Sunday, August 10, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - Aug 4, 2014 - Aug 8, 2014

The week started off with good positive movement in anticipation of more relaxation in funds available to lenders from RBI. RBI didn’t disappoint on that one. While reducing the SLR and bond holdings percentage in HTM portfolio, governor made sure the funds availability for investment into productive assets increases considerably.

The governor did acknowledge that the fight with inflation is far from being over and there needs to be more cautiousness and patience on the street before he gets into the rate cutting mood.

The highlight of the week was Governor Raghuram Rajan warning that global markets are at the risk of a "crash". The culprit he identified was the loose monetary policy game developed economies are playing where they are trying to outdo each other in charging rock bottom interest rates.

Raghuram Rajan in an interview said, “unfortunately, a number of macro- economists have not fully learned the lessons of the great financial crisis. They still do not pay enough attention - en passant - to the financial sector. Financial sector crises are not as predictable. The risks build up until, wham, it hits you".

Sensex ended this week down by 0.6% while Nifty was down by 0.4% and Midcap down by 1.1%

Monday - Sensex up by 1.0%, Nifty up by 1.1%, Midcap up by 1.1%
Benchmark indices started the week with an upward move led by software services exporters such as Infosys which gained as rupee weakened ahead of RBI's policy review. Market is widely expecting RBI to keep interest rates on hold as inflation is still outside central bank’s comfort zone.

Tuesday - Sensex up by 0.7%, Nifty up by 0.8%, Midcap up by 0.7%

Both Sensex and Nifty inched higher as RBI loosen the grip on liquidity more while keeping the interest rates unchanged as expected. Central bank reduced the Statutory Liquidity Ratio by 50bps to 22% of deposits (SLR is the amount of liquid assets such as gold or govt. (approved) securities, that a bank must maintain as reserves other than the cash). This move will help banks to channel more funds into productive sectors of the economy.

Wednesday - Sensex down by 0.9%, Nifty down by 1.0%, Midcap down by 0.6%

Markets snapped as RBI policy review effects get absorbed in the market. Lenders such as SBI and ICICI fell on worries that RBI move of reducing SLR requirement and amount of bonds in held-to-maturity (HTM) portfolio will led to rise in yields and decline in value of their debt holdings. The existing benchmark 10-year bond yield surged 10bps to 8.83%, its biggest single-day rise in four months, on Tuesday and an additional 2bps on Wednesday.

Thursday - Sensex down by 0.3%, Nifty down by 0.3%, Midcap down by 0.5% 
Markets continued to trade weaker as both Sensex and Nifty declined by 0.3% on profit booking. Geo-political concerns also weighed on the investors’ mind.

Friday - Sensex down by 1.0%, Nifty down by 1.1%, Midcap down by 1.7%
Investors continued to stay cautious as US President Barack Obama authorized targeted air strikes in Iraq. There was a sell-off in global markets on rising worries of another drawn-out conflict in the region.

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - July 07, 2014 - July 11, 2014

The most anticipated week since the general elections have concluded this Friday with Sensex experiencing a wild swing of more than 1200 points. Markets easily reached the all-time high status on Monday rising on hopes of “game-changing” budget, and ended the week in red after sky high hopes met the ground. To be fair, investors were expecting too much too soon. I will argue that FM did a good job of trying to prepare a solid fiscal ground for future growth. I bet that lot of subsidies would have got the axe if not for the fear of high inflation and weak monsoons. I will still give FM a modest 7/10. You can read my budget analysis here.

Sensex ended this week down by 3.6% while Nifty was down by 3.8% and Midcap down by 8.1%

Monday - Sensex up by 0.5%, Nifty up by 0.5%, Midcap up by 0.2%
Markets continued to roll on the expectations of better earnings expectations from Infosys and hopes of a fiscally prudent budget from Narendra Modi govt. FIIs have bought more than $10.5bn worth of equities so far this year.

Tuesday - Sensex down by 2.0%, Nifty down by 2.1%, Midcap down by 4.3%

Investors’ hopes were dashed as railway budget presented by govt. was devoid of any radical plan to turnaround railways. The budget also lacked specifics about much touted PPP route to raise funding for projects and was short of fresh ideas.

Wednesday - Sensex down by 0.5%, Nifty down by 0.5%, Midcap down by 1.6%

Markets continue to fall after railway budget turned out to be a bummer. Economy survey also highlighted the need for tough measures to shore up public finances and reduce inflation, raising expectations of a prudent and a non-populist budget.

Thursday - Sensex down by 0.3%, Nifty down by 0.2%, Midcap up by 0.6%

Budget day saw wild swings in the Sensex and Nifty levels. Investors were struggling to get a handle over the slew of measures announced by newly appointed FM. While the budget speech nailed the fiscal consolidation part, it lacked any growth stimulating measures, which spooked the markets, which ended the eventful day in red.

