Sunday, February 16, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - Feb 10, 2014 - Feb 14, 2014

Highlights of this week will be the growing contrast between US economy, which has shown some strong signs of recovery in their economy, and Indian story, whose biggest facilitator public sector banks have started crumbling under the weight of increasing NPAs. The chance of some bank going under or requiring state assistance or bail-out have become very strong since United Bank of India story went out. State Bank of India’s weak results is indicator of how deep the mess is.

It is India’s worst kept secret that our public sector banks (and their investors) are suffering under crony capitalism –which reached its zenith under UPA regime. It is a high time now when our banking regulator – RBI may take a leaf out of its Governor Raghuram Rajan’s widely read book “Saving Capitalism from the Capitalist”- rolls up its sleeve and gets our banks out of clutches of this govt-crony nexus.

Sensex ended this week flat, Nifty was slightly down by 0.2% while CNX Midcap was down by 1.3%.

Monday – Sensex down by 0.2%, Nifty down by 0.2%, Midcap down by 0.3%
Markets continued their lackadaisical performance as earnings season continues without any major surprise. Investors continued to book profits on IT and banking sectors. Beginning of two-day nationwide strike by public sector bank staff also affected the trading on banking counters.

Tuesday - Sensex up by 0.1%, Nifty up by 0.2%, Midcap up by 0.1%
Indices rose slightly led by two Tata group companies. Tata motors rose the most in two months after its quarterly profit tripled. Tata Steel Ltd gained to its highest level in three weeks before its earnings report. The gains in Sensex were offset by fall in RIL shares after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal filed an FIR against Mukesh Ambani.

Wednesday – Sensex up by 0.4%, Nifty up by 0.4%, Midcap flat
Markets rallied after US Congress agreed to advance legislation extending US borrowing authority. Also, newly appointed Fed Chairman Janet Yellen held off from making any changes to tapering schedule set the Asian shares soaring.

Thursday – Sensex down by 1.2%, Nifty down by 1.4%, Midcap down by 1.3%
Earnings disappointment in Cipla and Coal India stocks dragged the benchmark indices down. Also, govt released data indicated that industrial output contracted by 0.6% in December meaning all is still not well with the economy although retail inflation did ease to its two year low of 8.79%.

Friday – Sensex up by 0.9%, Nifty up by 0.8%, Midcap up by 0.3%
Sensex rose on last day of the week as some traders rushed to cover their shorts ahead of presentation of interim union budget next week. Meanwhile, January WPI numbers came at 5.05% vs. 6.2% in December, lower than ET-Now poll estimate of 5.5%.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - Jan 27, 2014 - Jan 31, 2014

RBI governor threw in a surprise again this week. He maintained the RBI’s stance of treating inflation as its enemy no.1 while increasing the repo rate to 8%. Street was expecting no change in interest rates, some even calling for a cut now with food inflation especially vegetable inflation coming down from recent highs. Last week Urijit Patel committee made a recommendation to RBI to replace WPI by CPI as inflation benchmark for calibrating further policy actions. It is too early to say whether RBI has indeed taken up these recommendations. If that is the case, we’ll see more rate hikes in near future to contain CPI inflation and get it under RBI’s comfort zone.

Sensex and Nifty ended this week with losses of 2.9% and 2.8% respectively while CNX Midcap fell 1.6%.

Monday – Sensex down by 2.0%, Nifty down by 2.1%, Midcap down by 2.9%
Markets tumbled as investors pull out money across emerging markets before Fed tapering announcement. Fed is expected to make another cut in stimulus in Ben Bernanke’s last meeting as Fed chairman. Also, weak PMI data from China last week coupled with Argentina abandoning support of its currency peso on the open market, which led to its 15% slide, affected the investor sentiment.

Tuesday - Sensex down by 0.1%, Nifty down by 0.2%, Midcap down by 0.1%
After an onslaught on previous day, market’s attempts to recover, on the back of short coverings, was cut short by RBI’s decision to hike the repo rate by 25bps to 8%. RBI governor Raghuram Rajan defended his actions by claiming that growth cannot be had unless we have inflation totally under control. He pointed out that although CPI inflation excluding food and fuel has remained flat, WPI inflation excluding food and fuel has risen prompting a rate hike from RBI.

Wednesday – Sensex down by 0.2%, Nifty down by 0.1%, Midcap up by 0.5%
Investors stayed on the sidelines as Fed ends its two-day meeting on Wednesday with most economists expecting a further stimulus cut as US recovery shows signs of traction. The stimulus has led to FIIs pouring $20bn in India in 2013. Though Indian govt and central bank maintains that they are prepared to meet any challenge thrown in by Fed tapering, it would be highly likely that any tapering announcement will negatively affect all emerging markets including India.

Thursday – Sensex down by 0.7%, Nifty down by 0.8%, Midcap down by 1.4%
And Fed did it again. Fed tapers another $10bn, signaling confidence that the US economy can stand on its own. This move had an expected negative impact on all emerging markets. Fed has indicated that it will keep on cutting its stimulus as recovery gains strength. Fed bond purchases now stands at $65bn a month.

