Genset manufacturer Cummins India has seen its share price rise by 45 per cent in the past three months. The management has reaffirmed that growth would be in double digits over the coming two fiscal years. Growth is expected to be driven by a pickup in domestic infrastructure spending.
The hospitality industry has seen plenty of interest since the catastrophic impact of the pandemic, which led to losses in FY21. The hotel industry market cap has more than tripled since 2019 on the combination of a strong earnings rebound and positive surprises, as well as three recent listings. The industry has good tailwinds. The anticipation is, demand for rooms will outrun supply for a few years despite capacity expansions.
In recent months, several pharma multinational corporations (MNCs) are increasingly turning to Indian companies to expand market reach in the country's pharmaceuticals sector. Sanofi's partnerships with Dr Reddy's, Cipla, and Emcure, AstraZeneca and Mankind Pharma - teaming up for asthma medication distribution - are a few instances of this trend. This strategy allows MNCs to leverage established Indian networks and reach a wider audience. Indian companies also benefit from global brands and expertise, say analysts.
'The current budgetary practice of shifting expenditures off-balance sheet in order to be seen to be meeting fiscal targets should be discontinued; additional fiscal stimulus would be imprudent; individual income tax rates should not be cut; GST rates should not be raised now,' advise Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman.
He urged China to bolster the flow of its tourists to the Maldives.
In a recent note, the global brokerage firm said India now commands a weight of 19 per cent in the above-mentioned portfolio as compared to 18.2 per cent in September 2023. India, it said, is a large liquid market and remains a counter-weight to North Asia if a slowdown in the West occurs and China's recovery disappoints.
With the last quarter of 2023-24 (FY24) expected to have been soft owing to lower discretionary spend and macro uncertainty, many are hoping FY25 will be a year of recovery for the information-technology (IT) industry. The fourth quarter, January-March, is considered soft, and will continue to see the headwinds the sector has been facing. And the sector has entered the new financial year on a weak footing. Analysts are expecting Tier-I firms to report sequential growth of -1 per cent to 1.5 per cent and midcap players' growth may range between 0.7 per cent and 4 per cent.
'We do not see people getting reduced, but because of automation, we will do more work.'
The froth in the small and midcap (SMID) space is limited to a few pockets, but regulatory scrutiny could lead to sustained volatility, observe India's top-drawer wealth managers. They add that they have been advising clients to reduce their exposure to smallcaps. Anand Rathi Wealth, which manages investor wealth through mutual funds (MFs), reports that its exposure to smallcap stocks, both through MFs and directly, has decreased by nearly 7 percentage points in the past few months, now standing at 23 per cent.
India's industrial production growth slowed to 3.8 per cent in December 2023, mainly due to poor performance of mining and power generation segments, according to official data released on Monday. The factory output growth measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) was at 5.1 per cent in December 2022. In November last year, IIP growth stood at 2.4 per cent.
Closely watched by the world for any escalation, the Iran-Israel conflict is already showing early signs of stress for India Inc - longer deliveries, doubling freight rates, extended working capital cycles, and higher costs. For those yet to feel the heat, there is growing apprehension and nervousness over future developments, observed industry executives.
India's exports contracted by 22 per cent, the steepest decline in the last three years, to $32.97 billion in June on account of global demand slowdown, especially in the Western markets like the US and Europe. According to the data of the commerce ministry, the trade deficit in June stood at $20.3 billion against $22.07 billion in the same month last year due to a fall in exports and imports. The inbound shipments during the month under review declined by a steep 17.48 per cent to $53.10 billion.
Fearing the slowdown, hospital managements suspended some of their new medical equipment purchase plans," said A Vaidheesh, managing director, Johnson & Johnson Medical, one of the largest medical equipment companies operating in India. India's medical and hospital equipment industry, which consists of multinational players such as Siemens, Philips, Johnson & Johnson, GE Healthcare and home grown Medtronics, has an annual turnover of over Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion).
The worries for the industry include defaulting payments, slowdown in industry growth rate and budget cuts. "While we are bracing ourselves for budget cuts in the near future, we can't give our customers longer credit cycles as we operate on wafer-thin operating margins," says Mudhukar Kamath, MD and CEO, Mudra Group, while admitting that they have experienced a few cases where payments are getting stretched.
'We are in the reverse gear and we are not there anywhere compared to the rest of the world'
A McKinsey study on the last slowdown of 2001-2002 showed the companies that emerged successfully from the downturn were those that used their cash, did lots of mergers and acquisitions, and stepped on the accelerator.
During April-November this financial year, trade gap stood at $116.8 billion. In 2010-11, it was aggregated at $119 billion.
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'More than investors, fund houses, and advisors have raised caution and limited flows on small-and mid-caps.'
Former CEA Arvind Subramanian called for research in the area and urged the NSE Centre for Behavioural Science in Finance, Economics and Marketing to explain why as the economy has been going down, the stock market has been going up.
