Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Many top corporate groups hit hard, in penalties and sunk investments, beside loss of future revenue
Top leaders from India Inc may be busy throughout the year, but they too have a very strong social life beyond work.
Benchmark indices failed to sustain gains and retreated from day's high dragged primarily by the losses in metals, information technology and bank shares as investors started to book profits in late noon deals. Earlier, markets had scaled fresh all-time highs on the surprise post-budget rate cut by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The 30-share Sensex ended down 213 points at 29,380 and the 50-share Nifty closed down 74 points at 8,922. Intra-day, Sensex reached the all-time high mark of 30,024.74 while Nifty touched the life-time high level of 9,119.20. In the broader market, both the BSE Midcap index and Smallcap indices, down 1% and 1.2% each underperformed the front-liners. Market breadth in BSE ended negative with 1,882 declines against 1,010 advances. A day after signing an agreement with Finance Ministry on inflation targeting, RBI surprised the markets with an early post-budget repo rate cut of 25 bps (basis points) to 7.5% from 7.75% which was again outside of central bank's scheduled policy review meetings as the earlier rate cut effected on January 15. "RBI's latest rate cut of 25 basis points, while a surprise in its timing is in-line with our expectations of a sharp rate-cutting cycle over the coming quarters. With inflation sustainably lower by 500bps, the RBI has in recent months acknowledged the scope for rate cuts and was only waiting for additional comfort that the government's fiscal policy would not play spoil-sport," said Dinesh Thakkar, chairman and managing director at Angel Broking in a note. Analysts at Karvy believe that further monetary policy action will depend on number of factors including easing of supply constraints, improved availability of power, land, minerals and infrastructure, fiscal consolidation, the pass through of rate cuts by banks and the expected monsoon. Citing weakness in some sectors of the economy and the overall global trend towards monetary easing as rationale for the rate cut the central bank also exuded confidence in the road map for fiscal consolidation as laid out in the Union Budget, 2015. Commenting on how the markets reacted to RBI's surprise move, K Subramanyam assistant vice-president (institutional research), Asit C. Mehta Securities said, "The unexpected cut did take the market by surprise .However, credit off-take is not dependant only on interest rates. A gradual revival in the economy would be of more help which would trigger credit off-take. Hopefully this will follow and RBI's action would prove helpful. From market point of view this is bullish as equity becomes more attractive vis-a-vis falling interest rates." On the macro-economic front, the HSBC services PMI rose to an eight-month high of 53.9 in February up from 52.4 in January indicating strong expansion in output across the sector. Respondents cited robust growth of new business as the principle factor for the increase in activity. Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 773 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional data. Buzzing Stocks 9 out of the 12 sectoral indices of BSE ended in red. BSE Metal index, down 2.4% was the top loser followed by BSE Oil & Gas and Power indices, down 1.3% each. BSE Healthcare index, up 1.2% and BSE FMCG index, up 0.9% were the top losers. Bank stocks came under during late noon trades as traders booked profits at higher levels. However, RBI rate cut may encourage large lenders to cut their lending rates boosting demand for home and auto loans and provide funds for various stalled and new projects. Many stalled projects across the country are waiting for cash to restart work. The stock of stalled projects at the end of December 2014 stood at Rs 8.8 lakh crore or 7% of GDP. ICICI Bank ended down 0.1%, Axis Bank and SBI declined over 3% and HDFC Bank shed 1.5%. Sun Pharma gained over 6% on approval granted to Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company (SPARC) by US FDA for an antiepileptic drug. The product will be manufactured by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries at its Halol (Gujarat) facility in India. SPARC was formed in 2007 when Sun Pharma separated out its active projects in drug discovery and innovation into a new company. Dr Reddys Lab and Cipla have gained over 1% each. ITC gained over 1% after consecutive sessions of losses on the proposed larger-than-expected hike in excise duty on cigarettes in the Union Budget. The biggest ever auction of spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) started on Wednesday in the morning where government expects to garner Rs 80,000-1lakh crore from the sale of spectrum. Idea Cellular gained over 2%, Reliance Communication gained around 1% and Bharti Airtel closed 0.5% higher. Metal stocks were under pressure in today's session. Hindalco declined over 3%, Sesa Sterliteended down over 4% and Tata Steel closed down 2%. Profit-taking in IT stocks led to Wipro losing around 1.8%, Infosys declining 0.7% and TCS losing 1.5%.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
'The slide in growth has arisen primarily because we have an NBFC crisis on top of a banking crisis,' points out T T Ram Mohan.
