Indian equity investors approach Diwali with an air of reluctance. The markets hit an all-time high on the BSE SENSEX and approach the Mahurat trading on Sunday with the CNX NIFTY at striking distance of a new high. Yet, there were hardly any smiles all around. People are nervously worried…
Quick Edit: A fortnight is a long time in the stock market. Especially, when it is the year’s first one. The markets closed 2011 on a weak note. The outlook looked bleak on several indicators- tax collections, IIP data, the exchange rate, trade data and FII investment data. Towards the…
The term defensive usually gives us a negative connotation. In stock market parlance, we call a company a defensive because we will not lose money in that company given its stable business performance. But, recent times have seen the defensives perform admirably. Growth has been outlier. Profit growth has been…
When economies slow down, the stock markets struggle to find a stable leadership pack. How this leadership pack is built effectively determines the course of every bull market. The early phase of forming a new market leadership is the toughest. The confidence in a specific sector to effectively provide market…
“Trade deficits hit a two year low “. The domestic headline flows clearly seems to be putting the bad news behind. But, a slowing global economy, the stalling crisis in the US over spending limits and dropping domestic growth are not giving much comfort to Indian investors. The lack of…
Talking heads with investor peers these days inevitably leads to talking politics. The conversation dwells mostly on number crunching, second guessing alliances and trend reading. Investors sound more like political analysts these days and actually spend more time talking about politics than investing. What do investors have to do with…
Predicting a crash in any asset class is a dangerous business. To the one making the prediction, the odds are inevitably stacked against the act. If you go wrong, everybody on the other side of the divide will pounce on your credibility. If you are right, there will be so…
Growth in the Indian economy is definitely set to slow. We will see our GDP estimates getting tapered down as elections near. The focus has shifted decisively to containing inflation. The slower growth and the RBI’s moves should be long term positive in lowering inflation. Business will have to work…
The drama of falling emerging market (EM) currencies taught us some lessons. The lessons were long overdue. Just that the lessons taught us what we already knew. We can’t follow the monetary policies of America which, simply labeled, is ‘bad economics’. If we keep on overspending on stimulus without managing…
What hit us? Indians across the globe are wondering what caused this economic mess. The subprime crisis of 2008 created a wave of easy money flowing into countries across the world. We added to this liquidity with our own stimulus. The Indian economy had the power of double steroids backing…
Politics always plays the dampener to good economics. This is how it works everywhere. Taking hard economic decisions is not a politician’s forte. In fact, politicians always look for easy ways. It is only when the cumulative effect of all the easy decisions land them in a soup that politicians…
Imagine 100 companies go on a borrowing binge outside India to invest in Indian operations. They have long gestation periods, no forex incomes and need to import their raw materials. The only reason they borrowed overseas – greed to enjoy lower interest rates. These companies actually speculated on the dollar.…