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  • India expected to attract $100 billion FDI in 2022-23: PHD Chamber

    India is expected to attract $100 billion foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2022-23 on the back of economic reforms and ease of doing business in recent years, industry chamber PHDCCI said on Thursday.

    It also said the current financial year is expected to attain a GDP growth of more than 8 per cent.

    However, the inflation scenario has been stoked by rising international commodity prices, particularly of crude oil, it said.

    “India is expected to attract a $100 billion FDI inflow in 2022-23 supported by various ground touching economic reforms and significant ease of doing business in recent years,” the chamber said.

    It has suggested a ten-pronged strategy to strengthen the economic growth and achieve the target of becoming a $5 trillion economy in next five years.

    The suggestions include speedy infrastructure investments, inclusion of more sectors under the PLI scheme, increase in public investments in agriculture sector, addressing the high commodity prices and shortages of raw materials.

  • Russia-Ukraine war: Rs 1.2 trn SME debt at risk, lower-rated unit worse off

    Rs 1.2 trn SME debt at risk,

    The direct impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on Indian business would be largely restricted to small entities with low ratings and would be manageable. The effect on credit will be more pronounced in a few sectors such as pharma and subsidy-linked industries like fertilisers, according to India Ratings.

    As for the indirect impact of war on credit, rating agency said the analysis of top 1,400 corporate entities (excluding oil and financial entities) as per total debt, is expected to be limited-to-moderate.

    The median EBITDA margins could be impacted by 100-200 bps for commodity-consuming sectors in a scenario of commodity prices sustain at the current levels, rupee depreciates by 10 per cent and an increase in the borrowing costs by one per cent.

    The debt at risk (with net leverage exceeding 5x) would exceed by Rs 1.2 trillion compared to what was anticipated prior to the war, or under steady state condition. The agency is reviewing its portfolio of entities and will communicate rating actions wherever appropriate.

    Pharma has meaningful exports to the countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States which coupled with the ongoing pressure on generic pricing in the US could impact the profitability of some companies.

    Wtih respect to credit, given these entities have low leverage on their balance sheets, risk is expected to be minimal. Increasing business risks in the event of a prolonged disruption could impact credits.

    Higher food, fertilizers, and oil prices are likely to put pressure on the subsidy allocation by the Indian government for fertilizers and LPG. If the government were to refrain from increasing the fertilizer subsidy, the deficit would need to be funded by the balance sheet of fertilizer companies, thus deteriorating their credit metrics. The credit impact on fertilizer companies is assessed to be manageable, given their low leverage, it said.

    India Ratings said that the increase in commodity prices could result in a stretched working capital cycle for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), weakening debt servicing ability. Additionally, any material rise in interest rates could increase the EMI burden on borrowers.

  • Rupee rises by 22 paise to 74.44 against US dollar in early trade

    The rupee spurted by 22 paise to 74.44 in early trade on Monday on softer crude oil prices and revived hopes of a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

    The rupee gained further ground to trade at 74.44 at 1030 hours, supported by benign crude oil prices.

    Reports suggested that the US and Russia have agreed to hold a summit on the Ukraine standoff, calming jittery investors. The reports also suggested that one of the preconditions for the summit is that Russia would not invade Ukraine, raising hopes of a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

    Of late, crude oil prices have spurted on fears of supply disruption due to a possible invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

    The Brent Crude on Monday dropped by 0.34 per cent to USD 93.22 per barrel. The US dollar index also edged lower by 0.21 per cent to 95.84.

    Meanwhile, on the domestic equity front, the BSE Sensex was trading lower by 398.17 points at 57,434.80 and the NSE Nifty dropped 93.20 points to 17,183.10 in late morning deals.

  • Sensex, Nifty end lower in see-saw session; HDFC bucks trend

    Market benchmarks closed in the red after a highly volatile session on Wednesday despite a positive trend in global equities amid signs of cooling of Russia-Ukraine tensions.

    The 30-share BSE Sensex swung nearly 800 points during the session before closing at 57,996.68 — marking a loss of 145.37 points or 0.25 per cent

    Likewise, the NSE Nifty see-sawed between gains and losses before settling 30.25 points or 0.17 per cent lower at 17,322.20.

    On the Sensex chart, NTPC, SBI, UltraTech Cement, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finserv and Bjaja Finance were among the major laggards, shedding as much as 1.63 per cent.

    In contrast, Bharti Airtel was the top performer, spurting 1.41 per cent, followed by HDFC, M&M, Dr Reddy’s, Kotak Bank and Nestle India.

    Of the index constituents, 22 shares closed with losses.

    Ajit Mishra, VP – Research, Religare Broking Ltd, said markets are currently dancing to the global tunes and the trend is likely to continue.

