Among the Sensex firms, ITC, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finance, NTPC, Power Grid, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and UltraTech Cement were the major laggards. IndusInd Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, Axis Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, HCL Technologies, Asian Paints, Wipro, HDFC and Maruti were among the major gainers.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi's sudden decision to repeal the three farm laws.
Macroeconomic data announcements, global trends and trading activity of foreign investors would guide momentum in the equity market this week, analysts said. Markets ended a five-week losing streak and gained nearly a per cent last week, helped by a sharp rebound on Friday. Last week, the BSE benchmark jumped 500.65 points or 0.77 per cent and the Nifty gained 169.5 points or 0.87 per cent.
The Supreme Court on Thursday observed that certain paragraphs in a Calcutta high court verdict, which advised adolescent girls to "control sexual urges", were "problematic" and writing such judgments was "absolutely wrong".
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the rise in the price of fuel and cooking gas
rediffGURU R P Yadav offers career advice on how you can improve your core skills and make the most of your talent at the workplace.
The decision by the Reserve Bank of India to introduce a unified regulatory framework on connected lending for all the regulated entities (RE) is expected to reduce the influence of business conglomerates in the Indian lending space, said bankers and experts. "Connected lending pertains to lending to related parties within the same business group. "While the RBI might appear more agreeable to allowing business conglomerates to own banking licenses, it deems it crucial to bolster regulations that would prevent conglomerate-owned banks from gaming the system," said Shivaji Thapliyal, head of research and lead analyst, YES Securities.
People are availing far more of certain kinds of unsecured loans than was the case before the pandemic. Bank lending for buying consumer durables and funding of credit cards and other personal loans have risen by Rs 6.9 trillion between August 2019 and August 2023, shows a Business Standard analysis of data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). These loans are typically unsecured, which means they are provided without collateral.
The information and technology (IT) sector, which has been going through a rough patch lately, was among the top draws for equity mutual funds (MFs) in July. MF schemes together invested a net of Rs 1,800 crores in IT stocks last month after pulling out around Rs 700 crore from the sector in June, according to a report by ICICI Securities.
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.
Reflecting subdued global economic growth, India's outward foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 33.3 per cent sequentially to $1.21 billion in August, compared to over $1.82 billion in July.
The OCCRP report alleges that at one point, EIFF and EMRF held free-floating shares ranging from 8 per cent to nearly 14 per cent in the four Adani Group companies.
The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) latest order on unsecured loans is set to hit the banking sector's growth in the near-term, cautioned analysts, as they see banks slowing down on aggressive retail lending. Besides, cost of funds for non-banking finance companies (NBFC) is expected to inch up as banks will pass on higher capital charge to NBFCs. "We believe the fallout of the RBI action will be mainly on growth, given the rising dependence on unsecured retail loans and lending to NBFCs for growth.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved changes to GST laws to levy a 28 per cent tax on the full face value of bets in online gaming, casinos and horse race clubs, sources said. The amendments to the Central GST (CGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) acts, which were approved by the GST Council last week, are likely to be introduced in the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament, which will end on August 11. The GST Council in its 51st meeting on August 2 recommended amendments to the Schedule III of the CGST Act, 2017, to provide clarity on the taxation of supplies in casinos, horse racing and online gaming.
Uttam Ghosh wonders whether Meta will be a kinder, gentler and non toxic version of Facebook and its progeny WhatsApp.
The court said that in the instant case the investigating officer adopted a "lethargic attitude" throughout the investigation.
The market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms jumped to an all-time high of Rs 304.53 lakh crore on Wednesday, buoyed by an unprecedented rally in equities where the BSE benchmark Sensex ended over the 67,000-mark for the first time ever. Rallying for the fifth day running, the 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 302.30 points, or 0.45 per cent, to end at its lifetime closing high of 67,097.44 points. During the day, it jumped 376.24 points, or 0.56 per cent, to reach its all-time intra-day peak of 67,171.38 points.
At a time when the tech sector witnessed a spree of layoffs and slowdown in new hiring, IT firms have opted for temporary jobs in order to turn some their fixed costs variable. Work fulfillment platform Awign has reported a 157 per cent rise in demand for such jobs in first half of 2023. Awign says most of the demand has arisen for highly-skilled tech professionals at mid-level and senior positions with 2-7 years' experience.
The country's current account deficit widened to 4.4 per cent of the GDP in the quarter ended September, from 2.2 per cent GDP during the April-June period, due to higher trade gap, as per data released by the Reserve Bank on Thursday. "India's current account balance recorded a deficit of $36.4 billion (4.4 per cent of GDP) in Q2:2022-23, up from $18.2 billion (2.2 per cent of GDP) in Q1:2022-23 and a deficit of $9.7 billion (1.3 per cent of GDP) a year ago [i.e., Q2:2021-22]," the RBI said.
Boom, bust or a bit of both: as the jury bides time before ruling on the US 'recession', the economy's vital signs at a perplexing time of high-interest rates, still-punishing inflation, and surprisingly strong economic gains are a study of a growing debate over whether the world's largest economy is barrelling into a new downturn. With the US Federal Reserve's (Fed's) inflation fighters attempting the risky pursuit of 'pillow-soft landings' and its economy sending out mixed signals, if there is indeed a recession, it could spell trouble for domestic equities and corporate earnings growth.
