| News Announcement |
Impact Analysis |
| Trump keeps India guessing on trade deal ahead of state visit |
- Trump has hinted that an elaborate trade deal with India could happen closer to the US elections later in 2020
- Trump has been demanding greater opening up of the Indian businesses for American companies
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| Oil continued to slide on Chinese virus pandemic fears |
- The Chinese virus showed no signs of relenting as the death toll crossed the 2200 mark during the week
- With scores of factories and businesses shut, the demand for oil from China has suddenly fallen by more than 20%
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| Shree Cements replaces Yes Bank in the Nifty 50 |
- This shift will be effective from the last week of March after the monthly F&O settlement is completed
- That shift was long overdue with Yes Bank in trouble and Shree becomes the third cement company in the Nifty
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| Telecom companies start partial payment of AGR dues |
- Bharti paid up Rs.10,000 crore, Tata Tele paid up Rs.2200 crore and Idea paid up Rs.3500 crore during the week
- However, this is still only a fraction of the total dues; specially for Vodafone and they would look for partial waiver
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| Gold prices in the global markets jumped to a 7-year high |
- Gold prices touched a level of $1640/oz during the week as the Virus pandemic led to a rush for safe haven assets
- Gold had last touched a peak of $1900 in 2011 but in the Indian market the yellow metal is already at all-time highs
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| Forex reserve chest touches a new high of $476 billion during the week |
- This is the highest level for the forex reserves and gives adequate support to imports and to the rupee
- However, a massive forex chest also raises the question on how to deploy these reserves more productively
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| Cash pile and succession; the two key questions at Berkshire Hathaway |
- The big question for Berkshire at the latest annual meeting is who will eventually succeed Buffett for the top job
- The question is also on how the investment company sitting on $37 billion of idle cash will deploy its money
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| NCAER downgrades India’s growth estimates for 2019-20 to 4.9% |
- This will be the lowest full year growth that India has seen in more than 8 years; largely due to a consumption slowdown
- NCAER has also pegged the GDP growth for 2020-21 at just 5.6%; much lower than the RBI estimates
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| Flipkart joins Amazon in challenging the antitrust probe |
- The antitrust probe had been initiated for exclusive deals between the retailers and the sellers
- This comes in the light of the Trump visit; and he has been demanding that India open up its business a lot more
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| GMR sells stake in its airports business to ADP of France |
- GMR will receive close to $1.50 billion from this deal and the money will be used to defray part of their huge debt
- The deal was done through the green channel, which is the route for automatic clearance, subject to certain conditions
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| Muthoot Finance raises $550 million at 4.4% in the global market |
- This is part of the broad move by Muthoot to raise up to $2 billion from the international bond markets
- The rate of interest at 4.4% is sharply lower than the previous tranche which they had raised at the rate of 6.125%
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| Fiscal deficit touches 4.56% as of December 2019 |
- This means that the government really needs a huge revenue push to bring fiscal deficit to 3.8% for the full fiscal year
- Any spillage in fiscal deficit beyond 3.8% could have negative implications for the rupee and for external ratings
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| Airlines in Asia could lose up to $28 billion due to Chinese virus |
- According to IATA, airlines have been forced to cancel scores of flights to Asia’s busiest market of China
- Apart from travel embargoes, the demand for travel has also fallen sharply due to major shutdowns in China
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| MPC minutes clearly hint at inflation concerns from the members |
- The broad hint appears to be that inflation expectations may rule out rate cuts for the next two policies
- Most MPC members are unanimous that growth stimulus should now come from fiscal not monetary measures
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| China may exempt 65 US goods from special tariffs from February 28th |
- This clearly appears to be a move to neutralize the February visit of Trump to India for trade talks
- The special tariffs were imposed as a retaliatory measure by China in the midst of the trade war last year
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| ICRA downgrades Indian pharma sector on Chinese virus scare |
- The pharma sector has the biggest risk due to China being an integral part of its supply chain
- Most Indian pharma companies maintain inventories of up to 2 months and that may be fast depleting
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| Indiabulls made a big leap last week after the ED found nothing amiss |
- ED had been investigating Indiabulls group for loans to DLF group, which had eventually turned doubtful
- However, with the loans being fully repaid, the ED expressed satisfaction that there was no reason to doubt the books
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| Vodafone was the big gainer for the week on DOT assurance |
- DOT assured Vodafone that they would not cash the bank guarantees till the next hearing on March 17th
- Vodafone had remonstrated that cashing of bank guarantees would have left Vodafone only with the choice of insolvency
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| Morgan Stanley to pay $13 billion for acquiring E-Trade |
- The deal will give Morgan Stanley the access to the massive retail customer base of E-Trade
- It may be recollected that E-Trade had pioneered internet trading in the US and still remains a successful model
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| India’s savings rate falls to a 15-year low at 30.1% |
- The corresponding figure used to be as high as 36% in the year 2007 and 34% in the year 2012
- Even household savings have fallen sharply during the period showing the stress that household finances are in
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| Record food grain production could help to thwart inflation |
- The yearly output at 292 million tonnes for FY 2019-20 is likely to be largely driven by a record Rabi harvest
- The late rains may have damaged the Kharif output but also filled up reservoirs helping the Rabi output
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