Friday – Sensex up by 0.1%, Nifty up by 0.3%, Midcap up by 2.3%
Markets ended flat to slightly positive as investors recover from actions of Indian and US central banks. Indian markets closed January with a monthly loss of 3%, worst since Aug 2013.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - Jan 20, 2014 - Jan 24, 2014

Investors were a cheerful lot for most of this week. So far, result season has been good, has been largely without any negative surprises. Dollar earning sectors seems to have picked up steam on hope of strengthening US recovery. Falling inflation levels have also brought back the rate cut clamour. Everything was good and normal until two important events happened. One, Urijit Patel tabled a report on strengthening monetary framework, which among other things recommended changing the inflation targeting benchmark to CPI from WPI. If this happens, it may lead to higher interest rates in near to medium term and may put a dampener on India’s growth plans (for short term). Two, RBI governor made statements to the effect of inflation fighting would be the main focus of RBI, which dashed hopes of rate cut in RBI review meeting on Jan 28.

Sensex and Nifty ended this week with small gains of 0.3% and 0.1% respectively while CNX Midcap fell 0.9%.

Monday – Sensex up by 0.7%, Nifty up by 0.7%, Midcap up by 1.0%
Market’s mood was cheerful as index heavyweights Reliance Industries and Wipro managed to beat consensus and post healthy results. Reliance fared better than street forecasts as its refinery earned $7.6 per barrel of crude refined, significantly better than Singapore GRMs (Gross Refining Margin) of $4.3. Shares went up initially but lost all its gains in the latter half of the day. Wipro ended the day up as its results showed that business continued to improve as signs of turnaround and margin expansions are growing.

Tuesday - Sensex up by 0.2%, Nifty up by 0.2%, Midcap up by 0.2%
Market continued its uptrend amid some profit booking seen on the bourses. Govt decision to sell stake in Hindustan Zinc to cover some of its fiscal deficit also helped to improve the sentiment.

Wednesday – Sensex up by 0.4%, Nifty up by 0.4%, Midcap up by 0.1%
Indices spurted to all time highs in latter half of the day as investors flocked to buy pharma, metal and banking stocks on expectations of strong corporate earnings and rate cut by the Reserve Bank.

Thursday – Sensex up by 0.2%, Nifty up by 0.1%, Midcap down by 0.4%
Markets continued their rally and closed at another record high as industry bellwether, L&T, which is widely considered the barometer of Indian economy, rose as much as 4% after reporting a 22% jump in standalone net profit for 3Q.

Friday – Sensex down by 1.1%, Nifty down by 1.2%, Midcap down by 1.8%
Indices snapped on last day of the week as RBI governor Raghuram Rajan calling inflation a “destructive disease” dashed hopes of investors expecting a rate cut in the review meeting. These comments bring RBI’s priorities to tackle inflation first before focusing on growth to the fore again. In another event, Ranbaxy’s stocks crashed 20% after US FSA banned the firm from shipping drugs from its Toansa plant. Weak global trend following poor economic data in the US and China dampened the market sentiment.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Weekly Market Commentary - Dec 9 - Dec 13, 2013

As political events have turned very exciting in the country, it is the boring economics that made investors realize that it cannot remain sidelined for long. This week as investors’ sentiment over exit polls reached a climax in the state election results, markets touch their all time high on first trading session of the week. However, as the reality of the day set in, inflation blew out all the air out of the election bubble.

Sensex fell 1.3%; Nifty lost 1.5% while CNX Midcap was down by 2.1% this week.

Monday – Sensex up by 1.6%, Nifty up by 1.7%, Midcap up by 1.0%
Sensex touched a new high as market momentum built up by the exit polls continued. The main opposition and business friendly party BJP win a clear mandate in three out of four state elections strengthening its electoral prospects and chances of forming a government in the centre in May.

Tuesday - Sensex down by 0.3%, Nifty down by 0.5%, Midcap down by 0.5%
Markets saw some profit booking while new draft regulation from CERC led a major blow to NTPC earnings. NTPC went down by 11% as under new guidelines that are going to implement from April 2014, has kept RoE as the method of calculating incentives but has done some tightening on taxation and expenses front making it difficult for players like NTPC and PGCIL to maintain their current profitability.

Wednesday – Sensex down by 0.4%, Nifty down by 0.4%, Midcap down by 0.6%
Markets opened lower as weak global sentiment weighed heavily on domestic trading, but good news on CAD front led indices recoup some of their losses. India managed to lower its current account deficit as exports grew by 5.86% in November while imports dip to their two and a half year low following steep decline in gold imports. India’s CAD now stands at $9.22bn as against $17.2bn previous month.

Thursday – Sensex down by 1.2%, Nifty down by 1.1%, Midcap down by 0.6%
Markets were under selling pressure ahead of release of CPI and IIP numbers. Street estimates IIP numbers are going to signal contraction in the economy while CPI numbers will stick in 10% range prompting RBI governor to raise rates.

Friday – Sensex down by 1.0%, Nifty down by 1.1%, Midcap down by 1.4%
Worse than expected CPI numbers took its toll on the Indian markets when it recorded its biggest weekly fall. CPI for November came at 11.24% vs. street estimates of 10% range raising the fear of increase in interest rates. Street is now estimating a 25bps hike in interest rates on Dec 18. The market has pared all gains made on Monday after state elections results announcement.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

How the economic machine works

One of the best videos from widely respected hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, on how the economy machine functions; how boom and bust cycle occur; what leads to recessions, deflations and expansions in the modern economy.