Weekly Capsule (Mar 09 – Mar 13) and Impact Analysis

News Announcement Impact Analysis
  • Sensex ends volatile week with 5000 points gain from the bottom
  • The bounce came after the markets touched lower circuit in early trades on Friday
  • A mix of domestic institutional buying and some positive noises from the government helped the recovery
  • Dow Jones also recovers 10% to close 2000 points higher on Friday
  • This bounce was largely determined by short covering after heavy selling through the week
  • Most of the global indices lost around 25-28% in a span of just one month including DJIA, CAC, DAX and the Nifty
  • Trump declares National Emergency as the Coronavirus spreads across the US
  • Trump has provided an emergency funding of $50 billion to fight the spread of the virus on a priority basis
  • Trump has already shut the borders to visitors from EU and has also cancelled all visa interviews in India
  • Yes Bank gets a major Rs.3100 crore life line from Indian banks
  • ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank will infuse Rs.1000 crore each while Axis and Kotak will put in Rs.500 crore each
  • That brings the total capital contribution to Rs.10,300 crore, including SBI, and the balance may come from PE investors
  • AT1 bond holders in Yes bank may get equity to the tune of Rs.1700 crore
  • This roughly translates into a markdown of 80% from the bond value of Rs.8500 crore as per the balance sheet
  • AT1 bond holders had put off their legal recourse after RBI had promised to intervene and sort out the matter
  • DGCA asks airlines to waive all cancellation  charges due to the virus
  • More than 30% of the tours and travel plans have been cancelled in the last few months
  • While that is going to result in business loss, airline companies will lose further if the cancellation charges are also waived
  • Saudi Arabia starts flooding the world market with cheap oil
  • After increasing oil supply to 12 million bpd, Saudi Arabia has now dropped prices to as low as $25/bbl
  • The impact was clear on Brent Crude as the price dipped as low as $30/bbl, more than 50% lower in 3 months
  • India registers growth in exports and imports  for Feb 2020
  • In a contrast to previous trends, exports for Feb-20 were up by 2.9% while imports were up by 2.43%
  • Interestingly for India, the trade push came from non-oil exports, which was up by 6.16% for the month of February
  • Rupee rebounds over the weekend as RBI intervenes to support
  • The rupee had weakened to Rs.74.50/$ levels before RBI intervention helped it to close around 73.81/$
  • The RBI is estimated to have sold dollars to the tune of $1.50 billion to provide support to the local currency
  • FPIs sell Rs.41,522 crore of equities in the last one month
  • FPIs were sellers on all days, except one, resulting in the Indian indices falling by 28% from the peak in a month
  • FPI selling in the last one month intensified due to the spread of the Coronavirus and the Yes Bank moratorium
  • US markets are expecting another big rate cut from the Fed next week
  • Fed had already cut rates by 50 bps to 1.25% in the first week of March to counter the slowdown caused by the pandemic
  • However, the expectation now is that the US could push rates once again close to the zero mark; as it did in 2008
  • CBI and ED file fresh money laundering case against Rana Kapoor
  • The promoter of Yes Bank is believed to have given out loans of Rs.20,000 crore that eventually turned bad
  • The CBI is also investigating the process adopted in the case of the purchase of the Rs.378 crore property in New Delhi
  • Air India bidding cut-off has been put off to April 30th from March 17th
  • The bidders had asked for more time to evaluate the data and submit their bids for Air India
  • Also, the Coronavirus had substantially depressed the valuations of airline stocks
  • Chief Economic Advisor hints at rate cut by the Reserve Bank
  • In view of the crash in the markets and the slowdown in growth, the CEA has hinted at an early rate cut by RBI
  • It was expected that RBI would cut rates after the US Fed did in early March, but the RBI has chosen to go slow
  • Retail CPI inflation comes in almost 100 basis points lower at 6.58% for Feb
  • The fall in CPI inflation was largely driven by a sharp 283 bps fall in the overall food inflation
  • This sharp fall in inflation, it is hoped, will pave the way for an RBI rate cut this month
  • IIP growth bounces back to 2%, led by better manufacturing growth
  • This marks the third successive month of positive IIP growth after 3 months of de-growth between August and October
  • Some green shoots of recovery are also visible in the sharp improvement in the PMI manufacturing and services
  • Larsen & Toubro raised Rs.1675 crore for its INVIT Fund
  • These bonds will carry a coupon of 9.04% and is largest such INVIT issue raised on the NSE EBP platform
  • This INVIT fund raising is being done by L&T to take over the road assets of ailing Sadbhav Engineering of Ahmadabad
  • Franklin Templeton takes up to 3.5% cut on most of its debt funds
  • This pertain to the full write-offs it is taking on its exposure to bonds of the ADAG group and Essel Infrastructure
  • The exposure to the AT1 bonds of Yes Bank are yet to be fully accounted for by the fund
  • Fitch warns of impact of Yes Bank issue on NBFCs
  • According to Fitch, it could have an impact on its last mile business and its funding from other private banks
  • Also, the expectation is that the cost of funds for NBFCs may go up sharply, putting them under immense stress
  • Infosys dismisses three of its employees on tax refund related fraud
  • These employees are alleged to have demanded money from the assessees towards speeding up their refunds
  • The employees were part of the CPC project of the tax department, which is currently being handled by Infosys
  • US Yield curve is now entirely under the 1% mark for all tenures
  • For the first time in its history, even the US 30-year treasuries are trading at yields lower than 1%
  • Low yields combined with an inverted yield curve at places, is a pointer towards an impending economic slowdown