Friday - Sensex down by 1.4%, Nifty down by 1.4%, Midcap down by 3.2%

Markets continued to fall as investors booked profits amidst the disappointment over what few analysts call a “mile wide and inch deep” budget. With budget now out of the way, investors have trained their guns on global markets, earnings season and monsoon.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - May 26, 2014 - May 30, 2014

Elections are over. New govt is in place. The country is in midst of (sort of) growth crisis. Time has come for govt to roll up its sleeve.

Asia’s third largest economy grew 4.7% in FY14 vs. estimated 4.9% - second quarter of sub 5% growth. It is estimated that projects worth $105.1bn were shelved last year due to bureaucratic gridlock - highest in the past 18 years. Stressed loans in India amounted to $100bn or about 10% of all loans when debt-equity ratio of Indian firms has hit a two-decade high of 97.9%, according to Nomura.

Add to the mix, slowing global economy that is hemming in the country's exports growth and prospects of bleak monsoon, which might fire up the inflation fury. All these would lead to central bank staying hawkish on interest rates.

Sensex ended this week down by 1.9% while Nifty was down by 1.9% and Midcap down by 3.0%

Monday - Sensex up by 0.1%, Nifty down by 0.1%, Midcap down by 2.0%
Investors booked profits as BSE Sensex and CNX Nifty, two key benchmark indices loses steam. Midcaps declined by 2% after gaining more than 10% previous week. Recovery hopes from Modi govt have kept markets at elevated levels in recent weeks. Sun Pharma and Ranbaxy gained after court lifted a temporary stay on their merger.

Tuesday - Sensex down by 0.7%, Nifty down by 0.6%, Midcap down by 1.0%
Markets continue to tumble as investors continued to book some profits and turned cautious as they wait for new policies to be announced and implemented from PMO. Newly appointed finance minister Arun Jaitley assured investors of stable policy environment.

Wednesday - Sensex flat, Nifty up by 0.2%, Midcap up by 0.6%
Sensex ended the day flat while Nifty went up slightly as some value buying occurred on bourses after recent correction. Shipping corp surged 14% after company reported first net profit after Sept 2012 quarter as bulk shipping and liner businesses improved. ICRA also jumped 18% after Moody’s raised offer price to Rs. 2,400/share from Rs. 2, 000/share.

Thursday - Sensex down by 1.3%, Nifty down by 1.3%, Midcap down by 0.9%
Sensex and Nifty posted their biggest decline in nearly four months on the day of derivative expiry. This goes on to indicate that Modi euphoria might be showing sign of ebbing and investors will focus on actual deliverance now. Losses in blue chips were led by Infosys, which fell by 8% after it saw exit of another top management official from the company.

Friday - Sensex down by 0.1%, Nifty down by 0.1%, Midcap up by 0.3%
Investors continued to stay low as election rally loses momentum. Sensex and Nifty ended the week in red marking the first weekly fall over last one month.

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - Apr 14, 2014 - Apr 18, 2014

Two steps back and one forward. That is pretty much how I will describe the action on Dalal Street this (short) week. IT stalwarts - Infosys and TCS reported better earnings but gave contrasting guidance, hence making sure the sector stayed volatile during the week. Throw in a bit of inflation and you have investors in every sector running for the corners. The thing about rallies built on hope and hype is that they don’t need much to fizzle. Remember, no matter how big the bubble is, you only need one small pin to burst it.

Sensex and Nifty ended the week at pretty much the same level as last week while Midcap down by meagre 0.2%

Monday – Markets closed on occasion of Baisakhi / Ambedkar Jayanti

Tuesday - Sensex down by 0.6%, Nifty down by 0.6%, Midcap down by 0.9%
Markets were down as inflation raised its head again and soared to three-month high figure of 5.7% in March - dashing hopes of any rate reprieve from central bank. Almost all interest rate sensitive stocks fell while IT stocks surged on the back of good earnings reported by Infosys.

Wednesday - Sensex down by 0.9%, Nifty down by 0.9%, Midcap down by 0.8%
BSE Sensex corrected another 200 points as fear of rising inflation was stoked by the predictions of below normal rainfall this year. IT stocks fell as Infosys guidance pointed to weak outlook for the sector. Retail inflation also rose in tandem with WPI to 8.31% in March, largely driven by higher food prices also made investors cautious.

Thursday - Sensex up by 1.6%, Nifty up by 1.6%, Midcap up by 1.5%
Benchmark indices roared back as banks surged on value buying and hopes of bond portfolio gain as RBI fully sold the Rs.200bn debt it had on offer. IT stocks also rose as TCS and HCL reported better than expected earnings with positive future revenue guidance.

