'The intensity and frequency of heatwaves will be much higher than in previous years over Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.'
The spreads between state development loans and equivalent-maturity government papers have started widening, and market participants don't expect them to contract anytime soon. The rise in spreads is a direct measure of market displeasure than a rise in yields.
The undistributed funds totalling over Rs 25,000 crore lying with the capital markets regulator Sebi's account have come back into focus after the demise of Sahara Group's chief Subrata Roy. Roy passed away in Mumbai on Tuesday night at the age of 75 after battling a prolonged illness. He faced multiple regulatory and legal battles in connection with his group firms that were accused of circumventing regulations with ponzi schemes, allegations his group always denied.
About 99,165 electric cars were sold in India in 2024, but electric car penetration -- share of electric car sales in total sales -- was just about 2.5 per cent.
PSBs dominate India's banking system, meaning any failure could jeopardise financial stability, as such, we expect government support will remain forthcoming, said Moody's.
'Focus will be on smaller loan amounts to meet the needs of affordable homebuyers.'
According to the World Bank, economic growth in middle-income countries, including India, is not accelerating. 'In fact, it is slowing down as incomes increase, with the trend becoming more pronounced each decade.'
'Whether I am optimistic or pessimistic is not the issue; I am just going by the evidence available.' 'The Indian economy and financial sector are now well-placed and very resilient in dealing with any kind of spillover coming from the external world.'
To ease pressure due to the coronavirus lockdown, corporate have asked banks and the government for a six-month liquidity line, so that they can pay off their suppliers and employees.
Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) continued their buying spree and poured close to Rs 4,800 crore in the Indian equity markets in the first week of January driven by confidence in the country's robust economic fundamentals. Additionally, they injected Rs 4,000 crore in the debt market during the period under review, data with the depositories showed. With expectations of a prolonged decline in US interest rates in 2024, there is an anticipation that FPIs will likely escalate their purchase, particularly in the initial months of the New Year leading up to the general elections, V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said.
In India, it is not easy to fight it out with the large banks which are nimble-footed and technology-savvy and are continuously innovating on the retail turf with newer products for customer acquisition.
In the Union Budget for Financial Year 2023-24 (FY24), Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had held forth on the need for better governance and investor protection in the banking sector. She had proposed certain amendments to the Reserve Bank of India Act (RBI Act), 1934; the Banking Regulation Act (BR Act), 1949; and the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970.
Equity benchmarks snapped their six-session rally to close marginally lower on Thursday amid profit booking in banking and energy counters. Investors also stayed on the sidelines ahead of the RBI's policy meet outcome on Friday. In choppy trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex ended 51.73 points or 0.09 per cent lower at 58,298.80. During the day, it hit a low of 57,577.05 and a high of 58,712.66.
A combination of factors, including heavy investments in US Treasury bonds and dollar sales at a healthy profit, facilitated the Indian central bank in transferring a record surplus of Rs 2.11 trillion to the government for 2023-24 (FY24). The RBI's dollar purchases increased in FY24, supported by robust capital inflows endorsing the economy's health.
'We have seen something do very well when the times are good but maybe not as well when the times are bad.'
Fundraising activity in the debt market is gaining momentum ahead of the festival season. Several non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) are planning to raise at least Rs 5,560 crore in the next two days by issuing bonds, with a greenshoe size of Rs 6,370 crore. Ajay Malglunia, managing director and head of investment grade group at JM Financial, said, "The market likes certainty, the market will gain clarity after the US Federal Reserve's (Fed's) policy.
'Some of the astounding proposals, if translated into statutory provisions, would be suicidal.' 'This would not be a wonder cure for increasing insurance penetration and only result in mushrooming growth of players like paan kiosks with deleterious consequences.'
Equity investors suffered a massive loss of Rs 31 lakh crore on Tuesday as markets went into a tailspin with the BSE Sensex tumbling nearly 6 per cent as vote counting trends showed the BJP may not have a clear majority in the Lok Sabha polls. Erasing the record-rally of the previous trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex cracked 4,389.73 points or 5.74 per cent to settle at 72,079.05. During the day, the benchmark tanked 6,234.35 points or 8.15 per cent to hit a nearly five-month low of 70,234.43.
The benchmark BSE Sensex and Nifty closed marginally higher in a volatile trade on Tuesday as gains in FMCG, power and energy stocks helped the indices extend gains for a fifth straight day. The 30-share BSE benchmark ended 20.86 points or 0.04 per cent higher at 58,136.36 with 16 of its constituents ending in the red. During the day, it hit a high of 58,328.41 and a low of 57,744.70.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has identified "climate shocks" as a risk to food inflation rates and overall price rise while stating that the outlook for the country's economic growth remains bright. In its Annual Report for 2023-24, released on Thursday, the central bank said easing supply-chain pressures, broad-based softening in core inflation, and early indications of an above-normal southwest monsoon meant well for the inflation outlook in 2024-25. "The increasing incidence of climate shocks, however, imparts considerable uncertainty to the food inflation and overall inflation outlook," said the RBI while noting headline inflation moderated by 1.3 percentage points on an annual average basis to 5.4 per cent in 2023-24.
