Saturday, March 1, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - Feb 24, 2014 - Feb 28, 2014

If one goes by the direction of the market, it seems that nation (investor populace mostly) has already made up its mind regarding the outcome of Lok Sabha elections. Continuous upward momentum indicates the increasing expectations of a stable NDA government in the centre. NDA govt is widely expected to undo the decade of policy paralysis and junking of pro-growth model of development and replace it with one with more pro-market flavor.

Sensex ended this week up 2.0%, Nifty was up by 1.4% while CNX Midcap was up by 1.8%.

Monday - Sensex up by 0.5%, Nifty up by 0.9%, Midcap up by 0.4%
Markets continued to move up as buying interest emerged in capital goods and banking sector stocks on the back of favorable policy measures and reduced deficit numbers announcements by outgoing UPA govt.

Tuesday - Sensex up by 0.2%, Nifty up by 0.4%, Midcap up by 0.1%
Benchmark indices were able to hold ground after a volatile session as F&O contracts near their expiry on coming Wednesday. The optimism about US recovery led to higher closing of IT stocks.

Wednesday - Sensex up by 0.6%, Nifty down by 1.0%, Midcap up by 0.2%
Sensex regained 21,000 mark as foreign funds continued to flow in Indian equities. Stocks also gained as traders due to short covering on F&O expiry day.

Thursday – Exchanges closed on Maha Shivratri

Friday - Sensex up by 0.6%, Nifty up by 1.1%, Midcap up by 1.2%
Markets closed higher ahead of GDP data release for quarter ending December. A Bloomberg poll showed the growth expectations to be 4.7% as against 4.8% in September quarter. Mood was also positive as Fed Chairperson Janet Yellen indicated that Fed would continue its tapering program in a measured way.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Weekly Market Commentary - Feb 17, 2014 - Feb 21, 2014

Markets cheered the vote-on-account. Some investors appreciated the excise duty cuts meant to boost the auto, manufacturing and capital goods sectors, while others celebrated FM meeting his fiscal deficit target of 4.8%. In fact, he has done better and achieved fiscal deficit of 4.6%. Sensex ended the week 300 points up.

However, if we look closely to the vote-on-account statements, we will observe that a lot of accounting talent has been put to use to fudge the numbers to meet the above target. FM postponed the subsidies; recorded revenues in advance; coaxed public sector companies like Coal India and few PSU banks into paying special dividends - harming the interest of their minority shareholders; moved money from one public company to another as in the case of IOC, where ONGC and Oil India will buy stake from govt.

Govt accounting has made Enron look good. Incoming govt will have an uphill task in getting the fiscal house in order.

Sensex ended this week up 1.6%, Nifty was up by 1.8% while CNX Midcap was up by 2.1%.

Monday – Sensex up by 0.5%, Nifty up by 0.4%, Midcap up by 0.1%
Markets recovered their lost ground during the closing as some buying emerged as air around the interim budget cleared. Govt move to reduce excise duty from 12% to 8% for small cars, bikes; from 30% to 24% for SUVs and; from 24% to 20% for mid segment cars came as a huge relief to reeling auto sector. Govt also reduce the excise duty for capital goods and consumer durables by 200 bps to provide a fillip to ailing manufacturing sector. FM’s accounting jugglery to meet fiscal deficit target helped India to escape the danger of rating cut from premier rating agencies.

Tuesday - Sensex up by 0.8%, Nifty up by 0.9%, Midcap up by 0.9%
Markets went up as the optimism from govt move to avoid the populism and provide a boost to certain sectors in the form of excise duty cuts improved the investor confidence. Banking sector stocks led the rally as expectations of turnaround in economy led to rise in expectations of more lending.

Wednesday – Sensex up by 0.4%, Nifty up by 0.4%, Midcap up by 0.6%
Benchmark indices continued to be buoyed by positive sentiment generated by vote-on-account. The gains were mainly on the back of overnight gains in the US market and sustained capital inflows from foreign funds.

Thursday – Sensex down by 0.9%, Nifty down by 1.0%, Midcap down by 0.2%
Market had a pullback as China reported weak manufacturing data and US maintained its stand of tapering of quantitative easing.

Friday – Sensex up by 0.8%, Nifty up by 1.1%, Midcap up by 0.8%
Stocks went up as US factory activity accelerated at its fastest pace in four years in February leading to rise in firming up of all Asian markets.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Warning shot!

What if world is turned on its head and it became more female dominated society instead of present male dominated one?

What happens when gender roles get reversed in the society?

How men will be able to cope with the everyday harassment that women of today’s times have to face?

Will men be still able to trivialize the sexist treatment meted out to other half of human race?

Watch and enjoy!

Hat-tip to French actress and director Éléonore Pourriat