    “The US Fed meeting minutes and lingering tension over the Russia-Ukraine crisis will remain on the radar. Besides, the scheduled weekly expiry would further add to the choppiness. We reiterate our cautious stance and suggest waiting for further clarity,” he noted.

    Sectorally, metal, banking and basic materials indices fell the most — dropping up to 0.66 per cent. Of the 19 indices, 11 indices closed in the red. Broader BSE midcap and largecap gauges followed the benchmark to end lower, while the smallcap index logged gains.

    World stocks edged higher after Russia said it was pulling back some troops from the Ukraine border, even as the US administration reiterated its commitment to respond “decisively” in case of a Russian attack.

    Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul closed with significant gain.

    Markets in Europe too were largely trading higher in the afternoon session. Global crude oil benchmark Brent Futures slipped 0.19 per cent to USD 93.06 per barrel.

    The rupee appreciated by 23 paise to close at 75.09 against the US dollar. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital market on Tuesday, as they offloaded shares worth Rs 2,298.76 crore, according to stock exchange data.

  • COVID disrupts health services in over 90% of countries: WHO

    Disruptions in basic health services such as vaccination programmes and treatment of diseases like AIDS were reported in 92% of 129 countries, a World Health Organization survey on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic showed on Monday.

    The survey, conducted in November-December 2021, showed services were “severely impacted” with “little or no improvement” from the previous survey in early 2021, the WHO said in a statement sent to journalists.

    “The results of this survey highlight the importance of urgent action to address major health system challenges, recover services and mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the WHO said.

    Emergency care, which includes ambulance and ER services, actually worsened with 36% of countries reporting disruptions versus 29% in early 2021 and 21% in the first survey in 2020.

    Elective operations such as hip and knee replacements were disrupted in 59% of the countries and gaps to rehabilitative and palliative care were reported in about half of them.

    The survey’s timing coincided with surging COVID-19 cases in many countries in late 2021 due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant, piling additional strain on hospitals.The WHO statement attributed the scale of disruptions to ”pre-existing health systems issues” as well as decreased demand for care, without elaborating.

  • Gold investment platform Jar raises $32 million led by Tiger Global

    Savings and investment management platform Jar has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by Tiger Global, the company has said .The round also saw participation from Rocketship.vc, Third

    Prime, Stonks, Force Ventures and existing investors including Arkam Ventures and WEH Ventures, the company said on February 3.

    Angel investors, including Klarna founder Victor Jacobsson, Suleman Ali of Ali Capital, Shamir Karkal, founder of Sila Money, Byron Ling of Cannan Partners, Joel John of Ledger Prime and Italic founder Jeremy Cai also participated in the round.

    “We are helping people get comfortable with the idea of investing,” founder Nishchay AG said in a statement. “What we have found is that once people build familiarity with investments, they build a habit to invest more. A habit and discipline is clearly being formed and we see a jump of 20 percent in investments month over month by users.”

    The funds will be used to expand the user base and eventually add offerings like savings and other financial services, including lending and insurance.

    The round comes after the company raised $4.5 million in seed funding in August 2021, with the backing of Arkam Ventures, Tribe Capital and WEH Ventures.Founded in June 2021 by Nishchay and Misbah Ashraf, the platform aims to encourage Indians to invest small amounts in gold and help them build their savings.

    The Jar app saves a small amount each time a user makes a transaction. The app, which can be allowed to look at the transaction history, rounds up an individual’s daily spendings and puts some money aside as investment.

    Users’ investments in digital gold is backed by physical gold of the same amount and they can choose to withdraw that much gold or liquidate their investments at any time. The company partners with Paytm and Safegold for helping users invest.

    “Hundreds of millions of Indians today don’t have any savings. This, unfortunately, continues to trap many of them in the world of bad debts that some take decades to get out of. We want to help Indians build a habit of saving so they have a financial cushion to fall back on in the time of dire need,” Ashraf said.

    The platform has four million users and the app sees over 100 transactions a minute.”Jar is bringing new users into the online investing space, starting with digital gold as the first product. We are bought into Jar’s mission of helping users build a daily savings habit, and we’re excited to partner with the team as they scale to millions of customers,” Alex Cook, Partner at Tiger Global, said.

  • The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may go for a hike of up to 0.25 per cent in the reverse repo rate at which the RBI absorbs excess liquidity and leave the repo rate at which it lends, to narrow the policy rate corridor, a British brokerage said on Thursday.

    “Growth concerns amid spread of the Omicron variant and relatively benign inflation out-turns provide the RBI with enough room to maintain its growth-supportive monetary policies,” analysts at Barclays said, ahead of the resolution announcement next week.The RBI will hike the reverse repo rate by 0.20-0.25 per cent, given its liquidity management actions, it said.

    The brokerage joins a growing list of watchers expecting a reverse repo hike.

    Other analysts also blame the surprising hike in the government borrowing announced in the budget for the RBI’s likely call for policy normalisation.

