| News Announcement |
Impact Analysis |
| HD Kumaraswamy sworn in as the chief minister of Karnataka |
- The swearing in ceremony was a show of opposition unity with most opposition CMs attending the meet
- On Friday, the Kumaraswamy government also managed to prove its majority with 117 votes in their favour
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| SEBI has issued notices to Chanda Kochhar on the Nu Power Issue |
- Chanda had been accused of favouring her spouse via a Videocon loan where there was conflict of interest
- The main accusation was that she had headed the credit committee and failed to disclose the conflict of interest
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| IDBI posts Rs.5600 crore loss, SBI posts Rs.7700 crore loss in Q4 |
- IDBI has already put assets worth Rs.21,000 crore on the block with NPAs well above the 28% mark
- With total PSU banking losses of Rs.50,000 crore this quarter the bad assets are almost entirely provided for
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| Sun Pharma has warned that US pricing pressure could hit profits in FY2019 |
- Generic drugs are facing a tough time in global markets due to pricing pressure from competition and tighter regulation
- Sun has been struggling to get clearances for its factories from US FDA due to its lax quality standards
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| Forex reserves dip by over $11 billion in May to $415 billion |
- The total forex reserves had touched a level of close to $430 billion before the rupee crash began
- The RBI, through a clutch of banks, has been trying to support the INR from depreciating beyond the Rs.69/$ mark
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| Government may impose cess on ONGC to compensate for higher crude |
- The government has been finding it politically sensitive to keep raising fuel prices just 1 year ahead of elections
- The idea was to impose cess on oil extractors above $70/bbl and use that to hold retail petrol and diesel prices
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| Centre rules out excise duty cut on petrol and diesel |
- With fuel prices at all-time high, there have been demands for cuts in central excise and state VAT
- With a tight budget, the government has refused to oblige although Piyush Goyal has promised a joint formula
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| Donald Trump may meet with Kim Jong Un of North Korea in June |
- The meeting was in jeopardy after North Korea had objected to some of the public comments made by US officials
- It had reached a point where Trump had even threatened that the US was ready with military options against North Korea
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| Trump applies pressure on Saudi Arabia to curb oil prices around $80/bbl |
- The US has threatened to flood the global oil market with US supplies if prices went higher
- As a rapprochement measure, OPEC and Russia may increase supply and try to bring down oil prices further
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| GIC RE posted underwriting losses of Rs.1170 crore in March quarter |
- The losses were led by higher claims on crop insurance and also in the area of motor insurance
- Crop insurance losses at Rs.1358 crore was huge while motor insurance had losses of Rs.570 crore for GIC RE
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| Tech Mahindra profits up 30% in Q4 on the back of deferred tax gains |
- The profit of Rs.1222 crore was much higher than the Bloomberg consensus estimates of Rs.931 crore
- The stock has been among the best performers in the last 1 year on the back of better performance metrics
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| HSBC warns of sharper capital outflows in the next 3-4 months |
- The combination of higher oil inflation and RBI refusal to hike interest rates could give rise to capital outflows
- FIIs have sold over $2.50 billion in equity and debt during the month of May and it is expected to sharpen going ahead
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| Goldman warns of likely global risks due to High Frequency Trading |
- According to Goldman, the rise of HFT runs the risk of sudden depletion of volumes and create a new risk for markets
- Interestingly, Goldman has spent aggressively on algo trading and HFT as well as robotics in the last few years
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| Investcorp to acquire IDFC’s realty and private equity business |
- Investcorp currently manages nearly $22 billion of realty and P/E investments across the Middle East
- In the last few years, Investcorp has invested over $11 billion in real estate assets alone
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| HPCL pushing petrol and diesel under the ambit of GST |
- Currently, petrol and diesel are two of the major products that are kept off the ambit of GST and continue in old regime
- By bringing oil under GST, centre and states will lose the power to tax them, which explains the resentment
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| SBI to hive off stake in some of its major non-core businesses |
- SBI has hived off stake in SBI Life and now proposes to hive off in SBI General Insurance and also in SBI Cards & SBI Caps
- This is in line with the recent trends where large group have been looking to monetize the value of their non-core assets
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| Tata Steel finally gets the approval to acquire Bhushan Steel for $5.3 billion |
- This is the first successful resolution in the NCLT and opens the doors for more such resolutions
- The acquisition gives Tata Steel the inorganic boost to substantially expand its steel making capacity in India
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| MCX launches options on copper and silver futures contract |
- Exchanges had a deadline to launch commodity options by October subject to regulatory approvals
- In the meanwhile, MCX has also denied reports about a reported merger with National Stock Exchange
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| Government insurers to need capital infusion of up to Rs.10,000 crore |
- This capital infusion will be essential before they can consider a 3 way merger of general insurance companies
- The 3 companies will need the capital to bring their solvency margins to 1.50 times their total liabilities
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| Ultratech to buy out the cement division of Century Textiles |
- This acquisition will take the total all-India capacity of Ultra-Tech to 106 million tonnes
- If Binani Cements also gets added then Ultra-Tech will be the biggest player by a huge margin with pan-India presence
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| Christian Lagarde of IMF blames protectionism for slow growth |
- In a direct dig at countries like the US, IMF chief has called for bringing down trade barriers to revive global growth
- The entire debate began with the US imposing 25% tariff on steel and 10% on aluminium setting off a trade war
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