It is not about higher sales figures now, but about premiumisation.
'How many voices from that time have stood the test of time?' 'There have been RJs before him and after him, but no one has enjoyed his popularity and longevity.'
This year, festive sales are expected to push up the annual gross merchandise value of e-commerce companies to around $38 billion, a 40 per cent growth over the previous year.
Bharti Retail has started offering facility to pay shopping bills through mobile phones
Mutual funds (MFs) are lining up distinguished new fund offerings (NFOs) for the next financial year to win over investors after a lukewarm response to product launches in the 2022-23 financial year (FY23). NFOs drew a lukewarm response in FY23 as launches were mostly in the passive debt space, which has a comparatively lower popularity among retail investors. The limited launches in equity space also failed to rake in huge sums due to subdued investor sentiments in a volatile market.
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