Premji said he was in Atlanta last week attending a meeting of American chief executive officers where generally the mood was 'surprisingly positive'.
The recent price correction in broader markets has hit cement companies hard. So far in the current month, smallcap firms like Visaka Industries, Andhra Cements NCL Industries, Sahyadri Industries, and KCP have lost 19.7 per cent, 14.3 per cent, 13.8 per cent, 13.5 per cent, and 11.5 per cent, respectively. On the contrary, largecap companies, while registering losses for the month, have seen a softer blow.
Consumer goods firms and auto companies are witnessing an upturn in rural demand, which had been lagging for most of FY24. Expectations of a bumper rabi crop harvest have helped turn the tide. The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) Monetary Policy Committee kept the repo rate unchanged last week, noting that as rural demand catches up, consumption is expected to support economic growth in 2024-25.
'The Indian economy is expected to grow in terms of per capita income and GDP, and with that, the luxury segment becomes more relevant.'
Several mutual funds (MFs) have recently approached the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as they renew efforts to increase their overseas investment limit. In June 2022, the capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) permitted MFs to invest in foreign stocks within the aggregate mandated limit of $7 billion after a correction in stocks. One of the proposals shared with the RBI is to link MFs' foreign investment limit to the country's foreign exchange reserves.
There has been a sharp recovery in the headline corporate earnings in the April-June 2023 quarter (Q1FY24), after a dismal showing by early bird companies. The combined net profit of the 983 listed companies that have declared their quarterly results, so far, was up 64.7 per cent year-on-year to record a high of Rs 2.68 trillion in the first quarter, but growth in earnings remained lopsided because most of the incremental gains came from a handful of companies. Moreover, the quarterly numbers showed a continued slowdown in revenue growth.
'A cutback in hiring and compensation growth by IT companies will have a significant impact on consumer demand, especially in the urban sector of the economy.'
Among the Sensex firms, Hindustan Unilever, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Finance, Tata Consultancy Services, Titan and UltraTech Cement were the major laggards. Mahindra & Mahindra, Power Grid, IndusInd Bank, Tata Motors, Larsen & Toubro and Maruti were among the gainers.
Indian IT services sector's revenue growth will slow down to 3 per cent in the current fiscal from 9.2 per cent in the previous financial year, a domestic ratings company said on Tuesday. Icra Ratings said the profitability will also take a beating in this financial year and the operating profit margin will narrow by up to 1 percentage point to 20-21 per cent. The topline growth will come down to 3-5 per cent in FY24 from the 9.2 per cent posted in FY23, the agency said, attributing the slowdown to softening demand.
Retirement planning and secondary sources of income have become key financial priorities for Indians, as they look to prepare for higher inflation, health concerns, and economic slowdown risks. PGIM India Mutual Fund's Retirement Readiness Survey shows that at present 67 per cent Indians have their retirement plan in place, compared to 49 per cent in 2020. "The pandemic was probably the factor making people realise the importance of saving and investing, leading to an increase in people planning for it.
Over the past year, the National Stock Exchange Nifty FMCG Index, which tracks the market capitalisation of the top 15 companies in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, has surged by 17.3 per cent. In contrast, the Nifty50, a broader market index, has witnessed an 8.8 per cent increase during the same period. The FMCG stocks have also been rally leaders in the current calendar year.
Private life insurers experienced reasonable growth in the July-September quarter (second quarter, or Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24), and the October data is also encouraging. The individual weighted received premium (WRP) for private players grew by 19.8 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in October. However, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India had slower growth, pulling the industry growth rate down to 13 per cent Y-o-Y.
A slowdown in the automobile industry is set to reverse by the year-end. The slowdown, which is cyclical in nature and occurs after every seven years, should come to an end in the next three months, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the country's apex automobile body.
GST mop-up likely to fall in May, June after touching record levels in April and March.
The earnings of India Inc hit a record high in the 2022-23 (FY23) January-March quarter (fourth quarter, or Q4), compared with their poor showing in the previous two quarters of the financial year. The rise in earnings, however, is exclusively led by banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) companies. A better-than-expected showing by banks and non-bank lenders in Q4FY23 more than compensated for the earnings contraction in the non-BFSI space.
Market leader Maruti Suzuki sold 51,274 units, down 49.61 per cent from the same month last year. Hyundai Motor sold 21,320 units, a decline of 49.25 per cent and Mahindra & Mahindra sold 8,075 units, down 54.54 per cent.
From auto to watches, the mood is sombre due to the alarming state of the Indian economy and value erosion in stock market capitalisation.
Axis Bank, Tata Steel, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, and Bajaj Finance were among the other major laggards. Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries, UltraTech Cement, Infosys, HCL Technologies, and Tech Mahindra were among the gainers.
Lower IT exports will raise India's dependence on capital flows to fund imports.
Lou also spoke about China's tensions with neighbouring countries without directly mentioning the eastern Ladakh border standoff with India since May 2020 which resulted in the Galwan Valley clash in June of that year.
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