Friday - Markets closed on occasion of Good Friday

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - Jan 13, 2014 - Jan 17, 2014

Low inflation numbers came as a respite to both Indian consumers and investors alike. In hindsight, the decision of RBI governor to not raise interest rates in last review meeting proved to be sound. He rightly pointed out in that meeting that RBI should avoid taking long term measures for tackling the short term problems or issues. If inflation continues to get leveled the chances of a rate cut becomes strong to revive Indian growth story. Let’s see how everything rolls out in coming days.

Sensex and Nifty gained 1.5% while CNX Midcap was down by 1.1% this week.

Monday – Sensex up by 1.8%, Nifty up by 1.6%, Midcap down by 0.2%
After a muted trading activity last week, markets saw a surge in interest in technology, energy and financial stocks. Infosys’ good results, improved dollar revenue guidance and expected positive news from other IT stocks also has raised hopes of the market. Govt’s move to notify the gas Rangarajan’s gas price formula led to improvement in energy stocks levels. In addition, weak US job data also eased the tapering concerns of investors around the globe that added to the buying momentum in the Indian markets.

Tuesday - Sensex down by 0.5%, Nifty down by 0.5%, Midcap flat
Markets pared gains it made previous day mostly because of profit booking. Lower retail inflation numbers released by the govt. on Monday evening failed to cheer up the markets as the decline was already factored in the market prices.

Wednesday – Sensex up by 1.2%, Nifty up by 1.3%, Midcap up by 0.6%
Although the retail inflation numbers were low but the fall in wholesale prices took the market by surprise. WPI increased by 6.16% far below the street estimates of 6.99%. This decline has finally set aside the speculation on rate hikes in RBI review meeting at the end of this month. Sensex touched its five-week high on the back of rise in interest rate sensitive sectors such as auto, banks and financials.

Thursday – Sensex and Nifty flat, Midcap down by 0.4%
Markets continue to trade range bound as increased hopes of no rates hikes in RBI meeting was countered by profit booking. The news that Reliance Jio is planning to bid for spectrum licenses also led to huge selling across the telecom sector stocks as re-entry of RIL may bring back the price wars and cut into profitability of the sector.

Friday – Sensex down by 0.9%, Nifty down by 0.9%, Midcap down by 1.1%
Markets slide as TCS posted lower margins and guided to no recovery until the general elections are over in the country and things stabilizes a bit. Profit booking also led to selling across all counters.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - Jan 6, 2014 - Jan 10, 2014

Trading activity remained muted for most of the week only to be picked up at the end of the week with starting of 3Q earnings season. Apart from ongoing earnings season, markets will also see release of CPI and WPI data next week, on which RBI’s interest rate policy hinges. Govt is also expected to come up with stake sales of IOC and Engineers India this month and BHEL, HAL in next to meet its disinvestment target of Rs 40K crores.

Sensex fell by 0.4%, Nifty lost 0.6% while CNX Midcap was down by 1.9% this week.

Monday – Sensex down by 0.3%, Nifty down by 0.3%, Midcap up by 0.3%
Market activity remains muted in absence of any catalysts. Most Asian stocks traded lower, as an index of China's services industry declined last month, and did not rise even after Fed reiterated its stand of accommodative monetary policy.

Tuesday - Sensex down by 0.5%, Nifty down by 0.5%, Midcap down by 0.9%
Investors seems to sit out on sidelines as they wait for minutes of Fed meeting and starting of earnings season on Friday which street expects to be weak.

Wednesday – Sensex up by 0.2%, Nifty up by 0.2%, Midcap up by 0.5%
Indian markets recorded their first gain of 2014 as most Asian stocks traded higher after the IMF said it would raise its estimate for global economic growth. Also, the recovery seen in US as their trade deficit narrows augurs well for Indian export stories.

Thursday – Sensex down by 0.1%, Nifty down by 0.1%, Midcap down by 0.8%
Markets closed lower on a day ahead of 3Q earnings season commencement. Street expects results to be weak though slightly better than previous quarter.

Friday – Sensex up by 0.2%, Nifty up by 0.1%, Midcap down by 1.0%
Markets cheered Infosys’ better than expected results and set the IT stocks zooming. The company also raised its FY14 dollar revenue guidance as it sees improvement in US business environment and confidence.

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Weekly Market Commentary - Oct 14 - Oct 18, 2013

So far, earnings season continues to surprise Indian investors to the upside. As Sensex continues to hover around its all time high, most investors will do well to realize that expectation investing can come as an handy tool a bit before earnings season is about to start. Most investors do not use DCF while analyzing a stock/company. I do though. With so many assumptions and complexities built into it, DCF does not act as a quick tool to help investors/speculators make money. In such a scenario, they can resort to what Michael J. Mauboussin calls Expectation Investing.

