March 2019 - Indian Economy & Business Analysis

Weekly Round Up – Week 13

Major events of the week are RBI conducts successful dollar-rupee swap to inject liquidity, the first of its kind, lenders take control of Jet Airways, sale of stake by GMR in its airports business, ‘inversion’ of bond yield curve in the US market, historically signalling a recession and continued crisis around “Brexit”. In an untried … Continue reading

Brexit – Understanding The Process And The Roadblocks

UK’s exit from EU has reached a nerve wrecking stage after EU rejected UK’s request for three month extension. The British parliament is now voting again on what sort of Brexit they want through what is being called an ‘indicative vote’. Whatever may be the outcome, the chances of having a ‘soft’ Brexit has receded … Continue reading

Corporate Battle – Can L&T Wrest Mindtree??!

Share purchase agreement for 20.3% stake in Mindtree between Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and an existing investor is the beginning of an interesting takeover bid. The bid is generating lot of attention as such a hostile attempt is being made after a long time in Indian Corporate space. Interestingly, L&T itself was target of two … Continue reading

Corporate Analysis – Maruti Suzuki

After growing its profits at almost 30% during FY14-18, Maruti Suzuki seems to have hit a speed-breaker. Profits for nine months ending Dec’18 recorded decline, although marginally at 2.3%. Sales growth has also plunged from over 16% to 8.5% indicating more serious pressure than mere input cost increase. While the automobile sector is going through … Continue reading

Weekly Round Up – Week 12

Major events for the week are release of trade data for the period April’18-Feb’19 showing sharp increase in merchandise trade deficit, worsening of crisis in Jet, a ‘hostile’ bid by L&T and purchase of government’s share in REC by PFC. On the international front, US Fed keep the rate increase on hold signalling building stress … Continue reading

Producer Price Index (PPI) – Is It Better Than WPI??

Inflation is core of any discussion on economic & policy as the core objective of a welfare nation is to devise policies which help protect the poor. This also prompts economists to strive to find as precise a measure of inflation as possible. While India still follows WPI as the benchmark for aggregate price movement, … Continue reading

Weekly Round Up – Week 11

While the developments in the policy front was subdued with the announcement of general elections, corporate front saw a flurry of activity. Important among them were Airtel’s rights issue to raise Rs 32,000 crore, sale of natural gas pipeline by RIL and NCLT’s directive to Essar Steel promoters. On the international front, As anticipated, British … Continue reading

Indian States – Analyzing Economic & Social Performance

While the central government’s finances, policies etc remain the focus of most of the discussions, it is essential to analyze the performance of individual states also as that acts as inputs to many policy initiatives. However, it goes largely unnoticed due to lack of credible data. To meet this need, RBI started releasing annual data … Continue reading

India’s External Debt – Analyzing the Performance

While India’s foreign currency reserves looks reasonable at close to $400 bn, there is another side of the coin that fails to get attention. The external debt of India stands at over $500 bn and this takes the sheen away from high forex level. The comforting part is that debt/reserves ratio which had risen alarmingly … Continue reading

Weekly Round Up – Week 10

While domestic economy & business witnessed subdued activity, International economy saw significant movement. Most notable of these were UK’s struggle to achieve an orderly “Brexit”, thaw in US China trade war and signs of tightening oil market. Continue reading Weekly Round Up – Week 10

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