The chemicals sector's recovery could be delayed until FY25 if the current trends of weak demand and flat pricing continue. Following a subdued September quarter, the revenue and profit performance of listed chemicals companies are anticipated to fall short of initial expectations of an improvement. Despite some price stability, the demand trajectory remains uncertain.
"The outlook for exports in 2008-09 may not be as bright as in the past few years with lower projections in world GDP and world imports and exchange rate developments," according to the pre-Budget Economic Survey tabled in Parliament.
India on Wednesday asked its South Asian neighbours to increase intra-regional trade as a cushion against slowdown in exports to the US and European markets.
Like other food and grocery chains, Birla Retail is aggressively pushing its private labels and large packs to woo customers. Besides offering value, private labels push retailers' margins.
Indebted developers are cutting staff as they slow work on existing projects and postpone new ones until they clear a backlog of 700,000 unsold homes
Brokerages expect Nifty50 companies to have cumulatively witnessed strong double-digit growth in their earnings in the first quarter of FY24 (Q1FY24). This growth in the combined earnings is expected to have been driven by banks, automakers, and oil & gas companies. Other sectors may report muted profit growth.
From its lows in December, the stock of Tata Motors is up about 15 per cent. The gains came on the back of better than expected December volumes in its UK-based subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). This coupled with gradual recovery in the global passenger vehicle demand, improving profitability due to product mix and lower commodity costs are expected to be key positives for the company.
While edging up China's gross domestic product growth projection for both 2010 and 2011, the report said that growth in domestic demand would remain strong although exports could suffer from a predicted global economic slowdown next year.
Indian exports, which was hit by global slowdown last year, are likely to remain sluggish during 2013 as well due to challenging economic conditions in western economies, though policymakers have drawn a strategy to diversify exports.
India's corporate sector is likely to report a slowdown in revenue growth and earnings for the July-September 2023 period (Q2FY24), according to earnings estimates by brokerages, after the country's top listed companies posted higher than expected profits for the first quarter. The combined net profit of Nifty50 companies, based on brokerage estimates, is expected to have grown by 19.6 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 1.75 trillion in Q2FY24 - a sharp deceleration from 37.6 per cent Y-o-Y growth in the combined earnings of index companies in the April-June 2023 period. According to estimates, the combined earnings in the second quarter would be down 8.8 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis and the lowest in the past three quarters.
'Historically, the markets tend to perform well during election years as governments aim to increase spending and call attention to growth.'
'Gold prices thrive on volatility and more so when the stock markets trend downward.'
Apprehending a slowdown in the growth of the economy due to the hardening of interest rates, the appreciating rupee and falling tariffs, the government has decided to set up a group to discuss the impact of these changes.
While China continues to be the largest engine for growth in Asia, other parts of the region were also seeing significant increases in demand for travel with a fast-expanding middle class providing a 'brighter outlook' for Asian carriers, the latest study by the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines has said.
Moreover, automobile and consumer durables players are slashing their ad expenditure by over 65 per cent this Diwali.
Growth has slowed in some of the large emerging economies, its interim economic assessment report added. "One factor has been a rise in global bond yields -- triggered in part by an expected scaling back of the US Federal Reserve's quantitative easing -- which has fuelled market instability and capital outflows in a number of major emerging economies, such as India and Indonesia.
Among the Sensex firms, Bajaj Finance jumped the most by 4.64 per cent. Bajaj Finserv, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Asian Paints, UltraTech Cement, ICICI Bank, NTPC, JSW Steel and Tata Steel were among the major gainers. Infosys, Mahindra & Mahindra, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, IndusInd Bank and HCL Technologies were the major laggards.
The economy may grow by around 7 per cent this financial year as estimated by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), say economists with various organisations. The first advance estimates for 2023-24 will be released on Friday by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO), an exercise done for calculating ratios such as the fiscal deficit. The interim Budget will be presented on February 1.
The rising spends on credit cards, increase in sale of third-party products and surge in consumer loan demand have allowed banks to limit the impact of slowdown in corporate fee income.
Underlining the relevance of the Non-Aligned Movement, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said NAM should help in tackling key political and economic challenges, including worsening situation in Syria and a persistent global economic slowdown.
Corporate indebtedness is now twice what it was before the global financial crisis; banks' bad loans ratio is 3.5 times higher.