Expectation Investing is also knows as Reverse DCF. In this method, instead of trying to value a company (stock) by forecasting free cash flows into the future and then discounting them to current period, you do it the other way round.

You look at the current stock price and then try to find out what assumptions market is building into the price. The analyst can review these assumptions and see whether expectations are excessively high or too low to arrive at the decision of investing in that particular company or not.

The biggest advantage of this method, is as you can see, is it eliminated the need of forecasting. However, this method does not provide a quick way to analyse stocks but when formalized into a framework it can help an investor to make a quick decision.

Finally, as a noted statistician George Box said “All models are wrong; some are useful.”

I urge my readers to share with us their experience with Reverse DCF process, if they have tried it in the past.

Sensex gained 3.1%, Nifty gained 3.2% and CNX Midcap was up by 2.3% this week.

Monday – Sensex up by 0.4%, Nifty up by 0.3%, Midcap up by 0.6%
Market party over good Infosys results (guidance) ended early as inflation played spoilsport. September WPI was 6.46% against 6.1% in August and 46 bps above the street estimate of 6%. Surge in inflation has put RBI in a fix and investors on back foot as RBI now will find it difficult to lower interest rates and even may lead to rate hikes to contain the inflationary pressure.

Tuesday - Sensex down by 0.3%, Nifty down by 0.4%, Midcap down by 1.2%
Yesterday’s high inflation numbers led to selling in banking and other rate sensitive stocks. HDFC lost some ground as bank reported its slowest growth quarter in a decade. HDFC earnings increased 27% y-o-y against its record 30% growth in every quarter in last decade.

Wednesday – Markets closed on Eid.

Thursday – Sensex down by 0.6%, Nifty down by 0.7%, Midcap down by 0.4%
Markets were down as investors resorted to profit booking as Infosys and TCS good results quickly became the story of the past. The market did not move much on the news of deal on US shutdown and debt ceiling. Most talked about event of recent times continued to be ignored by investors in the Indian markets.

Friday – Sensex up by 2.3%, Nifty up by 2.4%, Midcap up by 1.4%
A good close to a rather mute week. Markets went up as corporate earnings continued to surprise. L&T, the capital goods major, reported a 7% rise in quarterly profit beating the analyst estimates. Market sentiment was also boosted by the news that LIC will invest Rs. 40,000 crores ($1.28 billion) into the markets in FY14.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Weekly Market Commentary - Oct 7 - Oct 11, 2013

Infosys results started the Indian earnings season in style, with markets welcoming the raising of lower limit of FY14 revenue guidance. Meanwhile economic slowdown, falling capex spending and low consumer confidence is leading to muted expectations from 2QFY14 earnings. Sensex companies are expected to grow their earnings by 5-7% led by export-oriented sectors that are going to benefit from rupee depreciation.

Sensex gained 3.1%, Nifty gained 3.2% and CNX Midcap was up by 2.3% this week.

Monday – Sensex down by 0.1%, Nifty down by 0.0%, Midcap up by 0.7%
Concerns over US shutdown led to muted trading in global markets. If fighting political parties did not reach the solution soon, it may considerably dent the ongoing recovery in US economy.

Tuesday - Sensex up by 0.4%, Nifty up by 0.4%, Midcap up by 0.1%
RBI tried to undo its liquidity tightening measures it introduced when US tapering announcement led to crash in rupee value against major currencies. RBI reduced the MSF rates by another 50 bps to 9% in addition to increasing the duration of lending to the banks from current one day to 7 and 14 days.

Wednesday – Sensex up by 1.3%, Nifty up by 1.3%, Midcap up by 1.0%
Indian markets struggled in early sessions as IMF reduced the country’s growth projection to 3.8% in FY14. IMF also sees global growth falling to lowest since financial crisis. Markets recouped all its losses when data showed that trade gap narrowed to the lowest level in 30 months. The trade deficit narrowed to $6.76 billion in September from $10.9 billion in August. Main reason for the fall was govt. moves on tightening gold import which has led to decline in gold and silver imports to just $0.8 billion vs. $4.6 billion a year ago.

Thursday – Sensex up by 0.1%, Nifty up by 0.2%, Midcap up by 0.4%
Investors stayed cautious head of the beginning of earnings season on Friday with IT bellwether Infosys results announcement. Street is not expecting any surprises this earning season and is choosing to be selectively bullish this season.

Friday – Sensex up by 1.3%, Nifty up by 1.2%, Midcap flat
Most of the Asian markets closed in green as US political leaders showed some signs of compromise on US shutdown crisis. Infosys results cheered the market as company increased its FY14 guidance to 9-10% from 6-10% guidance previous quarter. Investors also cheered the new draft regulations allowing the establishment of real estate investment trusts in India.