| News Announcement |
Impact Analysis |
| British Parliament postpones vote on the crucial BREXIT deal |
- In a move to delay the BREXIT by another 3 months, the UK House of Commons opted to postpone the vote
- This would mean that the October 31 deadline may be hard to meet and that would give more time for a fresh deal
|
| HDFC Bank continues to flatter with a 27% growth in profits in Q2 |
- This growth in net profits comes on top of a 15% growth in net interest income in the midst of tough conditions
- However, provisions for contingencies were sharply up by 48% YOY although the NPAs are still well in control
|
| Commodity market volumes dry up by 60% over the last 6 years |
- This compression in volume has been a direct outcome of the imposition of commodity transaction tax (CTT) in 2013
- Unlike the equity F&O market, the commodity speculative volumes have been seriously hampered by the tax
|
| RIL announced record profits even as market cap scaled Rs.9 trillion |
- The profit growth was largely driven by retail and digital with petchem and refining lagging in profit growth
- Weak oil prices and lower gross refining margins (GRMs) took its toll on the growth of the core cash cows of RIL
|
| SEBI tightens norms for resignation of auditors of companies |
- This was necessitated after a series of company stock prices got beaten down post the auditor resignations
- Now auditors will have to justify their resignations in a short period and could become another face-off with ICAI
|
| Indian Railways unhappy with the under pricing of IRCTC IPO |
- IRCTC price doubled on the day of listing, leaving a lot of investors thanking the conservative pricing
- Indian Railways, which administratively controls IRCTC, has been unhappy with the deliberate under pricing of the IPO
|
| RBI refuses provisioning relief to banks on the DHFL loans issue |
- DHFL has outstanding debt of Rs.1 trillion of which nearly 50% is owed by DHFL to banks
- With the latest RBI clarification, all banks exposed to DHFL will have to provide 15% of their loans to DHFL in the Dec quarter
|
| India’s forex reserves touch a record $440 billion in October 2019 |
- Forex reserves saw an accretion of nearly $1.9 billion during the week assisted by strong FPI flows
- With the RBI not required to intervene to support the rupee, the flows are directly adding to the forex chest
|
| Monetary Policy Committed focuses entirely on reviving growth |
- There was almost a consensus among MPC members to keep lowering rates till the time GDP growth picked up
- However, the challenge could be that the repo rates are already at the lowest level since 2002 leaving limited room
|
| Aluminium stocks take a hit on weak forecast by US based ALCOA |
- Alcoa painted a bleak picture of aluminium demand and actually is selling off its aluminium assets
- This had a negative impact on the price performance of companies like Vedanta and Hindalco
|
| Zee Entertainment profits misses estimates for second quarter |
- The miss was due to a Rs.171 crore write off that the company had to take due to an ICD outstanding
- This could raise a bigger corporate governance issue as company profits are being hit by group transactions
|
| Maharashtra and Haryana go to assembly polls on 21st October |
- In the key state of Maharashtra, the BJP-Shiv Sena combine is taking on the combination of Congress and NCP
- Exit polls will be allowed on 21st evening while the actual counting will be on the 24th of October
|
| Jio widens subscriber gap over Bharti and Vodafone Idea |
- Jio was the only telecom company to gain subscribers even as Bharti and Vodafone lost customers during the quarter
- In fact, Vodafone Idea is estimated to have lost close to 5 million active subscribers during this period
|
| Nifty and Sensex gained for the sixth consecutive day on Friday |
- The rally was driven by a combination of weak oil prices and hopes of a BREXIT resolution at the earliest
- There was also consistent short covering across rate sensitive sectors ahead of an expected Diwali bull market rally
|
| FMCG companies see the worst rural growth in the last seven years |
- Rural growth in demand has changed from twice the urban growth to half of urban growth in last 2 years
- This weakness is evident in falling rural inflation and is an outcome of agri distress and erratic monsoons this year
|
| Mutual funds now hold 21% exposure to the private banking space |
- This is almost at par with the weightage of these private banks in the BSE 200 index
- Over the last one year, the exposure to private banks has gone up by 400 bps as there is a clear flight to quality
|
| MAT credit of Rs.75,000 crore could be the overhang for tax shift |
- This has become a major issue after CBDT refused carry forward of MAT credit for companies shifting to lower tax
- With huge MAT credits still to be availed, this would delay the process of shifting to the new tax formula
|
| Government wants to impose GST on brand usage by group companies |
- The argument is that when group companies use a common brand, there is a service which is not being taxed
- However, the GST Council also foresees that any such measure will result in a plethora of litigations in courts
|
| Indian trade deficit for September falls to a low of $10.86 billion |
- The exports fell by 6.5% but imports fell much sharper by 13.5% leading to compression of trade deficit
- However, this is indicative of slowdown in India’s trade machinery but that has also been the trend globally
|
| SBI sees accelerating consumer loans but decelerating business loans |
- According to SBI, there was a clear slowdown in commercial credit across micro, SME and industrial enterprises
- With PSU banks going slow, most private banks are still sticking to the much easier business of consumer lending
|
| IMF downgrades India GDP growth to 6.1% for 2019 |
- This is broadly in line with the growth downgrades by the RBI and later by the other rating agencies
- Global growth has also been lowered to 3% with trade war losses estimated at close to $800 billion
|
