Do it yourself

The 2019th year of Christ is ending on an disruptive note. Socially & politically, more than half the country is witnessing violent protests and unrest. People appear anxious and divided. The economy is also witnessing one of the sharpest slowdown in more than a decade. The business and consumer confidence has collapsed. More than half the population is witnessing stagflation, with no to negative change in wages and consistent rise in cost of living. The unemployment is on the rise and manufacturing growth is contracting. The expectations of higher, faster and sustainable growth through political stability have been mostly belied. Geopolitical rhetoric is also higher. The uncertainty over trade conflict and Brexit seems to have eased a bit, but these are far from over. The global economic growth momentum continues to be stuck in slow lane. Despite unprecedented monetary and fiscal support, the growth trend has failed to accelerate in most of the advanced economies. The r...

If 2018 was a tough year for investors in Indian in financial markets, the year 2019 has been a even tougher. YTD return of ~11% on Nifty may not be reflecting the pain and agony that the investors in Indian financial markets may have suffered. The larger pain in fact may have been suffered by the investors in the perceived to be "safe" debt instruments. The year began with low business expectations and political nervousness. The hopes of a stronger mandate to the incumbent regime and consequent economic reforms, led a strong rally in the stock prices as the process of elections commenced in March. The Euphoria soon fizzled with presentation of a disappointing budget and imploding NBFC market, erasing all gains for the year by the month of August. The corporate tax cuts, alongside global rally in equity prices witnessed a sharp recovery that took the benchmark indices to new highs in November. December so far has been little volatile but mostly flat. YT...

The autumn festival season in India shall end with Kartik Purnima and Guru Nanak Dev's birthday celebrations next Tuesday. From the following Monday (18th November), a four week winter session of the Parliament will start. Given that the festival season has failed to bring the much awaited cheers to the economy, and the distress of common man appears to be deepening further with each passing month, the government will have lot of explaining to do. Besides, the Supreme Court verdict on the Ayodhya dispute (expected next week), may also cast a shadow on the parliamentary proceedings. Going by the past trends, the treasury side would be happy if the opposition disrupts the parliament proceedings on non economic issues like Curfew in J&K, phone tapping by Israeli firm, NRC, pollution, onion prices etc. As per a recent survey report by Bank of America - Merrill Lynch (BAML), more than 90% of storekeepers in Mumbai indicated footfalls were lower than the last year’s fest...