• The quarter saw the Gross NPAs of the bank going up to as high as 6.77% in the fourth quarter
• Interestingly, the stock of Axis was up by over 8% on Friday as markets believe that the NPA cycle may have turned around

• Fitch expects inflation to rise on the back of higher food MSP and higher crude oil prices resulting in interest rate hikes
• Fitch also expects that the rate hikes by the RBI may actually strengthen the INR and worsen the trade deficit

• Volumes for the fiscal year 2017-18 were up by 13.4% with a virtual leadership in most of the segments
• The profits for the full year were up by just 5% due to a higher incidence of tax rates during the current year

• Numetal has objected to Arcelor being permitted to bid for Essar Steel with the promise to pay up dues in 30 days
• Numetal has objected to its rejection on the grounds that Ruia’s son was formerly on the Numetal board

• North and South Korea have decided to end their 7-decade old war and pursue denuclearization in future
• This could have long term positive rub-offs for the peace and stability in the Asian region

• Firstly, crude at closer to $75/bbl is going to wipe off nearly 25-30 basis points from annual GDP growth
• Higher crude is also dangerous due to its potential impact on inflation and on the merchandise trade deficit

• This followed the bankruptcy of Aircel and the CBI inquiry pertains to a loan on which Aircel had defaulted
• Senior officials of IDBI Bank, who had connived with Siva Sankaran were also booked by the CBI

• This is Sunil Mittal’s big bet to create a war chest and to take on the competition from Reliance Jio
• Mittal has also agreed to give equal control to Vodafone, which has a minority interest in Indus Towers.

• The US is already exporting 8.3 million bpd and could cross Saudi Arabia’s 9.4 million bpd by next year
• The US could step in to fill up the OPEC shortfall of 1.8 million of production cuts since Jan 2017

• The fear is that the $15 billion monthly trade deficit could now widen due to higher oil prices

However, if the RBI hikes rates during the year then the INR could actually get stronger on the back of portfolio flows

• Wipro has already taken a hit on its American HPS business after Trump had scrapped Obamacare
• The bigger hit in the quarter came from the insolvency of two of its telecom clients, which includes Aircel

• Total sugar output during the current Oct-Sep year is likely to be at a record 31.5 million tonnes
• This is likely to put further pressure on sugar prices and also put pressure on the sugar mills, that are already in debt

• The crop insurance losses depressed the premium growth for the year from 20% to 14%
• Insurance claims ratio already stands at 135% for crop insurance and the impact is evident on ICICI Lombard

• A key reason for the loss was the sharp fall in ARPUs to Rs.116 due to stiff price completion from Reliance Jio
• Interestingly, the redeeming feature for Bharti Airtel was its Africa revenues which turned in a huge profit

• This was an immediate outcome of the sharp rise in bond yields in the Indian markets
• This is nearly 100 basis points higher than the rate last year and it is not good news for smaller companies

• This is more than the combined accretion of Vodafone and Bharti Airtel put together
• Reliance Jio has already taken its market share to 15.5% in 18 months, mostly at the expense of smaller players

• Both TCS and RIL have come close to the $100 billion market capitalization after the sharp rally in stock prices
• TCS valuation has now crossed that of global tech giant Cognizant but it is still 1/8^th of Apple

• Aluminium prices had gone up sharply after the US had imposed sanctions on Rusal
• The US later softened its sanctions subject to the condition that the promoter Oleg Deripaska cedes control of Rusal

• This is largely intended to curb speculation in the market through the use of stock futures on smaller stocks
• SEBI was worried due to the rising volumes of stock futures trading. Arbitrage and hedged positions will be exempted

• This will include a review of whether the conflict of interest of the CEO’s family was appropriately disclosed or not
• The bank CEO has been in the eye of the storm after charges of conflict of interest were raised with respect to Videocon

• Most private insurers have grown at nearly twice the rate of LIC during the last financial year
• LIC, in the last few years, has been financing the Indian railways and also bailing out failed PSU IPOs