    Barclays said the budget’s focus on capital expenditure is expected to provide a back-loaded fiscal impulse to the economy and does not change the macro backdrop, which includes concerns on inflation.

    On the surging global oil prices, which generally play into domestic inflation through corresponding price hikes of fuels locally, the brokerage said the inflationary pressures are unlikely to rise before the state elections finish by March, hinting of no pass-through.

    Even though the inflation is benign lately, the RBI needs to be vigilant, it said, pointing to its own forecasts suggesting the headline number staying in the upper end of the 2-6 per cent band and also the crude prices moving higher.

    It said till now, the liquidity signals from the RBI have been mixed, which have included shelving of the bond purchasing programme GSAP, an increase in both the quantum and cut-offs for voluntary reverse repo rate auctions and some bond sales in the secondary market last month.

    The policy guidance will be dovish when compared to RBI’s global peers who have been guiding or announcing rates hikes as inflations become into a concern, it said, adding that inflation in India should trend lower through 2022.

  • Akhilesh Yadav in Noida today years after avoiding it due to ‘jinx’

    Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav is scheduled to address a press conference in Noida on February 3 as part of his poll campaign in Western Uttar Pradesh.

    The seven-phase Uttar Pradesh election beginning February 10 is considered to be a fight between the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Yadav-led Samajwadi Party. Three seats of Gautam Buddh Nagar district – Noida, Jewar, and Dadri –  will go to the polls in the first phase on February 10.This will be Yadav’s first visit to the Noida Gautam Buddha Nagar district which he avoided as chief minister purportedly because of the ‘jinx’ associated with the town neighboring Delhi.

    The political superstition that has stuck to Noida, another name for Gautam Buddh Nagar, for long popular as ‘Noida jinx’ is that visiting the town brings bad luck to chief ministers and hence are not re-elected.

    Yadav’s visit comes after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s remark that he feared visiting the town because of the superstition. Adityanath has been trashing the jinx by his regular visits to the NCR town, even ahead of the Uttar Pradesh polls. During one his of visits earlier this month, Adityanath said that he would beat the “Noida jinx” and come back to power, unlike his predecessors.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi also criticised leaaders believing in the jinx at his virtual rally addressing voters of western Uttar Pradesh earlier this week.

    Yadav stayed away from Noida as chief minister between 2012 and 2017. He even skipped the Asian Development Bank Summit held in Noida in May 2013. Then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the chief guest at the event. Yadav would often inaugurate projects in the town virtually. In April 2013, he launched the Rs 3,300-crore development projects, including access to the six-lane Yamuna Expressway, through a video link from Lucknow.

    Yadav even met family members of Dadri lynching victim Mohammad Akhlaq in Lucknow, instead of visiting the family in Dadri. Before him, other Uttar Pradesh Chief Ministers, including, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Kalyan Singh, ND Tiwari, and Rajnath Singh avoided going to Noida as well.

    After his defeat in 2017 assembly polls, Yadav, while on his way to Delhi, briefly stopped  in Noida for five minutes to greet party workers.

  • Sensex climbs 696 points, Nifty ends at 17,780 as Budget cheer continues; banks, financial stocks gain

    The frontline equity indices on the BSE and National Stock Exchange (NSE) settled higher for the third consecutive session, closing with over 1.1 per cent gains on Wednesday as the post-Budget rally continued for the second session with intense buying in banking and financial stocks amid supportive global cues.

    The S&P BSE Sensex surged 695.76 points (1.18 per cent) to end at 59,558.33 while the Nifty 50 rose 203.15 points (1.16 per cent) to settle at 17,780.00. Both the indices had opened over 0.5 per cent higher earlier in the day and extended their gains as the trade progressed.

    On the Sensex pack, IndusInd Bank and Bajaj Finserv were the top gainers of the day ending with over 5 per cent gains. They were followed by HCL Technologes, Bajaj Finance, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, HDFC Bank and Wipro. On the other hand, Tech Mahindra, Nestle India, Ultratech Cement, Maruti Suzuki India, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Sun Pharamaceutical Industries were the biggest laggards.

  • Dalal Street cheers Union Budget as Sensex climbs 848 points, Nifty settles at 17,577

    The benchmark equity indices on the BSE and National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended nearly 1.5 per cent higher following a volatile session of trade on the Budget day as market participants reacted positively to the big infrastructure boost in the Budget 2022 delivered by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

    The S&P BSE Sensex rose 848.40 points (1.46 per cent) to settle at 58,862.57 while the Nifty 50 climbed 237.00 points (1.37 per cent) to end at 17,576.85. Earlier in the day both the indices opened over 0.8 per cent higher and rose around 1.7 per cent with the Sensex hitting a high of 59,032.20 and Nifty touching 17,622.40 during the FM’s budget speech.