The government is "extremely disappointed" with the latest report of the Moody's rating agency on India's economic outlook. The report, a senior government official said, was highly contradictory and called the rating agency's credibility into question. Referring to the Moody's statement that "India's fiscal strength remains a key weakness in the sovereign credit profile...", the official remarked: "How can my strength be my weakness? Moreover, they are unwilling to have a like-to-like comparison with India."
Equity markets rallied after softer-than-expected inflation data in the US and UK rekindled hopes of the end of the rate-hiking cycle by major central banks. The soft inflation reading drove down bond yields and the US dollar, whetting the appetite for risky assets. The 10-year US bond yield fell below 4.5 per cent after topping 5 per cent less than a month ago.
Indian exporters shipping goods to Israel may face higher insurance premiums and shipping costs due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to experts. Israel witnessed a surprise and unprecedented multifront attack by air, land and sea by the Hamas militant group, which rules the Gaza Strip, in its southern parts on Saturday morning. The International trade experts said the conflict may reduce the profits of domestic exporters but will not impact trade volumes unless war escalates.
Ashok Gehlot, widely seen as the Congress's ruling family's nominee for the Congress president's post, bunged a spanner in the works when his MLA supporters submitted their resignations on Sunday night to assembly Speaker C P Joshi.
'We like certain stocks from banking, insurance, retail, hospitals and capital goods.' 'Though some of these stocks may seem expensive, they will compound well over the long term, thus justifying their current multiples.'
Will the National Monetisation Pipeline revive the economy, which is in deep crisis, wonders Uttam Ghosh.
The annual decline works out to be 16.3 per cent in 2022-23 compared to inflows in 2021-22. The gross FDI inflows in 2021-22 were $81.97 billion, up 10 per cent over fiscal 2019-20. The previous year-on-year contraction in FDI was in 2012-13 when the inflows declined by 26 per cent to $34.298 billion.
If a citizen chooses not to use Aadhaar as the default unique identity, then other unique identity proofs masked and linked to Aadhaar would be used.
The talks for a free trade agreement (FTA) between India and Canada may have taken a pause but will resume once the political row between the two countries is resolved as the pact has economic benefits for both the nations, trade experts and exporters said on Friday. However, they said that India may not hurry for the trade agreement as 60 per cent of New Delhi's exports are already entering Canada at zero duty. Earlier this month, India and Canada paused the negotiations for the agreement due to political reasons.
Uttam Ghosh's take on the Big Ministerial Shuffle.
Ashfaq Alam had been in jail for one month in connection with the crime committed in New Delhi and later came out on bail, Aluva Rural Superintendent of Police Vivek Kumar told reporters in Kochi.
The relationship between the US and India has been very productive, in particular on the trade and technology front, and 2023 can be considered the best year historically for bilateral ties, according to a former top American trade official. Arun Kumar, an Indian-American, who served as the assistant secretary of Commerce for Global Markets and director general of the US and Foreign Commercial Service (USFCS) during the Obama administration, said this during an interview with PTI in Washington. "Looking back on 2023, it was a very productive year for the US-India relationship, by many accounts the best year historically," he said.
We are, therefore, setting up more branches in more tertiary terms, like tier 2 and tier 3 terms. Going forward, that is where the growth will come.
Diesel sales in India fell 3 per cent in September as a receding monsoon continued to dampen demand and slowed industrial activity in some parts of the country, preliminary data of state-owned firms showed. While diesel sales by three state-owned fuel retailers fell year-on-year, petrol sales rose in September. Consumption of diesel, the most consumed fuel in the country -- accounting for about two-fifths of the demand, fell to 5.81 million tonnes in September from 5.99 million tonnes demand in the same period a year ago.
The Centre is unlikely to offer new direct tax incentives for units operating in special economic zones (SEZs) and may instead allow the grandfathering of previous exemptions that such units were entitled to, according to proposed amendments to the SEZ Act, 2005, people aware of the matter said. The amendments, proposed by the commerce department, will soon be considered by the Cabinet for approval. This represents a departure from the department's earlier plan to introduce these changes through the Development Enterprises and Services Hubs (DESH) Bill, 2023, which faced strong criticism from the ministry of finance.
The Reserve Bank on Friday retained its inflation projection for current fiscal year at 6.7 per cent amid global geopolitical developments triggered by Russia-Ukraine war. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the impact of inflation globally is weighing heavily on the domestic market. For September quarter of 2022-23, RBI projected retail inflation at 7.1 per cent.
Begin the year-end review by assessing whether your portfolios are on track to achieve your life goals.
Interrupting a two-month streak of decline, outward foreign direct investment (FDI) rose sequentially to $1.85 billion in July over $1.07 billion in June, an increase of 73 per cent. However, it was lower than the $2.18 billion in July last year, according to the Reserve Bank of India data. Outbound FDI, expressed as financial commitment, has three components - equity, loans, and guarantees.
More Indians renounced their citizenship and took citizenship in other countries in 2022 than ever before, according to data. Answering multiple questions in Parliament - the last on March 31 this year - Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan told the Lok Sabha that more than 200,000 Indians gave up Indian citizenship in 2022. The question was asked by Congress Members of Parliament Kodikunnil Suresh and M K Raghavan, and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi.
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