After the first quarter was washed out, exporters are now keeping their fingers crossed over a turnaround in outbound shipments to at least North America from September onwards. This comes even as other key destinations such as Europe may take longer to revive in FY24. Slowdown in key economies, as well as geopolitical tensions resulted in sluggish demand for Indian goods.
Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) does not anticipate growth in the small car segment because people continue to find these vehicles unaffordable, chairman R C Bhargava said on Wednesday. He said the market had clearly shifted towards the sport utility vehicle (SUV) segment and the company will go in the same direction. The domestic sales of utility vehicles jumped in India by 34.54 per cent to about 2 million units in FY23.
Showing the effect of the slowdown in global economic activity, the equity foreign direct investment (FDI) into India declined sharply to $13.9 billion in April-July 2023 from $22.04 billion a year ago. The net FDI, inflows minus outflows, declined from $17.28 billion in April-July 2022 to $5.70 billion in April-July 2023 on account of moderating gross FDI and a rise in repatriation. Gross FDI into India moderated to $22.0 billion during April-July 2023 from $29.6 billion a year ago, according to Reserve Bank of India data.
Pointing out that global economy continues to vulnerable, the declaration issued at the end of the two-day G-20 summit in Los Cabos said, "this effort (to provide $450 billion to the IMF) shows the G-20 and the international community's commitment to take the steps needed to safeguard global financial stability and enhance the IMF's role in crisis prevention and resolution."
Most analysts expect the note ban to sharply hit GVA growth in Q3 and Q4, and the central bank's stance is being called into question.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday said it is expecting some slowdown in the Indian economy next fiscal year and projected the growth to 6.1 per cent from 6.8 per cent during the current fiscal ending March 31. The IMF on Tuesday released the January update of its World Economic Outlook, according to which the global growth is projected to fall from an estimated 3.4 per cent in 2022 to 2.9 per cent in 2023, then rise to 3.1 per cent in 2024. "Our growth projections actually for India are unchanged from our October Outlook.
This is despite the fact that total FDI into India has fallen by 22 per cent from $58 billion in FY22 to $46 billion in FY23, according to the Reserve Bank of India.
The US and Europe account for about one-third of India's exports.
Beating the slowdown, chartered accountants (CAs) have bagged jobs with top-notch companies in the latest campus placement drive, which has also seen more newly qualified professionals get jobs.
India's cement demand has consistently shown double-digit growth over the past few quarters, primarily driven by infrastructure spending. However, dealers and industry executives note that state elections, festival season, and, in some markets, weddings and pollution may temporarily disrupt this demand story. While the festival season typically sees a slowdown in construction activity, some dealers anticipate this lull extending throughout the entire month as multiple states enter election mode.
The gauge for the performance of informational technology (IT) stocks soared nearly 5 per cent-most in nearly three years-as growth worries eased following a robust order book posted by bellwether Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The Nifty IT index rose 4.5 per cent to close at 30,945. This was the biggest single-day gain since September 14, 2020. Industry titan TCS' shares rose 5 per cent to Rs 3,509.
The government has exhausted only 39 per cent of its fiscal deficit target in the first half of FY24.
Equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty on Friday reversed their six-session losing streak and rebounded more than 1 per cent on value buying in auto, IT, financial and energy stocks. Better than expected quarterly financial results of corporates also boosted investor sentiments even as uncertainties persisted over the escalating tensions in the Middle East, according to analysts. In a largely range-bound trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex rose 634.65 points or 1.01 per cent to settle at 63,782.80 points.
In mid-October, travellers from the US, the UK, New Zealand, Canada and Australia were advised by their governments to exercise a high degree of caution when travelling to India, citing terror threats.
'The success of one or two IPOs does not dictate whether the upcoming IPOs will be successful or not, but it certainly indicates that the markets and investors are enthusiastic about startup IPOs.'
Economists and industry chambers are divided whether the Indian economy is headed towards the same slow growth as was the case during the time of global financial crisis.
The Satyam Computer Services scandal, which broke out on January 7 when the company's promoter, B Ramalinga Raju, announced that there was a Rs 7,800-crore (Rs 78-billion) hole in its deposits, is certain to have made it worse. According to the 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer, as much as 49 per cent of the respondents (all drawn from the top ten per cent income bracket) expressed growing concerns about business in India.
UK-based Standard Life, the joint venture partner in HDFC Standard Life Insurance and HDFC Asset Management Company, is entering the Indian private equity space. Gerry Grimstone, chairman of the British insurance major, speaks to Business Standard's Shilpy Sinha on the impact of the economic slowdown and the company's investment plans.