European Investment Bank to set up office in India.
Equity benchmark Sensex pared its early losses to close higher by 231 points on Monday, helped by buying in index heavyweight Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank amid positive global trends. After falling 537.11 points to a low of 56,825.09 in morning trade, the 30-share BSE barometer staged a recovery in afternoon trade and climbed 231.29 points or 0.40 per cent to settle at 57,593.49. As many as 20 Sensex stocks closed with gains while 10 declined. The broader NSE Nifty recovered 69 points or 0.40 per cent to settle at 17,222 with 29 of its constituents ending in green.
'The entire government-owned banking system (excluding SBI) is now in the red.' 'But worse is to come,' warns T N Ninan.
Tata Steel, SBI, L&T and Sun Pharma advanced 2-5% each.
Fundraising through the issuance of shares to qualified institutional investors has seen hectic activity in the first half of the current fiscal year (FY24), with 20 companies mobilising over Rs 18,400 crore, more than four-fold from the year-ago period, on positive investors' sentiments. Moreover, the robust trend of Qualified Institutional Placements (QIPs) in the first half of the fiscal year 2023-24 is expected to persist throughout the second half of the year too, Sanjay Moorjani, Research Analyst at SAMCO Securities, told PTI. Prashant Rao, director and head of equity capital markets, Anand Rathi Investment Banking, said that market and investor sentiments play an important role for these issuances.
The RBI on Tuesday said state-owned SBI, along with private sector lenders ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank continue to be Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs) or institutions which are 'too big to fail'. SIBs are perceived as banks that are 'too big to fail (TBTF)'. This perception of TBTF creates an expectation of government support for these banks in times of distress. Due to this perception, these lenders enjoy certain advantages in the funding markets.
Experts said the 20 per cent drop in the market poses a challenge for companies that have set the ball rolling on their IPO plans as valuations will now have to realign. This could entail more dilution or lowering of the issue size.
Deloitte India on Friday said it estimates India's GDP growth at 6.6 per cent in the current fiscal helped by consumption expenditure, exports rebound and capital flows. In its India's economic outlook report, Deloitte said the rapid growth of the middle-income class has led to rising purchasing power and even created demand for premium luxury products and services. With the expectation that the number of middle-to-high-income segments will be one in two households by 2030/31, up from one in four currently, we believe this trend will likely become further amplified, driving overall private consumer expenditure growth, it said.
A non-strategic investor like Poonawalla brings in not only capital but also creative freedom. Indian cinema needs more investors like him, reports Vanita Kohli Khandekar.
Elevated food price-led inflation could become a sore point for markets, which they seem to be ignoring at current levels, observe analysts. Retail inflation in India - as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) - came in at a three-month high of 6.52 per cent in January 2023, compared with 5.72 per cent in December and 5.88 per cent in November 2022. The inflation print for February, according to Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda, will be critical for the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy committee.
World Bank is optimistic that the Indian economy can grow by 6-8 per cent in the coming years but has asked the government to improve social services like education and health.
State Bank of India partnered GE Capital in 1998 for its credit card business.
'India has always been a bottom-up stock-picking market, and as growth recovers with higher liquidity, mid and small-caps always tend to outperform.'
'If weak indicators persist, there is a risk that India could slip into a prolonged slowdown similar to the one experienced between 2014 and 2019,' warns Debashis Basu.
The difference between what the banks play in the US and India is not that of soccer and football but rugby and football. SVB also has a unique character. But when risks are mispriced, the fallout could be very similar, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
State Bank of India (SBI) on Tuesday announced the launch of its first "state-of-the-art" dedicated branch for start-ups in the country here, to facilitate and support them. The branch launched by SBI chairman Dinesh Khara is located in Koramangala, which alongside neighbouring HSR Layout and Indiranagar are the biggest start-up hubs in the city. "...overall we are in a position to provide end-to-end services to start-ups, with that in mind this particular start-up branch is the first start-up branch we are starting, from the capital city of start-ups- Bengaluru.
Among the Sensex firms, Larsen & Toubro, UltraTech Cement, JSW Steel, Titan, Bajaj Finance, Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Nestle were the major laggards. Maruti, Power Grid, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, NTPC, HDFC Bank, ITC and IndusInd Bank were the gainers.
Benchmark BSE Sensex rallied over 350 points on Tuesday following gains in index majors HDFC twins, Bharti Airtel and Infosys amid a largely positive trend in global equity markets. The 30-share BSE barometer jumped 350.16 points or 0.61 per cent to settle at 57,943.65. During the day, it rallied 408.04 points or 0.70 per cent to 58,001.53. The broader NSE Nifty gained 103.30 points or 0.60 per cent to settle at 17,325.30.
'If you look at where inflation (headline and core) is today in India and where the rates are, there's clearly room to cut rates.'
Bank CFOs may meet next week to discuss minimum public shareholding and takeover rule issues.