Many see Nirma's Lafarge deal as some kind of second coming for the Patels.
Long queues near the top prolonged the wait times this year, causing oxygen tanks and physical endurance to drain on the way down. The 'traffic jams' likely contributed to the death of 11 people including three Indians.
Apart from around 40 Japanese companies and five global vendors of MG Motor India, many other biggies are eyeing Gujarat for either greenfield opportunities or brownfield expansion.
Adani Enterprises plans to invest a total of $25 billion in the next five years.
Markets extended gains led by financials and capital goods shares coupled with a rebound in IT shares.
The industry said if the policy was announced, it would have taken 28 million vehicles bought before March 2005 off the road.
Pharma major Lupin and mortgage lender HDFC were the top losers.
These projects are targeted at financially well-off and upwardly mobile Indians.
Asked if Ganguly would be cornered at the meeting, he laughed and cited an example.
Russian firms expand their footprint in India. And take bigger steps to do business with India's private sector.
As Venezuelans continue to flee the starvation, crime and the horrific inflation that continues to mark the worst crisis it has ever faced, Radha Biswas looks back at a devastated country she continues to love deeply.
Hinduja brothers have been ranked as Britain's richest Asians in 2014 with a total worth of 13.5 billion pounds, an increase of one billion pounds over the previous year.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has to deal with 3 powerful enemies: the media, the political establishment, and business houses.
'You must remember that a career is something you can craft for yourself.' 'But if you want to be a successful leader, you need the organisation and your team to support you.' 'In order to make it all work, you need to be cognisant of the team.' 'You can't be a prima donna. These days, people don't accept that.' 'You can't ride roughshod over people.'
Tamal Bandyopadhyay details HDFC Bank's digital journey.
'The economy will pick up in 2020 or a little later... When it picks up, will it reach 10%, 8% or still lower? It all depends on how realistic are the diagnosis and the prescriptions that follow,' says Professor K J Joseph.
Ajit Mishra, Vice President, Research, Religare Broking, answers readers's queries on stocks they own or want to buy.
Anurag Singal, founder of cajobportal, a job site that caters exclusively to CAs and commerce graduates tells us how he aims to skill and enable satisfactory employment to aspiring professionals.
ONGC was the top performer while private banking major ICICI Bank extended gains
Happy at the clear mandate given by voters to the BJP-led NDA, India Inc on Friday exuded confidence that Narendra Modi will initiate bold and decisive policy reforms to promote economic growth.
A century-old European bicycle brand gets a makeover under its new Indian owner. But is there room for yet another premium commuter bike?
'Adivasis are a critical national treasure, so we need to protect them.' 'The fight for the tribals of Chhattisgarh needs people from all political parties. It cannot be about any single political group.'
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Wednesday
'If you allow Walmart to operate in India, our manufacturing will finish completely.' 'What will happen to Narendra D Modi's dream then? There will be no Make in India.'
There is a dearth of talent in the Indian banking industry. A testimony to this is the two new CEOs in the private sector -- Sandeep Bakhshi in ICICI Bank Ltd and Amitabh Chaudhry in AXIS Bank Ltd -- have come from the insurance sector, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
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Railway Board Chairman Arunendra Kumar said the discussions at the day-long meet involved an overview of five models of participative policy, framework of engineering, procurement and construction contracts and sectoral guidelines for foreign and domestic investment.
Few top honchos of India Inc did very well in 2014.
The defence ministry has lost sight of what it intended to achieve -- which was to nurture private defence firms that would compete on equal terms with the 9 defence PSUs and the 41 Ordnance Factory Board factories.
"There was not a single decision that I took during my second tenure without discussing it with Ranga and getting valuable input from him," says Narayana Murthy.
Over lunch with Jyoti Mukul, Banmali Agrawala, president and CEO, GE South Asia, discusses how GE is transforming itself into a digital industrial company.
What happens when someone working in one of India's large public sector companies ends up there, hoping IIM-A is all about leadership?
Top ten billionaires in India.
Then chief minister Jyoti Basu once told an industrialist that capitalists were class enemies and he should expect no sympathy.
Investors remain cautious ahead of F&O expiry.
