Inflation Indexed Bonds - Real risk of good intentions turning into bad economics?

Indian FM, in its current pursuit to contain fiscal deficits, have taken certain strong measures. One of the important steps taken is introduction of inflation linked bonds. FM is desperately trying to wean off Indian investors from their insatiable demand for gold which is widely considered a hedge against inflation and one of the main culprits behind rising deficits.

Govt earlier tried to discourage the gold demand by raising the import duty from 2% to 6% in beginning of this year but met with little success. Gold recently sent a shocker down the Govt spine when Apr statistics indicated a 138% jump in gold imports to $7.5 billion, taking the current account deficit to $17.8 billion from $10.3 billion in March.

Govt now is re-attempting to provide an alternative investment route in the form of inflation linked bonds to protect the investors against rising prices. In its earlier attempt in 1997, Govt offered protection to only principal payment. But this time, it went one step ahead and offered interest income to be also indexed to protect against inflation.

RBI's bond sale on Tuesday was a success as the corporates lapped up the product. Issue will open for retail investors in October this year.The main selling point is an offer of 1.44% real yield over the final WPI, with almost four months lag period, which means current offer is linked to January 2013 WPI rate.

There are two major issues with the current bond sale. First, the debt is indexed to WPI, which we know calculates the price changes in the trades among the corporates NOT consumers or retail investors. This essentially means, bond does not provides consumers protection against the rising prices, what best it does is provide partial protection. There is almost 4.5% difference between current WPI and CPI numbers. Though, it is too early to speculate on its impact on gold demand, I am not sure replacing WPI with CPI as the inflation benchmark in the offer would have served the purpose of streamlining the Govt finances.

Second major issue is, which is really a downside, what happens if, we faltered on our path to regain the lost growth, FII flows dries up due to some reason and we are left with falling currency, which fires up the inflation and inflationary expectations in domestic economy and Govt is left with huge bonds liability in a slow growth environment which will raise Govt borrowing costs and inturn stoke further inflation. Nobody on the street is seem to be discussing this.

What all I know is, global economy is not out of mess, markets are been artificially inflated with central bankers printing huge quantity of money, commodity prices are down - not because of increasing competition or supply but decline in demand across the developed countries and every important economy is struggling to get growth back on its feet.

Weekly Market Commentary - May 27 - May 31, 2013

We started the week with big bang news of another potentially huge discovery in KG-D6 by RIL and ended the week with weak, but expected sub 5% 4Q GDP numbers.

In the context of current Indian market performance, you can safely say that current volatility is the by-product of easy liquidity and uncertain economic environment. Every new economic data brings with it the question everyone is asking, whether this is the last of the bad news we are receiving. With every data release, we hear experts talking about Indian market bottoming out. But have we?

Current GDP figures are at decade low, consumption is showing decline, rupee is falling, RBI is dithering on rate cuts and Indian investor is choosing to stay away from stocks making our markets even more vulnerable to sudden FII outflow which could prove disastrous to the economy. This week sensex made a small gain of 0.3% while Nifty and CNX Midcap ended flat.

Monday - Sensex up by 1.7%, Nifty up by 1.7%, Midcap up by 1.2%
Sensex zoomed past 20K mark, gaining more than 350 points in the process. Main catalyst was Reliance Industries late Friday announcement of big gas discovery in KG D6 basin. Company is planning to start appraisal drilling soon to ascertain the amount of gas discovered. It remains to be seen how much of this gas, Reliance, can actually drill out commercially. Discovery also gives Reliance an additional weapon to strongly pursue market pricing of gas with govt. RIL, along with its partner BP are currently negotiating for higher price for their KG-D6 gas which is strongly contested by Petroleum Ministry and Fertilizer Ministry. There was also some short covering seen in the market, as current F&O contract expires this week.

Tuesday - Sensex up by 0.6%, Nifty up by 0.5%, Midcap up by 0.6%
Markets remained cautious ahead of GDP data announcement on Friday. Coal India, country's largest coal supplier, which reported earnings post market hours previous day, reported a jump of 35%, beating the consensus estimates, on the back of higher supplies and lower employee expenses. Company also announced its decision to hike prices by 10%.

Wednesday - Sensex down by 0.1%, Nifty down by 0.1%, Midcap down by 0.6%
No major movements in Sensex, as markets focus on Friday GDP data announcement and F&O expiry. Sun Pharma, country's top drugmaker by market value, reported 23% rise in 4Q profits and announced a bonus share issue.

Thursday - Sensex up by 0.3%, Nifty up by 0.3%, Midcap down by 0.1%
Sensex made small gain as investors cover up their position on the day of F&O expiry. Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra beat the consensus estimates while ONGC reported a decline in 4Q profit on the back of lower sales and higher payment on statutory levies.

Friday - Sensex down by 2.3%, Nifty down by 2.3%, Midcap down by 1.0%
Markets went downhill as GDP grew at mere 4.8% in 4Q and 5% for full fiscal year 2013. Though, the street was expecting sub 5% GDP figure for 4Q, it was the comments from RBI which set the bearish tone pushing the investors towards the exit. RBI governor maintained it cautious stance suggesting that inflation data still has upward risk while current account position stays out of comfortable range. These comments deprived the market of any rate cut hopes in June meeting and led to selling across the board. Rupee also took the hit and is trading now at close proximity of 57 to a dollar.

Weekly Market Commentary - May 20 - May 24, 2013

This week saw even bigger movements in Sensex than previous week. Sensex moved almost 850 points between its low and high this week. Ben Bernanke's comments on halting its bond buying program aka stimulus spending send global markets in tailspin. Another issue that was on the mind of Indian investors was falling INR as US economic recovery gains pace, strengthening US dollar. Sensex fell by 2.9%, Nifty fell 3.3% while CNX Midcap dropped by 4.5%.

Monday - Sensex down by 0.3%, Nifty down by 0.5%, Midcap down by 0.7%
Markets tried to maintain its bullish momentum from previous week, but failed. Though market largely ignored the S&P downgrade warning, stocks went down as latest Ranbaxy scandal put the entire Indian healthcare sector on dock, which led the losses on Sensex.

Tuesday - Sensex down by 0.6%, Nifty down by 0.7%, Midcap down by 0.9%
Markets were nervous as bulls turned cautious ahead of the Ben Bernanke comments on Wednesday. In the recent times, FIIs buying has pushed the Sensex closer to its highs, with net buying of record $13.5bn this year alone. This highly speculative buying, abetted by easy liquidity, makes the Indian markets heavily dependent on any newsflow from US Fed.

Wednesday - Sensex down by 0.2%, Nifty down by 0.3%, Midcap down by 1.1%
Sensex was in negative again, as L&T results, barometer of performance of domestic economy, were weaker than expected. Company pared its orderbook guidance which raised the doubts on underlying economy fundamentals. Markets remained on shaky ground as investors booked profits ahead of Fed meeting.

Thursday - Sensex down by 1.9%, Nifty down by 2.1%, Midcap down by 2.1%
Sensex slumped around 400 points as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted at turning off the spigot of easy liquidity. Things were made worse as Rupee weakened on USD strength and SBI and BHEL posted weak 4Q results.

Friday - Sensex up by 0.2%, Nifty up by 0.3%, Midcap up by 0.2%
Markets tried to regain some ground as investors turned to bargain hunting. Overall breadth remained positive.